Next Level Pros - #92: Side Hustles of 2024 That Will Make You Rich

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Welcome back to another episode of the Founder Podcast. Today, I'm joined by Daryl Kelly and Levi Ringo to discuss side hustles and how they can make you rich in 2024. Whether you're an entrepreneur or just looking to make some extra cash, this episode is packed with creative ideas and good practical strategies to help you see the potential in your passions. From leveraging technology to tapping into local markets, learn how to make your side hustle make you rich. Highlights:"Mindset shift number one is I do have enough time. I've got to put in the extra hustle." "The only thing that it's costing you is time... You got to just realize that they've already told me no because I haven't offered them my product or service." "Go identify ways that you can go and start that side hustle and most of all, realize when you find something that works and decide to dig 1000 feet deep, you will hit oil." Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction to Side Hustles 202401:21 - The Economic Need for Extra Income03:31 - Exploring Side Hustle Opportunities06:10 - The Real Cost of Maximizing Employee Efficiency09:25 - Utilizing Time Wisely for Economic Benefits11:43 - Simple Ideas for Quick Side Hustles16:17 - Overcoming Fear of Starting Small20:25 - Service-Based Business26:08 - Kickstarting Your Side Hustle39:26 - The Importance of Community in Entrepreneurship Live Links:Join my community - Founder Acceleration ⁠https://www.founderacceleration.com ⁠ Apply for our next Mastermind:h⁠ttps://www.thefoundermastermind.com ⁠Golf with Chris h⁠ttps://www.golfwithchris.com⁠ Watch my latest PodcastApple- ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281S ⁠Spotify- ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2⁠ YouTube - @thefounderspodcast

Mindset shift number one is I do have enough time. I've got to put in the extra hustle. Mindset shift number two is I've got to be willing to overcome fear, right? Because like all these things require overcoming of fear, right? Like we have fear of rejection, fear of people not wanting our service, fear of like something not working or whatever else. Realize that the only thing that it's costing you is time, right? You got to just realize that like only thing that it's costing you is time. You got to just realize that like they've already told me no, because I haven't offered them my product or service or whatever else. So like if you can figure out just those two mental shifts,

all of a sudden the world is your oyster for side hustles, because then you could just start going and creative. And like if something doesn't work go try something else all right we're just throwing out ideas how many things do you have your house that if you could sell them right now you would sell it absolutely one hustle i just thought of is like if i had someone come knock on my door say hey i'm selling stuff online for people here's my take here's my cut what do you have to sell dude i've got a lot of things i would say if you don't know where to start you can start with chat gpt and be like hey these are the things i'm really good at i'm good at playing basketball i love shoes i love music i love all these things what could i do to turn

this into a side hustle or money or whatever and i'm telling you you'd be shocked with what chat gpt will spit out to you yo yo welcome to, yo. Welcome to another episode of the Founder Podcast. Today, I got my boy Levi and Daryl with me on the set. What's up, gents? What's going on? Oh, and you're not going to want to miss this episode. We are going to be talking about the best way to run a little hustle on the side in 2024. is a a weird year right housing's still expensive interest rates are still expensive we've had crazy inflation biden economics just been kicking us square in the deep you know what i mean and so you know we've got all this stuff people i i read a stat the other day i don't know if you guys this, but like credit card debt is like up like three X. And so like a lot of people are floating inflation through credit cards, right? So they're not backing down their lifestyle.

They're not doing these different things. The cost of everything's going up. So they're just, they're just swiping the card and putting it off. So I did ask an investment banker on that stat. And he did say that if you're just looking at raw numbers, because inflation is going up. But if you look at it where it's comparative to the GDP or other metrics, it's not necessarily as inflated. It's in line with proportion. What's funny is I talked to the investment banker probably same investment banker about the same thing when he said that you know what i called it bs i said dude but that is not that is not on a per capita basis like when you're talking overall gdp

your top one percent ten percent they're taking they're taking all the they're taking all the additional GDP yeah right like these guys down here they're not making they're not proportionally making as much more money so like I think although that's a great argument from an investment banker the flaw in the statistic and there's always flawed statistics right like you can you can literally draw any conclusion that you want from any stat and and I and so I brought that up and he's like, Oh, that's a fair point. I mean, the reality is inflation is like hitting everybody. Yeah. And so there's a lot of people out here listening that thinking, man, I need to make an extra 50, a hundred, 250 grand a year. Right. And, uh, we've all been there,

right? Like we've all been there. We've all been there. Levi, more recently than most. Entrepreneur to entrepreneur, I'm glad. Let's go. We're going to be just chatting today. Levi, you stick to the trends. I would like to think I'm a trendy guy. Trendy guy. You're watching that TikTok, watching them reels.

What is it? The YouTubes? The YouTubes. The shorts watching them reels. What is it? The YouTubes? The YouTubes. The shorts. The reels. Yeah. So tell us about what are the YouTubes teaching us? What are some of the best trending ways to make a good side hustle in 2024?

I mean, I think the classic is just helping small businesses. And there's tons of ways that you can help small businesses. I like that. Whether it's like cleaning up their, you know, a lot of small businesses are mom-pa shops, brick and mortar that they're like, hey, I really love candles. I want to eat candles off the ground. So I'm going to open up a candle shop or a barber shop. And I see a lot of times with these small mom-and-pop shops, they don't know how to either scale or add more value or make their systems better.

They're just like, all I know is how to cut hair. But if they had a way to ask for more reviews that were automated once they left and send text message alerts for their appointments and stuff like that. And a lot of this stuff, you can learn softwares off YouTube for free. And go- Give us some examples.

Like GoHighLevel is a great example, right? Super popular software, relatively cheap to get started. You can even start with a free trial. And you can go in and learn the software off YouTube, see what people are doing. And people even sell or even give away their templates for free to automate stuff. So you can copy it.

Kind of added to this. So one of the things you're seeing is like right now to hire someone, right? Minimum wage, at least in Washington is really expensive. And so for these small companies, 75. Yeah.

So for these small companies to hire on someone full-time it's pretty challenging especially when they need someone in marketing they need someone here someone there and i think with what you're saying a lot of businesses would love to have someone with an expertise that can come in you know at a fraction of the time right they don't need a full-time person but they do need someone part-time to help them with this or that. And I think that's where there's an opportunity with today's marketplace. Absolutely. So fun fact, if you're ever looking at like an hourly wage and wondering how much does that cost a business owner, you just double, you just double the hourly wage. So like, for example, Washington minimum wage is $16.75. Just double that.

It's $33,000, and then you just add $1,000, right? So that's $33,000 a year, plus they're paying another 10% to 20% in taxes. So literally, if you can figure out how to replace a minimum wage worker through AI, automation, services or whatnot, you are saving a business owner in the state of Washington, right? That's different. Like maybe it's federal minimum wage where you're at and it's $7.50 an hour. You got to figure out a way to save them $15,000 a year, right? So if you can replace one employee for $5,000 or $,000 bucks, like you are putting money in that business owner's pocket. And that's just an easy way to do math. And there's so many different free tools

out there that any young hustler, you could be 15 years old and out selling $2,000 a month services or $1,000 a month services to these different guys. And there's so many different ways to hustle in those extra hours that you have in a day. Yeah. And I think one of the things that stops people is they don't know what it is. Like, well, what do I do? And the answer is you go ask. Go talk to business owners.

Say, hey, what do you guys struggle with most? What's your pain? What are you paying? What are you struggling with most? Pain points. If I can come in and do Say, hey, what do you guys struggle with most? What's your pain? What are you paying? What are you struggling with most? Pain points. If I can come in and do this, this, and this, how much of that do you need? What would you pay for that? I mean, just start asking, and you're going to find answers.

And I think the first shift that you have to make, all right? So if you're a nine-to-fiver, right? You got a 40-hour work week. The first shift you have to realize is there's 168 hours a week, right? 24 times 7, 168. I'm dedicated a little less than quarter of that time right now to my economic benefit, okay? What if I was able to figure out how to hustle an extra 10 hours, an extra 20 hours, an extra 30 hours? Where could that come

from? Right. And like you have priorities going on in your life. Obviously you got to sleep. Okay. So let's call it if you slept really good, eight hours, eight hours a week, you got 56 hours right there. Okay. So between sleep and work, you're 96 hours. That means you got an extra 60, 72 more hours. Okay. So maybe you're driving, maybe more hours okay so maybe you're driving maybe you're eating maybe you're hanging with your family whatever it is okay what additional amount of time can i carve out and then with that realize the opportunity cost right now by opportunity cost is what you're missing out on is nothing right you're not making any more money with that additional time. So you can go and just ask questions, work for free, do market research,

try something a little bit about it, right? And you're always going to pay for something, whether you pay for it with time, energy, or money, right? And so since you have time and energy on your side go and use it yeah but i think that's a valid point you you know you said like go work for free like you're working in exchange for knowledge for understanding and for for finding out what that opportunity is and i think knowing that now man i would have done things a lot different at a younger age to learn how to like leapfrog some of the challenges I had of making money earlier on?

Yeah. I spent my first, what was that? When did I start going back? So I spent my first like six, seven years of my career only focused on money, right? Like where can I make the most money? Luckily I chose a career that kind of educated me, but it wasn't until like after I filed bankruptcy, after I lost everything that I really made choices based off of like, where can I learn the most? Right. And like, and that was ultimately what catapulted me and my personal career was going out, studying other people it out but yeah back to the hustle so obviously so services to to business owners are great great ways that we can go and do it like dude what are what are some other trends that you guys are honestly if you think about this is

oldest time but sales right i mean uh sales make more money than most occupations. And even if you think of like doctors, lawyers, like if you're in a good sales job, you can make way more money than them. And so I think like learning what's that ladder to get up there to be a highly productive salesperson. You can do it in phone or in person. I mean, we know people that do phone sales that make a lot of money and and dude do you even add to that right like you don't even necessarily have to take on another job right like a sales job a lot of times is taking on another job you have a manager you have those type of things like just even understanding how the basic economy works

there's so many ways to like go and flip stuff. Let's explain that. Cause I feel like when I talked to like kids, right, that show up at my house and you know, they all want money. They always want to make some money. I'm like, I'll give them 10 different ideas, but I think there's just something that doesn't sink in of how simple it really is to go sell and make money. So, so first of all, you have to start using your brain, right? Like so that you can identify where there's a gap in value, right? So you can either identify where there's a gap of value or you can add value to something. And whatl, years ago, we were hustling to make some bucks, right? And there was a software that we saw for sale at Costco for 19 bucks. It looked like Rosetta Stone, right?

And Rosetta Stone was selling for $400 and this was selling for 20 bucks. There was a gap in value, right? And so people were aware of Rosetta Stone and unaware of this one. And so all we did was bring awareness to the cheaper one and provided value by creating awareness to it. And so what we did is we literally went and bought these things for 20 bucks and we could return them at any time because it was Costco. And we went and sold them on eBay. And we just said, hey, language learning software similar to Rosetta Stone. Right? And so it brought awareness. And it sold on eBay for like $70 to $80.

Right? And so we were literally quadrupling our investment by just identifying a gap in value. So that's one way to hustle. The other way to hustle is adding value to something and a la fix and flip. Dude, we're just throwing out ideas. How many things do you have in your house that if you could sell them right now, you would sell it? Absolutely. One hustle I just thought of is like, if I had someone come knock on my door and say, Hey, I'm selling stuff online for people. Here's my take. Here's my cut. What do you have to sell? Dude, I've got a lot of things I would sell. You could be the local eBay,

right? For you. Because eBay makes all their money on being the platform in which you sell stuff, making it easy. Right? So if you go and personally are the platform, right? Like if I'm a T yeah, exactly. A teenager walks in my, uh, my door and it's, you know, someone from the neighborhood or whatever else. And they said, Hey, uh, 10%, 20% to, to sell anything in your garage. Heck yeah, dude, go go and do it. I got electronics sitting in boxes. I have stuff that we don't use. I got things that my wife's going to donate i got electronics sitting in boxes i have stuff that we don't use i got things that my wife's gonna donate to goodwill like you know yeah my daughters they recently learned that they could sell their clothes to i don't know where they take them plato's closet is that where it is

yep so now they take all our clothes there i feel like i'm buying more clothes than i should but but one thing i I would hesitate. So obviously, yeah, they can go and sell it. But they're using daddy's money to do that, right? Dad bought it. Now I can sell it and take the money. That's not real value creation. That's like a way to go and create cash.

What I'm saying is there's so many things that can be sold. Exactly. Clothes can be sold, electronics, devices, bikes. I mean, people have stuff that they don't use. And then you Exactly. Clothes, right, can be sold. Electronics, devices, bikes. I mean, people have stuff that they don't use. And then you can start helping people, right? It helps them create, you know, more space. You're helping someone else who's buying the product at a cheaper, like it just creates a lot of value for both parties.

Dude, there's so many hustles. If you're talking about, like, quick hitters, like opening up a quick garbage can cleaning business, right? Like we'll come in clean out your garbages uh once a month for 10 bucks a month right like and you'll always have nice smelling big dumpsters or whatever there's uh yeah we'll come empty out your closet i'll go sell it to plato's closet and we will split 50 50 on every like you don't have to tell me you got plato's closet you're saying hey i'm gonna go sell this and i'll give you 50 of the proceeds and we will split 50-50 on everything. You don't even have to tell me, you got Plato's Clause,

you're just saying, hey, I'm gonna go sell this, and I'll give you 50% of the proceeds. Yeah, right? And it's not, I think a lot of people get scared with side hustles too. They're like, oh, you feel like you have to reinvent the wheel

or you have to come up with a new idea. But the idea that Daryl just said of like, oh, go door to door, find things that people wanna sell, and I'll sell it for a commission. That's not a new concept. It's the exact same framework or business model as a vendor event where you just have your vendors are paying to sell their product at like a farmer's market or whatever but but think of pain points right people hate doing laundry like i know a

girl who she learned on youtube how to fold clothes. She folds in phenomenal She started business. She goes around and folds clothes washes clothes and folds and puts them away. You've got Another pain point dog poop. No one likes to pick up dog poop, right? Yeah, someone came in my house and said hey, I'll pick up your dog poop once a week for 10 bucks 20 bucks. Yeah, it doesn't take much time But like for you know, there's i mean there's so many things just thinking like the things that you hate doing the most go make some money doing it which leads me to the second mindset shift that you have to have so mindset shift number one is i do have

enough time i've got to put in the extra hustle my shift number two is i've got to be willing to overcome fear right because like all these things require the overcome, like overcoming of fear, right? Like we have fear of rejection, fear of people not wanting our service, fear of like something not working or whatever else. Realize that the only thing that it's costing you is time, right? So your feelings, like although sensitive and important, don't matter, right? So your feelings, like, although sensitive and important, don't matter, right? You

got to just realize that, like, they've already told me no because I haven't offered them my product or service or whatever else. So, like, if you can figure out just those two mental shifts, all of a sudden the world is your oyster for side hustles because then you could just start going and creative and like if something doesn't work go try something else here's what's crazy so i don't know this this uh space very well but just the stories i hear um like food not even food trucks but like food services like at the fair this guy was telling about this person i forget what the fair it is it's in the it's in the mid in the Midwest. And like to get a booking there is like impossible because they're all booked out.

But it's a lemonade stand. And they have six different booths. They make $3 million a year at these fairs. And it's just like one of those things they sell. Lemonade. Lemonade. And I think it's cookies and milk were the were the things that they sold. And the key principle here as well is like you can take any side hustle if you find success in it.

So maybe, you know, they started off as a corner lemonade stand and made 50 cents. Right. Whatever it is. If you find something that works and there's enough demand, when you go deep, you can turn a lemonade stand into a $3 million, uh, an event empire or a year empire or whatever it is. And so like the, and that brings me to like another thing, like as entrepreneurs, if we want to go and crush it, we have to be focused focused but focus should only exist once you find something that works and is repeatable right and too often people like spend all this time planning on like something that they're going to they feel like it's a really good idea they invest all their money into it like i had a buddy literally, literally he saw on TikTok that mushroom farming

was fantastic. Doesn't know anything about mushroom farming. Went and spent $80,000, pretty much everything that he had on mushroom farming. Guess what? It didn't work. Like it wasn't the demand that he thought it was and everything like that. Don't do that. Go focused and all in once you find a lemonade stand that repeatedly works. And so that's your job with these side hustles. Don't be scared to be scatterbrained and try a bunch of different things out. But pay attention to what's working and what's not working. So there's a psychology thing going on here.

A lot of times people don't want to make easy money. And so they find an obstacle, whether it's time or energy or money, to make it harder. Right. And so it's like, hmm, for me to make a lot of money, I need to put a lot of my time in. I need to put a lot of my money in. Or I got to go spend 80 grand on a mushroom farm. Yeah. And then that can justify my ability to make a lot of my time in. I need to put a lot of money in. Or I got to go spend 80 grand on a mushroom farm. Yeah. And then that can justify my ability to make a lot of money.

That makes sense. And I think that's one thing. Don't trap yourself into realizing like you can, if you just have the right idea and put the effort behind it, doesn't require any money, doesn't require any time. Like you can literally change your outcome this weekend. So service-based businesses are the best for this particular reason, right? Like it's just value creation without any inventory or expense, right?

Like you can use resources that you already have, a computer, your cell phone, your brain, right? And time and go and be able to create whether it's going and knocking on people's door and saying, hey, let me go sell your crap for you, or it's utilizing AI to go and serve a bunch of business owners, right? Once again, state of Washington for replacing a minimum wage employee of $36,000 a year, what can I offer AI services to these people for that could do literally twice as much as what that employee was doing. Whether it's copywriting, which means writing like their stuff for their advertisements or their website. Like there's so many ways to go and get really hustly right now, especially with AI. Chet GBT has changed the world. And I think most people realize that it is but still don't use it yeah and so in in there lies like a huge huge gap of potential what do you think leo no i i agree i

think that most people undervalue what they know and the access to be able to like tap into that. Like, like, like a great example. I met this girl. She's super organized. Like she is very well organized. She loves being able to put spices in a certain order and setting up her pantry a certain way. And she turned that recently into a full time business. She started like helping like a couple of her friends she told me a couple of her friends are just like how do

you stay how do you keep your kitchen so like well organized so she'd go over to their home like buy some products for them and then kind of like hey i'll put this all together for a thousand bucks or whatever the number is and people loved it and because it's super easy to display that on tiktok and facebook and instagram she turned was able to display that on TikTok and Facebook and Instagram. She was able to turn that into a full-grown business. And I think people think, oh, I don't know anything. I'm not an expert at anything. But I think a lot of people undervalue what they know.

Especially with access to tools like ChatGPT or platforms like Fiverr and Upwork, there's always somebody that's looking for help in something that you probably are not. You don't need to be a quote-unquote expert. You just need to know more than somebody who doesn't know. It's kind of like ask yourself what's the easiest thing for you to do, and you could do it all day. It's just super simple. And realize that for somebody that's hard.

Yeah. You know, it really clicked for me. Like 15 years ago i read this book called the millionaire messenger um and in that book he he outlined he said look every year there are millions of people that turn the age of 18. every year there's millions of people that turn the age of 19 and 20 and 21 these people are new to the marketplace right they don't know what you know some sort of experience that you have that they are willing to pay to receive you could you can make money teaching people how to tie their shoes because every year

there's millions of people that don't know how to tie their shoes that are learning to tie their shoes every year there's millions of people that are learning to use chat gbt that don't know how to use chat gbt right and so just come to that realization like i think it's just like realizing not everybody's in my position right because it's really easy to think everybody thinks the way i do and from my certain you know viewpoint and if you shift that like man i man, I, to Levi's point, both your points, like, I know something that somebody else doesn't. Yeah. And then so there's, I know something that somebody else doesn't,

or I have access to people that know something that somebody else doesn't. Like, that's the next level. So, like, utilizing things like Fiverr.com, F-I-V-E-R-R.com. You literally could go find services at Fiverr.com, go sell their services to a business owner that doesn't understand that Fiverr.com exists, mark it up. They're charging 200 bucks here on Fiverr. You go and you sell for 500 bucks you literally do nothing you take the order you send the order you play middleman you make 300 bucks there's so much of that out there yeah and ask chad to piggyback off that you can literally just ask if you don't know where to

start you can start with chad gpt and be like hey these are the things i'm really good at i'm good at playing basketball i love shoes i love music i love all these things what could i do to turn this into a side hustle or money or whatever and i'm telling you you'd be shocked with what chat gbt will spit out or pain points right that's gbt like what are the what are um you know medium household incomes like what's their biggest pain points what are wealthy people what's their biggest pain points? What are wealthy people? What are their biggest pain points? Business owners, where there's families with lots of kids, what's their biggest pain points? Like start to identify all these pain points and then identify, okay, how can I solve these pain points? Right. Like there's, there's tons of like with chat GBT, it definitely opens you up to getting information quick and thinking through the

process. Just ask the right question. Yeah. GBT is like an incredible consultant. Like you can literally just have a conversation back and forth. Like these are, what are the pain points? Oh, those are the pain points. These are my strengths. So this is a little bit about me. How can I use those to solve these pain points? What other ideas do you have? What resources should I use? Right? Like, I mean, dude, it's crazy. Okay. So let me just, let me ask for the audience. Right. So how do I get started? How do I get, how do I get started? One, decide how much time am I going to dedicate to doing something outside of what my current hustle is? Because like, that's, that's step number one. If I, if I can say, this is what I'm willing to spend hours-wise, 20 hours,

and then put it, that's step one. Step two is, all right, start identifying, like, yeah, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Consult with Chad GVT. Look at, dude, TikTok? Full of incredible ideas. It's not just teenagers shaking their butts anymore.

It's literally, you can say, top side hustles of 2024, and dude, you're going to be inundated with all kinds of ideas. I think going back to the time thing, just realize a little bit of time consistently every week compounds. Yes. Just like money, right? If you start investing just a little bit of time consistently every week compounds. Yes. Just like money, right? If you start investing just a little bit of money consistently, it'll compound over time. And that's all we're saying or suggesting is find the time and make sure you can consistently give that same amount of time.

And you know, like there's some easy resources that you can start making money while you're thinking about these things. Like basic level, go drive Uber while you think about your hustles. Go drive Uber, listen to audio books until you're tired of driving Uber and you're ready to take action. Right. Like literally you'll get paid for those extra 20 hours while you're thinking of ideas. Like what? you're thinking of ideas like what and then you know uh dayron uh the uh i don't know if the episode is released yet but if it hasn't look out for that one if it has go watch it like this guy talks about like advanced uber type stuff seriously things that you can get paid 500 bucks for a 10

minute drive like i mean crazy type like there's so many easy ways that you don't even literally have to use your brain and like i think back to a lot of the side hustles that i did these were all side hustles like i was really enjoying i think people under that like because i was picking things that i knew i was gonna really love basketball trainer i was a dj clean shoes like all these things these are oh slow down let's go back to our list go through them again yeah dj dude tell me like what you you mean telling me you don't have to have education to be a dj all right so yeah i'll give you the story of this because it ended up being a relatively big side hustle but it all started with something that i i really enjoyed so when i was in college um i loved going to parties who doesn't like going parties in college but I realized that these

parties that I was going to they weren't playing the music that I really liked and I just wasn't enjoying them so I was like well if I'm gonna pay 20 30 bucks at the college I was going to at this time you would pay 30 to 40 dollars to get into a party and there'd be like a thousand kids show up there wasn't like a lot of house parties there was just these big events like what this is crazy. So then I was like, well, they're not playing the music that I really enjoyed, which was like hip hop, R&B, kind of like throwback music. So I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna throw in our apartment, just we're gonna throw on parties for free. I had no intention of turning into anything. But people enjoyed coming to our parties that

we were hosting at our apartment. And they were like, there's just so many people showing up that I was like, man, this, this could be a thing. Cause we were playing hip hop and R and B music, which wasn't getting played at these other events. So I was like, all right, well, we have a leasing office in our apartment complex that we can rent out for events. So I was like, let's, let's we have a leasing office in our apartment complex that we can rent out for events. So I was like, let's rent it out and see if people show up.

So we rented some speakers from a friend, and we put out a leasing office. We advertised like, hey, we're hosting a real party, hip-hop. And the leasing office can hold, I think, 300 people was the max. And we had 450 people there. And we didn't charge a single dollar for it. And people had a blast. Idiots. And they were like, holy cow, I went to this free party.

We had a great time instead of paying 20, 30 bucks. So then I was like, we could charge $5 and completely undercut the market. And now if 400 kids show up, I'm making, you know, two grand. So then we started to think this could be something special. And it really became something special when at the time there was an Instagram account called Do It For State. Did some kid record a video and went viral on Do It For State from one of our parties. So then we would hire these DJs to DJ at our leasing office.

But I was so frustrated with these DJs. They wouldn't get the vision that I painted and they wouldn't play the music that I wanted to play. That was the whole reason why parties were a success. It's like, well, I grew up musically inclined. I would say I played some instruments and whatnot. So like, screw it. I found turntables on Facebook marketplace for $50. Talked them off from 75 to 50 got 50 and i just locked myself in my my apartment for like two days and watched nothing but youtube

videos i was like okay i'm gonna learn how to dj because i was just so frustrated that these guys weren't doing what i wanted so then we threw another free party because we're like let's see how it goes if i can actually dj and uh rocked it another banger and it turned out because we're like let's see how it goes if i can actually dj and uh another banger and it turned out that we're like i think that we could do something really cool here so we're like let's take this to the next level so we realized that these big parties what they're doing was they're working with these door-to-door companies who were trying to recruit talent for their door-to-door sales teams. And one day I walked into one of the companies that I noticed didn't have a party that semester. I was like, hey, I'm a DJ. I do these big events, and I have at least 500 to 1,000 kids show up.

I can guarantee you that you'll have like 1,000 kids show up, I can guarantee you that you'll have 1,000 kids. If you get three recruits out of that, you pay for itself and I need 25 grand or 20 grand or whatever it was at the time. They're like, why? I was like, well, that 20 grand goes to production. The better the production, the more kids that will show up.

If you're able to get your name on the biggest part of the semester, you'll have more access to more kids than you ever had before in one place. Like, OK. And it was that it was literally that simple. Cut me a check for like whatever. So we rented out this warehouse and probably like eleven thousand or eleven hundred kids showed up. And they the the door to door company, they would sit at the front and do the ticketing for me and they would say okay if you sign up and with your email and phone number and you come to our event uh it's free for you to get in or if you don't pay us 15 at the door i took everything from the door that

people didn't sign up for so me and my friends we'd walk out with like five grand all right what the hell we just threw a party the coolest kids on campus and we got paid to do it this is sick and so we just kept doing that churning that same system over and over um and it turned out that i was able to dj and travel and dj and so it was just a crazy experience pointing out two things so we talked about like some of the principles or whenever you're analyzing an idea or whatnot like first identify a value gap right like there's a value gap there which you go at and then two go and add value right so you figured out ways to add value to this door-to-door company right like hey this this is what's in it for you

this is why it's worth it right so like you're creating create all value. And I mean, at the end of the day, turntable was 50 bucks and some time, right? And that turned into, so it doesn't take a ton of resources. It takes a little bit of thought, takes a little bit of energy, a little bit of time to be able to go and crush it. And like, you know, I know you're aware of this situation. Like right now here in Tri-Cities, Washington,

there's a high school girl that is hosting these private parties. She charges $20. She gets 500 kids, and she provides a DJ and water and an event. She's generating $10,000 in revenue, probably got a couple thousand dollars in expenses. I know she's using her parents' place to host it, but if she was paying for a place to put it on, I mean that, it's that easy. And so now you just got to be, get people aware of what's going on, right? Get it out on social media, get it going. There's so many opportunities like that. But so like you can spend the time, but you can also spend the money. Like I do not want to

undercut the value of spending the right money. And usually it's not the inventory. It's not things. It's like the knowledge, right? Cutting your, buying your way to knowledge is like a huge, huge cheat code that most people don't access to. I didn't access until about nine years ago. So when I was 31, 32, I realized, wow, I can buy my way into the game faster. And so figuring that there are things like that, like for example, like we have next level home pros, right? Like, so anybody that's in the home pro space, whether they're roofing or HVAC or windows or solar or whatever else, they can buy access. We have a full course that we've taken all of our knowledge to go and scale and we put in there. Right. And then they also get like six months access. Like this is one example of way that

you can like go and buy your way. It's the same as like before we launched SoulGen. I paid this guy to teach me Facebook ads, right? 2,500 bucks. I didn't know Facebook ads. I knew you could go and figure it out maybe on YouTube, but it was super organized, super fast, super to the point, right? So if you're going to go and spend money, spend money on real knowledge, not traditional education. School system is not going to teach you how to go and hustle. Go find other hustlers that are doing it. Say, what can I pay you to teach me if they don't already have a program in place? Right? Like, can I pay for lunch?

What can I do to be able to, like, cut my way to the top? I think that's, like, one of the big keys to hustle. Yeah, I think, you know, the lesson I learned when I was young, I worked on the farm, worked, you know, long hours. And I remember at the end of every summer, I like had a few thousand dollars to show for. And once I had that, then that was gone, you know, soon after for things I didn't realize I had to pay for it. But, um, what I realized is like, I just couldn't make enough money. I couldn't work enough to make enough money. You were working hard. I was working hard. Yeah. I was working long hours is working hard. Um, I remember the first time someone told me that you could sell

pest control and make 50 grand in the summer. And I was like, I don't know what that is, but I'm doing it. And I, at that time I thought they were going selling like cans of bug spray door to door. And I was like, I don't care what it is. If you can make that kind of money, I'm down. And one of the things I love to advocate is just how sales is so powerful. You know, you're talking about like paying for education, which I a hundred percent wish I would have understood and known earlier on. But like, there's also companies that will train you for free to sell. They'll pay you to train. They'll pay you to train you. And the thing about that is like, there's also companies that will train you for free to sell. They'll pay you to train.

They'll pay you to train you. And the thing about that is like, there's so much value when you can understand the sales process, when you can understand, you know, why a person makes a decision to move forward on something, you can then apply that, which is what you did,

right? You took your knowledge, you understand, then you learned how to use Facebook and you applied your knowledge of sales in Facebook. And that's, what's been, you know been helping us with marketing. I just think there's so much out there in the world of sales, just being an entrepreneur.

The funny thing is I don't even remember hearing the word entrepreneur when I was a kid. Literally, I cannot think of like in high school. I don't think if I heard it, it made no sense to me what it was. Man, I now tell every kid i can i usually um i usually want kids to read a couple different books one of them's like rich dad poor dad the other one is like rhythm of life um and and like i want kids to start thinking like i wish i would have when i was younger because because age doesn't matter right even if you're older i think the biggest challenge is if if people are older they like I wish I would have when I was younger because age doesn't matter, right? Even if you're older. I think the biggest challenge is if people are older,

they feel kind of stuck in their ways. Or like behind the eight ball, it's impossible to change. Yeah. And I think that's probably a position that's really hard for people. But once again, there's like more tools than ever with, I mean, anyone can go drive a car. Dude, old Colonel Sanders didn't knock it out of the park until his late 60s, man. Yeah.

I think another good point that we could expand, that's a common theme from all the stories, like myself and your guys' stories with these side hustles and entrepreneur journeys, I think a lot of people feel really lonely. Like as an entrepreneur, you're trying to get something off the ground you like you feel like you have to do it all yourself but when i was like like hearing your guys's stories and sharing like the dj thing like i realized a common thing was i always brought my friends in on it because like i i selfishly knew that i didn't have the manpower to do what i

wanted to do and and what is more fun than building a business with the bros? Oh, baby, with the boys or the girls? Let's go. I was like, guys, we could be the coolest kids on campus, but I need your help. Like, let's go door to door and advertise these parties. And like, that is so motivating for myself because I knew that I didn't have to do it by myself. And I think a lot

of times on social media and like what people think of entrepreneurship, they think it's has to be this lonely road, but I don't think it does. And there's, there's a variety of ways that you can make it not lonely, right? Like you can, you can bring the boys along, do it. You can hire good coaches. You can be a part of different entrepreneur communities. There's a reason why events are just crushing in 2024 because so many people are lonely behind their computer. They want to get together with other people that are doing other fantastic things like Funnel Hacking Live, all those stuff. There's big reunions of a bunch of solopreneurs. And entrepreneurs, I'll be honest, i'm super prideful like it's hard

to ask for help sometimes and i was listening to a tick talk the other day and this uh i think she was a psychiatrist or therapist and she was alluding to the fact that ever since like the convenience of she used the word capitalism but essentially the ability to, a great example she used specifically was asking for favors from your friends or family. And she used Uber as the example that people are often scared to ask friends or family for rides to the airport because, oh, why would I ask for help? Because I could just buy an Uber and not inconvenience anybody. And that to your point is making people feel really lonely, like the super lonely, super by themselves. It's crazy because of the, you know, entrepreneurship stuff. And it's not a bad thing, but it's just something to be aware of. Yeah, for sure. So funny story growing up,

didn't have much. So I got used to asking the neighbors if I could go swim in their pool, if I could ride their motorcycle. I mean, I look back at the things I asked, I'm like, I didn't have any other options. I'm like, I'm going to sit here and do nothing or I'm going to ask someone to do something. So realize how much extra time you have, get over your fear, get out of your comfort zone, be willing willing to ask go identify ways that you can go and start that side hustle and most of all realize when you find something that works and decide to dig a thousand feet deep you would you will hit oil and any side hustle can be scaled to nine figures and beyond so let's's go. Thanks for joining us today. It was a fantastic one.

Until next time. Woo!