Starting a side hustle? Steps, from no idea to a successful business

With a side hustle, you combine a job as an employee (and a corresponding fixed salary) with your own company, where you are completely in control. If you do it right, you will earn nice pocket money (or more) with something you like and build it all by yourself.

We share the steps you need to take to start a successful side hustle.

Side hustle step-by-step plan

Don’t worry if the idea of a side hustle tickles you, but you have no idea what it is yet. Steps 1 and 2 will help you on your way.

Discover your talents

Sit down and grab a pen and paper. We are going to list all your unique traits, skills, and talents. What topics are you interested in? What kind of tasks, activities, outings, assignments, etc., are you always looking forward to? What do friends and family compliment you on? What do colleagues ask you for help for? What are your motivations?

Allow at least thirty minutes for this step. And remember: you don’t have to think about how you can make money with this skill or passion. Thoughts like ‘but that’s no good’ or ‘that takes too much time because you to hinder yourself. The strength of a good side hustle lies in the fact that you enjoy doing it. In this way, a side hustle does not cost energy, but it gives you energy. You will see that the money will follow automatically.

Start brainstorming what to offer

Only at this step do you start thinking about earning money with these skills and talents. Here, too, it is not the intention that you will select, so nothing is too crazy yet. Do you find it difficult to come up with products and services? Google is your best friend. Also, browse websites to see what side hustles might suit you.

Understand the need you want to fulfill or the problem you want to solve

Now it’s time to select an idea and side hustle. The question you have to ask is: what idea are people waiting for? It is important to ask yourself with every idea which need you are fulfilling or which problem you are solving for the customer. You will see that this also helps you immensely when writing sales texts for your product or service.

Determine your ideal customer

Too many entrepreneurs start without having their ideal customer on paper. But determining this early will help you immensely with perfecting your product and service.

Moreover, this is a good basis for your company: you can now adjust everything accordingly, from which social media channels you use to choose images on your website.

Be as specific as possible! Create a profile of your ideal customer. Is it a he or a she? What age is she? What hobbies? Where does she live? Make this ideal customer as ‘alive’ as possible.

Tell people about your side hustle idea

This is a bigger step than you might think at first. But once you get to this step, you’ll see how tricky it can be. Many people feel insecure: what will others think of your idea? And what if it ends up being nothing? But only when you start telling people about your idea you can find out what they think.

Ask people to test your product or service product

Make sure these are people who will be completely honest and not people who would rather spare your feelings. Only then will you eventually arrive at the best end product.

Launch your side hustle before you’re ready

Because: you will never really be ready for it. There is always room for improvement on your website, for example. And shouldn’t you have arranged so and so first? You get the point. Stop procrastinating and launch your side hustle!

Keep a Positive Mindset

You’d almost forget it with all the success stories these days, but your side hustle might not be a huge success right away. Running a business (whether part-time or not) involves trial and error – and learning a lot from it.

The good thing is that you also have an income from your job as an employee. So it’s not so bad if everything doesn’t go so smoothly. Try to enjoy the process. You just set up your own business!

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