How to Be Successful with a Web Design Side Hustle

Chris Misterek
Hello and welcome to the Self-Made Web Designer Podcast. episode number seven. And wow, so much has changed from Episode Six to where we are today. The world has gone crazy and for good reason, there's a virus going around that has caused a pandemic. Many of you, if you're like me, you're finding yourself working from home full time and your kids have been called out of school for pretty much the rest of the year. And so it's a crazy time we're living in. It's a crazy world and when I initially recorded this podcast, none of that was happening. But thankfully, the guest I have on today is perfect for the season that we are in.

His name is Nick Loper and he is the leader, the founder of Side Hustle Nation. He's got an amazing podcast called The Side Hustle podcast, he's got a blog, he has a course, he has a ton of resources for everyone out there trying to figure out what to do right now, when they find themselves either without work or work hours decreased, or in a situation where you're saying, you know what, this is enough motivation for me to figure out something new in this next season of my life. I know he's gonna have a lot of great insight for you to start a side hustle, whether it's a web design side hustle, a development side hustle, a product design side hustle, or anything, all of the above. Nick has the experience and he's talked with a lot of people who have been successfully doing the same thing. I can't wait for you to hear what kind of insight he has. Without further ado, here is Nick Loper of the Side Hustle Nation. Well Nick, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us today. It's such an honor to talk to you.

Nick Loper
Well, I'm honored to be here. Thanks for the invite, Chris. Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Misterek
I'm wondering if you could just share a little bit about yourself, about what you do with Side Hustle Nation and how that all got started and where you are today.

Nick Loper
You bet here is hopefully the 60-second rundown. I am a husband and father- got two kids, two boys, they're four and almost two. I spend a lot of time chasing those guys around. A ton of fun at this age, and a lot of drama as well but it comes with the territory. Business-wise, I host the Side Hustle Show, and run sidehustlenation.com, which is 100% focused on creative ways to make extra money outside of your day job, how to start a business in your spare time, and go from there. The show is 300 something episodes deep. And it's just been an absolute blast over the last six or seven years to dive into this market.

Chris Misterek
So tell me a little bit about where the idea of the podcast got started. You probably have some background in doing your side hustle. So what did that look like for you?

Nick Loper
You're right, it was a side project for the business that I was running at the time. That was the original side hustle that was the vehicle to let me quit my job. So that was a comparison shopping site for footwear. Like, we'll pull in the catalogs from Zappos, and Amazon, all these stores, spit back out. And we had all these cool like product-level coupon integrations and shipping calculators and stuff. Hey, here's where you get the best price and the next pair of shoes will collect the commission on every sale that comes through the site. The super fun business ran for a long time on the side from that started a bunch of other projects, most of which died some quiet death in a corner of the internet. A couple of them stuck around: one of those being the blog and podcast. And that was yeah, totally just part-time experiment, $50 mic, let's see if this works. And I found it was something that I enjoyed doing. And so I had just enough traction, in those early days, early years honestly, to keep doing it.

Chris Misterek
I feel like a lot of where the workforce is going, and you see this trend in more and more reports coming out, that people aren't depending on their full-time career for the complete source of their income. And his side hustling is becoming not just a fun thing to do, but it's in some ways becoming an important part of a lot of people's lives. And I'm sure you've probably seen that with people that you've interviewed and people that you've interacted with from Side Hustle Nation.

Nick Loper
Yeah, for better or worse, right. Like, it's a weird time because this by all measures, you know, taking aside the blip in the market this past week, but like, decade long bull market record low unemployment, like by all accounts the economy is good. Yet, why do half of all millennials have a side hustle? Like why are their 44 million people like doing this stuff on the side? And part of it, is that a necessity, right? Housing costs, education costs, health care costs, like all have increased exponentially over the last 30 years, while real-time or real wages have not nearly kept pace. So that's part of it. And the other part is just out of the desire like we kind of see through the lens of social media, like what other people are doing, we see what's possible. And we're like, well, I should be doing that. Like there's almost this these dual poles like a part necessity, and then part like, proactive, like, well, if they can do it, I could do it. And this is something that I want to spend my free time on more productively and get my piece of the pie too.

Chris Misterek
You said something early on about how you found that you learned that you enjoyed podcasting. And so that was where some of the traction came from for side hustle, the side hustle podcast. And I think that's an important thing to understand because I think a lot of people, when they start their side hustle, they think, 'Oh man, this is gonna go viral like it's gonna have tons of traction.' And then that doesn't happen within the first month or so and so they get discouraged, and they quit. So what would you say is something you'd encourage people who are considering getting started with a web design side hustle and maybe not getting as much traction as they'd like?

Nick Loper
And that's an interesting question. It's like, you're kind of like in this client, hunting mode, where you can go out and be proactive and encourage you to be proactive in like trying to interact with your target customers, and like, you know, pitch your services. So that's like, the push marketing side of it. But then there's also the pull marketing side of it. It's like, what if you create content for that target audience that made you irresistible and like they almost had to say like, what does this guy do or like, how do I work with this guy? So, a couple of different ways to go about it. And it honestly can work both ways. And maybe then the third way is kind of the marketplace model of, you know, selling your services on freelance marketplaces. Again, for better or worse, where people are already looking like, the reason they're there is that they don't have a go-to guy or girl, like, if they had that person, they wouldn't be there. Like it's an opportunity to open the door to that relationship, to access somebody else's network. Maybe you're not getting the rates that you want to, especially at first if you don't have the whole portfolio and stuff set up. But there's, there's a lot of benefits to doing it that way too.

Chris Misterek
So you've interviewed hundreds of side hustlers. And I'd wonder from your perspective, what are some things that you have found that that sets people apart who have been successful at starting and maintaining a side hustle?

Nick Loper
We'll get to the maintaining part. I think it a little bit but the starting part. One thing that stands out is a willingness to experiment or a willingness to try something out not knowing the result. Whereas I'm a little bit guilty of this, too. And I think I'm more conservative as I've aged. But you don't know. And you have to be okay with not knowing, and kind of sticking your neck out there. In a way, it's probably I probably should have started the show, years before I did. But it was like, you know, what are my friends gonna think like, Who is this guy? He's not that successful, like, Who is he to talk about this stuff, like all these kinds of head games that we play with ourselves. The folks who have gotten off the sidelines have gotten past that and they say, look, I put this out there. If it works, it doesn't. Either way, I'm going to learn something and go back to the drawing board. That's one thing that stands out. Try to think about what else may be a determining factor. I mean, the other one that kind of comes up over and over again, is recognizing that the first idea or the first project or the first video. This idea that you have isn't probably where you're gonna end up five years from now, maybe not even six months from now. But it's kind of permitting yourself to get started recognizing that opportunities tend to come up once you're in motion. It's like Newton's entrepreneurial physics, like an object in motion stays in motion. And I've seen it be true over and over again.

Chris Misterek
And you mentioned that it's a scary thing. It's a scary thing to put yourself out there to start looking for clients. It's scary to feel like you're selling yourself or you're pitching yourself. What have you found that has helped you get past those head games that has helped you just figure out a way to keep going despite great discouragement or you know, despite I'm sure you probably have people that speak negatively of you online like what helps you to get past all that?

Nick Loper
Yeah, I don't know about you, but I created a little folder in Gmail called hate mail. And it doesn't have a ton in there, but occasionally I get something just file that one away. It's it doesn't have that much, but it's a kind of the driving motivating factor. Like, why are you doing this? Why did you choose to start this thing? You could be sitting there watching Netflix, there are a million other things you'd be doing. But like, instead, you're making this harder path. Why? Like, what is that, ultimately going to afford you? And for me, especially in the early days, it was like, a way out. Like, for whatever reason, I felt, really, I don't even know the right word. Like it just, it really like, irked me to have to ask my boss, if I could take a vacation like, hey, two months down the road, like would it be cool if I maybe took a couple of days off? It felt like lame to have to even ask, so I was like, I want to be in control of my own schedule. Like I don't know how I'm gonna get there. But that's like my ultimate goal. So it was a really powerful motivating force. And today, you know, it's how can I be there for my kids It's like, again, it's still over, you know, control over your calendar. But the emails that you get from readers and listeners like, Hey, I listen to the episode, blah, blah, blah. And now I'm making $1000 bucks a month, like people you run into at conferences, they say, 'that show changed my life' like that stuff is super motivating to keep going, especially when you're having kind of like a rough day or you get one of those hate emails, recognize there are people and I also have a tag called 'Testimonials'. And so to balance those out, there's a lot more in the testimonial camp. So those are kind of things that helped me keep going, I don't know, like, let me turn that one around. Like what? What do you find on those down days or when a project doesn't hit the way you wanted it to? Like what have you found helpful?

Chris Misterek
Yeah, no, I mean, I'd say I really resonate with what with how you answered, you know. For me, it's looking at the big picture of why I'm doing it. Seeing myself as someone who is trying to give rather than someone who's trying to take from people. Some people are going to appreciate that and some people, some people aren't, some clients are going to love what I have to do. And then some clients aren't going to necessarily be grateful, if not, they're going to be downright abhorrent of who I am and everything I stand for, for some reason or another. And so, you know, it takes a little bit of grit sometimes, for me, it takes putting my head down and going, 'this has to be worth it one day.' You know, because I think there are seasons in any business where you're like, this doesn't feel worth it, you know, and I've seen the people that have pushed past those days are the ones that end up finding real success. So yeah, I totally resonate with what you're saying.

Nick Loper
It helps when you find yourself in flow and like, for me, it's, it doesn't happen every day. But like, for me, it's like I can find myself like writing a blog post, like, may not be the heavy keyword research optimized post, but you know if you kind of get into the zone and you're working from an outline, and putting in the pictures and yeah, just like, you get into it, and it's like, wow, that was it was like legitimately fun work. A couple of years ago, learning how to work with this video editing software. I was making like an Active Campaign demo video. It was like learning how to like zoom in and like blur out. It was like, people's actual email addresses like how to blur out sections of the screen. It was like, I've never done that before. It's like kind of learning new things like that always is motivating for me too.

Chris Misterek
So you mentioned spending time with your family and being a motivating factor. What does that look like for you with a side hustle and navigating a family, having two kids, having a wife, having responsibilities because there's a lot of people that I've talked to that would love to start something. They would love to start a web design side hustle, but they're having a hard time seeing how it's gonna play out practically in their lives.

Nick Loper
Yeah, it's definitely a factor and it definitely helps that almost all this stuff started before were kids in the picture. So, definitely an advantage, not saying it can't be done because I talk to people all the time. Like, I've got six kids and this is what I built like, Good on you, man. Like I don't get anything done, you know, when they're home with just two but like, man, amazing. Actually, Brian Johnson, I think is it runs a site called optimize.me. And so if the end game is, you know, I want to have freedom over my calendar 24 hours a day. Like it's a sliding scale or a spectrum. It's like, probably not very many people are ever gonna get to the full 24 hours. I was gonna be other demands on your time. But very few people are, fully at the other end like I'm just in reactive mode for 24 hours like I have zero minutes for myself. So I think you can begin to call it freedom time. Like if that's the end goal, like 15 minutes here, half an hour here. Waking up an hour earlier has been huge for me in the last probably 12 months. It's like trying to get up, get up before the kids and just like, do a quick workout, empty the dishwasher, like dumb stuff, but it puts me in such a better place to start today. And I think you could use that time to move some projects forward proactively.

Chris Misterek
And you mentioned working from the end perspective. So I think a lot of web designers start doing web design for a certain reason. And then along the way, there's kind of a vision shift and things begin to get maybe even slightly off the path from the direction that we're trying to go in the first place. What have you found for yourself and what have you seen from other side hustlers that have helped people to stay on the straight and narrow to the end goal of what they're trying to accomplish?

Nick Loper
I guess keeping that goal in mind, but it's like this duality of being flexible. If something interesting comes up, it's not necessarily shiny object syndrome, but being open to the conversation. Because in the early days of the blog and podcast, I thought it was going to be, 'look, I'll be the guinea pig. I'll test this stuff out. I'll report back on what works what doesn't like all these different side hustles for the first few years like I did a lot of that like did freelancing, I sold stuff on Fiverr, sold stuff on eBay, and Amazon and we did some other freelance work. It was interesting and it was fun, especially at that time, like it was cool to kind of piece together a living and not have to go get a real job because the shoe business was kind of down and out probably a year and a half into the side hustle nation project. So that was definitely part of it. It's just trying to figure out how to keep it going and sustain it.

Chris Misterek
So So let's take it back to the beginning for someone who is, is just looking at getting started with let's say, a web design side hustle since this is a web design podcast.

Nick Loper
So appreciate you having me on not being a web designer, by the way.

Chris Misterek
Well, I know and we were talking about this before the show started, you know, I appreciate what you bring for perspective for anybody starting a side hustle, and I think it'd be something that's super important for anybody to understand, but certainly for web designers, or UX designers or product designers who are trying to look into starting a side hustle, because I found that there are even some people who are incredible web designers that do this for their full-time job, but have a tough time taking it after hours. You know, they have a tough time making it into a side hustle thing.

Nick Loper
It is like that constant battle of well, outside of a corporate environment. Who do I serve? How much do I charge? Like, how do I find these customers? Like all of a sudden, there are a lot more moving parts to the business.

Chris Misterek
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So talk about that. What would your encouragement be for somebody, let's say who is a web designer, and it's their full-time job, but they're looking to get started with a side hustle?

Nick Loper
Okay, I've got, I've got three ideas to take around with you and see what you think of these. The first is, I actually just did an interview this with this guy a few months ago. So, his business is a PR agency. So swap helps big PR agency for your web design business. What he ended up doing was reaching out to his target customers on LinkedIn, saying, you know, we like to work with solo business owners or business owners like in this space, like the kind of had this sweet spot that he liked to target and you may have the same and instead of you know, doing those Would you like to connect, you know, kind of like this pitch that everyone does on LinkedIn? his pitch was like, hey, I've got a podcast called the thoughtful entrepreneur, I'd love for you to be a guest. You seem like the ideal guest for my show. And so what he was doing was having these, you know, half-hour podcast interviews where the guest is telling them their story. And he was like, Nick, you know what that interview is? It's a lot like a first sales call might be like, Hey, you know, what are you working on? And so he kind of got this whole rapport-building out of the way, never really had to pitch his service. But it just kind of came up naturally. Like, hey, by the way, like, this is what I do, like, would you be interested in getting more media mentions, like, you know, who's gonna say no to that, and like, here's what a conversation might lead to. So that's option number one if you have the bandwidth for it. I think that was a really creative way to break through the clutter. Like, instead of, you know, leading with an ask like, hey, 'buy my stuff', leading with a gift, like, hey, I want to feature you. I think you're cool. I think your business is awesome. Can I feature you on my podcast, so that was the call?

The other one comes from Chi Davis, who is kind of like in the Shopify SEO space runs a site called Chi Davis calm. His tactic or one of his tactics was called portfolio reconnaissance. And this was scouring the portfolio of complimentary service providers to see if you could find ideal client matches because you know that they're already spending money on vendor services. And you could visually see their website like, does this need my help or something like that? So I thought that was cool.

And then the third way going back to LinkedIn, if you talk to Helen Pritchard on the show, HelenPritchard.com, fascinating LinkedIn strategist, where it was about crafting your portfolio, such that it spoke exactly to that target customer. You talked about doing like we do wedding design, or web design for you know brides to be for a wedding photographer, you know, whoever it is, right? And so if you have that in your subject line and in your cover image like I do web design for wedding photographers, and then you reach out to everyone who has wedding photographer in their title, and you invite them to connect, she said, like, don't do more than 10 a day because you might get your account might get flagged, but they're going to accept that invitation because they feel like oh, this person is in my niche, like, no, she's like, I don't send a personalized message. I don't send direct messages. Like I don't do any of that, just like they see my profile they like, they might need what I have, right? And then she's publishing content on LinkedIn related to her business because now it shows up in their feed. And over time, like you start to build this audience that you've hand-selected of people who are your exact target market. So that was a really creative way to go about it.

Chris Misterek
Yeah, that's awesome. And to me, it's finding a way as you said to speak through the noise because I think people are getting marketed to so heavily these days. That reaching out on a cold email, cold direct message, it's going to be really challenging. And so you have to figure out a way to differentiate yourself from the rest of the people who are doing that because people are inundated all day. I'm inundated all day with people who are trying to get me to buy a service. Some people are trying to get me to buy web design services, and I'm like, I'm a web designer,

Nick Loper
Right, you know, like, Did you not see the URL? Right?

Chris Misterek
So some are just being intentional, you know, and, and actually reading through who it is that you're about to reach out to and figure out a way to speak directly to them as you care about them, and you're not just trying to get their business.

Let's talk about the sustainability question. So let's talk about sustainability. And I think you've kind of spoken to it a little bit throughout the show, but What have you found to be important for people to keep from burning out with their side hustle? You know, and, and maybe a spinoff question from that when do you know your side hustle should go to your full-time gig?

Nick Loper
Well, I'll tackle that part first because that's probably the easier one. For me, it was when I had a track record of revenue that you know, for the last six or 12 months had covered my expenses. Maybe it had fully replaced my day job salary just yet but I thought with an extra 40 hours a week to dedicate to it, like oh, I can get there and go beyond that. So that's kind of where I would draw the line. You know, make sure you have some runway make sure you have like your emergency fund and all that stuff. You know, do it the smart way. But for me, that was kind of the math that I felt comfortable with. As far as sustainability and burnout, we talked about finding your kind of underlying motivating why, like, why are you doing this? I think that was going to get you through a lot of hard times. I think it's setting boundaries around when it is acceptable to do work because hustle for me has never been about working 24 seven, it's about controlling what you can control. And it actually comes from an old baseball coach of mine who's like, 'Look, you can have bad days at the plate, you can have bad days in the field. But hustle never slumps. It's this one element of your game, that you can always control your own effort.' And, you know, setting boundaries around that and saying, like, 'Look, I have this shutdown routine or like, you know, this is my dedicated time to do that, and blocking off time on the calendar because it's like, what if somebody's lost?' Like work expands to the time you know that you have to do it. So if you're, if you're dedicated to sticking to like, well, this is I have 10 hours a week to run this thing and like that's all it's gonna be.

Chris Misterek
So what does that look like for you and I've talked about this a little bit on my podcast as well but I reserve a specific day a week that like, it's like, work doesn't touch it, you know? And there are some caveats to that because if something explodes, and I have to figure out something for a client, then obviously, you know, I would do that. But how have you worked that out practically in your own life?

Nick Loper
So for me, I work kind of a four day a week schedule while the kids are at preschool. So that's Monday through Thursday, in my case, pretty regularly. Eight to five-ish with Wednesday's kind of being a lighter day, like, I'll go bike downtown and try and go to yoga and work from the coffee shop and stuff like that. But generally, eight to five Monday through Thursday, and I've tried to do what I'll call themed days where, you know, so I've got Tuesday set aside for meetings basically bell to bell. But trying not to take meetings the other day, so that frees up more deep work time. Monday, I set aside for content creation. Kind of finalizing podcast episodes, you know writing blog content or outlining blog content and sending off to writers. Wednesday is kind of like for my other side projects and some administrative stuff. And then Thursdays, theoretically earmarked for a kind of like side hustle growth projects. So over the course of the last year, that was like rewriting the side hustle book, which is free on Amazon sidehustlenation.com slash book. It's, it was like creating this start my side hustle course. So kind of like those longer-term projects where you're never gonna find, you know, pockets of 1520 minutes, you know, to work on during the week. It's like those theoretically earmarked for Thursdays in my schedule.

Chris Misterek
Yeah, that's awesome. And I love the concept of blocking out days for specific tasks.

Nick Loper
The big the biggest one, like take it or leave it, the theme day thing. The biggest one was the meetings. So I used to have my calendar wide open people could book 15 minutes here. 15 minutes there. It was just like, I'd find myself Well, I got I only got half an hour before. What can I really get done? And so that that's made a huge difference just in terms of the deep work sessions the on the other days.

Chris Misterek
Yeah. Is that something that you started doing initially? Or is that something that you found out as time went on that you start to look back and go, Okay, here are a few themes in my work week that I can kind of chunk together?

Nick Loper
It's definitely been an evolution. And the theme day system was something that I picked up from Mike RD, who runs productivity.com.

Chris Misterek
What are some ways that you have found that web designers might make money outside of just building websites or apps for people because you mentioned, you know, your first idea might not always be your last idea, like you might get to a place and then pivot and that's when you really find like, okay, this is what I was meant to do. And this is where everything is firing on all cylinders. What might you encourage somebody who is a web designer who's maybe looking to have other sources of income and their business?

Nick Loper
Well, the one that comes to mind is like, well, I know I can help other web designers start a web design business. That's like the meta example from Chris here. There are the, like software tutorial-type of classes that you see on Skillshare that you see on Udemy. Kind of a competitive space today with some pretty well-established players and, you know, Adobe certified pros and all that stuff, but a viable option. Pivot on that would be to take it to YouTube instead and answers product-specific questions. And, Okay, can I set myself up as an expert on this particular software tool that I love? And maybe it's not the big ones, maybe it's like an up and coming software. Like I talked to a guy who was just a fanboy of Asana, like in the early days, like he was an early adopter. He's like, this is so cool. And so he made all these like YouTube videos for like, how to do Such and such in Asana. And he would introduce the videos like, 'Hey, my name is Paul. I'm an Asana consultant, and blah, blah, blah.' Like, had no clients at the beginning but like, that's how he spun it, and actually, through his content, ended up landing a bunch of clients through that. So it's like, okay, maybe there's a software consulting angle, aside from just the web design stuff. And then, like, if you have design skills, there's this whole realm of product creation that is open to you, whether that's selling themes on theme forest, whether that's creating print-work on-demand products for Amazon or Redbubble. Or even you know, you could do it Etsy integration with Printful and some of these other ones, which like if you have those design skills, which I definitely did not like there's this whole world that opens up to you. And, and some of them on the Creative market or someplace where one of the designers that were graphic design, web design, but she like was doing all client work. And she would take her scraps (take like the stuff that the client didn't want) designs there. Like, it's not really our thing, but she put her scraps for sale on the market and it sold like a million dollars worth or something. It's just like, I thought it was still good work. You know, I didn't want to throw it away, you know, to some garbage heap of the, you know, desktop. So I think those are really compelling models to try and maybe build something that's a little more passive.

Chris Misterek
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, Nick, thank you so much for being on the Self-Made Web Designer Podcast today. I really appreciate your insight and input. If someone's trying to find you, where would they go?

Nick Loper
Of course, we'd love to have you tuned into the side hustle show, which is available in your favorite podcast player app. And just side hustle nation. COMM is the home base for me. There might be some design stuff in the archives that have to dig it up and see if I can point you there.

Chris Misterek
Well, thanks again. I hope to have you on the call again. Someday when things have kind of stretched out for you in the future and see where you're at and see what kind of insight we can get from you, but really appreciate you.

Nick Loper
It sounds good. Thanks,

Chris Misterek
Man. Such great insight from Nick from sidehustlenation.com. I want to encourage you, if you haven't yet, visit his website, check out his free resources and subscribe to his podcast. I know I've listened to it for years now. And I know that you will get a lot from all the guests that he has on, and everything that he has to share about starting his own side hustles. And hey, if you haven't yet, I would love it if you left some feedback and a rating for the Self-Made Web Designer Podcast. I love what Iandev200 said he said, to say the least, Chris is so easy to listen to and always has the best insight. So helpful to hear all of the guest's experience and would recommend it to beginner web developers and advanced as well.

Hey, and thank you so much for leaving a review. And I want to encourage you to do the same. You might just get a shout out from me on theSelf-Made Web Designer Podcast. You never know. Hey, we're gonna have another episode starting next week, Tuesday, it drops at midnight if you want to stay up and just listen to it if you're a night owl like I am, but no matter what, so excited that you came with me on this journey this week, I hope you got a lot out of it and can't wait to see you next week.