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 Do-it-Yourself Resources

Want to roll up your sleeves and build out your side hustle yourself? This page is perfect for people with more time than money (hey, I’ve been there). As you grow your biz you will want to hire these tasks out, but for now let’s get cracking!

Watch tutorials on the Sidehustlers show

*Some of the links on this page are affiliate links (watch for my upcoming episode on product partnering). I only recommend tools I personally use in my businesses or have a solid reputation as an industry leader. There is no extra cost to you, and I earn a little commission which helps keep the lights on around here! Thanks! 🙂

A little disclaimer: As with all advice … please do your own research and due diligence before making a purchase!

The Platform: Websites, Domain Names and Hosting

This is the first hurdle of your new side hustle … setting up your website or online store. Just remember … you only have to do this once, and there are TONS of videos on Youtube to guide you through this. Take a few deep breaths to calm your mind if the tech stuff gets a little overwhelming. You’ve got this!

 
I like dividing this advice into beginner tech skills and advanced. You are a beginner if the terms WordPress, Domain registration, SSL, hosting, etc. are Greek to you! If you have built and/or run a website already you are advanced!

Beginner Skill Websites: (Spend money, Save time)

If you want the easiest, low-hassle solution I would suggest a click-and-drag, all-in-one solution type website company. These companies do everything for you … register your domain, host your site every month, process all your payments, sell stuff in a store, host a membership site (just on Clickfunnels) … everything you might need to get up and running in a couple hours.
 
The “con” for all of these places is that you are building your house on borrowed land, as they say. They are not a WordPress site you can move, and you build using their tools and features. For many beginners, however, this may not be a deal breaker because you want a hassle-free business and unlimited help.
 
Here are my top three suggestions: 
 

–  Squarespace (blog/store) – In the case of Squarespace, you pay them around $12 US / monthly, and in return they register a domain name for you, host your website, give you pre-made templates to use, process payments (for a small cut), and act as your tech support when you need help. This is perfect for people who want a simple, pretty 5-6 page website with a blog.

–  Etsy (selling handmade physical products) – Etsy is not a webpage maker, it’s a marketplace like eBay. You can quickly create a little storefront, and create listings for your products. You pay Etsy $0.20 US for each listing, and 5% fee for each transaction. Etsy has a major plus … traffic. Millions of people go there LOOKING to buy cool, interesting stuff. 
– Clickfunnels (page-maker and membership site) – Clickfunnels is a very versatile tool that builds customized individual pages for your business. You can easily make a sales page, payment page, webinar page, etc. This is a great site if you are a consultant, for example, doing webinars in which you sell your coaching services at the end. You don’t have to actually get a host and build a full website, you just build the 2-3 pages you need (sign up, webinar, coaching, payments). Clickfunnels is more expensive ($97/m), but worth it if you are selling something right away in your business. Teaching Sidehustlers is built on Clickfunnels.
If you want the easiest, low-hassle solution I would suggest a click-and-drag, all-in-one solution type website company. These companies do everything for you … register your domain, host your site every month, process all your payments, sell stuff in a store, host a membership site (just on Clickfunnels) … everything you might need to get up and running in a couple hours.
 
The “con” for all of these places is that you are building your house on borrowed land, as they say. They are not a WordPress site you can move, and you build using their tools and features. For many beginners, however, this may not be a deal breaker because you want a hassle-free business and unlimited help.
 
Here are my top three suggestions: 
 

–  Squarespace (blog/store) – In the case of Squarespace, you pay them around $12 US / monthly, and in return they register a domain name for you, host your website, give you pre-made templates to use, process payments (for a small cut), and act as your tech support when you need help. This is perfect for people who want a simple, pretty 5-6 page website with a blog.

–  Etsy (selling handmade physical products) – Etsy is not a webpage maker, it’s a marketplace like eBay. You can quickly create a little storefront, and create listings for your products. You pay Etsy $0.20 US for each listing, and 5% fee for each transaction. Etsy has a major plus … traffic. Millions of people go there LOOKING to buy cool, interesting stuff. 
– Clickfunnels (page-maker and membership site) – Clickfunnels is a very versatile tool that builds customized individual pages for your business. You can easily make a sales page, payment page, webinar page, etc. This is a great site if you are a consultant, for example, doing webinars in which you sell your coaching services at the end. You don’t have to actually get a host and build a full website, you just build the 2-3 pages you need (sign up, webinar, coaching, payments). Clickfunnels is more expensive ($97/m), but worth it if you are selling something right away in your business. Teaching Sidehustlers is built on Clickfunnels.

Advanced Skill Websites: (Spend time, Save money )

These days, the software we use to make websites makes it pretty simple. You can spend less than $100 and in a single weekend have a gorgeous site that looks like you paid $5000.  I’m not going to walk you through each step as there are a billion Youtube videos out there for each step of the way. Just search for “How to make a WordPress site”.
 
The part I want to walk you through is setting up your domain name, host and WordPress theme. Here are some quick tips  and some suggested companies I use and trust:
 
STEP ONE: Domain Registration: (approx. $10 USD/y) A domain is a critical piece of your branding. Make the address short as possible, clear and unique (don’t buy the .ca of a name if the .com is taken). You can search for available domain names at the same place you buy them. I use Namecheap.com because yes, they are cheap … and they have a simple, clean dashboard with a wide variety of domain endings (.boutique, .store, etc). They include free domain privacy (hiding your personal details from the web) which most other places charge for. They were also super friendly in customer service when I needed help. 
 
Once you purchase the domain, you have one final step and that’s pointing the “nameservers” at your website host. If you already know where you are going to host your website (see step two) you can do this step early before you even buy the hosting package. It sounds scary but it’s copying and pasting and takes 2 minutes. Here are the copy/paste from a2hosting. In the Namecheap screenshot below, you put them where the green arrows are.
 
ns1.a2hosting.com
ns2.a2hosting.com
ns3.a2hosting.com
ns4.a2hosting.com
namecheap
STEP TWO: Find a Website Host:  (approx. $7/m USD in year one) My host is a2hosting.com, which I prefer over Bluehost and the way-too-expensive Godaddy. At a2hosting the SSL certificate (secure site in the address bar) is included, which is a major cost savings. You want the cheapest “shared hosting” package they offer, with no upgrades. Be aware that the price you see for all hosting companies is a first year incentive price. 
 
Pro tip: All online companies put their products on sale during holiday weeks. If possible, I would try and wait until your host has a big holiday sale (Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, 4th of July, Back to school, etc) when their packages can be up to 70% off. Then, lock in a 3 year deal! There’s lots to do behind the scenes if you decide to wait (writing, filming, planning).
 
STEP THREE: Install WordPress + Theme: (approx. $60 USD) First, WordPress needs to be installed (free). After you’ve installed WordPress, you’re ready to buy your theme (there are free ones, but they’re crappy). A theme is the “interior design” that makes websites look beautiful. I use the Avada theme on several sites, because it has unlimited options and comes with lots of terrific pre-built templates. Here’s where to buy Avada, and here’s a tutorial to help you set it up. There are many other good themes such as Divi and Thrive. Any theme will do.
 
** ONLINE STORE: If you want to sell products online (tshirts, kayaks, superhero costumes …), I suggest Shopify or your own website (I would add Amazon, too … but that’s down the road). Shopify is more expensive, but it’s easier to set up. I think you should book a coaching hour with me before you set up a store. Selling products through a topic-specific blog (Nerdy Teacher T-shirt Emporium, Kayaker’s Paradise …) may be a better choice. I have several online stores and I can help guide you to your own WordPress-based store or Shopify, as I’ve used both.
 
This was a very technical section, so don’t panic if it seemed like a lot. Remember, you only set this up once then you are done! If you need help managing the stuff so far, check Youtube for help. If you are still stuck I would just hire someone to set it up for you (see Done For You button below). You can just change all your passwords later.
Done For You Resources
Coaching with Neela

Email Services

 

You need to collect people’s email addresses in order to build a relationship with them and inform them about upcoming events. An email service collects the emails for you, and has pretty templates for creating emails. You send your emails through the email service and it tracks your open rate and subscribers.

 
I recommend either Flodesk (my current email service) or Mailchimp (the old one I had for years). Your choice at first might be based on your budget.
 
– Mailchimp: Mailchimp is not as easy to use initially as Flodesk, because it has more advanced features. With Mailchimp you can have a free account with one main list and a simple auto-sending welcome (here’s your freebee) email. For many of you starting out, that is probably enough. With Mailchimp, you pay more as you add people to your list. Eventually, Mailchimp will become more expensive for you.
 
– Flodesk: I love the clean, easy to use layout of Flodesk. It has a more magazine-style “look” rather than the generic look of most emails. They don’t look as boring or as “sales-y”. They also have a simple pricing structure which is a monthly flatrate ($19.99/m with promo code “yay50”). Meaning, as your email list grows you don’t pay more money. So, costs more money at first but savings later.
 
** I know adding hundreds of people to your email newsletter list sounds like a far away dream at first. It’s not. Recently, I ran a Facebook ad to a free guide on one of my websites. I had 300 people sign up in the first 4 days!

Social Media Posting

Social media like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest can all be goldmines for getting attention to your website or store. If you create a blog post, podcast or video (or want to showcase a product in your store) you should share it on all the channels your audience hangs out on. 

 
For classroom teachers: Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. 
For educators in leadership-type positions, add Twitter and Linkedin. 
For the general public … I would focus on Instagram.
 
Beginners: I would focus on ONE social media channel … probably Instagram. Check out Susie Zimmerman’s free tutorials. 
 
More Advanced: I recommend paying for a broadcast tool like Buffer ($15 US/month) which has a calendar that you pre-fill with posts for social media. I would consider paying someone like this on Fiverr ($5/week) to fill up the queue with your new (and past) content, quotes, etc. You give them a list of hashtags and let them go to town.
Done For You Resources
Coaching with Neela
Done For You Resources
Coaching with Neela
Done For You Resources
Coaching with Neela
Affiliate Networks

Being an “affiliate” simply means you sell other people’s stuff. When someone clicks a link on your pet website … then visits the other store and buys something (a guinea pig hammock) … you get a percent of the profits. The percentage isn’t huge, usually in the neighborhood of 5%, depending on the product. That said, every little bit adds up.

I am an affiliate for several companies; the top three being Amazon, Clickfunnels and Share-a-sale. Most of the money I make as an affiliate is on blogs that I run. For example, you start a blog for chameleon owners. On the site, you write articles about chameleon care … and link to chameleon homes, food, toys, medicine (Amazon) … or vet medicine deals (Shareasale). The goal is to get lots of traffic on the blog by helping people with your articles. These are called “niche sites” and teachers can be awesome at these because they can research and write articles easily.

– Amazon Associates Program: In order to be approved as an Amazon Affiliate you need a website already built so they can see you’re for real. You can write the blog posts yourself or hire someone on Fiverr to write them for you. You can pick literally ANYTHING to start a website about. In my experience, if you pick something you aren’t personally interested in you may not be as successful.
– Shareasale: Like Amazon, you will need an existing site to apply to be an affiliate for Shareasale. Shareasale is not an online store, it’s a database of merchants. You flip through the database and find stores you think are a good fit for your site. I have a beer site, so my Shareasale store partners are garage pub signs, glassware, beer subscription companies, etc.
– Clickfunnels: Clickfunnels is a very powerful software that allows you to quickly throw together individual pages (sales page, payment page, membership area, etc.) without building an entire website. This is really helpful when you want people to take a specific action (clicking on a buy button) and not wandering all over a blog. We will explore the idea of funnels in more detail in the Teaching Sidehustlers show. It’s not a beginner tool, but I wanted to include it here. This site is built on Clickfunnels.


Print-on-Demand (running your own store)

Print-on-demand is a business model where you design an image (or hire someone on Fiverr to do it) and another company prints it on stuff and delivers it to your customers. The old days of having boxes of unsold tshirts in the backroom are over. A cap, tshirt, baby bib, runner, legging, aprons, etc doesn’t get printed until AFTER the customer pays for it. That single item is printed and shipped. No inventory. No running out of sizes.

You can run a “store” (see above) and it doesn’t cost you a penny until the customer orders the product from you. The customer pays $25 for a cool t-shirt, and the print-on-demand partner charges you the wholesale rate (say $5/tshirt) and a little shipping fee ($5). You keep the difference (in this example, $15).

The two simplest ways to use print-on-demand are to start a niche site or open a storefront. A niche site (described in the affiliate section above), is where you create a website and blog devoted to ONE thing: Homebrewing beer. Anti-bullying. Fat tire bike trails. Then offer cool merchandise that audience might like. Imagine the image above, except those items have a fat tire bike on it. Opening a storefront is even simpler. You can do this on Etsy or Shopify (or Squarespace). Call the store “Fat Tire Freddy’s” or something (ok, bad name but you get it) and sell a million things with fat tire bikes on them.

Here are the print-on-demand partners I’ve worked with, although there are a million of them out there:

– Customcat: CustomCat is a cool, smaller company out of Detroit, MI. They are very easy to set up.

– Printful: Printful is one of the biggest print on demand companies. Massive selection, mockup generator so you can see your design on their items, etc.

– Redbubble: Redbubble isn’t a print shop, this is actually a store itself. They let people sell their stuff here and you get a cut. So instead of starting your own fat tire bike tshirt store, you upload the designs on Redbubble. Same exact idea but you just upload a design and they sell, print, ship … and give you a cut if anyone buys.

– Merch by Amazon: Merch by Amazon: I make the most money off this for print on demand. Exactly like Redbubble except it’s … Amazon … and there’s a bazillion people shopping around the world. They have a very limited selection of items, but if you get a design that people like you make up for it with VOLUME.

Graphics, Sound and Video
You

will need lots of different media for your business. This may include a logo, photos, banners, videos, audios etc. This is always the fun part for me!

My motherly advice is to be very mindful of following copyright laws when you have a business site. There is no “fair use” when you are selling things. You need something called a “commercial license” for any pictures, music, media, etc that are attached to commercial intent. Luckily, there are tons of great places to make your own graphics, get Creative Commons images or buy cheap commercial licenses.

My Top Places for Graphics:

– UNSPLASH: I love Unsplash.com and use it almost daily. It is a free, Creative Commons (with No attribution required) website full of professional photography images.

– PIXABAY: I also love pixabay.com and use it lots, too. It is a free, Creative Commons (with No attribution required) website full of a wide variety of clipart, arrows, buttons, icons, photos, cartoons, etc.
– CANVA: Many of you will be familiar with Canva as it’s a popular tool to make images. You can also use it for creating your ebooks, PDFs, website banners, social media posts, and business logos. Canva is not REALLY free, as you have to purchase all of the nicer images you use there. If it’s going to be your main sources of graphic-making I would just pay the upgraded account ($10/m USD) and get the images included. As a little bonus: A lot of clever side hustlers have created Canva pre-made templates for sale (something you could consider, too …). You can buy beautiful magazine layout type PDFs, instagram posts, etc. Google search for “Canva ebook templates” etc. I love templates because they look professional and save so much time.

– FREEPIK: Freepik is a huge image site more like iStock or Shutterstock, but much cheaper. You can use the site for free, but you must credit the artist underneath the image. I get the upgraded account ($17/m USD) and can use the images in my products and merchandise commercially and without credit.

– PLACE IT: If you wonder how they get models to try on all those company tshirts … they don’t. It’s all computer generated. Placeit is amazing site that allows you to upload any digital image (pdf, logo, image) and “see” it either on a model or sitting on a coffee table .. or on the side of a car. You name it. It’s amazing and I use it all the time.
– SLIDESGO: Slidesgo is a free, amazing collection of pre-designed slides for either Powerpoint or Google Slides. If you’re presenting this is a must visit.
– COOLERS: I just discovered this little gem not long ago. Coolers.co (no “m”) is a colour palette generator. Wonder which colours go nicely together? Just keeping hitting the space bar and it cycles through colour palettes for your website, logo and branding! I put in the red from my rocket logo and it gave me this (which I really like):

Audio and Video

– MICROPHONE: If you are recording yourself you can easily start out with your Apple iphone earbuds (that mic isn’t bad) but eventually you need a “real” mic. People will forgive crappy video but they will exit immediately if they can’t hear you properly. As with all tech stuff, you can go crazy and spend a ton of money but Blue Yeti microphones and their cheaper cousin Fifine Microphone (that’s what I use) would be my recommends. One little note about your voice … please … I beg of you … watch the “tsk” sound you make before starting your thoughts. This little tick is sooooo annoying to your audience!

– WEBCAM: Generally speaking, you never want to use the built in camera on your computer or laptop. It gives you that cheap and usually unflattering “Zoom chat” appearance. That said, you can compensate a lot with lighting (see below). I use the camera on my iMac a lot, but I’m frequently back and forth sharing my screen and it’s just easier. The pros use a fancy DSLR camera like a Canon, but that is too expensive for beginning side hustlers. A nice alternative is to use your cell phone which has a fantastic high res camera. You will need a tripod stand, and a little app called “Camo“. It will make you look pro and it’s way more flattering.

– LIGHTING: You definitely need lighting, and I would suggest either a ring light with a cell phone holder in the middle or two softboxes which is what I use. You need two because one is the key and other is the fill so you don’t get shadows.

– EPIDEMIC SOUND: I discovered Epidemic Sound this past year and I’m in love with it. Most music is either copyright, crazy expensive to license, or terrible quality! For $15/m, you have unlimited access to amazing real music tracks for your projects, videos, podcasts, etc. This includes jazz, blues, hip hop, sound effects, stings and more. Choose the “personal” account.

– SCREENCAST-O-MATIC: I started using Screencast-o-matic when I first began working in online learning. I still use it to this day! It’s so easy. You don’t need to learn Camtasia or iMovie. It’s free if you leave the watermark on the bottom, but that looks unprofessional so buy the upgraded “Premier” version ($4/m USD). You can edit the videos there, blur sensitive information, green screen effects … they even have a new picture, music and video stock library free with the premium plan:

Done For You Resources
Coaching with Neela

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