In this week?s episode, we?re catching up with the 6-figure houseplant blogger, Raffaele Di Lallo of OhioTropics.com.

You might remember Raffaele from a blog coaching episode we did last year with the help of Matt Giovanisci from Money Lab.

At that time, Raffaele was generating over 300,000 pageviews per month, which translated into around $10k in income, mostly from display ads and a little slice of affiliate commissions as well.

The biggest change since I last spoke to Raffaele is that he?s been able to leave his day job and now works on his blog full-time.

In this episode, we focus on that core of the business and what made that possible: creating SEO-friendly content and monetizing it on autopilot with ads.

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To find out what?s working today across a wide range of industries, I?ve crowdsourced some wisdom from Side Hustle Show listeners.

I asked listeners to share a marketing tactic that?s working well for them this year, and I got back a ton of great responses.

Here are 16 of the best marketing tips that were submitted, many of which you can apply to your business today.

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Today I?ve got an awesome story for you ? on the one hand, it?s about matching your interests and skills with a hungry market, but maybe more importantly it?s about documenting your work.

When you do those two things, like Craig Odem has, you start to see some fun results.

I found Craig through the Side Hustle Nation Facebook group; he?s a pastor in Tennessee but as a side hustle he sells plants out of his backyard.

Craig?s backyard nursery does around 10k in sales every year, which is awesome.

But where things get even more interesting is when you factor his Savvy Dirt Farmer YouTube channel.

Craig started his YouTube channel in early 2021. It?s already hit 1 million views and is starting to bring in some pretty significant revenue on its own via multiple revenue streams.

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Rene Delgado started an online drop shipping store with no ideas and no inventory and went from $0-300k in sales in his first year in business.

It was the search for an extra stream of income that led Rene Delgado to consider e-commerce; selling physical products online.

(GH = Greatest Hits)

Full show notes

This week?s episode is about self-publishing, which we?ve covered before. But this week?s guests have turned the success of their book into a full-time business that?s still growing in momentum.

In late 2020, Justin and Alexis Black self-published their first book Redefining Normal: How Two Foster Kids Beat The Odds and Discovered Healing, Happiness and Love.

Redefining Normal currently has over 200 reviews on Amazon and has sold more than 9,000 copies in the two years since it was published.

That?s an accomplishment in itself for a title that?s kind of categorized as a memoir, where typically unless you?re already famous, nobody?s buying your memoir.

In addition to book sales, Justin and Alexis are also doing workshops, keynote speeches, and other paid gigs related to the content of their book.

So, in this episode we?re going to dive into everything Justin and Alexis did to set the book up for success, and how you can borrow the same tactics for your own side hustle.

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Starting a pressure washing business may be a great seasonal side hustle opportunity.

These types of blue collar businesses tend to have low startup costs and you may already have the skills and equipment you need to get started.

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Megan Champion is a mom of 3, a 15-year elementary education teacher, and in the past year, she?s started a side hustle that has brought in $20,000.

Megan?s side hustle is in the parenting niche and has 3 main parts:

An Instagram account to drive awareness

A podcast called On The Hard Days to drive connection

And a paid membership to drive community ? and recurring revenue.

In this episode, you?ll learn how all three of those work and how they work together to build Megan?s business ? and how you may be able to apply some of the same strategies to your own business.

The exciting thing here is that the audience numbers that Megan shares aren?t huge, but they?ve still been enough to build a pretty substantial extra income stream and help a lot of people at the same time.

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When it comes to sharing your side hustle with your boss, is honesty always the best policy?

In this post, we?ll explore whether or not you should clue your boss in about your side hustle projects.

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This week?s guest started his side hustle with the goal of earning an extra $1,000 a month - fast forward four summers later and it?s now a 6-figure business.

Blademir Hernandez of LitterFreeLots.nyc is a long-time listener of the Side Hustle Show who was inspired by Brian Winch?s story in episode 266 to start his business.

Brian built a $650k a year operation picking up litter and cleaning parking lots, something Blademir told me he knew he could also do.

Blademir ended up reaching out to Brian and running the idea past him, before going out and finding property managers in this area to pitch his litter picking service to.

This story is a perfect example of what can happen when you take inspiration from a proven business model and execute your own game plan.

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The most popular side hustles aren't necessarily the best fit for you. In this episode I'm breaking down the pros and cons of 5 common side hustles ? and what you might consider doing instead.

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With her hours cut due to the pandemic and a new house to pay for, this week?s guest set out an action plan to make 6-figures in 2021.

To achieve that, Heather Johnson of HeatherXStudio.com decided to start an Etsy store selling print-on-demand goods like t-shirts, mugs, and other apparel and items.

Fast forward two years and Heather is now a former MRI tech who?s taken her print-on-demand side hustle full-time and is averaging $15k a month in revenue and $4-5k in monthly profit.

How?d she do it?

By following the trends with her own unique spin, putting 100s of products up for sale, and implementing some savvy marketing strategies you can apply in your own business.

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Matt makes $200+ a month sharing his writing on Medium.com. It's a hobby he genuinely enjoys doing anyway, so the revenue it brings in is a bonus!

Here's how to get started making money on Medium.

Links and resources:

We're halfway through the year, and 2022 is flying by!

In these quarterly Progress Reports, I break down how the business grew (or shrunk), what I worked on, and other happenings from the last three months.

I worked more hours the first half of 2022 than I did in 2021, and (not surprisingly) I feel like I'm getting more done as a result. I'm still struggling to come to terms with a to-do list that's never going to be done, but do feel like I'm making progress on building a business that serves me and serves others.

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?You have a skill, but you?re not using it correctly.?

That the tough love advice Vincent Pugliese?s father gave him.

Vincent was working what he thought was his dream job as a photojournalist. He?d just won the most prestigious award in his industry (International Sports Photographer of the Year), and he and his wife Elizabeth had a baby on the way.

Yet the newspaper job didn?t pay well. With the impending arrival of their son, Vincent took a hard look at his financial picture: he was in his mid-30s, 6-figures in debt, and earning $15 an hour.

Not great.

Something had to change, and something did.

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This week?s guest took a pain point she was experiencing - finding a nanny for her 3-month-old - and turned it into a multi 6-figure full-time business with 500 nannies across 5 states.

Kristy Bickmeyer started TwinkleToesNanny.com back in 2011 in response to not being able to find a nanny herself.

At least not without going through the ?traditional? agency model of paying $1,500-3,000 upfront and with few guarantees it will work out long-term.

Kristy decided to start her own agency without the upfront fees, and with a more streamlined approach and robust guarantees for parents - and it?s snowballed from there.

I love this strategy of taking a fragmented, localized industry and adding a layer of branding and professionalism to it.

This is what 1-800-Got-Junk did in junk removal, and is what Belay Solutions has done in the executive assistant space.

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Play matchmaker between pallet buyers and sellers to flip pallets for profit. Varnie started his pallet flipping business in 2020, and has already scaled it to $1000 a day (and beyond).

He credits another Side Hustle Show guest ? John Wilker from episode 274? and his Simplest Biz course with helping him get started.

To check out that episode here.

?Nothing puts a smile on a consumer's face quicker than a good peach.?

This week?s guest is Shannon Houchin of RoadsideRepublic.com, and she?s passionate about peaches, fresh produce, and delivering an awesome customer experience.

Shannon actually reached out to me and said, Nick, you?ve got episodes on flipping books and mattresses, clearance products, domain names, flea market finds, and a ton of other stuff - but have I got a side hustle for you: I flip peaches.

So, of course, I had to call her up to learn more.

Turns out Shannon has been doing this for 10 years and has scaled up to operating up to 100 roadside stands at once.

Whether you?re looking for a way to make extra money on the weekend, or to scale to something larger, Shannon has a compelling story for starting a roadside produce stand.

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Escaping the rat race is simple, but not always easy.

In this episode, I break down the 3 most common ways out of the rat race, and the pros and cons of each.

(This was originally recorded for YouTube, which explains the faster-than-normal pacing and some video sound effects.)

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What if I was to tell you that your voice has value both figuratively, and maybe even literally.

To prove this point, I?m joined on the show this week by a side hustling couple who have turned their voices into an income stream worth thousands of dollars a month.

Dom and Nicole Draper from TheVoiceoverCouple.com are multi-award winning voice over artists - they get paid to talk.

As professional voice over artists, they?ve done all kinds of interesting jobs and worked with some of the biggest brands in the world, including Nike, Netflix, and Adobe.

In this episode they share how they went from hustling on Fiverr outside of their 9-5, to working with voice over agents and agencies and turning this into a full-time business.

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Creating the right retirement plan for your business income can save you thousands of dollars in taxes. But between LLCs, IRAs, SEP IRAs, Solo 401(k)s, and more, it's a confusing acronym jungle out there.

To help cut through the clutter, Matt Ruttenberg stopped by and schools us on how to choose the right plan for you and the key differences between them.

Important Links:

This week?s guest, Scott Keller, left his high-paying but not super satisfying career in insurance to run a bird blog full-time.

Scott started BirdWatchingHQ.com as a side hustle back in 2016 and has since turned it into a full-time income with half a million monthly pageviews and more than 1 million monthly YouTube views.

But like all businesses, it?s been an evolution to get to that point.

Scott started out chasing high-ticket affiliate commissions but pivoted into creating one of the best bird watching resources online with multiple revenue streams.

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Do you love weddings? Professional wedding officiants can make $100s an hour and usually do it as a side hustle.

In this episode, you'll meet Maria Romano, who's officiated more than 4000 weddings in her career. She shares what you need to get started, how to get your first customers, and more.

Full show notes

Quizzes can help you:

We?ve been talking a bit about the power of quiz funnels over the last few months, and so I thought, why not call up the guy who?s famous for implementing these things and helping others do it as well?

Ryan Levesque is the bestselling author of Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Formula to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy...Create a Mass of Raving Fans...and Take Any Business to the Next Level, and CEO of The Ask Method Company.

Using the exact methods we?re talking about today he?s built a highly-profitable 8-figure/year business across 23 different niche markets, amassing an email list of over 4 million people along the way.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

Next Steps: Register for the upcoming live quiz funnel training (use code SIDEHUSTLE to make the $100 registration free!)

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If you had 2 years to earn $1 million, what would you do? In this episode Chad Carson from the Real Estate and Financial Independence Podcast breaks down his strategy.

(And I share mine at the end.)

Links and Resources:

From serious health issues and being $500,000 in debt to earning 7-figures a year in ad revenue.

That?s the short story of this week?s guest on the show, Brandon Gaille of  BrandonGaille.com.

Brandon has been around online business since the 90s, he?s made a ton of money, battled some really scary health issues, and today is one of the top bloggers in the world earning a collective 6 million visits a month across his three sites.

Brandon is also the founder of RankIQ.com, an AI-powered SEO tool that helps bloggers find keywords and outline their articles, and The Blogging Millionaire Podcast.

In this episode, Brandon goes into detail explaining how new bloggers can choose a niche to enter, how he finds low competition keywords, the best ways to monetize a blog, and much more.

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Find an expensive problem, and solve it. 

Jonathan Stark is a pro at finding these expensive problems, and walks us through idea generation and validation, pricing, and growth strategies.

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?If you?re bored walking up the hill, try running up it.?

That was what this week?s guest William Wadsworth of ExamStudyExpert.com told me when I asked him about how he got his side hustle off the ground.

Four years ago, William was working full-time in a corporate job, but he wanted to build his own dream, not someone else?s.

Finding it difficult to balance a full-time job and his side hustle, William left his job and took on some part-time tutoring so he could spend more time on his business.

Today, William earns thousands of dollars a month doing what he loves - writing, podcasting, and coaching people about memory psychology, learning science, and how to study smarter.

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Top podcasts make thousands of dollars an episode, but sponsorships are only one way to ring the cash register. In this episode, I'm breaking down the different ways you can monetize a podcast, including some that don't require any listeners at all.

Full show notes

There has never been a better time to build an online business around a topic you care about.

This week?s guests on The Side Hustle Show are proof of that.

Garret Kruger and Sabrina Ricci are the husband and wife team behind IKnowDino.com, which started as a side hustle and is now the world?s #1 dinosaur podcast.

Not bad for a couple of non-paleontologists.

It wasn?t an overnight success. In fact, it took 6 years for the two of them to feel comfortable going full-time in the business.

But they?ve had a blast along the way and they?re doing what they love doing most - interviewing paleontologists, talking about dinosaurs, and building a passionate dino-loving community.

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Staci and her husband are earning $3,000-$4,000 month reselling like-new furniture with risk-free inventory sourced from Sharetown. Sharetown is a ?reverse logistics? company that helps online, name brand furniture companies deal with customer returns.

As a Sharetown rep, you get notified of these return requests, pick up the items, clean and store them, and resell them on Facebook Marketplace or other outlets. Per Staci, you only have to pay Sharetown for your inventory once each item sells.

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This week it?s the 500th episode of The Side Hustle Show, which just seems crazy to me.

It feels like just yesterday I started this thing in a lot of ways. But it?s been 9 years ? I guess time flies when you?re having fun.

In honor of the 500 episode milestone, I wanted to reflect back on 10 big ideas and 10 common themes over the last 9 years.

It took longer than I care to admit to go back through the archives and pull out some of these forgotten soundbites, but I think you?ll like ?em.

Tune in to this episode of The Side Hustle Show to hear 10 of the big ideas I?ve gotten from speaking with hundreds of guests of the years, and how you can implement these ideas within your business today.

Full show notes

Devyn Ricks, a mom of 4, isn't a Twitch celebrity or a big time YouTuber, but she's still earning thousands of dollars a month playing video games part-time.

In this episode, she breaks down how she does it and how you can follow the same strategies to monetize your hobby!

SPONSOR:

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It?s time once again to dive into the ol? listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week?s edition of The Side Hustle Show.

I?ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since the last Q&A episode, and picked 18 to talk through in today?s show.

We're covering podcasting, affiliate marketing, passive income ideas, my proofreading side hustle, customer service issues, and more.

Click here to join Side Hustle Nation for free!

Full show notes

Anita Smith saw the writing on the wall when she was furloughed and ultimately laid off in 2020. The hospitality industry was among the hardest hit when travel ground to a halt.

So she decided to use the time to level up her skills and launch a new career, piggybacking on the popularity of the Salesforce software. In just a few months, she landed a new job making twice as much as her old salary!

In this episode she shares the steps she took to make it happen.

Sponsor:
Tailor Brands (use code SIDEHUSTLE for 40% off!)

Links:
Free 5-Day Salesforce Challenge
Anita on LinkedIn
Anita on YouTube
Bradley Rice on the Side Hustle Show ($200k/year working 20 hours a week)

?There is no plan B, I?m going to make this work.?

That?s the kind of determination that is often the difference between success and failure, and this week?s guest is a perfect example of that.

In this episode, you?ll meet Brien Gearin, a side hustler who battled through 11 months of not getting a single client.

However, during those 11 months, Brien was learning new skills and growing as an entrepreneur and has since grown his digital marketing agency into a 6-figure business.

Today, customers are happy to pay Brien and his agency RicochetDM.com $1500 a month and up to spearhead their online marketing efforts.

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The cocktail content business wasn't paying the bills, but a slight pivot changed everything.

Chris and Julia Tunstall from ABarAbove.com were disappointed with the quality of existing barware on the market. So they placed a big bet that they could do better?and sold out in 3 weeks.

This is a story about the power of being a part of your community and listening to what they really want.

From working 40-50 hours a week in an engineering job to working 5-10 hours a week in a ?lifestyle business?.

That?s the lifestyle and business shift Chris Lollini created for himself by white labeling someone else?s software tools.

White labeling is a super interesting business model.

It?s basically putting your brand, your sales and marketing, and your frontline customer support on top of an existing software product.

And it comes with a lot of the benefits of SaaS ? recurring revenue, good margins ? without the upfront development time and expense.

To make it work, you essentially play matchmaker ? finding a common problem and pairing that with a software solution.

Chris was a self-described ?recovering engineer? who started a marketing agency as a side hustle 9 years ago, which has evolved into a multi-6 figure white labeling operation called Reputation Igniter.

Through Ignite.Reviews, Chris Lollini helps small businesses earn more positive reviews for their work.

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Rob's side hustle was crushed by the pandemic, but he found a winning spinoff buried deep in his YouTube stats and Google Analytics. 

This one will definitely have you thinking about the simple long-tail search questions you can answer ? and monetize ? for your own audience.

Full show notes

There?s profit out there, you just have to learn how to find it.

On this week?s show, I?m joined by a pair of Side Hustle Show listeners who?ve been learning that skill and have translated it into tens of thousands of dollars in sales over the last 16 months.

Jack and Joan Ferrell of SecondTimeSellers.com are resellers. They find used items at flea markets, yard sales, online auctions, and flip those items for anywhere up to 10x what they paid for them.

Inspired to start reselling after listening to episode 406 with Stacy Gallego, they?ve hit the floor running and have set themselves the goal of turning over $250,000 in the next 12 months.

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Here are the projects I've been working on lately and how they're shaping up, my favorite business and lifestyle upgrades of the quarter, a few things that sucked, and what books made my reading list.

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From being a ?bored stay at home mom? to running a multi 6-figure business in just a few short years.

That?s the story for this week?s guest, Jayne Havens of TheSnoozeFest.com who decided to take a sleep certification course ?on a whim.?

This is a 2-for-1 episode where we?re going to learn about starting a service business from scratch ? in Jayne?s case that?s coaching parents how to help their babies and toddlers sleep through the night.

Jayne started earning thousands of dollars a month doing the coaching, before deciding to add the addition of an online course component teaching other people how to do what she did.

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?How I bootstrapped a 6-figure e-commerce brand in its first year with zero ad spend.?

That was the subject line that Side Hustle Show Connor Meakin sent me that grabbed my attention and earned him a spot on this week?s show.

The brand Connor is talking about is BluebirdProvisions.co, an organic bone broth, and bone broth powder company.

Connor started Bluebird Provisions after suffering a devastating foot injury that doctors said he would never fully recover from and be able to run again.

Searching for alternative, holistic ways to heal his foot, Connor decided to try drinking bone broth.

He accredits healing his foot injury, in part, to the healing properties in bone broth and decided to manufacture his own line of bone broth products.

Connor now sells his products through retail stores like Whole Foods, on Amazon, and through his own e-commerce site, and saw a 225% growth last year.

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Today we?re geeking out on the awareness problem ? how to spread the word about your business.

And how to do it in a way that aligns with your style and your budget.

To help me out with this is long-time Side Hustle Show listener, Larry Towner. He?s a real estate investor, a handyman, and co-host of the Handyman Pros Radio Show podcast.

Larry runs a local handyman service in the North Atlanta area and always has his work calendar booked up months in advance.

He uses a wide range of free and low-cost ways to get his business in front of the right customers, so there?s going to be more than enough ideas you can use for your own business.

Tune in to this episode of The Side Hustle Show to hear 16 free and low-cost marketing ideas, including:

Full show notes

"Changing the world with chess" and making $100,000 per year on the side.

That?s the story of today?s guest, Jeff DiOrio from EliteChess.net.

Jeff went from working in summer camp chess programs teaching kids how to play chess, to running his own summer camps and earning five times as much.

He then transitioned to an online recurring membership model, in part due to the pandemic, while also keeping the in-person coaching side of his business alive.

Jeff?s approach to growing his student numbers so rapidly?

Organic growth through giving to charities and delivering a value-driven service. All while doing something he loves -- teaching chess.

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How does risk-free profit sound?

That?s the promise and of the consignment business ? getting paid to sell other people?s stuff.

To help school me on how it all works I?ve invited Megan Church from PineappleConsignment.com onto this week?s show.

Megan experimented with her first popup consignment event in October 2018 with the goal of breaking even and to do something creative with her time.

Megan did a little better than break even with that first show, and more importantly, validated her business idea and had a lot of fun doing it.

She has since broadened her business into online sales, estate sales, and now has her own warehouse and storefront open to the public.

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What?s one thing people want?

They want to get great deals on great products, and for you as a side hustler, that spells a business opportunity to curate and spread the word about those deals.

This is exactly what Side Hustle Show listener Camron Stover from HuntingGearDeals.com is doing.

Camron stumbled into the business, starting with his hunting hobby and a passion for finding good deals.

He ended up acquiring the site from the original owner and has accelerated its revenue growth to $90k last year.

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Today?s guest, Matt Bochnak of HowToMotorcycleRepair.com, is one of my favorite examples of how you can dedicate part of your week to generating time-leveraged income.

This is Matt?s third time on The Side Hustle Show, and every time we speak he?s made huge leaps forward with his business.

Matt first appeared on the show back in 2016 when he was making around $1,000 a month recording himself performing motorcycle repairs in his garage and selling digital products.

When Matt appeared on the show for a second time in 2019 he was making $4,000-5,000 a month from a combination of digital product sales, YouTube ad income, affiliate commissions, Patreon, and sponsored content.

As you?ll discover in this episode, Matt is now making almost $20,000 a month in revenue. He?s completely shut down the service side of his business, expanded into physical products, and more.

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When the pandemic hit, Timmy Bauer from DinosaurHouse.com pivoted his business from being a traveling children?s book author to running a children?s book production company.

Timmy was enjoying working as a traveling children?s book author, but he was forced to change directions when schools started locking down and not allowing guests.

His story is the perfect example that you don?t always need to make a complete 180 if your business hits a wall.

Sometimes you just need to make a slight re-calibration, a couple degrees one direction or the other that can set you off on a new path.

This new path has taken Timmy from ?just over the poverty line? to running a 6-figure business in the last 12 months.

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From a $10,000 a month ?blog? to a 7-figure ?Media Company? ? a lot can happen in six years.

Today?s guest is one of my most important real and virtual online business mentors ? I?m always trying to pay attention and keep an eye on what Robert Farrington from TheCollegeInvestor.com is up to.

Fun fact: Robert was one of the very first guests on The Side Hustle Show back in 2013.

Our last update was 6 years ago, in early 2016. Back then, The College Investor was earning $10k a month and Robert was still working full-time at Target.

There have been lots of life changes since then, plus some exponential growth on the business side.

Today, The College Investor is one of the biggest personal finance media brands in the world.

With over 1 million visits a month, covering student loans, taxes and tax software, investing, insurance, budgeting ? if it?s related to money, you?ll find it at The College Investor.

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There are a million and one ways to make money online, but they almost always come down to helping other people.

Today?s guest, Kat Norton aka Miss.Excel, has been doing plenty of that. She?s reaching hundreds of thousands of followers as a spreadsheet influencer ? you didn?t know there was such a thing, did you?

Kat started on TikTok in June 2020 and already has over 734k followers, she later branched out onto Instagram and has already built a following of more than 573k followers there, too.

She hit 6-figures in sales within 6 months and has since scaled to consistent 6-figure months and even the occasional 6-figure DAY - which is absolutely nuts.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

Full show notes