PPP072: Start Your Side Hustle with Nick Loper

Nick Loper is founder of Side Hustle Nation, a growing online community of entrepreneurial minded individuals looking to boost their income with a side hustle. Long-time listeners know that this blog, podcast, and my own six-figure income all started as side hustles, so I am thrilled to invite Nick onto the show, recorded live at the FinCon booth at Podcast Movement 2017. Join us as we talk our favorite money making ideas and share ideas for how you can get in on the profits.

What We’re Chatting About This Week

This week kicks off from the floor of Podcast Movement 2017, where Nick and I were able to hang out with a handful of friends from FinCon and beyond. We sat in the expo hall to record this episode right in the middle of the Podcast Movement action.

Nick started his journey with side hustles founding a shoe sales site called Shoe Sniper, which was built on bringing in users from Google via paid search and funneling them into affiliate sales. He started his test with $1 per day to validate each text ad before sinking in big money. An aversion to spending on my own business held me back from faster success, so Nick’s method of making micro-investments online to test is a great way for any online business founder to start.

After following his job across the country, he set a goal to make $1,000 online, which would be enough to cover his basic living expenses even if he didn’t have that day job income. He continued to focus on the shoe business during the night and weekend hours for three years before finally giving notice to his boss and leaving the day job for good.

Of course, just after leaving his job there was an error on his website that took his site down and that coincided with Google’s crawling the site, finding it in an error state, and shutting down his ad account. After a more formal review, Google’s AdSense held the line and said his site was shut down for good, though he was able to get that ban lifted after about three months of working to upgrade and improve the site. This taught him an important lesson about having multiple income streams.

It was too late to get his company car, benefits, and salary back from his old job, so he continued on updating the inventory and investing in the site to ensure he was ready to go in the busy holiday shopping season. As soon as everything turned back on, he had a great Q4 and several more years of success. There were ups and downs along the way, but he held true and continues to run his business primarily online.

Over the next few years, Nick tried about a half dozen different hustles. One that rose to the top of the pile was Side Hustle Nation, which is both a blog and podcast dedicated to all things side hustles. Through a combination of consistency, accessibility, and high quality shows, Nick has seen great growth at Side Hustle Nation, which remains his flagship online brand.

This Week’s Sponsor

This week’s episode is brought to you by Casper, maker of the world’s most comfortable mattress and pillow. Head to CasperTrial.com/Profit for $50 off your mattress order of the ridiculously comfortable Casper mattress. As a podcast fan myself, I’ve heard about Casper for years. I started my personal experience with Casper trying out the Casper pillow, which is my favorite pillow I’ve ever owned, really! I sleep on it every night. Invest in a good night’s sleep at Casper.

This Week’s Guest

Nick Loper is founder of Side Hustle Nation, which he started after side hustling to self-employment with an online shoe sales website. He turned his passion for side hustles into profit, and inspires others to do the same at Side Hustle Nation.

Other Resources Mentioned

PPP072-Side hustle secrets from a pro- Nick Loper- PersonalProfitability.com

This post was originally published on October 10, 2017 and updated on July 29, 2019.

PPP072: Start Your Side Hustle with Nick Loper
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