Nick Loper, Master the Art of Side Hustles to Create Lasting Freedom | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic

0:00Today's episode is sponsored in part by Shopify Indeed Intuit Framework Quo, Working Genius, Spectrum Business, and Northwest Registered Agent. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you grow your business. Start a$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash profiting. Attract, interview, and hire all in one place with Indeed. Get a$75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at indeed.com slash profiting. Start the new year strong. Take control of your cash flow with QuickBooks Money Tools. Learn more at quickbooks.com slash money. Publish beautiful and production-ready websites with Framer.

0:33Get started building for free today at framer.com slash profiting for 30 % off a Framer Pro annual plan. Quo is the smarter way to run your business communications. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash profiting. Working Genius helps you fill gaps in your organization. Take the Working Genius assessment and get 20 % off with code profiting at workinggenius.com. Keep your business connected with fast and reliable internet, phone, TV, and mobile services from Spectrum Business. Visit spectrum.com slash free for life to learn how you can get business internet free forever.

1:06Northwest Registered Agent gives you the tools and guidance you need to build a complete business identity. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com slash the app free and start building something amazing. As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at youngandprofiting.com slash deals.

1:34Yep, gang, gang, gang. Earlier this week, we aired my latest interview with Mr. Side Hustle himself, Nick Loper. In that episode, we talked about his very first appearance on the show that was episode 10 when he was one of my first ever guests. I was a baby podcaster in this episode. Well, now's your chance to experience that conversation as well in this Yap Classic episode. Now, this was recorded back in 2018, so it may sound a bit different than the podcast does today, but this is so much more than just an interesting archive exercise. And that's because Nick shares some solid gold nuggets of wisdom that are still useful today.

2:13You're going to hear Nick talk about his very first side hustle, what he calls the three laws of side hustle physics, as well as which personality types do especially well when it comes to side hustles. So if you're considering a new side hustle or looking to expand an existing one, then why not prime yourself with a double dose of Nick Loper this week? You won't regret it. Without further ado, I bring you Nick Loper.

2:40So I thought that we could get started with getting acquainted, so an icebreaker, if you will. I was on your website, and I saw this list of 25 facts about yourself, one of which I found really interesting. you took a cold shower for 500 days in a row. Can you tell me about that? Why on earth did you do that? I know, it sounds awful now. So this was kind of in the 2014 to 2015 timeframe. Started actually with a guest of mine on the Side Hustle Show, who was talking about taking cold showers, starting out as a fat burning hack to boost your metabolism for the rest of the day because you're gonna expend calories He's like heating your body up long after the shower is over.

3:23But then what he found was it was effective for that. But what he also found, it was effective for just like motivation. And he's like, if this is the hardest thing that I have to do today, and some days it's really hard because it sucks. You just, you feel like you're ready to tackle anything. And I kind of found the same thing. And I said on air, I was like, you know what, that sounds awful, but let me give it a shot. And some good things started happening. It might've been totally placebo, but you know, at that time started to get more coaching clients, traffic started to pick up. I don't know, for whatever reason, I was into it.

3:54And so I did it for over a year. I guess it was effective. Maybe it was what I needed at that time. Would you recommend it to others? Absolutely. Get out of your comfort zone a little bit. Do it for 30 days. Or even maybe the baby steps way to do it would be to end your showers cold, which is kind of what I tend to do today, because that's for some reason less jarring than just jumping straight into the cold water. That's funny. That sounds horrible. So how did you become the chief side hustler at Side Hustle Nation? Tell us about yourself, your journey, how you got started with it all. My original side hustle was when I was working corporate was a footwear comparison shopping site.

4:36It was called shoesniper.com. And it would aggregate the product catalogs from Zappos and Amazon and all these other online footwear retailers and tell you where you could find the best price on your next pair of shoes. And it earned money as an affiliate. So if somebody went and bought that pair of shoes through Amazon, the site would get a commission. and while I was running that and the site had almost a 10 year run I was always looking for stuff on the side and it was kind of like during one of these lower points of that business doing some soul searching and being like what do you want to be known for when people Google you?

5:11What do you get excited about talking about? And it was that prospect of lower risk entrepreneurship how do I build a business on the side? How do I make extra money that really never gets old and still doesn't get old because there's a million and one creative ways that people are doing it. And that's kind of where the Side Hustle Show and the Side Hustle Nation blog kind of were born from. So right now, are you a side hustler? Like how many side hustles do you have? A lot of them overlap. And so my days of experimenting with a lot of this stuff are kind of limited. So I used to do some freelancing, used to do some e-commerce experiments with like Amazon and eBay.

5:52and I still do a little bit of that, but that's kind of taken the back burner. The Side Hustle blog has kind of become, in the podcast, has kind of become the main focus, but there still are a dozen income streams related to that and not related to that through self-publishing, through affiliate marketing on the site and on a couple other sites that I still run. Sadly, the shoe site no longer exists, but some other sites that were started during that time are still around. Starting some experiments in the investing world and it all adds up versus trying to rely on one source of income, having a single point of failure.

6:29To that point, why do you prefer or recommend having side hustles over a 9-to-5 job? Well, not necessarily a preference one over the other, but the ultimate freedom is control over your calendar. How do you spend your time? How do you spend your days? If you can piece together an income on your own terms rather than on somebody else's terms, you're more likely to have that freedom. So that's kind of where it came from for me. And I would definitely advocate focus first, simplify first, and then diversify second. So try and get one thing, one business, one income stream off the ground before going crazy and trying six things with an unfocused effort.

7:06Because I think that's harder to see results from. Why don't you give some context to our listeners about Side Hustle Nation? So what is Side Hustle Nation? Basically just a blog and podcast for people trying to make extra money outside of traditional employment. At the very low end of that, it could be babysitting, walking dogs, delivering pizzas. I think all of those count as side hustles. There's a connotation that a side hustle has a little bit more of an entrepreneurial upside where maybe you're not directly trading hours for dollars, or maybe there's this vision, this hope, this dream that it could become something bigger, as it definitely did for me with the shoe business.

7:45I have a little trouble distinguishing a side hustle from a part-time job or a second job. How do you personally define what a side hustle is? Probably the textbook definition would be that upside potential. It's something that you have ownership over. Maybe it's an asset that you own versus, okay, I drive for Uber, or I'm delivering pizzas, or I'm doing Instacart deliveries, or something like that. That absolutely counts as a side hustle in my mind, but at the same time, you're limited on how much you can do by your hours in the day versus with you starting the podcast. It's all of a sudden from a single mic and two people having a conversation, you could reach thousands and thousands of people, and that is really powerful.

8:33It becomes a little bit more leveraged, and I think there's a lot more upside. Even just starting a freelancing business, I'm going to do freelance writing, I'm going to do freelance podcast editing, whatever. it is. So I was doing a bit of research on the show and I found out that more Americans are working a side hustle than ever before. And to be exact, there are 44 million Americans with a side hustle today. Why do you think the motivations to start a side hustle are so much stronger than they were in the past? That's a weird, it's a weird time, right? It's a weird statistic because on the surface, the economy is great.

9:05Unemployment is at record lows. Why are 44 million people feeling the need or the desire to go out and make extra money. So I think part of it is reactive, right? Housing, education, insurance, or healthcare, like all of those costs have grown way faster than real wages. So that's a driving factor, like just the straight up cost of living and people feeling the crunch to make ends meet and pay down student debt. That's maybe the negative way to look at it. And the more positive way to look at it is I have the ability and the desire to start something that scratches a creative itch, that is something that I have control over, that I'm interested in, that I'm passionate about.

9:52That's probably driving some of that as well. And those are kind of the people that are more interesting to talk to than the people like, well, I need to make rent next month. You're approaching it from a completely different standpoint. Yeah. And from my perspective, I really think it's all about the digital innovation that's going on. Like there's so many different digital platforms where people can do freelance work, whether it's Fiverr or Upwork and mobility, you know, like you can just make money off your phone now while you're on the train. You know, I used to do that years ago, but I just feel like it's easier.

10:25There's so much more space to play because we've got the internet now and there's just so much more that you can do with your free time to monetize it. So I think it's also like digital impact too. Yeah, that word play that you just used is really key. And approaching it that way, saying, look, this is going to be a fun experiment. I'm going to see what happens. I'm going to put some content out there. and approaching it that way lessens the sting of failure and kind of puts you more into a scientist role where it's like, okay, this is my hypothesis. I'm gonna test something out. If it works, great.

10:58If it doesn't, okay, onto the next thing. I also read that half of millennials report having a side hustle. So this is really big for the younger millennial generation. Why do you think it's so attractive to younger millennials specifically? Most of my listeners are younger millennials. Yeah, I think it's that cash-strapped nature You know, look, we're dealing with a debt load. We're dealing with a higher cost of living in most cases. And it's just, okay, how do I make ends meet? And the way I approached it was like, I was just looking for a way to use my free time more productively. When I was first starting the shoe business, like I moved across the country for my day job, didn't have any friends like outside of the office really.

11:38And so I had a lot of free times, nights and weekends. I was like, well, I could play Xbox with my buddies back home or just sit there and watch TV. But so, you know, how can I be more intentional, be more effective with these hours that I've been given and try and make something worthwhile out of it? Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.

12:01At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world. And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel overwhelmed by finding that perfect candidate, even though I'm so picky. Because when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post noticed. Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast by boosting your post to the top relevant candidates. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45 % more applications than non-sponsored ones, according to Indeed data worldwide.

12:36I'm so glad I found Indeed when I did because hiring is so much easier now. In fact, in the minute we've been talking, 23 hires were made on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide. Plus, there's no subscriptions or long-term contracts. You literally just pay for your results. You pay for the people that you hire. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed, and listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash profiting. Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

13:07Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed, is all you need.

13:16What's up, young and profiterers? I remember when I first started Yap, I used to dread missing important calls. I remember I lost a huge potential partnership because the follow-up thread got completely lost in my messy communication system. Well, this year, I'm focused on not missing any opportunities, and that starts with your business communications. A missed call is money and growth out the door. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the smarter way to run your business communications. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, and it works right from an app on your phone or computer.

13:49The way Quo works is magic for team alignment. Your whole team can handle calls and texts from one shared number, and everyone sees the full conversation. It's like having access to a shared email inbox, but on a phone. And also, Quo's AI can even qualify leads or respond after hours, ensuring your business stays responsive, even when you've finally logged off. It makes doing business so much easier. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash profiting. That's Q-U-O dot com slash profiting.

14:22Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers.

14:28Hello, young and profiters. Running my own business has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. But I won't lie to you. In those early days of setting it up, I feel like I was jumping on a cliff with no parachute. I'm not really good at that kind of stuff. I'm really good at marketing, sales, growing a business, offers. But I had so many questions and zero idea where to find the answers when it came to starting an official business. I wish I had known about Northwest Registered Agent back when I was starting Yap Media. And if you're an entrepreneur, you need to know what Northwest Registered Agent is.

14:58They've been helping small business owners launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They literally make life easy for entrepreneurs. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And guys, it can get really complicated, but Northwest Registered Agent just makes it all easy and breaks it down for you. So when you want more for your business, more privacy, more guidance, more free resources, Northwest Registered Agent is where you should go.

15:31Don't wait and protect your privacy. Build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com slash yapfree and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com slash yapfree.

15:53You mentioned that you have a blog. It's a very cool blog. That's actually how I found you. I was looking for ways to monetize my podcast and came across one of your blogs. Oh, nice. And one blog that I saw that I thought might be interesting to kind of recap for our listeners is this three laws of side hustle physics. Do you mind explaining what those three laws are? Sure, well, these will parallel Newton. So somebody wants to get nerdy and talk about physics. So law number one is like this inertia and momentum law where you might remember from physics, right? An object at rest is going to stay at rest.

16:29and an object in motion is going to stay in motion until acted upon by an external force. We see this over and over again with people who are on the sidelines looking to get into the game. There has to be some motivating factor to get you to move, to take action, to register that domain name, to put up your profile on Upwork, to try and get that first client, to put yourself out there. Maybe that's a meeting with your boss that doesn't go as well as you planned. One of my favorite moments on the show was a photographer, a journalist I had on the show. He had just won International Sports Photographer of the Year or something.

17:10His highest award in his industry goes into his boss for his annual review. And his boss is like, man, I fought for 4%, but I could only get you a 3 % raise. And he's like, you've got to be kidding me. He's making like 30 grand a year doing this. And he's like, this is not going to work. And so that was the motivating factor to kind of get him off the sidelines and start thinking seriously about starting his side hustle. So that's kind of the first law. And it goes both ways. Like once you're in motion, we see this over and over again. Ideas start to pop up that you never would have had just based on conversations that you have or things that you come across during your research.

17:51And it's really powerful, like this inertia and momentum law. Law number two is this law of force and impact. And so this is Newton's law of acceleration. Acceleration of an object occurs based on the force that was applied to it. So the smack of that 3 % raise after winning the highest award in your industry, that was a pretty hard smack. And so it motivated Vincent to take off in a hurry. He told me he would have been happy with 10%. And so that wouldn't have been a big enough impact to really change his life. I just want to pause here for a second because I love that. For me, rejection is such great motivation, you know, and it's like every time I've ever been rejected, it's been when I've like pivoted to something that is like a life achievement for myself.

18:37So I think that if you get rejected, if you feel like you've been let down, it's the best time to put that negative energy into something positive and do something different and impactful for yourself. Yeah, this was kind of like hit home. We were at this beach vacation this summer and you're at the pool all the time and you're like, man, I really should hit the gym more because I see all these people who are super fit. And so maybe that's a motivating factor. You could see it in health. You could see it in business. You could see it in relationships. It happens all over the place. And then the third law is this action and reaction.

19:12So for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And so we're recording this on election day and somebody just posted like, whether you vote or not, that's a vote. And so that got me thinking about this. There's an equal and opposite reaction. And even if nobody theoretically reacts to your stuff, because I wrote a personal blog for years and years and years that nobody really read outside of my friends and family. Well, that was a reaction. And it was a reaction that told me that, hey, you better write about stuff that people care about. And it wasn't all for waste because it was practicing skills of writing online and learning WordPress and learning all this other stuff.

19:51But it can be depressing when on the surface it's like, yeah, there was no reaction. What kind of side hustles do you write about on your blog? The big three for the site right now are freelancing, like we talked about, e-commerce, and kind of like a blogging and podcasting, content marketing types of businesses where you're like, I'm going to set up an online presence to talk about this subject matter that maybe I'm an expert in, maybe I'm not, maybe I'm learning this subject matter. And monetizing through ads, through affiliate relationships, through digital products. And do you think that there are certain personality types that thrive in this side hustle role?

20:30I've seen it work across introverts, extroverts, young, old. It's really a matter of figuring out, okay, what's my offer going to be and how can I get that in front of my target customers? Let's say I'm a millennial and I have this idea for a side hustle. How can I test the idea and make sure it's a good one before I either quit my day job or spend a vast amount of time on it? This is good. Let's dive into this a little bit more. So what's the hypothetical business that you're thinking about testing? Let's say selling something on Etsy. Okay, perfect. So if you're looking at Etsy, where I would start is the existing listings on Etsy and the existing listings on eBay, Amazon, Redbubble, some of these other similar marketplaces where people might be buying this stuff.

21:18If there are other people making sales, that's a fantastic sign, right? There's money in that market. The second thing that I would probably do is Etsy costs like I think 20 cents to put up a listing. It's almost free. So you create your listing very affordably. And so if it's a handmade product, I would just create one of those so you can take nice pictures and put up that listing for 20 cents. Etsy has on-platform advertising that you can use to drive traffic on top of their listing optimization tools and keyword tags and stuff like that. but one thing that you probably want to do before paying for traffic is to land some social proof on your Etsy page which is like you know the number of likes on this page the number of sales that you've made so you can see that with some initial reviews from friends and family you might even just give these away and say I'd really prefer if you ordered this through Etsy to help out my appearance on that platform and you find that kind of a similar strategy not just on Etsy but on iTunes, hey, can you review this podcast?

22:18On Udemy, hey, could you review my course? On Amazon, hey, could you review my book? Just to seed the platform with a little bit of social proof so the algorithms start to work in your favor. And so people, when they do land on that page, they say, okay, this isn't a ghost town. There's actually something to this. Isn't that so funny how you could have thousands of listeners and the best personal feedback, but if you have no reviews, you ain't shit? Yeah, and maybe that's feedback too. If nobody wants your thing, if you can't get your friends and family to buy it, that's probably a sign that it's not the best business to go into.

22:54And I know a lot of people are thinking about these days starting a podcast, starting a blog. Do you have any advice for those folks? Yeah, I'm still really high on podcasting specifically because I forget the latest stats, but it's probably something like 40 % of the population even knows what a podcast is. And so that leaves a huge chunk of the pie left to go out and grow over the next 5, 10, 15 years as people discover on-demand audio and they're probably going to react like I did. This is amazing. How did I waste so many years listening to nonsense on the radio when I could listen to stuff that is going to help me grow personally and professionally?