How should you choose an awesome side hustle amongst a sea of dodgy ideas? I’m willing to stand up on public record and declare my love for awesome side hustles, but not all side hustles are created equal. Here’s what you should look for in a an ideal side hustle.

Integrity check: rules are made to be broken!

Just because some random on the internet – like me! – says that there’s a way to “choose an awesome side hustle”, doesn’t mean it’s the only way. If you like doing something for the hell of it and it happens to bring in a little cash, that’s just fine. Not everything is about economics!

Anyway: back on track. Here’s what to look for when you decide to choose an awesome side hustle!

Factor 1: Enjoyment

You probably already work for money. If work was that fun, they wouldn’t need to pay you to do it. The last thing you need after a hard day’s wage slavery is to add more chores!

Side hustles eat into your “free” time. If you’re going to do one, there has to be an element of enjoyment to them.

I’ve enjoyed all of my side hustles in different ways. When I start to get tired of one, I try something else. When COVID-19 hit and delivering for Uber got difficult, I put it on the backburner and did more writing. Life’s too short to get thrashed on tedious tasks!

Plus, if you enjoy it, the side hustle becomes a hobby: not a second job. It’s a lot easier to give your evenings over to a hobby than to Work, Part II.

Happy man and woman on their photography side hustle
You need to be as happy as these guys. That’s the standard to achieve!

Factor 2: variety

I would always choose an awesome side hustle that’s different to my day job over one that’s fairly similar.

Nothing against my day job, but… it’s my day job! If I don’t want to burn out from doing all these things, I need variety. You probably will, too.

The exception to the rule is when you’re nervous about going self-employed in your current industry. In that case, starting as a side hustle and building up is probably a smart move.

Geoffrey learns that years of being an investment banker aren't going to help him to start up as a mechanic after all. Still, good variety from his day job, important for a side hustle.
Geoff learns that years of being an investment banker aren’t going to help him start up as a mechanic after all

Factor 3: Scalability

The best ideas are scalable. Sure, you might start off by earning the massive some of £3 an hour once you factor in all the effort you’ve put in, but if an idea is easily scalable then in a few years that hourly rate should shoot right up.

Below is an embedded YouTube video from professional speaker Douglas Kruger. He’s using it to plug his own brand (public speaking about entrepreneurship) but his main point still applies to picking out an awesome side hustle from a selection of ideas. Plus, his voice… it’s almost hypnotic. Enjoy!

Smooth. Terrible clothing choice Douglas, but you raise a persuasive argument!

Factor 4: New skills

I love to learn new stuff. I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to learn something new if they could. Being taught sometimes sucks, but learning a little more every day is awesome!

Learning new skills is definitely a factor for picking out an awesome side hustle.

My next post will talk about my experience of side hustles so far. I’ve had at least 3; maybe more if you count some of the smaller stuff. All of them were different but the ones I still do are the ones that teach me new stuff. Blogging hasn’t made me a penny to this day (not for want of trying, mind you!), but now I know about basic html coding and SEO. When I wrote short stories, I learned how to change my tone for my target audience. When I got into silver trading… well, you get the picture.

Napoleon Hill captured this in his 1937 book Think and Grow Rich! I have read this book, and although I’m going to leave a shameless affiliate link to it below, I didn’t rate it much. It’s a little out-of-date, and definitely read like an early stab at the self-help industry. Still, the idea that you should set out to learn stuff that helps you make money (for FIRE, obviously) seems like a good one. If you’re interested, see below for a link to it on Amazon. If you buy something after clicking on it, I get some of Jeff B’s pennies from his retirement fund.

Factor 5: Energy drain

I’ve said it a few times so far, but it’s true: a side hustle isn’t your main job. Therefore, the less effort a side hustle takes (or at least, the less of a chore it is to do) the more awesome it probably is.

I mean, if you were happy to just grizz it out for more money, you’d probably be better off just dragging yourself into a well-paid career field instead. Side hustles ought to be a bit of fun. If it hurts too much, it just isn’t worth it.

This is a bit different from enjoying your side hustle. If it’s fun but it takes you 30 hours extra that week, it’s less awesome than something that’s only OK but you can smash out in 45 minutes.

Sure, nice checklist. Show us how that works in picking an awesome side hustle!

My next post is going to use these 5 factors to assess my own side hustles so that you can have some ideas for your own side hustles, if you choose to have some.

I could write a crappy “top 5 side hustles for 2021” post, but: a) it’s been done, b) most of the people who write these things haven’t actually tried them, and c) they tend to have a generic list, involving blogging and YouTube.

Recap: the 5 factors for choosing an awesome side hustle

  1. Enjoyment
  2. Variety
  3. Scalability
  4. New skills
  5. Energy drain
A woman looking at an idea cloud