Side gigs, side hustles, business ventures - whatever you want to call it, starting something new can be thrilling for some, stressful for others. If you are curious about how to go about starting a side business, look no further - we got you covered in this Bad Bunz episode featuring our resident entrepreneur, Steven!

How to Get Started

There are so many different schools of thought when it comes to being an entrepreneur, but nothing starts without an idea! Steven described that he preferred to sell widgets, or physical objects, rather than providing a service. By selling physical items, there aren’t limits to how many items you can sell, but more of a matter of finding the right item. In the contrary, selling a service can be lucrative, but the money stops when you decide you need to take a break. No matter how you want to approach your side businesses, these are things to take into consideration. At the end of the day, it’s all about what you love to do and something you think you can profit off of.

Trade Shows

Want to break into a certain industry or you found that a certain industry is currently underserved? Trade shows are a great way to learn more and gain connections to areas you might not know too much about. There are trade shows for everything from construction businesses to cars and you can get a great idea and samples of what these certain industries might need. Trade shows can be found all over in most major cities, so do some research and plan your next trip (post COVID of course).

Tools to Help You Succeed

In this day and age, the internet has become a business’s strongest tool. You can outsource just about everything for a relatively low cost in order for you to stay focused on your mission. Need an assistant? You can go on Fiverr. Need a website made? Easily design one on Squarespace (not sponsored by the way). Steven made a great point that you can do many one-off tasks by finding freelancers willing to do an amazing job for a relatively affordable cost. You don’t have to take on everything, unless that’s what you want to do of course.

Steven’s Resources and Tips

Most of these resources can be found on the internet, these are some that I have used in the past or thought the information was enlightening during my entrepreneurial adventures.

Virtual assistance:

https://www.onlinejobs.ph/ - Company is based in the Philippines with good English speakers and competitive rates.

Podcast:

NPR - “How I built This” is an excellent podcast that talks about the rise of many popular companies. I found this podcast insightful and pushes me to my conclusion that nobody knows WTF they are doing and there is a large aspect of luck involve- right place at the right time with the right resources to make things happen.

Sourcing (retail heavy)

Alibaba.com

https://www.made-in-china.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsqnr8NDL7gIVT_DACh0SyAvFEAAYAyAAEgLNffD_BwE

Trade Shows

Pick a convention center in a city and search ‘trade shows’ or see their calendar. Find something that’s interesting and go. Conversely, if there is an area of interest, look up trade shows for that industry- there is literally a trade show for everything under the sun.

Online resources:

Audible - listen to both business books and classics. This will help with your networking game.

Ted Talks - insightful ideas to think about it.

Graduate School of Business Youtube channels:

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Harvard Graduate School of Business

Other Skills that I’m currently trying to improve

Mandarin ( this is something I am actively trying to accomplish ) get yourself to a middle school high school level where you can read and write basic concepts if you ever want to do business with china.

Excel - Of all the software out there that isn’t coding. Mastering excel will open up a lot of doors for you. This should be a never-ending pursuit to improve your excel game.

Stock market - Rich people plays this game and it’s designed for them to win. However, it is important for us peasants to learn the difference between investing and speculation and how to leverage this tool to help us.

That’s a good place to start, please let me know if you have any additional questions or comments regarding this list.

As always, listen to the full episode to hear in-depth explanations and discussions!