From Side Hustle to 5 Figures: Tips From a Real Pro
Written by
Laura Bogart
Edited by
Molly Sullivan
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Anyone who’s ever mastered a craft or honed a specific skill outside of their 9 to 5 wonders whether they could start a successful side hustle. The kind of side hustle that becomes a real business — one that could, in time, replace your traditional job. But passion and creativity alone will only get you so far. You need other skills to help your side hustle generate the income that can make it a main gig.
Just ask Rachel Jimenez, who quit an unfulfilling day job as a higher education administrator to boost her Etsy store, where she sells digital products like business templates and party games. Today, Jimenez is so successful that she brings in a five-figure income every month.
Not only that, she’s also become a sought-after expert on how everyday people can boost their own side hustles. She’s shared her insights across multiple outlets, and GOBankingRates compiled some of her best advice.
Don’t Expect Overnight Success
When Jimenez started her business, she was balancing her full-time job with going to school part time for her master’s degree in positive organizational psychology — while also parenting young children. It’s a lot to take on, which meant that her attention was often divided.
It took her Etsy shop about nine months to start catching fire. While she was trying to nurture that spark, she had to learn patience and set realistic expectations that would ultimately keep her in the game — instead of flaming out early.
“Success doesn’t happen in a single viral post or overnight launch,” she told CNBC. “It comes from showing up, adjusting and staying in the game long enough to see your knowledge and efforts compound.”
Learn More About What Works
But patience doesn’t equal complacency. Far from it. Initially, Jimenez made a lot of different products reflecting her own passions and interests. But when social media and other forms of promotional blitz failed to deliver the sales she hoped for, she decided to peek under the hood of her operation to learn more about what worked — and what didn’t.
When Jimenez dug into her customer statistics, she found that a series of budgeting templates she’d created sold consistently, even if the revenue they generated was still relatively small. In an article with CNBC, she recalled the words of management expert Peter Drucker, who said, “efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.”
Those words helped her realize that, with her limited time, she couldn’t spend time working on products that wouldn’t get results.
“I decided to stop everything that wasn’t generating revenue (like trying and failing to go viral on Instagram) and focused solely on doing what I empirically knew would make the Etsy store better,” she said.
Make Data-Based Decisions
Jimenez absolutely loves budget planners, so she made them for her shop. Unfortunately, a lot of other vendors had the same idea, which meant there was heavy competition that overmatched the demand. It pained her, but she had to focus on items that had high demand and little competition from other makers on the market.
“Over time, I learned the importance of following trends and finding product ideas with low competition and high demand,” she said.
She looked to tools like Pinterest trends, Google trends and eRank to learn what potential customers were searching for. Ultimately, she found that some of the most valuable low-competition, high-demand products have a niche market, focusing on specific interests or professions.
“For example, digital planners get a lot of search but have a lot of competition, whereas ADHD planners get a good amount of search volume with much less competition,” she said. “Once I understood this, my results and revenue began to steadily improve.”
Find the Right Resources
One of Jimenez’s earliest mistakes was thinking she had to do everything herself, scouring YouTube videos galore, studying up based on what she found via Instagram and raiding her local library. But this DIY approach to learning ended up burning her out.
“Looking back and knowing myself more, I think ‘learning the hard way’ took too long,” she said. “I would try to learn, struggle alone, not see any progress, then lose motivation. I didn’t want to keep learning because I wasn’t seeing any results.”
Finally, when she invested a small amount of money into a course on how to sell on Etsy, things began to click. She didn’t have to spend a lot, but finding resources that distilled the information she needed most enabled her to succeed.
“When I invested a small amount of money into a course and a community of people working on the same thing, I was able to learn, struggle, get help and achieve small wins,” she said. “My motivation would go up, and I would want to repeat the cycle.”
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