How To Start A Creative Side Hustle: The Beginners Guide
What is a Creator?
Creators are people who, well, create things! When we think of Creator’s here are Creator Side Hustle, we are thinking of people who are writing, making YouTube or Tik Tok videos, crafting courses or educational material, recording podcasts, making digital products for sale on Etsy and so much more…
The recent rise of the ‘Creator Economy’ has really accelerated the number of people who are interested in getting involved and our mission is to help you achieve exactly that.
Is is MUCH easier than ever for people to be Creators and the opportunities are vast. Whatever your interest or skill level we are pretty sure that you can be creating something that people are interested in.
At Creator Side Hustle we want to help you on your journey..so here are a few steps you can go through to getting started. Also remember to sign up for our newsletter where we will mail you a weekly with our best thoughts, tips, ideas and more. It’s an invaluable resource for you.
We’ve put together an overview of steps and tips to become a Content Creator.
1. Picking your Niche or Area
First off, what exactly is a niche? It’s an area, that you as a creator can specialize in or maybe you have some unique experience in. It can be anything from vegan cooking to raising kids, how to DIY hammocks and much much more!
This is often an area that beginners in the creator space struggle with and can often leave them paralyzed. My advice here is pick something you are interested in, it doesn’t have to be your passion but it will be soul destroying if you are spending time on a topic that bores you. Your niche also needs to have some kind of ability to make money. If you are interested in coaching goat herders on the eastern slopes of Mount Washington, it is unlikely there is enough revenue in that particular niche!
Google your topic, see if people are monetizing it. How many of them are there? There are entire courses devoted to finding the right niche – the key here is to gain some forward momentum, you will be amazed at what you learn and the path it leads you on!
Whilst it is important to pick a good niche, it is also important not to end up in analysis paralysis.
Here are some tangible steps you should take that will get you thinking
- Identify your interests. Jot down as many things you are interested in, you don’t have to be an expert but things you either know about or are curious about
- Assess your skills. Now for each one of the items in step #1 look at what you know and what experience you have around these areas. Also note if you have connections to experts or other people who have knowledge in the space
- Now jump onto Google and start looking for information about your niche. For example if it’s vegan cooking maybe Google “How to get started in vegan cooking” – see what sort of sites come up. What are people selling (if anything)
2. Planning your Side Hustle
This next step takes a bit of work and you’ll also likely learn a lot along the way
So now you have picked a niche and you want to start planning how to execute and deliver your content. There are a few key questions you need to answer
Content type: What ‘type’ of content will you make? For example you might want to start a blog or publish written content on a platform such as Medium. Alternatively you might prefer to podcast or be the sort of person who wants to create digital products like courses or Notion templates.
Monetization: How will you make money? Are you selling a digital product? Running ad’s on your site? Selling Podcast sponsership or maybe listing something on Etsy?
Next build out a plan for the first one or two ‘things’ you intend to create. Start at a very high level. And then build out from there. I advise looking at other content that is similar to what you are aiming for. I’m not saying steal it! But use it for inspiration. Are there components that you find compelling and can either improve on or take a different slant on?
As you keep iterating you will start to build out a plan for the content – this will become your ‘loose’ blueprint. remember the first couple of things you create are unlikely to be perfect but I can pretty much guarantee you will learn something…
3. Creating your Product
When it comes to actually creating your product there are a few choices. You can certainly go ahead and craft it yourself or, alternatively, you can find someone else to do it (at a cost) or some hybrid in the middle.
For example, one of my side hustles is publishing books on Amazon’s KDP platform. I love it, once you’ve created the product Amazon do all the work. I have some Public Domain products on their that I pretty much put together myself. I also have some other products that I 100% relied on a third party to create for me (as I didn’t have the time or skills to put them together). Neither is right or wrong, thet are just different ways to go about it.
Some places you can find people to create content for you are dedicated platforms like Upwork & Fiverr. You can also find people on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook etc. If you ask on an appropriate forum “Is anybody interested in helping me create xxxx” you will find people pop out of the woodwork!!!
Sidenote: If you are interested in Fiverr and want a 10% discount use this link but please be aware I will get a small referral fee.
You might need to invest in some tools e.g. a microphone for Podcasting, but I’d suggest keeping those costs as small as possible in the beginning as you gain experience. The good news is many content types only need your time and creativity!
The key here is to START creating. Your first few attempts are likely not to be that great – that’s completely normal and natural. You are learning and gaining experience. If you really want to see this in action go and find one of your favorite podcasts and listen to episode #1 and then episode #100 – I guarantee you will see a massive difference in quality!
4. Selling your Product
Selling your product is often where creators come to a halt. This is often the hardest part of the whole process but if you approach it methodically it can work for you.
The basic rule I like to follow is sell your product where your buyers are. I know this sounds obvious but if you think about it for a minute it can make sense. For example where do buyers go to look for one-of-a-kind craft items? I am sure Etsy was the answer that jumped to mind. I would recommend taking the time to do some ‘googling’ and find where your buyers are, enter their communities and see what they are saying (by the way, this typically also provides a TON of market info).
To get you going here is a list of places to sell your product, bear in mind some of these will just drive traffic to a final destination (e.g. Gumroad, Etsy etc):
- Amazon (several ways to sell eg KDP, your own physical product, FBA etc)
- Etsy
- Walmart (who knew!)
- Gumroad (digital products)
- Creative Market (digital products)
- Ebay
- Fiverr (typically productized service)
- Upwork (typically productized service)
- TikTok
- …and many more.
5. Growing your Side Hustle
Once you have built your first product and got it launched then comes the hard work of growing it.
Your first product will often teach you an amazing amount as you go through the creation process. This may lead you to new ideas, tweaks to existing ideas or new directions. The process of creation is just so valuable – you learn so much. This knowledge 0will help you grow your side hustle.
There are a few things I recommend once people have got their first product launched.
Find a community of like minded creators. There are literally thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of communities on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter (sorry X) and many more. Find a group that is doing similar things to you, ideally one or two steps ahead of you, and you can learn. Armed with the knowledge of your first product you will likely ask different questions (and more targeted) than you would when you first started this journey.
Secondly, think about how you want to expand. More products? More sales of the existing products? Both 🙂 Based on what you have learnt you will start to get an idea of how your market works and the dynamics inside it. Use this information to your advantage
The law of compounding will start to take effect here. Keep pushing forward. I know it sounds like a cliche but every blog was started with just one single word. Every product empire with one (likely not so good) product. Keep pushing forward
6. Summary
The key is to START. Action is one of the most important skills anybody can have. I have met people who have been reading blogs, listening to podcasts, buying courses etc for YEARS but have never actually created a single thing. So go to Step #1 and start your journey. There is no failure only learning along the way (trust me I did a LOT of learning 🙂 )
And please reach out to me here – I’d love to hear from you and help you in any way I can.
Good luck on your journey!