1732: [Part 1] Too Many Side Hustle Ideas - Here are 10 Questions to Help You Choose Your Best Option by Nick Loper

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[00:01:00] This is Optimal Work Daily. Too many side hustle ideas. Here are 10 questions to help you choose your best option. Part 1 by Nick Loper of SideHustleNation.com. Half the people I talk to are still looking for a side hustle idea. The other half have too many to choose from. If you fall in the second camp, how do you pick which to work on? How do you prioritize your limited time for the maximum impact and result? A reader who wished to remain anonymous.

[00:01:30] Sent his decision formula recently and I really liked it. Here's how he put it. Quote, My partner and I keep a running list of potential business ideas. We then baseball score them, single, double, triple, home run, on several criteria. End quote. For the sake of this exercise, I'll assign a number score 1 to 4 for each of those hits, with 4 or home run being the best. 10 questions to ask before you start a business.

[00:01:57] What criteria do you use? Here are the 10 questions to use in your scoring matrix. How easy is it to operate?

[00:02:25] How easy is it to automate or delegate? How easy is it to scale? How easy is it to stop operations if it's not working? And 10, is the business something I could sell down the road? You can use these questions and the scoring framework to evaluate any business idea that comes into your head. Let's look at a couple examples to help illustrate how this works. Maybe you're torn between starting a freelance consulting business and starting an Amazon FBA business.

[00:02:54] Example number 1. Evaluating a freelance opportunity. Here's what the matrix looks like for the freelancing business, and I'll use my freelance book editing business for guidance here. How excited are you about the idea? Score 2. Editing allows me to use skills I already have, think creatively, and help other authors. But it's not something I lie awake at night thinking about. Is there a clear path to your first customers or sales? Score 4.

[00:03:23] Getting customers for this side hustle turned out to be pretty straightforward. I landed my first gigs on Fiverr, built a reputation in a couple online communities, and formed a preferred vendor relationship with someone with a large audience of self-published authors. How much time will it realistically take to get off the ground? Score? 4. Like most freelancing businesses, this took almost no time to start. It was probably less than an hour from the time I took to say, yes, I'm going to try it out, to when I created the Fiverr gig.

[00:03:52] Of course, customers didn't come immediately, but it didn't take long either. How much capital will it realistically take to get off the ground? Score? 4. A freelancing or consulting business has almost no startup costs. I eventually did build a website to support the business, but even then you're looking at just a few bucks a month. What's the revenue potential? Score? 1. In the book editing world, your rate is determined by the length of the document you're editing,

[00:04:19] and will generally range from half a cent to two cents per word. That means at the very high end of the spectrum, for a 25,000-word Kindle book, I could build $500. But $250 to $350 was more realistic for me. Revenue potential is always a subjective area, and you have to weigh the opportunity cost of your time, especially in a business like this one that required my direct time investment to do the work. The other consideration is whether or not that revenue is meaningful for you.

[00:04:46] At the time, the extra few hundred dollars a month I earned from editing definitely was, but as other income streams grew, it became less important and less exciting. How easy is it to operate? Score? 3. Since I rarely took on more than one project at a time, this freelancing operation was a pretty easy one to manage. How easy is it to automate or delegate? Score? 2. Eventually, you could turn your freelancing business or consultancy into an agency

[00:05:15] where you delegate the work to other members of your team, but there's still a manual labor component to deliver the jobs. I actually tried to subcontract part of one job as a trial, but wasn't happy with the quality of the work, so this is easier said than done, especially when your name and reputation are on the line. How easy is it to scale? Score? 2. It's possible to scale a service business, but there are a couple moving targets you have to hit. The first is a steady stream of clients,

[00:05:42] which were usually for one-off projects in my case, and the second is a qualified and growing team to execute the work. How easy is it to stop operations if it's not working? Score? 4. This is your escape path. If it turns out to no longer be worthwhile, how easily can you get out? In the case of my editing business, it was as simple as finishing the projects I had, pausing the Fiverr gig, turning down new projects, and finding some other reputable providers to refer prospects to.

[00:06:12] Is the business something I could sell down the road? Score? 2. The way I built it, it would have been tough to sell. However, there are freelancers who built out agencies and effectively removed themselves from the equation. In those cases, buyers are buying your systems, team, and customer base. Total? 28 out of 40. Example 2. Hear that on tomorrow's episode.

[00:06:40] You just listened to part one of the post titled, Too Many Side Hustle Ideas. Here are 10 questions to help you choose your best option. By Nick Loper of SideHustleNation.com. What does it take to lead like a superhero? Find out on the Superhero Leadership Podcast, hosted by Marvel's former CEO and legendary turnaround expert, Peter Cuneo. Each week, Peter is joined by top performers from business, media, and beyond. Leaders who have mastered the art of impact, resilience,

[00:07:10] and vision. Together, they explore Peter's 32 leadership essentials, revealing what it really takes to rise, inspire, and lead with purpose. Check out the episode with Michael Fabiano, president of ESG News, who offers candid insights on how leaders can run towards challenges and drive innovation in resistant cultures, embrace lifelong learning to stay ahead of disruption, and create environments where bold ideas thrive.

[00:07:38] If you want to level up your leadership, this is your blueprint. Search superhero leadership wherever you get podcasts. And thanks to Nick, he used to work full-time for a giant corporation, but he built his business during nights and weekends. He's also the host of his own podcast, The Side Hustle Show, which is for part-time entrepreneurs looking for actionable tips to start or improve their businesses. It is a really great podcast, and usually in the top charts of business in Apple podcasts,

[00:08:08] and it's definitely worth checking out. The blog, of course, is great too, and you can come by sidehustlenation.com for a lot more. And I will be back with you tomorrow where I'm going to finish up this post and where your optimal life awaits.