Starting a side hustle while working full-time for someone else seems like a daunting task since there are only so many hours in a day. It's no surprise so few people can do it successfully. The following is how I turned a side hustle into a very profitable business that now earns more than I could have ever made working for someone else (and I was making good money working for someone else!)
Let's start with why it's so challenging - time. Every day you start with 24 hours. You sleep for 8 hours. You work for your employer for another 8 hours. You commute for 1.5 hours (if you still do that). You eat for an hour and spend another one on basic hygiene (for some people). That leaves less than 5 hours of "free" time a day.
I'm going to break the bad news early. If you want to have some drinks or put your feet up and watch TV most days of the week after you stop working for your employer, you won't be successful with a side hustle. It takes hard work, dedication, and at least 2 hours a day for a few months to get a side hustle off the ground.
Below is how I went from a full-time employee making sales for a software company to working mornings, nights, and weekends on a side hustle until that side hustle took off.
To figure out what my side hustle should be, I started by making criteria.
I asked myself what I was good at doing. I'm good at sales. I'm not the best salesperson on the planet, but I'm pretty good. To launch your side hustle, you need to know what your strength is. If you're not a good salesperson, then launching a business will be harder for you. If you're solid at sales, then you're in the right place.
I wanted to find a solution to a problem that many business owners face so I could sell to a large market. I didn't want to be stuck only selling to one kind of business because I knew I'd need to work random hours each day, and not all companies are open during the random nights, evenings, and weekends I'd have to squeeze in sales calls.
I wanted a software product that business owners need, rather than consumers, because B2B companies are far more likely to succeed than B2C. I failed many previous startups and was determined to succeed this time. Also, because by now, I've spent years selling B2B software to small business owners. I know how to do it.
I didn't want to convince business owners to spend more money on something that made life easier since operational expenses are harder to sell. I wanted something that helps small businesses grow since they are far more likely to spend money on something that does that, and I love helping small business owners. It's very gratifying.
That's when it hit me!
I should sell marketing services to small business owners in SaaS form for less than a marketing agency can. It applies to all industries, helps small businesses get more customers, and is B2B software.
I didn't know much about local marketing, and I didn't want to offer it as a manual service since I had a full-time job to do, so I consulted with friends that knew the space well and worked with a development team to build a solution that could automate the key local marketing elements for a business. Tada! The birth of Merchynt. (Keep reading if you don't have the money required to build a product yourself)
In the Beginning
Merchynt was just a basic tool, but it did what small local businesses like restaurants, retailers, cleaning services, plumbers, car dealerships, and other companies wanted. It got them to the top of local search results on sites like Google, Maps, Waze, Facebook, Siri, & Yelp without paying for ads and got them more 5-star customer reviews.
I spent mornings, nights, and weekends grinding on the phones, visiting local businesses, and running cold email campaigns to drum up business.
About Six Months In
Once I had the revenue to support it, I hired a remote salesperson from Upwork to get me leads during the day while I worked for my employer. I'd then call those leads in the mornings, nights, and weekends. It wasn't easy, but it was exciting! Doing it this way let me keep my full-time job and income while building my side hustle. This way, I was not risking much and could use my primary income to fund my side hustle until it could fund itself - and me.
You don't need to keep your primary job, though, while you work on your side hustle. There's no question working two jobs slowed down my growth, but it gave me the comfort net I needed to feel like it was OK to fail.
4 Years Later
The Merchynt platform is now used by thousands of small businesses globally in over 100 industries, and I'm giving back to other entrepreneurial salespeople looking to start their very own side hustle.
Introducing: The Merchynt Side Hustle Launch Initiative!
The Merchynt Side Hustle Launch Initiative is a program that accepts up to 25 entrepreneurial salespeople each year and helps them launch their very own marketing tech SaaS side-hustle for under $1,000.
Merchynt Side Hustle Launch Initiative participants get:
The ability to slap their own logo on a white-labeled version of our platform, which they can sell to small business owners as their own service. (Their customers never know about Merchynt). This enables sales-oriented entrepreneurs to sell a proven-to-work local marketing platform to people without hiring a developer to build their own product.
Sales & marketing materials they can use to scale fast, such as proven-to-work cold calling scripts, 1-sheets, presentations, lead magnets, and more.
1-1 mentoring on how they can go from $0 in revenue to $50k+ in a year, all while staying employed full-time elsewhere.
A list of other affordable and free tools they can use that were helpful to build and scale my side-hustle.
A revenue foundation they can then use to go off and offer additional services or build new software of their own.
Assistance building their own website, branding, billing system, and more!
Because we want to give each participant as much help as possible, participation in this program is limited. Acceptance is determined based on sales experience, industries they've worked in, geographic location, and their other entrepreneurial pursuits. The Merchynt Side Hustle Launch Initiative is an equal opportunity program. To apply, please fill out the form below:
If you're interested in learning more about this program but not yet ready to apply, please email sidehustle@merchynt.com or schedule a time to meet with a side hustle launch expert below. We look forward to hearing from you.
About Merchynt: Merchynt is a cloud-based SaaS service used by thousands of small businesses globally, which helps them show up in more local search results. Merchynt partners with entrepreneurial people to enable them to offer its services under their partners' brands. Learn more at www.merchynt.com or by emailing hello@merchynt.com.