Day 5: Testing Your Side Hustle Idea Without Costs

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No matter which side hustle you create — drop shipping, affiliate marketing, Amazon FBA, blogging, being an influencer — whether it be a product or service, you must know how to test it. Testing helps determine if whatever you are pursuing has the potential to grow. How else will you know if you should keep going or maybe try something else?

When I started my first side hustle 10 years ago, I was super broke. I needed to create a system where I could conservatively estimate whether or not my idea was worth my time, and more importantly, my money.

At the time, I didn’t understand the idea of drop shipping so I consequently gravitated towards e-commerce. I ended up buying hundreds of hats, sweatpants, and sweatshirts with money from my pocket, putting a logo on them, and sitting with my inventory for years to come. Ouch. I ended up donating most of it to Goodwill simply because I bought more inventory than I could sell.

It was this terrible experience that I had with buying in bulk that made me think, “there’s gotta be a better way to do this.”

So, I learned about drop shipping. But just you know about drop shipping doesn’t mean you’re going to start making money right away. In order to launch a successful campaign you have to find the right product. In order to find the product, you have to test, test, and test. Just like almost anything in the world, each one of these test campaigns costs money. If you’re not careful, you will run yourself broke pretty quick.

So Adrian, what should I test?

Great question! If you’re like me, you probably have ideas constantly running through your mind (some good, some bad). Whenever somebody asks me if their idea is “good enough”, I (almost) always encourage them to try it out no matter my initial thoughts.