Hi friend,

I started earning $1500/month from my side hustle 5 months into writing online and two months into taking it seriously.

For the first three months, I wasn’t writing as much and was publishing 2–3 articles a month. I was doing one-time gigs that helped me make $100-$500/month. It was a fun extra pocket money.

Then, I thought about finally giving this writing thing a chance and going all out.

Because what if it helps me set free and do what I love for a living?

It was a dream that looked far-fetched, but fun.

It did, and that’s how I’m a solopreneur today and don’t write for anyone but myself. But this is 18 months into quitting my job, so let's rewind and focus on your first $1000 a month.

A Few Truths

Before I ventured into writing online, I already made peace with:

• I can’t aim to go viral asap
• My first 50 articles will suck
• My mindset needs to be in the right place
• I can’t compare my day 30 to somebody’s day 500

The last one is the mistake most of us make that makes us feel miserable and eventually, give up on everything. Give up on our dream. Call the online system rigged.

Making peace with the worst right in the beginning helps your heart. At least it helped mine, because mine can be agonizingly fragile.

How I Started

In September 2020, I learnt about this online thing where people get paid well and live on their terms. They were making thousands of dollars, and I wasn’t even making $1000/ month in India.

Salaries here are lesser because of the lower cost of living.

But I could still dream high, right? And that’s how I got into side hustling.

In November, I did my first freelance gig and got paid $130 for 2 hours of work. That felt like a lot of money! And so, my mind was blown and I knew I wanted to take this seriously.

The saying is right — once you make your first $10 online, you know you can make $100, $1000, and $10k.

A Series of Events

I’m writing my story so you know I’ve been there and done that and I'm not simply preaching to you.

This is also to show you the reality of how much time it can take so you can ignore the gurus who tell you to earn $10k/month ‘quickly’.

• September 2020: started side hustling
• November 2020: took it seriously, also freelanced for the first time
• February 2021: Was making over $1500/month from my side hustle
• April 01, 2021: quit my job
• July 02, 2021: notice period ended, and so I became a freelancer!
• December 2021: became a solopreneur

So now if you trust me enough, let’s get started.

1/ Do a Mix

I think people underestimate the importance of doing a diverse set of gigs to earn money. Here’s what I was juggling with:

• ebook ghostwriting: 10h/ week
• copywriting: 2h/ week
• money made: $1500+/ month

It wasn’t overwhelming to balance this at all alongside my 9–5. Once in a while, I also tried my hand at social media ghostwriting or writing blog posts.

Applying to different gigs helps you:

1. Understand what you want: I didn’t know I don’t want to write blogs for others until I randomly applied to a website copywriting gig and loved it.
2. Play with your skills: diverse writing helps you explore and build on your skill.
3. Negotiation: it only took one incident where somebody doubled it with no questions asked that made me believe we earn what we demand. If you want more money, ask for it.
4. People: this is how you’ll meet lovely people who would help you grow by recommending you.

How to do this

Write on a platform online so you’re also building your catalogue in public which can help your potential client when they look you up.

Use Upwork to apply for gigs.

Yes, it has a reputation for being frugal, but it still has excellent projects. There are $5/1000 words crappy ones, but there are also $300/article ones if you dig deep enough.

2/ Affiliate Income (100% Passive)

As a newbie, barely anyone looks into it. I don’t know why because this is the easiest way to make a quick buck.

Perhaps ‘selling’ feels scary?But hear me out, because you won’t really be selling.

The first time I got $250 in my inbox for doing nothing at all, I tasted passive income which tasted oh so sweet.

Affiliate income is the easiest way to earn money by doing nothing.

How I go about it is that I only use affiliate links of the stuff I’ve used, hence I have less than 5 of such links because I don’t want to be all over the place with them.

I don’t want to talk about 10 products just to make money.

I talk about 5 products I’ve been using for over a year which helped me grow.

As a newbie, this is the easiest way to earn money in your sleep. It doesn’t assure you monthly income, but it’s easy and passive income that comes in big chunks.

How to do this

First, see if the softwares that you use have a partner program. I’ve paid heavily for Hypefury and Kajabi and have affiliate links for them because of their in-built affiliate program.

Second, are you planning on doing courses?

Most instructors are more than happy to make you an affiliate and spread the word. I give:

• 25% commission to my cohort-based-course students (they can earn up to $6000/year) using it
• 35% commission to those who are enrolled in my LinkedIn course​

They don’t automatically hop on. It’s entirely optional and while I mention it exists, I don’t push people to hop onto it.

I feel if people love something enough, they’ll rave about it without you telling them to.

Use these links in relevant articles, posts, or mention them to your friends. Here’s an example of how a pal mentioned it to me without spamming me with a link:

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Lastly

This is the easiest way to earn at least $1000 alongside your 9–5.

And once you do it, it only gets easier.

Keep building in public and showing your work. Keep applying for gigs even though you may not get through most of them. After that, it takes one good experience to become confident and stay motivated.

Later on, who knows you’ll be the next big freelancer or take a consultant or solopreneur path.

Only enough time and effort will tell.

See you next Saturday!

Love,
N

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Whenever You're Ready👇🏻

Here are two ways I can teach you what I know:

1. ​LinkedIn Ultimate Content Mastery: a self-paced LinkedIn course to help you grow on LinkedIn and write compelling stories that attract opportunities. I gained 75k followers in 12 months and became LinkedIn Top Voice within a year of writing, so this stuff works.
2. ​Summit 21: my flagship live cohort-based course that takes place 4x a year and teaches you sustainable systems to write consistently. We start on June 05 and are 50% booked. Join the third cohort this summer:)
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