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Tag: Side Hustle

  • 5 Tips For Launching a Business While Keeping Your Day Job | Entrepreneur

    5 Tips For Launching a Business While Keeping Your Day Job | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Did you know that as many as 45% of Americans have a side hustle? For many people, these side hustles are passion projects that they hope to transform into careers. Starting a business while working a full-time job elsewhere is a common path for many aspiring entrepreneurs, but it can be incredibly challenging.

    Juggling a day job, personal life and brand-new business can lead to burnout and potential failure if you don’t manage it proactively and carefully. Here are some tips that helped me most when building my business and holding down a career.

    Related: Looking for a Game-Changing Way to Showcase Your Expertise? Why a Book Is the ‘World’s Best Business Card’

    1. Create two separate workspaces

    When personal and professional lives intertwine, losing focus and becoming overwhelmed becomes easy. Even though your side project is a business, it’s still personal and should be treated as wholly separate from your day job.

    To make sure you’re not letting your business development seep into corporate work hours (or vice versa), spend some time creating two distinct work environments. You can do this even if you only have one desk or one computer.

    One of the easiest things to do is create a separate user account on your computer dedicated just to your personal project or corporate work setup. This is a great first step of separation if you can’t afford to have a separate computer or desk setup for your personal business.

    Next, try to use different communication channels for each job. If your full-time team uses Slack, use Google Chat or RocketChat for side project communications to limit the temptation to switch between channels. The same goes for task planning: If you’re using Asana for one job, use Jira or Backlog for the other, and make sure you’re really utilizing them. Don’t keep tasks in your head; this will distract you and lead to “just one quick break” to work on your other job.

    This kind of multitasking leads to more stress and makes you perform worse for both tasks. Our brains operate best when we have a singular focus (e.g., we’re only working or only developing our side business), so doing this will make you more effective overall.

    Additionally, creating this separation makes it easier to switch gears and get into “creative mode” when working on your business. You’re no longer just someone else’s worker bee; now, you’re in control. This can offer an extra boost of motivation, which you will need for the long haul.

    2. Stay motivated by seeking feedback on your business ideas.

    For better or worse, burnout is just part of the process when you’re building a business and maintaining a full-time job. On average, 77% of employees say they’ve experienced burnout at their jobs, and 63% of entrepreneurs say they’ve dealt with burnout. When you’re both employee and entrepreneur, it’s nearly inescapable no matter how much you love what you do.

    There’s plenty of great advice out there about taking intentional breaks to refresh your mind and body or building rest times into your daily schedule, and those are valuable strategies. Sometimes though, entrepreneurs need more to stay motivated.

    My greatest piece of advice for overcoming burnout and staying motivated is getting constant feedback from customers and peers. When your startup is in its early days, your first clients are usually super loyal and love staying in contact. They like what you’re doing and want to support you in any way they can. Calls, chats and messages can be extremely motivating, regardless of whether they’re positive or negative (we need both!).

    Positive feedback buoys your spirits and lets you know you’re doing something right. Everyone needs someone to believe in them, after all. Even getting negative feedback isn’t a bad thing; it should just push you to keep working and make your product better.

    Finding creator groups and getting opinions, support and advice from other founders, especially ones who have already been down this road, is extremely helpful as well.

    Another thing that helped me stay motivated was paying myself a small amount for the work I did to develop my business. Even if it’s just pocket change, it helps put you in the mindset of investing in your business and getting rewarded for your work, creating a positive feedback loop.

    Related: Boost Your Solopreneur Business with These 3 Proven Tips

    3. Outsource whenever you can.

    Once you have some initial momentum, freelancers can be valuable assets to lighten the workload and progress faster. Even hiring one freelancer for 10 hours a week can make a huge difference in how quickly and effectively you can scale.

    Let freelancers help with things like writing social media posts, developing a website, preparing taxes or handling administrative tasks. These tasks can eat up a lot of your time without helping you progress to your goals. Additionally, if you’re in the “no-budget” stage of operations, you can even turn to AI. Using Midjourney or other stable diffusion tools for logo creation or ChatGPT for social media copy can be a huge help. Even if you need to work with a freelancer to polish the outputs, it still saves a tremendous amount of time and money.

    Be sure to keep important competencies for yourself, though. This includes hiring additional help, overseeing finances or speaking to customers. Anything that directly impacts your reputation should always go through you.

    Outsourcing to workers via platforms like Upwork is straightforward, legally safe and non-binding, which makes it perfect for the early stages of building a business. It also gives you access to a global talent pool, simplifying the hiring process. LinkedIn reports that 83% of small business owners who hire freelancers appreciate how much they help “get the job done,” and 64% say utilizing these workers helps build a better virtual team.

    The one downside to freelance work is that the person isn’t as passionate or personally invested in your project’s success; they’re more concerned with finishing the job and getting paid. However, as long as you set clear goals and expectations from the beginning, it is easy to find people on the same page.

    It is important to remember that when it comes to vision and hiring people for higher positions, no one can do it better than you.

    4. Set clear communication channels.

    Having a regular day job means you’re unavailable to communicate with your freelancers, contractors and employees, leaving a narrow window of time in the evenings to deal with everything. This is why it’s essential to establish clear communication channels and outline detailed guidelines so everyone can work autonomously and asynchronously.

    I prefer methods like setting and tracking weekly goals with project management tools like Jira or Trello, both of which offer free versions. Having explicit instructions and a centralized platform helps everyone stay on the same page and helps with prioritization, accountability and maintaining momentum.

    Related: The ‘Stress-Free Side Hustle’ Is Not a Thing

    5. Know when to quit (and how)

    Before you start working on your business, it’s important to set a financial goal that signals when it’s time to quit your day job. Paul Graham popularized the term “ramen profitability,” meaning a startup makes just enough to pay founders’ basic expenses. I believe this is a good way to approach quitting your full-time job.

    For me, the goal was to make the same amount of money that I did working my regular job. If I could consistently meet that mark, I knew it was time to quit. Of course, this goal will likely be different if you have a family or other circumstances. It doesn’t matter what the tipping point is, only that you set one and stick to it.

    Knowing how to quit is just as vital as deciding when. It’s never a good idea to burn bridges when you leave your corporate job, so one of the best things you can do is keep a “graceful exit” mindset. Start thinking about proactive steps you can take to make a cordial exit on both sides and be sure to set yourself (and your replacement) up for a smooth transition. Not only is this a good business practice, but it leaves the door open if you ever need to be rehired.

    Business building is a balancing act

    They don’t call them passion projects for nothing. It’s always a challenge to add another full-time workload to an already busy life, and passion is often the only fuel that keeps you motivated in the early days. The good news is that, despite the difficulties, if you learn how to manage your time, stress and goals effectively, you can shift into the role of founder and devote all of your working hours to a single business you care deeply about.

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    Nikita Fedorov

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  • Start Your Side Hustle: Save $160 on a Lifetime Subscription to this E-Commerce All-in-One Solution | Entrepreneur

    Start Your Side Hustle: Save $160 on a Lifetime Subscription to this E-Commerce All-in-One Solution | Entrepreneur

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    Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

    According to the Harvard Business Review, nearly 44 million U.S. workers are operating a side hustle. As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to start side gigs with your wide expertise, and if you’ve been hoping to get into e-commerce, it’s even easier with the help of Gigrove E-Commerce All-in-One Solution.

    Gigrove offers a convenient and easy to use, all-in-one e-commerce solution that helps you start a side business from home. And during the Memorial Day Sale, running now through May 31, a lifetime subscription to a premium plan from Gigrove E-Commerce All-in-One Solution is on sale for just $39.97 — $160 off the usual price — with no coupon code required.

    With Gigrove, it’s never been simpler to get started with a branded storefront for an online business on your device and start selling. It takes just 15 minutes to set up your store, which can sell products or services, or even rent products and resources. You can also offer local product delivery with delivery management, subscription-based services, sell products with integrated shipping management, or sell digital work and professional services.

    Let Gigrove collect your online payments with their gateway or your own, while also managing your shipments or sending our downloadable files. There are easy integrations with Stripe, PayPal, ShipStation, and Zapier. And there’s a dashboard that offers direct messaging and live chat to help you connect with your customers seamlessly.

    With 4.5 stars and a ranking as the Top Performer in Capterra’s E-commerce category, 4.5 stars on Software Advice, and 4 stars on G2, users are clearly loving the ease Gigrove brings to their side hustle flow.

    Earn extra money easily with a lifetime subscription to a Gigrove E-Commerce All-in-One Solution’s Premium Plan, on sale for just $39.97 (reg. $200) during the Memorial Day Sale now through May 31.

    Prices subject to change.

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    Entrepreneur Store

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  • She Works 16 Hours a Week and Makes Six Figures, Here’s How | Entrepreneur

    She Works 16 Hours a Week and Makes Six Figures, Here’s How | Entrepreneur

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    I became a freelance writer on October 10th, 2020. I spent the first few hours of my newfound freedom panicking that I’d made a dreadful mistake. At that point, I decided that when I made $10,000 a month — and only then! — would I consider my new career a success that nobody could take away from me. I would know, at that point, that I was on the right path.

    Eight months after I launched into my freelance lifestyle, I accomplished my goal: I earned $10,495.33 in May 2021.

    Here’s how I did it and where it all came from:

    1. I was not an overnight success story

    Let nobody tell you success happens overnight, because it doesn’t. In May, I earned $4,999.26 from my blog and YouTube combined, but that was not a random one-off occurrence. That was the result of 2 years of working, writing, filming, editing, networking, and learning.

    Long before I even started freelancing, I was working on my side hustles. That platform I built for myself was enough to further build on when I went fully freelance and finally had the bandwidth to spare. I posted less to both my blog and my YouTube channel, but I had a much better understanding of what my audience wanted and how I could give it to them.

    Crucially, I also had an audience. If I had tried to go fully freelance without that backing, I would have struggled. Instead, I flourished.

    2. I had a backlog of clients

    I had a rare experience last week: someone asked me to work for them, and I said no because I was too busy. In hindsight, I should have set that as my “You’ve Made It” milestone. I had the luxury of turning down paying work! I could barely believe it.

    Part of me thought I was stupid to turn down any paying job, but the other sensible part of me realized that’s the benefit of successful freelancing: I can say no to work and keep my free time for myself.

    In May 2021, I had five clients and earned $4,475.00 from them altogether.

    What’s more important is that I did work I loved, and enjoyed every bit of writing I did for these clients. Those did not all come together overnight but rather showed up one by one. Some stayed, some left, some referred me to other clients. It was a relief that half my income came from sources I controlled, rather than relying on the algorithm of a wishy-washy platform.

    3. I failed to sell myself

    The final bit of my big $10k month came from selling myself and my services, $1,021.07 in all. I was disappointed — less than 10% of my bumper month was value I provided directly. For most of it, I relied on other people or platforms.

    When I started my journey, I wanted to split the income evenly between my three streams: platforms like YouTube, clients who paid me to write for them, and my own products and courses. It was a little sad to realize that I hadn’t managed to sell myself as much as I originally intended.

    It’s hard to promote my courses and services. I know so many other writers, freelancers and entrepreneurs feel the same. Sales are not natural for most of us.

    But I should be better at it. And I know I can be. While I’m disheartened by my failure to market myself, I recognize it as an area to improve for future months.

    4. I worked 16 hours per week

    The real success, of course, is not the money I made. It’s the time I spent not working.

    In May 2021, I spent a grand total of 65 hours, 40 minutes, and 39 seconds working. (I use Clockify to track my time.) I spent countless hours reading books, playing video games, hanging out with my cats. My husband and I went to a Braves game, to Six Flags, on walks around the neighborhood.

    My lifestyle is valuable for the money it gives me, but also for the time it gives me. I’ve written before about how I love working as little as possible, and how I believe the true value of the freelance lifestyle is the free portion of it. In May, I realized just how right I was.

    5. I allowed myself to experience downturns

    Remember how I said I turned down work last month? I could have said yes, and I could have had a bigger income in June. Because June did not come near to May’s income, unfortunately. Still, I said no.

    In June, I was stressed out due to unforeseen life events. I wasn’t sleeping well. I was anxious and nervous and had no motivation to work or create.

    Part of me wanted to push through and try to secure a higher income. I felt like I’d hit that $10k milestone, and should be hitting it every single month from now on. Instead, I took a month to relax and recuperate from the pressure.

    June’s income was more modest. It was not five figures. And I’m glad I let myself go with the ebbs and flows not just of work, but of my own mental energy. Again, the real lesson I’ve learned is not that the income matters — although of course, it does! — but that the benefit of freelancing is I can take a month to simply be a vegetable and nobody will die, not even me.

    You could read this article and say that it took me 65 hours of work to earn $10,495.33 in May. But the honest truth is that it took me nearly three years to reach this milestone. I started writing, blogging, creating, and freelancing in September of 2018. That first month earned me just $3.32. Now, two and a half years later, I’ve become a success by any of my old definitions. I have a job I love, with so much time to do the things I enjoy, earning enough to be more than comfortable.

    My success also depended on me learning a lot of lessons that I’ll continue to grow from. I had to learn the hard way how to price my services, for example. My first freelance writing client paid me just $30 for a blog post. Today, I know I can charge much more than that.

    And it takes continuous effort and improvement moving forward. I know my income streams are variable, so I need to improve where I’m weakest. Today, that’s at selling myself. Tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll uncover new weaknesses to address and improve upon.

    I made $10,495.33 in a single month of freelance writing, and anyone else can do the same if they’re willing to work as hard as I did.

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    Zulie Rane

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  • How Entrepreneurs Turned Authors Make Money | Entrepreneur

    How Entrepreneurs Turned Authors Make Money | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The average reader in the United States is a college-educated female, with a household income over $75,000 U.S. dollars, with a strong preference for non-fiction and self-help books, with their male counterparts not far behind. It makes sense that businesses would use books to reach their ideal clients.

    In addition, authors get instant credibility, authority and opportunities such as speaking engagements, meet-the-author events, guest blogging, spots on expert panels and more. So, it’s no wonder that savvy entrepreneurs are using books today to build their personal and professional brands and to grow their businesses overall.

    I will explain to you how this works and what you need to know before diving into the deep end of book writing and publishing.

    Why should entrepreneurs write non-fiction books?

    Since self-publishing has made becoming an author much more accessible for the general population, more and more entrepreneurs are using books to promote their brands and businesses. They are having great success using this strategy because people buy from people they like. But for them to like you, they have to get to know you. And that is the hard part.

    Think about it. When you are online — on social media or checking your email — you are probably doing several things at once, aren’t you? And if you are like me, you might have a small child or two competing for your attention as well. As we speak, my daughter is making a house out of recently delivered Amazon boxes and popping the bubbles in the wrap that came along…not exactly the quiet, distraction-free environment needed to be able to soak up the information in front of me, is it?

    But think about when you read a book. What do you do? Where do you go? I wouldn’t try to read a book right now in this environment. I know that just opening a book would be like a Bat signal to my 7-year-old to show me something… anything, … right away!

    I know that if I want to read a book, I need to find a quiet place and a block of time, all for myself. This is what readers naturally do when they sit down to read a book. And there is no other medium today that elicits the undivided attention of someone more than a simple book. Preferably paperback.

    Related: After Early Rejection From Publishers, This Author Self-Published Her Book and Sold More Than 500,000 Copies. Here’s How She Did It.

    How much does it cost to publish a book?

    To be honest… a lot of money. Books are just one of those things that costs a lot to produce, especially if you want to produce a high-quality, successful one.

    If you are considering self-publishing, you will have to do all the hiring when it comes to building the team to produce your book. How much you spend will depend on your current skill set and how many people you need to hire to fill in the blanks.

    This may or may not include a:

    • Book/writing coach
    • Cover designer (for both electronic and print versions)
    • Developmental editor
    • Beta readers
    • Line editor
    • Proofreader
    • Formatter
    • SEO researcher
    • Amazon category researcher
    • Copywriter
    • Website designer
    • Publisher
    • Book marketer
    • Social media marketer
    • Public relations team

    And more. There are a lot of moving pieces that go into a successful book.

    Related: 10 Truths About Self-Publishing for Entrepreneurs With a Book Idea

    Even someone who is experienced in writing and technologically advanced can expect to spend several thousand dollars on their book project in editing and cover design alone. More if they want it to be successful, which requires hiring public relations experts and marketers long-term or putting in all of the hours yourself.

    Looking at the previous list might be intimidating, but I promise you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Remember that becoming an author in your niche puts you in front of your ideal client, who has given you their unlimited attention.

    Related: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Writing a Book

    How do authors make money?

    The way that authors make money isn’t through book royalties. If you publish traditionally, the publisher will keep 80-90% of your royalties anyway. If you opt for the smarter option, self-publishing, you will keep 100% of your royalties AFTER you split them with the platform you upload our book to. Either way, your royalty will be pennies compared to other opportunities to grow your brand and business.

    Realistically, you might only sell 250 copies of your book, like the average non-fiction book published today. So, you need to make those sales count. You need to give the best to the readers in your writing and offer them the best options to work with you if they decide. Basically, your non-fiction book is your sales funnel.

    Entrepreneurs turned authors who have figured this out are using their non-fiction books to sell or market their:

    • Coaching services
    • Consultations
    • High-end, online courses
    • Done-for-you services
    • Group programs
    • Subscriptions
    • Memberships
    • Affiliate products/programs
    • New businesses or products
    • Events, summits, conferences, etc.
    • Masterclasses/live online classes
    • Speeches
    • Workshops
    • In-person retreats
    • Evergreen webinars
    • MLM opportunities
    • Charity/non-profit/cause, etc.

    And many more creative monetization strategies.

    Related: 12 Ways That Writers, Speakers and Experts Can Make Money as Key People of Influence

    Conclusion

    It makes complete sense. Why worry about a few cents in book royalties — that you are splitting with a platform like Amazon — when you can sell premium products and services for thousands of dollars per sale?

    If you have an offer that includes even one of the sales strategies listed above, then publishing a book in your niche featuring your business is an easy decision.

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    Sara Tyler

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  • 6 Tips to Know Before Starting a Summer Side Hustle | Entrepreneur

    6 Tips to Know Before Starting a Summer Side Hustle | Entrepreneur

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    Summer is here, and it’s a great time to consider starting a side hustle. There are many guides and resources out there to help you get started, but there are a few things you need to ask yourself before you dive deep into the world of side hustles.

    The following six considerations aren’t going to dramatically change your approach to side hustles or your ability to make a passive income. Still, they can save you time and potentially bypass many of the bottlenecks entrepreneurs experience in the ideation stage.

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    Entrepreneur Staff

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  • He Secretly Works 2 Full-Time Remote Jobs and Makes 6 Figures | Entrepreneur

    He Secretly Works 2 Full-Time Remote Jobs and Makes 6 Figures | Entrepreneur

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    This story originally appeared on Business Insider.

    Less than a year into his first full-time job out of school, Jason, a 22-year-old software engineer based on the West Coast, decided he wanted to earn some extra money to supplement his $75,000 salary.

    Jason’s position was fully remote, and he told Insider he was able to get all his work done in only 10 to 15 hours per week — so he figured he had the time to do something else.

    He thought about trying out a side hustle like growing microgreens, taking odd jobs posted on Craigslist, or doing freelance programming work, but said he ultimately decided to look for a second full-time or part-time job.

    In November of 2021, he started a second full-time remote software engineering role. Today, he said he typically works 20 to 30 hours a week total across the two jobs and earned a combined $144,000 last year, according to documents viewed by Insider.

    And he hasn’t told either employer he’s double-dipping. Jason’s real name is known to Insider but has been excluded to avoid any professional repercussions.

    “I wanted to increase my income,” he said. “I felt my workload at my first job was low enough, and I knew that if I couldn’t handle it then I could simply quit one of the jobs.”

    While juggling two roles can be stressful at times — like when he has overlapping meetings or receives unexpected work — Jason said that in some ways, his working arrangement reduces his stress.

    “I’m more willing to say ‘No’ to tasks at one of my jobs since I know I have a backup job,” he said.

    Jason is one of many Americans who have taken on additional work in part due to high inflation, but he’s among a smaller group of white-collar workers secretly holding multiple full-time remote jobs to, in many cases, double their salaries.

    But the window to pull this off may be closing, as many companies are calling employees back to the office and listing fewer fully remote positions. As of March, roughly 13% of job postings were remote, according to the staffing firm Manpower Group, down from 17% in March 2022 but up from the pre-pandemic level of 4%.

    And as knowledge of this phenomenon grows, some members of the overemployment community are worried they’ll eventually be found out. While holding two jobs at once doesn’t violate federal or state laws, it could breach employment contracts and get people fired, employment lawyers told The Wall Street Journal. It’s already happened to some workers.

    The desk in his apartment where Jason usually works. Jason via BI

    5 strategies to work two remote jobs and get away with it

    Jason said he uses five different strategies to juggle both jobs and not get caught.

    First, he said he tries to overestimate how long his tasks will take to give himself more time to manage the workload from both jobs.

    “If I finish a task, I will hold on to it for a while before I submit it for review,” he said.

    Second, he said he makes sure he doesn’t overperform at his jobs and attract extra attention and assignments.

    “Whenever possible, I try to seem somewhat incompetent so that my coworkers are more understanding when I take a while to finish a task and so they don’t give me lots of difficult tasks,” he said.

    Third, Jason said he dedicates less time to some work when he can get away with it.

    “There are certain tasks I have like reviewing other people’s work, so sometimes I will not properly review their work so that I have more time to work at my other job,” he said.

    Fourth, he said he’s learned to turn down projects.

    “Whenever I get asked to take on more work, I will sometimes say ‘No’ since I already have work on my plate,” he said.

    Fifth, he said he makes sure his colleagues are aware when the completion of his tasks is being held up by others.

    “Whenever this happens, I make sure to mention this to my coworkers and managers so that they expect the work to be delayed,” he said.

    Why he’s not worried about an overemployment crackdown

    Since taking on two full-time remote jobs, Jason said he has immersed himself in the “overemployed community” online — the r/Overemployed subreddit has 176,000 members.

    He said many members of the community are concerned about overemployment becoming too widespread or receiving too much press, because then employers might work to identify and crack down on these employees.

    But Jason said he’s never been particularly concerned about this.

    “I didn’t think enough people would be able to manage overemployment either because of their career, specific job, stress tolerance, desire to work more, etc and I still think that’s true,” he said, adding that he doesn’t think most employers would care enough to crack down on it — particularly if their employees are getting their work done.

    Going forward, Jason said that he hopes to dedicate more of his time to a new business he started last December, though it’s still in the early stages.

    In the meantime, he said he plans to continues to keep working at both jobs, and that the extra income has helped him have the financial security and life he desires. He said he’s pretty frugal — he doesn’t own a car, rarely goes out to eat, and lives in a one-bedroom apartment that costs $1,200 a month.

    “For me, my current lifestyle feels like I’ve made it because I pretty much have everything I want,” he said.

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    Jacob Zinkula

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  • How a 30-Year-Old Makes $20K a Month from Airbnb Side Hustle | Entrepreneur

    How a 30-Year-Old Makes $20K a Month from Airbnb Side Hustle | Entrepreneur

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    This story originally appeared on Business Insider.

    Julia Lemberskiy has always been captivated by home design.

    As a kid, “I would never watch any soap operas. I would just binge renovation shows,” the 30-year-old tech worker, whose career has consisted of founding start-ups and heading Uber Eats Russia, told Insider.

    Currently, she’s the head of growth at Double, a start-up that connects executives with part-time assistants. Outside of her day job, she still makes time for her original passion: “As much as other people are scrolling TikTok I’m spending hours a day on Zillow.”

    It gives her an edge as a real estate investor.

    “After binging so many renovation shows, I have a really good vision for what a property could look like,” said Lemberskiy, who grew up in Europe, moved to New York City in 2018, and currently owns three investment properties in the States. “I tour a place and I immediately see which wall I would knock down. That’s really helped because I’m not competing with buyers who don’t have that kind of vision.”

    Her overall investing strategy is to buy “undervalued properties” in “undervalued areas,” which she finds by looking at approved development projects in the community. If the town or city is investing millions of dollars into improving the area, that typically signals there’s upside potential.

    She also would prefer to spend her cash on a bunch of cheaper, fixer-uppers that she could add value to rather than putting all of her money into one or two nicer, more expensive properties.

    “It feels like the more we’re buying, the cheaper we’re going,” she said, referring to her and her husband, who currently rent in Midtown Manhattan. “Right now we’re looking at a bunch of properties in the $150,000 range.”

    The way she sees it, “you can’t really go wrong if you buy something for $150,000 and it’s a livable house. It’s probably not going to go down in value.” Whereas, “buying in the $1 million to $1.5 million range would make me very nervous, having that much money sitting in one property.”

    Plus, using her capital to acquire a handful of properties has allowed her to “play around in different areas and get a feel for different types of investments — multi-families versus single-family — to figure out with time what the long-term plan is going to be.”

    Lemberskiy owns six units across three properties and rents five of her units on Airbnb. Courtesy of Julia Lemberskiy

    Her strategy has evolved over time. When she first decided to buy property, she figured she’d own where she lived — in New York City — but a couple of Zillow searches “ruined my appetite for buying something in New York for quite a while,” she said.

    For starters, the purchase prices in New York City are astronomical. Manhattan, New York is the most expensive housing market in the US, and Brooklyn and Queens, two of the other five boroughs that make up New York City, both cracked the top 15 priciest markets.

    “When we looked here all we could afford was a little studio because even a decent studio is $400,000 to $500,000,” said Lemberskiy. “It’s crazy. But what’s even crazier is the maintenance fee. You’re lucky to find something under $2,000 a month.”

    It’s also a hyper-competitive market, she added: “You pretty much have to go over asking.” On the few properties she and her husband have made offers on in the city, “we got outbid every time.”

    Renting in NYC, buying in more affordable markets, and generating up to $20,000 a month in Airbnb revenue

    Ultimately, Lemberskiy couldn’t justify buying anything in New York City, she said: “Thinking about it as an investor, prices are already so high. How much higher can it get?”

    She and her husband decided to continue renting. It’s possible to find good deals in the priciest rental market in America, said Lemberskiy, who pays less than $2,000 a month for a studio in Midtown Manhattan: “There are sometimes really good deals if you spend the time. Some of it requires negotiation.”

    While buying property in New York City was off the table, buying property in general was not, especially once Lemberskiy decided to settle down in the States.

    “Once I got married and decided to stay in the US, I knew I wanted to invest in something,” she said. That was in 2020, right after the pandemic hit. The big question was where to buy. “Being new to the US, I had no idea even where to start.”

    julia Lemberskiy

    Lemberskiy and her husband closed on their first home during the early days of the pandemic. Courtesy of Julia Lemberskiy

    She decided to buy a home in an area where she could see herself living. In the early pandemic days, that was upstate New York.

    “I felt cooped up in Manhattan so every chance I got I would get on the Metro-North at Grand Central, exit a new station, and spend a day discovering,” she remembered. “I really got a feel for that entire upstate New York area.”

    She found a real estate agent and started touring properties.

    “This was early Covid when everyone was fleeing New York, working remotely, and the interest rates were super low, so it was extremely competitive,” said Lemberskiy. “Nothing was staying on the market for longer than a few days.”

    The home she and her husband eventually bought was a 3-bedroom on a lake in Walden, which is about 70 miles north of New York City. In the 2.5 days that it was on the market, “it had 54 showings and 14 offers, including many cash offers,” she said. “So our chances were very slim. We ended up removing every contingency out of the contract, going above asking, and we wrote a long, tear-jerking letter to the owners. To our surprise, we got the property.”

    They closed in March 2021 for $285,000 with the intention of using it as a weekend getaway home, but “this home was a complete disaster,” recalled Lemberskiy, who ended up living there almost full-time for six months doing renovations to make it “livable,” she said. “It was tough and expensive and after a while I was fed up with the house and didn’t want to be there anymore.”

    That’s what led to the idea of only staying in it occasionally and renting it out on Airbnb, which she’s been doing since 2022.

    She acquired two more investment-specific properties in 2021 and 2022: a $220,000 single-family home in West Palm Beach, Florida and a $185,000 multi-family property in Albany, New York.

    She selected those markets similarly to how she chose upstate New York, “from personal motivation,” she explained. “Even if the business side of things doesn’t work out, it’s something where I can see myself and my family.”

    Florida first came on her radar while rewatching “The Sopranos” with her husband, she said: “There was a scene where the uncle talks about going to Boca and we were like, ‘What is Boca?’ A few weeks later, I found a cheap flight, got an Airbnb, and fell in love with that whole area an hour outside of Miami.”

    She closed on the beach house in September 2021. It was already occupied with a tenant and remained a long-term rental until January 2023, when she first started listing it on Airbnb.

    As for Albany, that deal came about after she and her husband discovered the capital city on a road trip celebrating their anniversary.

    “We spent some time there and went to some lovely restaurants and bars,” she recalled. “I started looking at Zillow and was pleasantly surprised about the cost for such a nice city.”

    julia lemberskiy

    Lemberskiy and her husband got married in 2020. Courtesy of Julia Lemberskiy

    In April 2022, she closed on a four-unit property in Albany. Three of the units are residential, which she rents out on Airbnb, while one is commercial, which she’s turned into more of an operational space.

    Between the Walden lake home, the beach home in Florida, and the multi-family in Albany, Lemberskiy operates five Airbnb spaces that, in March 2023, brought in $19,828 in revenue, according to a screenshot of her Airbnb dashboard viewed by Insider. Each month in 2023 so far, her units have brought in over $10,000 in gross earnings.

    What started as a quest to buy a home in New York City has evolved into a lucrative short-term rental business that has created financial freedom for Lemberskiy and her husband.

    “I have a lot of peace of mind now,” she said. “Worst case: both me and my husband lose our jobs. We can go live at the lake house and have the other two properties cover all expenses. Having that level of financial independence makes me less eager to go through the whole setting up another short-term rental again.”

    After all, buying and renting real estate is not for the faint of heart.

    “There’s been a lot of tears,” she said. The Albany purchase was especially difficult when trying to secure a mortgage and “almost turned me off from real estate for good. You need to be very stress-resistant to do any of this, as well as very detail-oriented because there’s just so much paperwork.”

    That said, she’s still looking for other “undervalued areas” to expand her portfolio in. She’s looking into areas like Bridgeport, Connecticut, Schenectady, New York, and even abroad in Madeira, Portugal.

    Her top advice to rookie real estate investors is to buy in a place “where you want to be yourself. If you can see yourself there it’s likely that other people can as well.”

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    Kathleen Elkins

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  • How to Find the Right Product to Sell | Entrepreneur

    How to Find the Right Product to Sell | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    As an entrepreneur, finding the right product to sell can be a daunting task. It’s arguably the most important step towards building a successful business, and choosing the wrong product could seriously limit your company’s potential. Over the last ten years, I’ve successfully started three different brands, ranging from cat furniture to masquerade masks to suspenders (diverse, I know). In that time, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, but I’ve also dialed in on a process for choosing the right product to sell that I believe can work for anyone starting an ecommerce business.

    Before we get into the steps themselves, here are the four criteria I look for when identifying a potential product to sell:

    1. The product is hard to find on Amazon and in the USA in general: When diving into the choppy waters of ecommerce, you want to give your business a fighting chance and avoid competing with the biggest fish in the pond.

    2. It’s easy to ship: As your company scales up, shipping efficiency can make or break your business. Do yourself a favor at the beginning and focus on products that can be shipped and stored at a reasonable cost.

    3. It has a retail value of $100 or greater: Higher priced items will help you generate more revenue as a small business compared to small-ticket low-margin items that require massive scale to be profitable.

    4. It has something distinct or unique about it: Pretty self-explanatory! Your product needs to catch the eyes of potential customers online. If it photographs well, you’re already ahead of the pack.

    A personal example is my DTC cat brand tuft + paw. When I adopted my cat in 2016, I was disappointed by the lack of quality cat furniture on the market. The offerings on Amazon and big box stores were ugly, poor quality and just generally lacking in inspiration. I sensed an opportunity and got down to researching. Here are the steps I followed:

    Related: How to Choose Your First E-Commerce Product

    Step 1: Brainstorm

    The first step towards finding the right product is to brainstorm ideas. Take some time to jot down all of the ideas that come to mind, no matter how wild or crazy they may seem. There are no consequences at this stage, so it’s the time to get as creative as possible. This process can be done alone or with a group of friends or colleagues, as bouncing ideas off of others can often lead to new and exciting concepts. Feel free to use conversational AI tools like ChatGPT to get the ball rolling.

    One of my favorite (and frankly underrated) brainstorming techniques is to search Reddit for souvenirs from a specific country or region. For example, if you search “Japan souvenir ideas Reddit,” you may come across some unique products that are highly valued but hard to find in the U.S., such as high-quality kimonos. Just remember that you’re looking for high-quality souvenirs (i.e., products that retail for $100+), not tchotchkes or novelty items.

    Once you have a list of potential products, start a new Google Sheet to track all of your ideas. At first, this document should include the name of the product and a brief description, but as you get deeper into your research you can add details like estimated production costs, potential retail price and any other relevant information.

    Step 2: Narrow it down

    Once you’ve got a list of possible products, it’s time to weed out the weak ideas and identify the promising ones. At this stage, SEO tools like Ahrefs and Semrush become invaluable. By typing in a product keyword, you can see other related keywords that people are searching for. This can help you identify potential niches or products that have a high demand but low competition.

    Before settling on a product to sell, make sure that there’s enough variety and volume of searches around the general category. Instead of focusing on a single keyword, look for broader categories that have a high demand. This will help ensure that there’s a market for your first product and you can continue to generate new sales as you expand your product range.

    Let’s say you start in a niche (e.g., kimonos) but then expand to a broader category (e.g. Japanese-inspired clothing) as your business grows. This will allow you to establish yourself in a specific market before branching out to other areas. Think of it like growing a tree — the initial planting spot needs to be good, but there also needs to be room for the tree to grow as it matures.

    Related: 6 Key Things to Consider When Bringing a Product to Market

    Step 3: Connect your ideas with your passion

    Finally, it’s essential to choose a product category that you find interesting. Building a successful business takes time, and it’s important to enjoy the work that you’re doing. If you’re passionate about the product you’re selling, you will be more motivated to put in the time and effort to grow your business. Sure, the U.S. kimono market might have lots of potential, but if fashion bores you, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

    The opportunities are out there!

    The ecommerce world is competitive and absolutely gigantic. Every day, thousands of new products hit the market, and I can guarantee the vast majority of them are nothing special. That’s because identifying the right product to sell and targeting the right audience are really difficult things to do — but by starting with these three steps, you can at least give your fledgling business the best possible chance of surviving.

    Don’t forget, this is 2023, and we’ve got so many immensely powerful tools to help us, whether that’s ChatGPT for brainstorming or using Ahrefs for keyword research. Leverage these tools, identify your niche, and you’re well on your way to building a successful business.

    Related: Before Falling in Love With Your Great Idea, Find Out If Anybody Wants It

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    Jackson Cunningham

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  • These 20 Elements Define the Future of Startups | Entrepreneur

    These 20 Elements Define the Future of Startups | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Greg Isenburg is the co-founder and CEO of Late Checkout, a product studio and agency that designs, creates and acquires community-first tech businesses. In a tweet, he laid out a list of 20 elements that will define the future of building startups. Here, we delve into each of these points to explore the new era of entrepreneurship taking shape.

    Looking for help getting your startup going? Book a 1-on-1 video call with Greg Isenburg now.

    20 Elements That Define the Future of Startups

    1. MVP Speed (1x per month): The speed at which minimum viable products (MVPs) are created will decrease dramatically. Startups will aim to launch a new MVP every month, fostering a culture of rapid experimentation and iteration.
    2. AI-Accelerated: Artificial intelligence will play a key role in startups, both in product development and decision-making processes. This will lead to more efficient and optimized businesses.
    3. Superniche is the new niche: Targeting ultra-specific market segments will become more prevalent as companies seek to differentiate themselves and build deep connections with their customers.
    4. Community 1st, software 2nd: Building a community will take precedence over developing software. This approach will create strong brand loyalty and foster organic growth.
    5. No-code first, some code second: No-code platforms will become the primary tool for building startups, with traditional coding taking a back seat. This will democratize the creation process and enable entrepreneurs to focus on innovation.
    6. 10x more automated: Automation will become a significant driver of efficiency in startups, allowing for leaner teams and smoother operations.
    7. Global teams, localized products: Startups will increasingly be built by global teams, yet their products will be tailored to local markets to better serve customer needs.
    8. 95% dominated by solopreneurs and microentrepreneurs (teams less than 12): The startup landscape will be dominated by solopreneurs and microentrepreneurs, leading to more diverse and agile businesses.
    9. Pop-up digital experiences: Apps and platforms that only work during specific times or events will become more common, creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity.
    10. The marketing holy trinity: Successful startups will need to achieve product/market fit, content/market fit, and community/market fit to truly gain traction.
    11. Half robot/half human teams: A mix of AI and human talent will form the backbone of startup teams, combining the best of both worlds for optimal results.
    12. Accelerated by “boring marketing”: Effective marketing strategies that may seem mundane or unexciting will play a crucial role in driving startup success.
    13. Multiple revenue streams: Diversifying revenue streams will become the norm, as startups look for various ways to generate income.
    14. Design matters: The importance of design will continue to grow, with high-quality aesthetics and user experiences being non-negotiable.
    15. Partnered with creators: Creators will play a significant role in distributing and promoting startups, leveraging their established audiences for greater reach.
    16. Feels like a game: Gamification elements will be integrated into startups, making them more engaging and fun for users.
    17. Purpose-driven moonshots: Startups will increasingly focus on making a positive societal impact, attracting both customers and investors who share the same values.
    18. Productized agencies for cash flow: Agencies will pivot to offering standardized products to generate consistent cash flow, like design agency Dispatch Design.
    19. Product studios become the norm: Product studios, which develop multiple products simultaneously, will become a popular business model in the startup world.
    20. 99% of MVPs won’t need VC: Venture capital will become less critical for the majority of MVPs, as alternative funding sources and bootstrapping gain traction.

    The future of building startups is set to be an exciting journey marked by rapid experimentation. As the landscape evolves, entrepreneurs will need to adapt to new trends and strategies to stay ahead of the curve. By embracing AI, no-code platforms, and purpose-driven missions, startups can position themselves for success in this new era of entrepreneurship.

    Related: 18 Inspiring Lessons From the GOATS of Entrepreneurship and Leadership

    For those interested in learning more about the future of startups and gaining valuable insights from Greg Isenberg himself, you can book a 1-on-1 video call with him through Intro. This is a unique opportunity to have a personalized conversation with a thought leader and founder to gather practical advice.

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    Brad Klune

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  • The Crucial Role Of Whitepapers In Thought Leadership And Industry Influence | Entrepreneur

    The Crucial Role Of Whitepapers In Thought Leadership And Industry Influence | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Thought leadership has proven to be an essential ingredient in establishing authority, building trust and driving innovation in today’s competitive market. In fact, a poll by Marketing Insider Group showed that 71% of marketers have benefitted from thought leadership via increased website traffic. In comparison, 62% have experienced increased lead generation, and 56% noticed increased media mentions. Now that’s impressive!

    So, what exactly is thought leadership, and how do you build yourself as a thought leader in your industry? Let’s dive deep into thought leadership to answer these questions and discover how whitepaper reports can exponentially boost your thought leadership and industry influence.

    Related: What Exactly Is Thought Leadership?

    Understanding thought leadership and its importance in business

    Thought leadership is establishing yourself or your organization as an expert in a specific industry, niche, or topic. This expertise is showcased through creating and distributing high-quality content that provides valuable insights, addresses industry challenges and offers innovative solutions.

    By doing so, thought leaders become sought-after sources of information and inspiration, making their businesses stand out from the crowd. Thought leadership is crucial for businesses for several reasons, but here are the top four benefits of establishing yourself as a thought leader:

    1. Demonstrates expertise: Thought leadership involves sharing content to showcase your unique insights, knowledge and experience. This shows your expertise in your field and leads people to trust you and your brand.
    2. Attracts customers and partners: By sharing valuable, relevant content, you attract potential customers and partners who share your interests and values.
    3. Drives innovation: Thought leaders challenge the status quo, inspiring others to think outside the box and create groundbreaking solutions.
    4. Builds credibility and preference: By providing actionable solutions to industry challenges, thought leadership helps you stand out and position your brand as a reliable information source. This trust translates into a preference for your offerings.

    While there are various forms of thought leadership content, such as blog posts, podcasts, and webinars, whitepapers are particularly effective at showcasing your expertise and building authority. So, let’s dig deeper into whitepapers and their uses for building thought leadership.

    Related: 5 Dos and Don’ts of Thought Leadership Marketing

    The power of whitepapers in establishing thought leadership

    A whitepaper is an authoritative, in-depth report that addresses a complex issue or problem, providing valuable insights and solutions backed by data, research, and expert opinions. Whitepapers are a powerful tool for demonstrating thought leadership for several reasons, including-

    • Prove your expertise and authority: Whitepapers showcase your deep understanding of a topic, positioning you as an expert on the subject.
    • Show your commitment to addressing industry challenges: By addressing pressing issues and offering solutions, whitepapers demonstrate your commitment to improving the industry.
    • Offer data-driven insights to build trust: Whitepapers rely on research, data, and expert opinions to provide readers with credible and valuable information. This eventually builds your credibility and trust.
    • Drive engagement by delivering value: Whitepapers help you engage with your target audience and nurture existing relationships by offering useful information.
    • Generate leads continuously: You can offer a downloadable whitepaper in exchange for contact details or add CTAs in your report to get leads. 41.4% of marketers find long-form content types like whitepapers are effective lead magnets.

    Building thought leadership strategy with whitepapers

    Now that we’ve established the importance of whitepapers in thought leadership, let’s explore how to use them effectively in your thought leadership strategy-

    • Identify your niche: Determine the specific area of expertise you want to be known for, and ensure that it aligns with your business’s core offerings and values.
    • Research and analyze: Conduct thorough research to understand the current landscape, identify gaps in knowledge, and uncover opportunities to showcase your expertise.
    • Develop compelling content: Craft a well-structured, informative whitepaper that addresses a specific problem, offers actionable solutions and provides a clear call to action for your audience. The content may include research reports on the latest trends and other educational content with your expert opinions.
    • Promote and share: Distribute your whitepaper through various channels, such as social media, email marketing and guest blogging, to reach a wider audience and generate leads.

    Remember to engage professionally with those who respond to your whitepaper or talk about it, and also contribute to relevant discussions started by others to build your popularity quickly.

    Many thought leaders have successfully used whitepapers to build their authority and influence in their respective industries. Here are a few successful examples of such thought leaders and their top whitepapers:

    • Mary Meeker: The renowned venture capitalist publishes her annual “Internet Trends” whitepaper, providing valuable insights and predictions about the digital landscape.
    • McKinsey & Company: The global consulting firm regularly releases whitepapers on a variety of topics, positioning itself as a thought leader in the business world.
    • HubSpot: The marketing software company is well-known for its extensive library of whitepapers, offering valuable resources on inbound marketing, sales and customer service.

    The bottom line

    You can now position yourself and your business as a leading authority in your industry with high-quality whitepapers that demonstrate your expertise, build trust and drive engagement. Remember to start with careful planning and research to build and promote compelling whitepapers easily. If things still get tricky, you can always contact an experienced design agency to craft an amazing whitepaper and pave the way to becoming a recognized thought leader in your field.

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    Vikas Agrawal

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  • How a 20-Year-Old Airbnb Host Made $375,000 In Revenue in 2022 | Entrepreneur

    How a 20-Year-Old Airbnb Host Made $375,000 In Revenue in 2022 | Entrepreneur

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    This article originally appeared on Business Insider.

    Since I was a kid, I’ve had an entrepreneurial spirit. I used to sell lemonade at my dad’s barber shop every summer growing up, and in high school, I offered beauty treatments like eyelash extensions and eyebrow waxings out of my house. I’ve always worked odd jobs, too.

    My brother died when I was 16, and it was a huge wakeup call — it solidified for me that life is short, and I didn’t want to spend mine working a 9-to-5 every day. I’d rather work for myself so that I have more time to spend with the people I love.

    I graduated high school and decided against college: I wanted to try out other ventures instead, like trading stock options and drop-shipping. But once my partner and I decided to give Airbnb a shot in May 2021, there was no going back. We’ve made more than $375,000 this year in revenue, and our best month yet was this past May, when we made $58,120 in revenue.

    You don’t have to own any homes to start on Airbnb

    One of McMillan’s listings, “The Sunrise Penthouse master bedroom” in Downtown St. Louis Inayah McMillan

    I think there’s a major misconception that you must have the capacity to buy property in order to become an Airbnb host: While you should definitely have solid savings (I recommend at least $8,000 to $15,000) or a good credit score, you don’t have to own any properties.

    By using rental arbitrage, we rent all of our listings and then list them on Airbnb. As a disclaimer, you need to make sure rental arbitrage is legal in your area by checking your state’s government website, and you have to get approval from your landlord first.

    Startup costs vary depending on where you’re located and the size of the home, but I normally allot $8,000 to $15,000 to set up each new listing, which covers the first and last months’ rent, the security deposit, furnishing, and supplies. Going into this, we had most of that money saved, but I also used some personal credit. Now that we’ve switched our business to an LLC, we use business credit when needed.

    Our regular monthly expenses consist of rent, utilities, cleaning services, and automation tools. Our less expensive listings, like our one-bed, one-bath properties, usually cost about $1,500 in monthly expenses and bring in anywhere from $2,500 to $3,000 a month — netting up to $1,500 a month.

    Our largest listing, which has four beds and two baths, costs about $3,500 a month to run and brings in around $7,500 to $10,000, which means we can make up to $6,500 in monthly profit.

    To decide what to charge a night, I recommend using dynamic pricing automation (we use PriceLabs), which sets pricing based on the price of similar listings, the time of year, overall demand, etc.

    I highly recommend getting an LLC

    When we rented our first unit in May 2021, we signed the lease in our own names, and a few months later we created an LLC — this was the key to scaling my Airbnb business.

    One of McMillan’s listings, “Beaming Carriage Home” in Central West End, St. Louis. Inayah McMillan

    After that, we signed a lease on another property that November. And in 2022, our portfolio really expanded; we signed two in January, another two in March, another two in May, and our two most recent properties were signed this past June. That makes for 11 listings total — 5 homes and 6 apartment unites — with a few that are signed but not up and running yet as Airbnbs.

    Once you have an LLC, you can utilize corporate leases. They’re essentially the same as personal leases, but renting under our company name allowed us to sign 4 properties at once — which landlords usually wouldn’t allow you to do otherwise. If I could go back, I would have registered my Airbnb business as an LLC from the very start.

    Having an LLC also provides tax benefits (we can write off business expenses like rent, utilities, transportation, supplies, etc.), and it makes a big difference when it comes to rental arbitrage — it allows you to pitch yourself to landlords as a company rather than an individual, which looks much more professional.

    The process wasn’t difficult or very costly. I used InkFile, an LLC-building website that doesn’t charge anything except your state fee, which varies. Even though my listings are in Missouri, I live in Nevada, so it came out to around $500.

    Automation software is key to scaling

    “Beaming Carriage Home” in Central West End, St. Louis

    Another thing that sets me apart is having a private booking website. When I reach out to landlords, I usually send them an email asking if they’re accepting corporate leases and direct them to my site. It gives them a professional online pitch showing what my business offers, who we are as a company, and how we can help them as a short-term rental company. Most of the time, I get more nos than yeses, but it’s a numbers game, so I reach out to as many as possible.

    When we first started, we managed most operations manually. But in order to scale, automation tools are crucial. These apps have allowed me to put considerably less time into my business each week:

    • PriceLabs: sets pricing based on the price of similar listings, the time of year, overall demand, and other factors
    • Yale August smart locks: automates our check-in process to allow guests and cleaners to have their own unique codes
    • NoiseAware: monitors noise level to make sure guests aren’t being too loud and disrupting neighbors
    • Hospitable: automates all messages to guests and cleaning staff
    • Nest doorbells: ensures our guests have checked in safely

    Now, my business is almost entirely passive, so I only work about an hour or two a week and dedicate that time to responding to guests who have a specific request that can’t be handled with an automated message or checking up on a specific property.

    When I’m looking to rent a new property, I do extensive research first using AirDNA and Airbnb. AirDNA shows you estimates for the average rates, occupancy levels, and annual revenue of a given location, as well as top-performing zip codes or cities. We also look at other Airbnbs in the area of comparable size and see what their nightly price is.

    After I run the numbers and predict my expected costs and profits, I consider the ratios and decide if it’s worth moving forward. When it comes to scaling, running the actual Airbnb is easy — it really depends on how much time and capital we have to set it up.

    The market hasn’t slowed down my business

    While there’s a lot of uncertainty in the market right now, I haven’t felt any out-of-the-ordinary dip in business. November through February is usually our slower season, so our revenue has decreased a bit, but for the most part we’ve stayed pretty consistently booked.

    It’s incredibly important to choose properties with your customer base in mind. Ours is corporate business travelers — we have a healthy mix of one-bedroom apartments and larger accommodations, and we’ve chosen locations that are near universities and hospitals. Generally, that target group will still be traveling year-round, even during a recession.

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    Dorothy Cucci

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  • Top 15 Most Affordable, Unique Airbnbs in the US: Report | Entrepreneur

    Top 15 Most Affordable, Unique Airbnbs in the US: Report | Entrepreneur

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    Finding a unique Airbnb doesn’t have to mean emptying your wallet.

    According to a report by the online casino site, BetMGM, there are plenty of affordable, unique Airbnbs in the U.S. — from sleeping in a silo in Connecticut to burrowing in a “hobbit hole” in California.

    These quirky accommodations are also highly rated by guests.

    Coming in at No. 1 is The Baying Hound Campground in Asheville, North Carolina. While there are a few different places to stay on the site, the least expensive option is the “Trippy Tortoise Shell-ter” — a turtle-inspired truck cab-camper-tent hybrid. It costs $25 a night and has a 4.90-star review.

    No. 2 is The Chicken Coop Grain Bin in Blanchard, Oklahoma. It costs $49 a night and has a 5.0-star rating. The private room is in a repurposed grain bin surrounded by farm animals.

    Airbnb

    “The Retreat” in Pulaski, New York, ranked third. The unique farm stay home is priced at $60 a night and has a 4.99 rating. The house is about 10 minutes from New York’s famed fishing spot, the Salmon River.

    The Silo at Sun One Organic Farm in Bethlehem, Connecticut, came in at No. 8. The converted 1940s silo has 30-foot ceilings and a “green” bathroom. The property also hosts weddings and has other accommodations on-site, like a geodesic dome.

    Here are the Top 15 ranked by price per night. (Prices are based on the time of the report’s publication. Current fees may vary.):

    “Trippy Tortoise Shell-ter” at Baying Hound Campground, Asheville, North Carolina. $32

    “The Chicken Coop” in Blanchard, Oklahoma. $49

    “The Retreat” in Pulaski, New York. $60

    “Yome Away from Home” in Weaverville, North Carolina. $62

    “Underground Hobbit Hole Sustainable Ecovillage” in Del Norte County, California. $64

    “Peaceful Yurt” in Spokane, Washington. $65

    “Retromania!” in Houston, Texas. $66

    “Chalets by the Lake” in Conneaut Lake, PA. Newly renovated chalet nestled on 11-plus acres. $69

    “The Silo at Sun One Organic Farm” in Bethlehem, Connecticut. $73

    “Hobbit House” in Bainbridge Island, Washington 4.95. One room Hobbit Hole. $75.00

    “Stargazing Hut” Mossy Forest Glamping Newport, Tennessee. $75.00

    “The Bunkhouse at Love’s Hideaway” Lagro, Indiana. $75

    “The Silo” in Collbran, Colorado. $75

    “Luxury Jail Suite (Hard Time Hotel)” in Pearland, Texas. $79

    “Nopalito Train Car Apartment” in Edinburg, Texas. $79

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    Entrepreneur Staff

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  • Utah Cave Home Renting for $1,000 a Night on Airbnb: Photos | Entrepreneur

    Utah Cave Home Renting for $1,000 a Night on Airbnb: Photos | Entrepreneur

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    This story originally appeared on Business Insider.

    Grant Johnson was living in a 19-foot trailer in Utah when, in 1995, he was presented with the opportunity to purchase 40 acres of land in the state’s rugged wilderness.

    Johnson was told the site was abandoned by a 1970s cult, but it was the perfect setting for him to achieve a long-held dream: transforming a boulder on the property into his home, using dynamite and his own two hands.

    Johnson, who worked in Utah’s uranium mines and as a backcountry guide, was inspired by the Moab Desert’s famous “Hole N” The Rock” attraction, a family home carved out of a sandstone cliff.

    He spent $25,000 and the next 20 years perfecting his new abode — and now anyone on Airbnb can rent a bedroom in the special space for about $350 a night and the whole three-bedroom cave for about $1,000 a night.

    @airbnb this stay is as solid as a rock thanks to host grant ? #airbnbpartner #airbnb #boulder #utah ♬ original sound – airbnb

    Johnson’s property is located in southern Utah, about a four-hour drive north of the Grand Canyon and near the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, known for its cascading rock formations.

    Johnson lives in the cave with his partner when they’re not renting it out, and they also run the property as a homestead and grow tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and corn, some of which they sell.

    Johnson even raises horses, cows, pigs, and turkeys — and is planning to build them a cave barn of their own.

    “It’s a lifetime art project,” he told Insider.

    He carved the walls by hand using light and sound as guides

    Johnson purchased dynamite from a contact through his mining work, who trusted him to use the equipment properly.

    “That was in the 90s, so I was able to buy dynamite and just sign a paper. Now it’s a lot more difficult,” he said.

    The first blast came in the winter of 1995. Johnson returned to the site for the next eight years to hollow out the space he wanted, eventually landing at around 5,700 square feet.

    His first time stepping into the cave he created, he couldn’t help but be in awe.

    “Nothing has been in this space since the dinosaurs,” he said. “It’s a 100-million-year-old rock.”

    An instrument in Johnson’s music room, left, and Johnson on the 40-acre property. Grant Johnson

    In 2005, Johnson employed a pro-builder friend to help finish the project. Together they poured the cement flooring and installed giant sheets of tempered glass that closed the cave off from the wilderness.

    There are six openings in the boulder, all facing different directions, that had to be sealed before the space could be inhabitable. The last sheet was installed in January 2014, which is when Johnson moved into the space.

    During that time, Johnson also molded the walls and doorways of the cave himself. He used a technique where he would drill parallel holes and tie them together with a perimeter cord, which cracked the rock in the desired shape.

    “It’s a lot of acrobatics, which is truly difficult,” he told Insider.

    During the sculpting process, he played with the light and sound of the space. During the winters, he’d sometimes sit in the space, during sunsets or especially during the equinox, and observe how the cave refracted the sunlight.

    “I’d just sit down and if I noticed something that didn’t fit or that wasn’t curved right, I would get the drill,” he told Insider.

    While he was carving, he’d also play a harmonica and adjust his plans based on the best pitches he could find. It’s paid off. Since moving in, Johnson has hosted many musicians, concerts, and even a group of Tibetan monks in the space.

    “They did their throat singing and that sound has never left,” he said.

    One of Johnson’s musician friends has even named different rooms after different keys. The living room is “E.”

    You can rent the property on Airbnb for $1,000 per night

    The cave now even welcomes visitors on Airbnb. The “west end” room, with its own staircase leading up to a private balcony, rents out for $350 per night. For $1,000, guests can rent out the entire three-bedroom property, and Johnson and his partner will vacate and stay in a cabin nearby.

    Rolling desert hills with a white truck passing through

    A view onto Johnson’s remote property. Courtesy of Grant Johnson

    Guests of the Airbnb are invited to climb on the cave outside and use a rope swing in front of the property. The listing also indicates that sense of adventure extends inside, where guests should be aware of “rugged rock stairs” connecting the rooms of the cave.

    The cave runs off-grid and uses water to power things that are plugged into sockets, though the listing makes a point to note that hair dryers and pancake griddles, particularly, are too much for the hydro-electric system to handle. Also one major thing to note: There’s no WiFi.

    “The desert holds special energy and this space resonates with it. This is where you come to disconnect from the rest of the world,” one Airbnb user wrote in a May 2022 review. “The comfort, cleanliness and beauty of it far exceeded any expectations those in our group had.”

    The guest’s parting advice: “Drive a 4WD. Bring some extra water. Cherish your time there. Unwind. Go hike. Unplug and appreciate the space.”

    Johnson said he loves to watch guests marvel at the unspoiled natural surroundings and hear how they feel more connected to nature by staying in the cave. He recommends every guest climbs out to the patio on the west end at night, and watch the still, desert night.

    “You can’t ask for more dark sky. You can’t ask for more quiet,” he said.

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    Dan Latu

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  • How to Make a Side Income as a Public Speaker | Entrepreneur

    How to Make a Side Income as a Public Speaker | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably got your hands full with your primary business. But if you’re interested in generating a side income while simultaneously networking and building your audience, you should consider getting involved in a public speaking side hustle.

    What exactly does this entail, and how do you get started?

    Monetizing your public speaking

    Let’s start with the most important topic: how do you make money as a public speaker? If you look around your city, you’ll likely find many events that would allow you to speak for free. So how do you monetize this?

    Direct payments

    In your later stages of development, your personal brand will be strong enough and popular enough that you can make money by speaking alone. Businesses, universities, or other organizations may be willing to pay you thousands of dollars for just a few hours of your time. Unfortunately, when you’re first starting out and your reputation is minimal, you probably won’t be able to make much money this way.

    Related: 8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful

    Book sales

    Consider printing a book in line with your speaking topics, which you can sell when giving a public address. If people are impressed with what you say, they’ll likely buy your book.

    Networking and marketing opportunities

    Public speaking is also a great way to network and meet other people, while simultaneously promoting your business. You could potentially meet new clients, new business partners, or even new investors. You’ll also be increasing the visibility of your brand, giving your business more selling power.

    Related: How Networking Is Necessary for Effective Entrepreneurship

    Consulting

    Some public speakers also offer consulting services. If business owners or other professionals enjoy your insights and want to know more, they can hire you as a private consultant.

    Online courses

    You may also consider creating online courses for your fans and followers, presenting them with more information and more lessons in exchange for a monthly subscription.

    How to become a public speaker

    So how do you become a public speaker in the first place? These are some of the most important steps to follow:

    Cultivate niche expertise

    Most people don’t want to hear from an average person. They want to hear from someone who’s truly an expert in their field, whatever that field happens to be. If you want to become an effective and in-demand public speaker, you need to cultivate that niche expertise. What topic or area could you study that no one else seems to be covering? Do you have years of experience in a particular field that you could use? Feel free to exercise your creativity here; you can always apply what you learn in one field to a different field. What’s important is that you have a set of knowledge and experience that most other people don’t have.

    Hone your public speaking skills

    If you want to be a successful public speaker, you need a specific skill set. You need to be able to hold yourself confidently, project your voice, articulate your words well, and gesticulate without looking like a crazy person. It takes practice to refine these skills, so spend some time practicing in front of friends, family members, or a camera if you have to.

    Establish a personal brand

    You’ll be a more effective public speaker (and marketer for yourself) if you have a personal brand behind you. Who are you? How do you market yourself? And how do people find and interact with you?

    Get active on social media

    One of your best tools for marketing yourself and finding new public speaking opportunities is social media. Make sure you claim your individual social media profile on a wide variety of different social networks and consider joining groups that are relevant to your area of expertise. Meet and engage with other people interested in public speaking.

    Related: The 5 Keys to Building a Social-Media Strategy for Your Personal Brand

    Look for low-hanging fruit

    Chances are, you can find some “low-hanging fruit” public speaking opportunities in your area with a rudimentary search. Even if these aren’t paid opportunities, they offer valuable experience and chances to meet new people.

    Get featured on podcasts

    In line with this, try to get featured on podcasts relevant to your area of expertise. There are millions of podcasts out there, and hosts of niche shows are constantly looking for new people to interview.

    Network aggressively

    It’s hard to overstate just how valuable professional networking can be in any career — and in public speaking, it’s even more important. Take the time to build relationships with venue owners, event organizers, and other public speakers like you; these relationships can lead you to even better opportunities and help you master the art.

    Work your way to bigger and better opportunities

    Keep pushing for bigger and more prominent speaking opportunities. It may take some time, but you can eventually reach higher echelons of reach and popularity this way.

    Even if you never imagined yourself as a public speaker, it could be an amazing money-making opportunity for you. With more refined public speaking skills, more experience under your belt, and a more prominent personal brand, you could even turn this into a full-time, lucrative gig.

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    Under30CEO

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  • Why Selling a Business Is the Next Use Case for AI | Entrepreneur

    Why Selling a Business Is the Next Use Case for AI | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Artificial intelligence has quickly become the most talked about technology in recent years. While generative AI like ChatGPT and AI-powered search engines like Google Bard and Bing are getting lots of attention, there are also some powerful innovations bringing AI to a surprising range of use cases and industries. One example is using AI to help sell your online business.

    A big trend right now among online business entrepreneurs is that when business owners get to the point of deciding to sell a business, they don’t want the process to take too long. They want to quickly, painlessly and efficiently find the right buyer. This need for speed also works for the opposite side of the transaction. Prospective buyers of online businesses don’t want to get lost in the clutter of too many choices and irrelevant listings; they want to quickly zero-in on the right businesses that are relevant to their expertise and a good fit for their investment goals.

    AI can be the missing link for more efficient online business exits and acquisitions. With the power of AI, online business sellers and buyers can get a more precise sorting and matching process to help prospective deal partners get connected faster.

    Let’s see a few reasons why AI can be the next “killer app” for selling online businesses.

    Related: Does AI Deserve All the Hype? Here’s How You Can Actually Use AI in Your Business

    Expectations are rising for online business mergers and acquisitions

    Small online businesses, such as ecommerce stores, content-based websites and blogs, mobile apps and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, have become a larger part of the “Main Street” of the digital economy in recent years. As these business categories have grown, there has been increasing interest from investors and rising expectations for how to make M&A deals for these businesses.

    Selling a business is a huge decision, both financially and emotionally. It’s kind of like selling a home; you’ve poured years of time, work and effort into this asset and you want to get the best price that the market will bear. When you list your online business for sale, you don’t want it to linger on the market or attract a bunch of tire-kickers who are not serious buyers. When online business owners decide to exit, they want to quickly and efficiently connect to a shortlist of qualified buyers who are genuinely interested in buying a business and who are ready to talk about details and advance to a deal-making stage.

    For investors, the process of buying online businesses has traditionally been too full of friction and clutter. If you’re an online business investor, you don’t want to have to sort through a bunch of irrelevant listings or get spammed by sales pitches. Your goal as a business buyer is to quickly find relevant, high-potential acquisition opportunities that are a good fit for your investment goals and expertise.

    AI can help meet these rising expectations for both sellers and buyers. With AI-powered recommendations and smarter search capabilities, online business sellers can quickly get their business on the radar of qualified buyers, while prospective buyers can use AI tools to meet their unique investment goals and get access to high-potential deal flow on tap.

    Related: AI and ChatGPT Are the Future of Business Growth — But They Still Have Limitations

    Institutional investors want to find relevant, profitable online businesses

    Online businesses are not just for solo tech geeks working out of their garages anymore. Digital Main Street businesses are attracting increased interest from sophisticated institutional investors, such as family offices, private equity firms and aggregators. These larger investors have more complex needs than first-time online business buyers or solo entrepreneurs.

    For example, if you’re an institutional investor looking to buy online businesses, you typically will have a larger portfolio of online businesses that you want to match or expand. Your team will likely have a certain industry vertical or space that you prefer to invest in, as that fits your expertise and experience. You might also have certain deal size parameters or other unique data points that you’re looking for to help determine whether an investment is a good fit.

    AI for buying online businesses is an essential development for sophisticated institutional investors. Machine learning and AI-powered recommendations can help these investment teams quickly surface and hone in on a list of potential M&A targets that fit their parameters and investment goals, with higher accuracy and at scale.

    Related: Thinking About Starting an Online Business? 2023 Is the Right Time to Do It. Here’s Why.

    AI will become a ‘personal assistant’ for online business M&A

    There’s been a lot of hype and chatter about AI and what it means for the future of humanity and how people work. Will AI replace all human knowledge workers? Will AI make people obsolete? I believe that these fears are overblown. AI will be like any other technology that humans have developed: as we learn how to interact with these tools and build them into our workflows, AI will help people work better and faster. It might eliminate a few jobs in the short run, but it will ultimately create many more new opportunities for humans to do more of what they do best.

    Here’s how that might look for online business M&A. Think about the traditional process of buying or selling a business in the pre-digital era. You had to work with a business broker. You had to set up a listing. You had to market the business and look for qualified buyers. Some deals might have happened by word of mouth or within a known universe of investors, but the process took much longer and was unnecessarily complicated and costly.

    Today, as AI capabilities continue to improve, we’re going to see AI become a kind of “personal assistant” or digital intern that helps online business buyers and sellers do their deals faster, more efficiently, and with greater precision. AI will be a friendly digital helper that is with you at every step of the way — offering up smarter searches, better recommendations and more accurate results, leading to more constructive conversations for business sellers and investors.

    AI is going to drive big changes in how every industry operates, and the online business M&A space is no different. But the future is bright. By eliminating friction, clutter and costs from the process of buying and selling online businesses, entrepreneurs can do more of what they do best: building successful companies and delivering value for customers.

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    Blake Hutchison

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  • How Rohan Brown Became a Top Tech Entrepreneur | Entrepreneur

    How Rohan Brown Became a Top Tech Entrepreneur | Entrepreneur

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    “One Friday afternoon in middle school, I got called into my principal’s office. When I walked in, there were a few cops waiting for me and no one looked too happy to see me. Earlier that day, a friend and I thought it would be a good idea to rob our classmates with a BB gun. We were just playing around, but our classmates didn’t think it was too funny.”

    This is the beginning of Rohan Brown’s story, an entrepreneur whose journey started when he was arrested when he was just 12 years old. He says that this event forever changed the course of his life, which he details in compelling and inspiring episodes of his show My Stories, which you can find streaming free on EntrepreneurTV right now.

    Related: 4 Remarkable Habits of the Most Successful Tech Entrepreneurs

    Originally from Hartford, CT, Rohan Brown played D1 basketball La Salle and went on to work two years in corporate finance. He left and started Barley Inc., with an eye on revolutionizing beverage technology. He has competed in several startup competitions including, but not limited to, the MIT Sports Analytics Conference, Silicon Dragon @ the Nasdaq Center, and Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch twice, and has also been accepted into several business development programs including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Access Network and the Startup Leadership Program.

    Watch EntrepreneurTV this week to catch all of the episodes of Brown’s inspiring story, and learn how to apply his life and business lessons to your pursuits.

    About EntrepreneurTV

    EntrepreneurTV’s original programming is built to inspire, inform and fire up the minds of people like you who are on a mission to launch and grow their dream businesses. Watch new docu-series and insightful interviews streaming now on Entrepreneur, Galaxy TV, FreeCast, and Plex.

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    Entrepreneur Staff

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  • 3 Things I Wish I Knew as a First-Time Airbnb Host | Entrepreneur

    3 Things I Wish I Knew as a First-Time Airbnb Host | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In 2017, I purchased a single-family home and listed it on Airbnb as a short-term rental. Several years and additional units later, the venture grew into a full-time business that now gives me around $150,000 per month. I could say I had a good ride.

    But the journey to this success wasn’t smooth. There were many things that I wish I had done differently, especially when I was just starting. And while some might say they’re part of the whole experience, I still won’t recommend them to anybody.

    And that is why I want to share the things I wish I had done when I was new to the Airbnb industry. These lessons impacted how I did my business, and if you’re starting on your own, these will be helpful for you too. The following are the three things I wish I knew as a first-time Airbnb host:

    Related: 10 Pieces of Financial Advice I Wish I Knew in My 20s

    1. An “employee mindset” won’t get you far in the business

    Now, I don’t have anything against employees. They’re awesome because they are the foundation of our labor force. I started as an employee myself, and I have a staff who helps me with my business too.

    However, if you want to create a flourishing Airbnb business, you don’t need the kind of mindset that most employees have. Allow me to explain.

    When I started my Airbnb business in 2017, my wife and I operated our unit, and we had no trouble doing so. Our profits were more than enough to cover our mortgage for the first three years.

    However, the struggle started when we decided to do all the cleaning ourselves. At that time, we didn’t think it was necessary to hire help because we could always do the cleaning on our own. Plus, we thought it was better not to pay anyone and keep the profits to ourselves. But we couldn’t have been more wrong.

    As days and months went on, we realized that we should have done things differently. We spent so much time cleaning our Airbnb that it was draining. Sometimes we’d be tired from appointments, and we still couldn’t rest because we had to clean our unit.

    It was then that we knew the business became another 9-to-5 job for us, and we were operating with an employee mindset. We wanted the job done right and to make more money, so we thought we had to do everything ourselves.

    But this employee mindset didn’t get us far, and neither would it be for you. The Airbnb business requires effort, and if you’re not careful, it could drain your time away from the most important things you should be focusing on. Instead, I recommend you get people who can make the work easier for you.

    Don’t hesitate to use some of your profits to hire help because, in the long run, you’ll benefit more from it. It’ll free up your time, and when you have more time, you’ll get the chance to focus on growing the business. You can even launch a new Airbnb if you want to!

    Related: How to Start an Airbnb Business Without Owning Property

    2. Delegation is the key to time freedom

    This is in the same context as the first lesson I mentioned, but it’s so important that it bears repeating.

    You see, there are three primary operations in the Airbnb business: cleaning, maintenance and communication. Now for your business to thrive, you have to take care of these three areas equally. But this would be extremely difficult, especially if you have more than one unit and you’re doing all the operations alone.

    People will check in and out of your Airbnb, so cleaning and maintenance need to be taken care of regularly. The problem when you’re doing those things yourself is that you are trading time for money. This is why you need to delegate those tasks and automate them for your work to be easier.

    You can hire people to do the cleaning and maintenance for you, create an automated cleaning and maintenance calendar that they will follow, and you’re good to go. You can even get a virtual assistant to help you on the communications side.

    This is how million-dollar entrepreneurs operate their businesses: by building a team and a system, hiring, delegating, and automating all the operations. And I wish I had known this sooner.

    3. Collecting a 1099 Form will reduce your taxes

    The IRS 1099 Form is a collection of tax forms that you have your subcontractor sign so you can take what you pay them as a tax deduction. This applies to the people you hire to clean, do the maintenance, and do your communications. As long as you pay them $600 or more within the same calendar year, you must collect a 1099 Form from them.

    This is something that I wish I had known when I was getting started. I didn’t know that I needed to collect a 1099 Form, so I ended up paying for money I didn’t keep.

    Now to be fair, no one told me about it then, so I didn’t know. But now that you have an idea make sure to implement it to protect your profits so that you won’t lose out in the end.

    Related: 8 Ways to Save Money on Business Taxes

    Conclusion

    Making mistakes as an entrepreneur is perfectly normal, especially if you’re new. However, no rule says you must make blunders for the sake of experience.

    Instead, you can learn from those who have already been through the same struggles and learn from their backgrounds. After all, success leaves clues. By learning from the experience of others who have overcome similar struggles, you gain valuable insights and avoid unnecessary pitfalls.

    So take advantage of the wealth of knowledge available to you, and start building the business of your dreams today.

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    Jorge Contreras

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  • How Creators Can Thrive as Advertisers Are Cutting Back | Entrepreneur

    How Creators Can Thrive as Advertisers Are Cutting Back | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    If you’re a creator, you’ve probably heard about the importance of diversifying your revenue streams. Chances are, you may have already done this successfully and if not, you might be curious about where to start.

    Like any industry, the creator economy isn’t immune to the pressures of inflation. As declining brand sponsorship offers and ad revenue payouts squeeze revenues, creators increasingly seek additional ways to extract value from their businesses. But for many, the question then becomes how and when?

    Not only do I believe diversification is one of the major trends that will define the creator economy in 2023, but a recent survey we conducted also revealed that 70% of respondents were considering additional income streams because of this economy. And with good reason: Diversifying can help complement and cross-sell existing offerings, leading to greater engagement, retention and customer lifetime value.

    But while it can be tempting to dive right in, creators need to approach diversification strategically to ensure it yields increased revenue and career stability by complementing and strengthening existing content rather than becoming a distraction.

    I don’t just work with creators; I am one, which has given me a front-row view of diversification’s overlooked pitfalls and powerful potential. There are no easy answers to getting this right, but here are some rules of thumb for any creator hoping to diversify their offerings to remain competitive, meet evolving audience needs and survive in this economy.

    Related: Why Creators Can Weather a Recession Better Than Big Business

    Don’t diversify without a purpose

    Let’s get this out of the way. Yes, diversification can be a powerful strategy for business growth, but you don’t have to diversify just because everyone is talking about it. And you certainly don’t need to be on every platform, trying to tap into every possible revenue stream. Generally speaking, there are two main scenarios in which diversification might be a good option for your business: When things are working and when they’re not.

    Diversification can be an effective strategy for creators who are already successful and want to take their business to the next level. If you have a large audience, generate significant revenue, and have the bandwidth to take on more work, it’s a good time to consider expanding and reaching a wider customer base.

    By diversifying, you can tap into new revenue drivers and lead sources and engage with your audience innovatively. Twenty-five percent of full-time creators earn between $50,000 to $150,000 per year, according to a recent survey from ConvertKit. Most do this by combining several revenue sources, from online courses to paid newsletters, appearances, coaching, merchandise or other streams. Our research shows that full-time creators rely on an average of 2.7 income streams, and the number of creators relying on multiple streams has risen nearly 50% over the past five years.

    On the other hand, if your current strategy is losing steam and you’re finding it difficult to generate audience engagement and revenue, it may be time to look for content and revenue streams that click. Used this way, diversification is more of a slow pivot than a true expansion, but exploring new kinds of content, products and services may help you energize your community or find new audiences that are more receptive to your content, bringing long-term stability to your business. Simply put, if your content is not resonating with your audience or you find it difficult to generate revenue, it may be time to consider a new approach.

    Related: A Recession Creates Opportunity for Creatives

    When to wait

    Despite the great potential diversification offers, sometimes it’s better to wait and focus all your energies on what you’ve got. If you’re new to the creator economy, still seeing growth and achieving your milestones, it may be best to focus on your existing content and channels rather than adding extra distractions. Diversifying can easily become overwhelming, especially if you’re still on a learning curve.

    Even experienced creators should recognize that diversification will require additional focus and effort. I’ve seen plenty of cases where creators with Shiny Object Syndrome neglect successful and profitable business channels and lose at both. If your current approach works well, staying focused on growing existing channels and hiring a team to increase your capacity in those successful ventures may be better than splitting your attention.

    I’d always suggest you do a quick ROI check on if your efforts on this new opportunity are likely to create greater returns than just leaning into your existing business and doubling down on what’s working.

    It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach

    If diversification is your move, the next logical question for many creators will be: How? And the truth is, there is no golden ticket. The right moves for diversification depend heavily on your unique audience and business.

    One way to diversify is by expanding your topics using your existing channels. For example, if you have an online school for yoga instruction, your student community might also be interested in meditation and healthy eating. By expanding into related niches, you can diversify the topics within that niche to keep your audience engaged and attract new followers. This approach allows you to grow your brand while maintaining focus on the platforms that serve you best.

    Another approach is diversifying your revenue sources to complement and cross-sell successful content. A physical product can drive revenue, while a course and community can be an engagement engine that keeps people returning. The synergies create a virtuous cycle – hot topics of conversation in a community can be the basis for a new minicourse or ebook; courses can be gateways to paywalled communities where everyone has a common baseline of interests and skills.

    Creators can build robust and sustainable businesses by combining channels in unique ways. Take John Lee Dumas, host of the podcast Entrepreneur on Fire, who has combined his daily podcast, short courses, and even regular reports about his own entrepreneurial journey as part of his diversified offerings.

    Related: For Savvy Entrepreneurs, an Economic Downturn Creates Opportunity

    A well-executed diversification strategy can turn your community into an engagement engine that builds customer loyalty while yielding rich customer insights. The key is always to be strategic. When considering diversification, map out a workflow for your content production, syndicating it across channels and reassess the impact on your bandwidth before making additional changes.

    Diversification can be a gamechanger for creators looking to build thriving, sustainable businesses, but there’s no single way to go about it or one right answer that will meet every creator’s needs.

    Random expansion, or feeling the need to be everywhere all the time, is not a successful strategy — it’s a recipe for burnout. But by strategically identifying and tackling new content and revenue streams, creators can stay on top of the game.

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    Greg Smith

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  • How Cognitive Biases Can Impact Your Trading Career | Entrepreneur

    How Cognitive Biases Can Impact Your Trading Career | Entrepreneur

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    Are you a trader looking to improve your trading skills and increase your profits? Did you know that cognitive biases can have a significant impact on your trading decisions? Cognitive biases are inherent thinking errors that occur as humans process information, and they prevent us from accurately understanding reality, even when we are presented with the necessary data and evidence to form a more accurate view.

    Let’s see some of the cognitive biases traders and investors are prone to, and then I’ll tell you what you need to do to limit them.

    Negativity bias: This bias refers to the tendency to give more weight to negative information than positive information.

    Loss aversion bias: This refers to the tendency for traders to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. In other words, the pain of losing is psychologically about twice as powerful as the pleasure you get from profits. And this bias can cause traders to behave irrationally.

    Gambler’s fallacy: This bias refers to the belief that future events are affected by past events when, in fact, they are independent.

    Confirmation bias: This bias refers to the tendency to seek out information that confirms preexisting beliefs and ignore information that contradicts them.

    Hindsight bias: This bias refers to the tendency to believe that past events were more predictable than they actually were.

    Anchoring bias: This bias refers to the tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information encountered when making decisions.

    Bandwagon effect: This bias refers to the tendency to do or believe things because many other people do or believe the same.

    Overconfidence bias: This bias refers to the tendency to overestimate one’s abilities or the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgments.

    Recency bias: This bias refers to the tendency to weigh recent events more heavily than earlier events.

    Self-serving bias: This bias refers to the tendency to attribute positive events to one’s own character or actions and negative events to external factors.

    There are many more cognitive biases, but those are just some that are relevant in a field like trading. They come into the picture and structure the way we perceive market information, very often in ways that aren’t helpful to our bottom line.

    Related: How to Account for Cognitive Biases as an Entrepreneur

    Why you can’t completely eliminate biases

    Cognitive biases are intrinsic to human thought and perception, and it’s important to remember that just knowing about these biases doesn’t necessarily free you from them. As a trader, your trading approach has to include mechanisms to limit such biases, or else you’re just going to repeatedly shoot yourself in the foot — and you won’t go anywhere in terms of consistency.

    Once again, you cannot just rid yourself of biases. Some people appear to think you can, but to that, I’ll say this: Not seeing your biases is itself a bias (blind spot bias — the tendency to recognize biases in others, while failing to see biases in ourselves)

    Biases dumb down for us the complexity of the world — they’re just how we see the world and think. They’re inevitable. That being said, they can be mitigated. For instance, it is useful to remember that our brains have evolved these biases to deal with information overload.

    The world is a complex place, and we’re constantly bombarded with all kinds of information coming to our five senses. The best estimate I’ve read on this is that there is about 11 million bits per second worth of information available to our senses on a moment-to-moment basis. The research also tells us that our brain has a limited amount of information it can perceive at a conscious level, and that number is about 50 bits per second. That’s a big difference, isn’t it? 11 million are available, and only 50 get in …

    So, unsurprisingly what this means is that there is a huge amount of filtering going on in our brains, and that takes the form of habits in the way we perceive and think about things. We are constantly filtering information and selecting the ones that already fit our worldview.

    And that’s not all. Within that mess of information available to our senses, there’s uncertainty. What do I mean by this? Well, there are many deep and important questions about reality that we don’t know the answers to, and that lack of “knowing” and lack of certainty is confusing; it troubles us, so we fill in the gaps with our own stories and map it all to our existing mental models.

    But some of the information we filter out is actually useful and important, so what does the mind do? Well, it fills in the gap with information it already knows, and sometimes this is good enough, but often it’s not.

    In order to act fast in a world fraught with all sorts of dangers, our brain needs to make split-second decisions that could impact our chances of survival. But quick decisions and reactions are often counter-productive because most of the time they’re rooted in short-term emotional gratification. And short-term emotional gratifications often go against our long-term goals — what we know rationally is better for us.

    Related: 13 Cognitive Biases That Really Screw Things Up For You

    How to limit the effects of cognitive biases

    Now, there are ways to limit the consequences of cognitive biases and improve your trading performance. The keyword here is “limit.” Once again, biases are an inevitable part of human thought and perception, and we can only mitigate the extent to which they impact our results as traders.

    You can use tools like meditation to become more aware of your inherent biases, thoughts and emotions. I’m really big on meditation, given my background as a meditation teacher, and I’ve found it to be very impactful in helping us develop self-awareness and emotional maturity. Living an examined life like that also helps us better accept that we are permanently biased creatures and that despite that, there’s room for improvement. We can get better … not be perfect, but better.

    So, meditation is one way to limit the role of biases in your trading process. Another way is to adopt a rule-based approach to trading. “If X happens, I’ll do Y;” “if Y happens, I’ll do Z.” You don’t need to have hard rules for everything — just for the hard decisions where there’s a lot of uncertainty and potential risk. Examples of hard decisions would be in terms of your position size, stop-loss placement and what you need to do in case of a gap below your stop-loss.

    Soft rules will generally do for all the other lighter decisions, like your profit target or when to trade.

    In conclusion, by understanding the ways in which cognitive biases can impact your trading decisions, you can develop effective strategies to mitigate their effects and improve your bottom line. Just keep in mind that our brains have evolved these biases to deal with information overload and the complexity of the world. But by coupling self-awareness with a rule-based approach to trading, you can make more informed decisions based on objective criteria and increase your chances of success in trading.

    Related: Trading Psychology 101 — How Traders Can Manage Their Emotions and Achieve Success

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    Yvan Byeajee

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  • Boost Your Solopreneur Business with These 3 Proven Tips | Entrepreneur

    Boost Your Solopreneur Business with These 3 Proven Tips | Entrepreneur

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    It can take up to 18 months for an entrepreneur to finally feel like they have a working business model — if ever. And while there are no hacks, there are shortcuts to success that can save you time and accelerate your revenue growth.

    These shortcuts are centered around the main obstacles any new entrepreneur will face:

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    Terry Rice

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