So you think your job is a waste of your life, and want to quit. But how do you find a side hustle that’ll replace your income and be a right fit for you?

After all, if you escape your W-2 to end up with a business you hate doing every day, you might as well have just kept your job.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to finding a hustle that can both make you money and happy; I can only tell you what’s worked for me (and how you can speed up the process so you won’t have to suffer as much as I did before I found something).

First, Don’t Listen To Anyone But Yourself

There’s hundreds of business gurus and ideas out there. And each guru has a course that they want you to “stick to” for 5 years. It is fairly apparent that you can’t take all the courses from all the gurus, and then also execute on everything their courses tell you to do. Your lifespan simply isn’t long enough to do everything.

In fact, you want to eliminate pretty much what all business “gurus” teach you as far as tactics go. The reason for this is because no tactics can help solve the particular situation you’re in, and the skillset that only you have. And for gurus that charge you money, the only side hustle they want you to find is theirs.

A great piece of advice for the guru could be terrible advice for you. For example, a guru might in their 2015 YouTube video that dropshipping is a great idea. You see it in 2021, and think it’s still a great idea but it turns out to just lose you money instead.

So timing of the advice is one huge factor. Another huge factor is that the guru doesn’t know you personally, so any blanket financial advice should be a huge red flag.

You “should” cold call and flip homes? Really? But what if you don’t know anything about homes and your personal risk tolerance is very little?

You “should” put in “sweat equity” and build a product from scratch? Really? But what if you have loads of money that you just want to convert into an 8% cash flow stream?

You “should” do social media marketing and have restaurants pay you $1000/mo so you can earn a six-figure income with 10 clients? Really? What if you already make 250K/yr and hate clients, and you just want to turn your $600K net worth into 50 million?

If there’s one thing you get from this post, it should be this: you are you.

This is not some feel good platitude of “you do you, buddy ole’ pal!” This is concrete, practical advice. You are you. You have your own experiences, fears, and expertise.

You are probably better at solving some class of problems than most people. And you are probably much worse than most people at solving most other classes of problems. You might have loads of money, but not much time. Or you might have loads of time, but not much money. And lastly and most importantly: you have your own preferences of what you’d enjoy doing and what you’d hate doing.

With hundreds (if not thousands) of different ways to make a ton of money, you should never feel constrained to do the one thing to make money, just because “other people are doing it and are successful with it.” That’s a surefire way to be miserable and fail – not just in finances, but in life in general. Your circumstances are unique. Your skills are unique. And what makes you happy is unique.

That said, I’m not telling you to just “follow your dreams” without any plans. You still need a well thought-out and viable way to make money, but it also has to be something you enjoy.

In sum: in order to find a side hustle that works for you, you’ll need to consider all variables unique to your situation to be able to find the right fit.

My Own Example

I know people who have struck it rich flipping real estate, and initially wanted to try it out. But then later realized it wasn’t for me.

The main obstacle for me is simply: I just don’t like doing it. I don’t like doing cold calls. I don’t like talking to cocky real estate agents. I don’t like the whole rehabbing a home process, nor choosing finishes nor thinking about flipping a home. I just hate the whole process because I find it super boring.

Another main obstacle for me in real estate is the ridiculous amount of risk you need to take. People who have struck it rich in real estate may have “caught a wave” and did 20 deals with $300K net profit on each deal. But I also know people who did bad deals and lost $200K per deal. Seems fairly unsustainable to me if you’re going to win big on some and lose big on some. It also seems like even the seasoned veterans consistently overrun their construction costs, meaning no matter how long you’re in the game you have some deals that lose a ton of money.

In the end, it wasn’t for me because it just felt like really high effort gambling, and I already have a metamask + uniswap account, as well as an L2 options account on my E-Trade.

Likewise, some people enjoy day-trading and I do too, but I’m not good at it. I lose money every time I day-trade so I stopped.

Conversely, I enjoy e-commerce because the scalability and the risk profile works for me, but it may not work for you because maybe you don’t want to put in the time to build an e-commerce business. Maybe e-commerce isn’t for you because the risk (and therefore reward) isn’t big enough for you.

In sum, there’s no one “blanket” business or hustle that everyone should do. And for any given business, there’s not “one way” of doing it. You are you.

That said though, don’t take what I’m saying way too far and try and become an interpretive dance artist. You need to do something with good product-market fit and still do best practices in business. You still need to manage people well, be resourceful, make logical decisions, do accounting, and a million other things the “proper way.” But just don’t do a Facebook Ads tactic or Pinterest, or pursue one particular business model because it’s the new trend or you saw it on Youtube.

OK, I Won’t Listen To Others, I Promise. But How Do I Find A Side Hustle That’ll Work For Me?

You have to test a lot of things in a short amount of time in order to find your side hustle.

I ran into this problem around 3 years ago and here’s what I did: I wrote down all the list of business models I wanted to try out, and committed to ‘sprinting’ and ‘tasting’ each of those for one month. At the end of each month, I’d assess the results to see if there’s any financial traction. I’d also assess how much I hated or liked it, so I can make a decision to see if I could possibly do this particular business for the next 3 decades. If the answer isn’t “yes, there’s traction” and“hell yes, I love doing this and can do this forever,” then I never pursue that business again.

At the end of the month, you need some form of measurable results because if you have nothing to show for your project after a month, that might be a skill or talent problem. Generally speaking, you probably want to do things you’re good at because you’ll hit results faster and it’ll be more fun. And more importantly, at the end of the month, you have to like what you’re doing to continue; otherwise, you’re setting yourself up to fail in the form of having a very miserable life (even if the business ends up making you loads of cash).

For me, I’ve tested stuff that I enjoyed but didn’t make money. And I’ve tested stuff that made money but didn’t enjoy. In the end, I found ecom where it has both elements of fun (in the form of creativity, which I enjoy) and financial traction (this can make money and can scale to the moon). As a result, I stuck with e-commerce as it made the most sense to me.

So if you’re struggling to find a side hustle, here’s what I encourage you to do: test a new business idea every month. The only real way to understand yourself and your preferences is to do stuff.

At the end of 6 months, you could have tested out 6 very different ideas. And if you like one of them the best, you’ll have found the hustle you like and I highly encourage you to stick with it.

If you need 12 months / 12 ideas to find what you love, go for it.

Trying Different Things To Find Your Side Hustle Is Not The Same Shiny Object Syndrome

I’m not telling you to have “shiny object syndrome” and use “finding something you like doing” as an excuse to be non-committal.

I’m merely giving you a rapid testing framework so you can quickly find what you want to do for the next 3 decades.

All businesses are extremely difficult and require prolonged efforts of concentration and dedication. But just like with dating, it’s OK to have a lot of short-term relationships with businesses to see what you like and what you don’t like. After you’ve dated and tasted (ew) enough businesses, you should have a pretty good sample size to know exactly what you want to do.

Once you’ve dated enough businesses and found “the one,” it’s time to commit and give it your all. After all, without prolonged commitment, it’s very difficult to turn a small business idea into something that’ll replace your W-2 income.

Other words, you do want to have “shiny object syndrome” in the short-term so you can find the thing you like. But once you commit to an idea, stick with it so you can have a nonzero chance of success.

But if you stay in “shiny object syndrome” forever, you’ll be stuck at your job forever.

P.S.: This is a new blog and if you’ve found this helpful at all, it would mean the world to me if you were to share this post to someone that you think this post might benefit. It would also be immensely helpful to me if you could give me any feedback on the content at hello@goodmoneygoodlife.com