Have Patience With Your Side Hustle

As regular readers know my main side hustle right now is selling graphic designs online.  It’s something I really love, mainly because it’s 100% self-paced and almost completely passive.  I create a design and upload it to various websites, and if someone comes along and buys it on a t-shirt, hat, or coffee mug, then I get paid.  Most of my work is in the realm of outdoor adventure sports such as climbing, kayaking, and mountain biking. 

Last week, I sold this design called “SUP Evolution” on a t-shirt on Amazon. 

I got paid $4 for that sale.  In total that design has now netted me $21.18 over its lifetime.  Here’s the kicker – I created it in 2009.

So in 10 years, that silly graphic has made me $21.18.  You might be thinking “that’s a horrendous hourly rate”.  Not true.  It only took me about 30 minutes to create it and upload it in total.  After that, I don’t have to do a damn thing except collect money.  Most of the sales are for stickers, and from those I get paid 30 or 40 cents a pop. 

But here we are, 10 years later, and my 30 minutes of work has paid me $21.18.  So, that’s $42.36 per hour.  Assuming a 40-hour work week, $42.36 per hour is equivalent to making $88,109 per year!

 

Truth In Advertising

All side hustles are not going to fill your pockets with money instantly.  Actually most aren’t.  It only takes a glimpse of entrepreneurial websites and side hustlers online to fall into the trap of thinking that everyone’s killing it, and making money online is super easy and fast.  “Just buy my course and you’ll be making thousands in a few weeks”.

Bullshit.

Sure, those stories happen, but they’re the small minority.  Reality is that for most endeavors, making money online is hard, and the money will come slow.  You need patience.  There’s probably never been more ways to make money in history than there are now, but that doesn’t mean you can go online for 20 minutes click a few buttons and collect $50 at will.  You need to work hard, and you need to keep showing up.

But when you create assets, you create wealth builders.

 

What Gets Measured…..

I track all of my designs in a spreadsheet.  Everything from how many times they’ve sold on each platform, to how much money each has made overall.  When a design gets to the point that it’s earned me the equivalent of about $40 per hour, I consider it a success. 

Making $40 per hour is the same as making about $83,200 per year.  It’s a salary that I consider pretty darn good and an hourly rate that I would gladly exchange my free time for.  Especially when I’m doing something I enjoy, like making silly graphics such as this.

I’m not saying that making $40 per hour is a requirement for me to consider any side hustle, but it’s my target rate.  So I consider my designs that took an hour to create as successes after they reach $40 in revenue, and the ones that took 15 minutes do the same after they earn $10 in revenue.  It’s a pretty simple system.

My “SUP Evolution” design took 10 years to become a success, but it got there.  It evolved into a success (wah wah…).  Here’s the thing – I’m confident that most of my designs will get there, it’s just going to take time.  Maybe a long time.  Maybe even longer than 10 years for some.  Patience is the game.  I actually enjoy watching them race each other to their success target. 

If I expected my designs to be bringing in hundreds each in their first month online I’d have quit a long time ago.  This is a long game, not a “get rich now” scheme that so many online wizards want to sell you a how-to course for. 

And for the record I’m not against online courses, but I do abhor how many are marketed.

 

Successes & Failures

Here’s a snapshot of my design database, and a look at some of my top sellers. 

 

Those designs are major successes.  The top one took an hour of work and has made me $420.62!  That’s the equivalent to an $874,889.60 salary!  Yes, I spent an hour on that design total and it has been rewarded (so far) with $420.62.  And it sells almost every day and keeps raking it in….

On the other end of the spectrum here’s the designs at the bottom of the revenue spectrum. 

Many of these are new and just getting started and thus not turning up in search results yet.  Most will probably be successes, some will not. But right now, most have not even paid me a quarter.

It will assuredly take time for those designs to be successes.  Likely in many increments of 20 or 30 cents. 

Patience is easier to practice when it’s interspersed with the dopamine hits that come with each sale.  The joy that comes with routine email messages declaring “Congratulations, you just sold a design and made $1.25!” never gets old.  It’s just fun.

 

Patience Grasshopper

If you’re blogging as a side hustle it’s not very different.  Each post you write goes online and starts getting views.  Some do better than others.  But in the end, assuming your blog is monetized, they’re all contributing to your total traffic and bringing visits to your site.  And that in turn should help you make money. 

Some posts may have taken hours to write and will never get enough views to earn a decent return on that time.  Others may have poured out from your keyboard in 30 minutes and might bring in hundreds or even thousands of dollars. 

It’s not uncommon for a blogger to have a three year old post suddenly go viral or get picked up on a big-time site.  Just putting a piece out there creates the possibility of success and income.  Not putting it out there guarantees no success and no income. 

So if you’re side hustling and frustrated at your underwhelming success, don’t fret.  Keep showing up and doing the work.  Have patience.  Success often comes fashionably late.