My mission on this blog is to inspire and empower you to start and grow a creative online home business you love to get out of bed for. So let’s start with helping you find some creative side hustle ideas.
Beautiful flowers grow from small seeds
You finding this blog post – or this blog post finding you – is no coincidence.
You are intentionally looking for something new. You are fed up with your current role in life, and you want to start something new and fresh that inspires you daily.
Am I right?
If you are at the start of this journey, then this post is just what you are looking for. We’ll look at why you want to start on this journey, what inspires you and whether it will work in the long run.
You don’t want to waste time and money on an idea that is not going to work, so let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. Follow these steps and you’ll take a structured approach to find your perfect business idea.
Download a worksheet for finding your perfect side hustle idea to work along with this post.
So here’s the big question, why do you want to start your own business?
Let’s think for a second about the real root of why you want to take this leap.
If you think you are going to have an easy life, then stop right there.
If your dream is to wake up and slink downstairs in your jammies to do a couple of hours work and then go off to meet the girls for lunch, then think again. Running a creative side hustle isn’t like that.
Starting and running your own business is not easy. You are likely to end up working long hours. It really isn’t the overnight success your heroes make it look.
It will take over your life. You will need to live and breathe it. So doing something you love is vital. It can’t just be about making lots of money, although let’s be honest that is always going to be a factor, but it can’t be your main one.
You need to delve deep into your reason for starting, what it will mean to you and how you will feel? Only after you have worked this out will you be able to judge whether this is really the right life for you.
What are your passions
If you have been dreaming of making more of your creativity for years, but you’re unsure on what craft to pursue. Or perhaps you’re insecure about your talents or even just a bit scared of failure.
All these are valid concerns and taking the time to work out where you are and what you love to do is essential.
So take the opportunity to think about what you enjoy doing, what crafts can you do, what makes you feel most alive. What are you doing when you lose all sense of time. What can you bore others talking about? All these are good indicators of what you are passionate about.
If you had all the skills, talent and money, how would you spend your days? If the answer is one of the creative pursuits you thought of above, then you are at the starting blocks.
What is your level of knowledge and skillset
Zeroing in on your creative purpose can be as spontaneous as love at first sight, or it can be a bit hit and miss. If you try enough crafts, you will start to know what type of work you excel at and what areas leave you cold.
So when thinking about a new business idea, it is important to start with an endeavour that comes naturally to you and that you enjoy.
If you have thought about what you enjoy doing, then you will have a few ideas of some possible creative pursuits. Now take the time to think about where your talents lie and what you are good at.
Think about what creative work of yours has been complimented on by others. Also, think about all your other talents. Can you combine anything that will make something unique and covetable to buyers?
Obviously, the perfect goal is to find something you enjoy doing, you are good at and that people will happily buy! It’s no good enjoying making fluffy crochet cactus if no one wants to buy them. Unless of course, you are sure it’s the next big thing, in which case you go girl!
Are your side hustle ideas profitable
With your list of passions and skills in hand, you are ready to start thinking about whether your new business will fly. And by that I mean will you be able to make a profitable living!
While you are still in this thinking process, why not take a look at online craft marketplaces. Look at places like Pinterest, Etsy, Folksy, Amazon Handmade or Not on the High Street and get inspiration from your fellow creative makers.
Look at what they are selling, look at what is popular, can you EASILY put your own spin on something similar?
What you are looking for is that the cost of YOU making the item does not exceed the average market price. Don’t forget to include your labour cost.
If you can’t make a profit at the average market price, can you add more value to it so you can sell it at the price you NEED to make a profit?
Finally, think about how many of these items do you need to sell each week to earn a weekly liveable wage. Can you realistically make and maintain this number of items in a week to create your liveable wage? Note: we haven’t even started thinking about how realistic it is to sell this number yet!
If you can make the required number, then you are onto a winner, if not just keep thinking up some other ideas using the techniques described above to help.
Is your side hustle idea scalable?
Knowing your profit margin is crucial. I like knitting but I would need to be selling it for big $$$ to make a living.
Here’s why.
I decide to sell hand-knitted jumpers. Each jumper takes me 3 days to make (this isn’t realistic by the way, it’s more like 3 weeks!) and the cost of the wool is £20. If I work an 8 hour day at £12.50 an hour, then the manufacturing cost is £330 (labour+materials+selling fees+post&packaging)! I then decide I want a 50% profit on this, this takes the Retail Base Price to £495. My product would need to be very high quality to justify this price!
Also, only being able to make 2 products a week is a bit limiting. What I need is a more scalable model.
As an alternative, I also like to design my own knitting patterns. This will create a more scalable business for me to sell the knitting patterns to people. This way, I can sell the same pattern many times over without it costing me any more money.
If you have so many ideas, you don’t know which to choose then take a look at this post to try and help you slim down the choices.
Building a successful creative home business is entirely possible, BUT it takes time, energy and persistence to make it happen. If you’re not passionate about it, then you likely won’t have the energy to keep going.
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