How to Start a New Side Hustle Part 4

This is the fourth installment in a series of posts in which, as encouraged by Austin Kleon in his book Show Your Work,  I let you in on the process of creating my next commercial side hustle starting from the ground floor. In Part 1 of the series, I introduced my amended version of inspirational speaker Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle (Figure 1) which also starts with defining my “Why”. In Part 2, I answered the next level in my circle: defining “For Who?”. In the third installment I tackle “For What?”, and in this installment I will explore “How?” I can meet the needs or wants of my target persona (Jonas 😊).

Figure 1

To set the context, here’s a summary of my “Why.” I want to start a side hustle to:

• Apply and continue to develop business acumen.
• Demonstrate to my girls that they can do many things at once.
• Utilize my unique combination of skills to make a meaningful contribution to people's lives.
• Validate that I have correctly applied the business best practices I've learned.

Here’s a description of the target customer I want to serve (my “For Who?”):

• Geographic: lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Demographic: 40 years of age, in a relationship, has a university degree
• Psychographic: introspective, high achiever, career oriented, interested in self-improvement
• Vocation: office job, middle management, information worker, tech savvy, communicator
• Behavioural: highly brand loyal, seeking certainty and affirmation, relationship oriented, risk averse
• Digital consumption: frequent online shopper, frequent video consumer, moderate social media user
• Purchasing process: slow decision maker, researcher, evaluator, comparison shopper, review reader
• Pain points: self-conscious, concerned with public perception and reputation, aspiring for more
• Purchasing power: high discretionary income, in debt e.g. mortgage, car loan, student loan

Here a list of possible needs, wants and problems experienced by my target persona based on American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” (my ‘For What?”)

Figure 2

Layer in the pyramid	Potential problems, needs and wants Jonas experiences
Physiological	Healthy snacks, healthcare on demand, affordable housing, quick meals, healthy meal preparation, delivery of essentials
Safety	Sustainable transportation, fashionable dressy winter gear, income replacement protection, anti-theft, self-defense
Belonging	Investment education, career growth advice, personal growth mentoring, skills gap to advance career, dating help, group outing and dating
Esteem	Encouragement to exercise, fashion advice, style help, personal grooming, mental health preservation, work-life balance, time management
Self-actualization	Travel, charitable donations, volunteering, mentoring, side hustle development, financial legacy, continuous education

 

To determine my “How?”, it’s time to look inward again. I must evaluate my mix of available skills, knowledge, or assets to select which of these opportunities I am best equipped to satisfy with a Unique Value Proposition (UVP). To achieve this, I will repeat the table of problems, needs, and wants and for each entry in the table, list what I think I could offer Jonas, making sure to indicate “none” if I have nothing significant to offer.

Figure 3

Pyramid layer	Jonas' Problems/Needs/Wants	My Knowledge/Skills/Assets I can leverage
Physiological	healthy snacks	none
	healthcare on demand	none
	affordable housing	real estate research and analysis
	quick meals	none
	healthy meal preparation	none
	delivery of essentials	underutilized vehicle
Safety	sustainable transportation	underutilized vehicle
	fashionable dressy winter gear	fashion sense in business and formal wear
	income replacement protection	understanding of "infinity banking" and contacts in industry
	anti-theft	none
	self-defense	none
Belonging	investment education	real estate investment
	career growth advice	IT industry federal public service career progression
	personal growth mentoring	respected among pears as a source of advice and mentoring
	skills gap to advance career	adept at public speaking, negotiating and leading
	dating help	none (but could help once in a committed relationship :-))
	group outing and dating	none
Esteem	encouragement to exercise	none lol
	style help	good fashion sense (as mentioned by others :-))
	personal grooming	access to unique products and services
	mental health preservation	none
	work-life balance	access to helpful practices and materials
	time management	highly productive in personal and professional life
Self-actualization	travel	experience and contacts in north of Haiti
	charitable donations	access to network of charitable causes
	volunteering	access and experience with several opportunities to serve
	mentoring	mentoring experience
	side hustle development	side hustle development experience
	financial legacy	real estate investment and planning
	continuous education	experience in online learning

 

Great, I can already think of a few potential side businesses I could start based on my areas of contribution in Figure 3 😊. If you’ve been following along with me on this process since Part 1, I suspect you too have quite the list after this exercise. With all these possibilities, maybe you’re now struggling to decide what area (product or service category) to focus on and develop as your side hustle. With so many options and seemingly so many other side hustlers with similar offerings, how will you go about finding your voice? Making your way through the noise and competition so that your potential customers (e.g. your Jonas) hear what your product or service has to say? The key is to find a UVP, a Unique Value Proposition. What can you and your product do better or more uniquely than the rest? What is your edge?

To differentiate, marketers typically emphasize one distinct physical or non-physical attribute of the product. They use simple language that is meaningful and relatable to their target market to describe that feature as their edge. When determining your product or brand’s UVP, don’t be afraid of being too narrow in your scope. Being too broad when attempting to define your UVP only blurs your offering’s position in the marketplace.

When defined well, a UVP connects so deeply with the target market that a UEP emerges: a Unique Emotional Proposition. A UEP is the result of a customer believing so strongly in a UVP that they make it and the product their own and assign an emotional connection to the brand promise.

My wife and I recently spent months researching and deciding on a “new” used car to buy. You could call the process a “Battle of the Brands” as we both had buying criteria we sought to meet. I must admit, I am relieved we finally agreed on a car manufacturer brand whose UVP of delivering reliable luxury evokes an even stronger UEP in me when I think of all the trips to the repair shop I will not have to make lol. Here are just a few angles you can explore for determining your side hustle’s UVP leading to a UEP. Apply this additional layer of questioning and filtering to your list of “Knowledge/Skills/Assets I can leverage” from Figure 3 to narrow down the list to your top 3 potential side hustles:

• Specialty: being highly specialized in a very narrow area of focus within a given field contributes to uniqueness.
• Quantity: being known for delivering more than expected and particularly more than the average.
• Details: attention to the little things that others miss or neglect but that make your offering more enjoyable.
• Timing: a first-mover advantage refers to the edge a product has over others by being the first available in a given product category. The first is often seen as the original and best. Of course, this belief must be upheld.
• Integration: the extent to which your product or brand enables linkages to other things that matter to your target market can be a powerful differentiator.

When I apply this added layer of questioning and analysis to my own list of “Knowledge/Skills/Assets I can leverage” in Figure 3, here are my top three considerations for my next potential side hustle. (In no particular order, these are the areas in which I think I am most equipped to make a unique contribution and differentiate myself from competition):

Pyramid layer	Jonas' Problems/Needs/Wants	My Knowledge/Skills/Assets I can leverage
Safety	fashionable dressy winter gear	fashion sense in business and formal wear
Belonging	skills gap to advance career	adept at public speaking, negotiating and leading, real estate investing
Self-actualization	travel	experience and contacts in north of Haiti

 

Alright, it’s getting real! In the next installment in this series, I will choose one of these ideas and expand on it to develop a legitimate side hustle complete with one or more specific products, services, pricing etc. If you’ve enjoyed coming along this journey with me so far and want to share your vote for which of these three ideas you’d like to see me develop into a business, leave me a comment with your opinion below 😊. Also feel free to ask questions and advice if you’re following my process to develop your own side hustle.

Cheers,

Wanito