Updated: Jan 27
This post is for anyone looking to start their own side hustle, or specifically, looking to help their kids start their own side hustles.
A few years ago, I started my first blog site, Bringing Hobbes To Life. It was a play on words from my favorite comic strip growing up, Calvin and Hobbes, and the word hobbies, which both my boys, Matthew and Michael, created businesses from. I documented the process we went through to start the businesses. While the website is no longer active, I printed out each of the blogs before I shut it down and had saved them in a filing cabinet. With the help of AI, I scanned them into a file and then had pulled the text out. I made a few grammatical updates, but these two posts (Part 1 and Part 2) are all in their original form.
As a disclaimer, these posts were accurate at the time of publish, about 5 years ago. The costs and fees from sites like eBay are now meant to be directional and educational, not factually accurate today.
About
Almost 30 years ago when I was I high school, I had my first interest in starting my own business but could never figure out what I wanted to sell. As high school passed, and then college and work and family, the idea of a business just never materialized. Then a few years ago, my oldest son Matthew wanted to make extra money (at the time he was 14) and started selling LEGO mini figures on eBay. Then my middle son Michael started selling his photography at local craft fairs when he turned 14.
Both were very successful and as of this initial post, have sold over $36,000 with a net profit of over $12,000. In both cases, I shared as much knowledge as I could to help them be successful, all of which I will share in the following post chapters. (Update- Total sales were $60,000+).
The posts will share my lessons learned, both the good and the bad of how to start and grow your side hustle. What this is not going to be is a site to start your own business to go public but how to leverage your passion, sell something profitably, and just have fun.
The name of my blog, Bringing Hobbes to Life, has a dual purpose. The phrase is both the idea of taking your hobby and doing something with it and it is in honor of one of my favorite comic strips as a kid, Calvin and Hobbes, where 6-year-old Calvin has many real-life adventures with his stuffed animal tiger, Hobbes. My hope is you find the site helpful.
Chapter 1) Finding Your Passion- Start a Side Hustle
Your passion is something you probably like doing already. For example, do you like to cook, organize, build, fix, write, create, draw, shop, design, or have a specific style that is unique?
Picking a side hustle can be a product you create (baking cupcakes) or buying and reselling (clothes) or a service you offer (resume writing).
Engage the advice of family and friends. The people closest to you may have ideas for you to get started, and they may even be willing to help out!
As early as I can remember, my dad was sharing tips with me on business related items such as learning about income statements, making decisions and strategic planning. I took those lessons and have enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) a career in sales and now sales management helping others succeed. I will focus my posts based on what I learned helping my two boys start their own businesses. They started from scratch and built profitable and successful businesses for them to earn money. Now it can be your turn.
The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:
"Follow the lead of your child."
About My Family
I have been happily married to my wife Mary Beth for 21 years and have three kids. Our oldest Matthew has three passions in life- Star Wars, Marvel and LEGO. Our middle son, Michael, took an early interest in nature photography and also loves WWII history. Emma doesn't have an interest in starting her own business (yet) but loves interior design.
Passion
Matthew started selling post cards on eBay after getting a few lessons from his Uncle Mike who gave him a box of post cards to get started. Matthew spent hours on my eBay account posting one card after the next selling them for $.50 to $1.00. After getting a few sales Mike moved him up to selling books and he also made a few sales doing that. As he was selling both post cards and books,
Matthew started to list and sell some of his LEGO mini figures. It turns out they sold pretty quick, but he also quickly ran out of mini figures of his own he wanted to sell.
One day we were driving to a Salvation Army store looking for used books for him to sell, and as we were leaving the store he complained about how much trouble it was selling books, with issues around having to box them up and go to the post office (which became my job) as they sometimes didn't fit in the mailbox. He sat in the car and said "I just want to sell LEGO mini figures. You don't need to worry about them breaking in the mail and I can leave them for the mail carrier to pick up in our mailbox at our house". So from that point forward he started selling LEGO and ultimately creating his own blog site, Summerfields Toys (which is no longer active).
Michael had a different business trajectory. He always had a creative eye for taking photos, usually at the point of view of very low to the ground and would go around taking pictures with my camera (and his own). At the age of 11, He got a small point and shoot camera and joined the photography club in middle school. He would also take some pictures during family vacations.
Mary Beth and I picked out a few of his pictures and made coasters out of them for our family room table and a friend of Mary Beth's commented on the photos and how unique they were. She suggested we go and sell at this large local craft fair called stART of the Street in Worcester, MA. So we took some time to pick out about 30 photos, went to a local store, Westboro Art and Frame, and they helped us narrow down to about 10 pictures we printed for sale. We did some research on selling photography at craft fairs and 3 years ago, he sold his first pictures to non-family members validating to him that his eye for taking pictures was a talent to develop.
As for me, I always wanted to start my own business growing up but could never find the right product to sell. As it turns out, helping our boys start their own business helped me satisfy that itch, and had the great benefit of spending great time with them. I also am leveraging the editing skills of my dad so this has become a full circle family side hustle.
Chapter 2) Start Small with Little to No Monetary Investment
Test your idea by starting small. Can you sell or create something from the contents in your home?
Big ideas can start small. Even if your plans are grand, think how you can sell a few items to start and see how it goes.
Borrow from your parents (if you are a kid looking to start out). Parents, make sure you pay your kids the profit right away to keep their interest.
After Matthew decided that he wanted to sell LEGO mini figures, we sat down and tried to figure out what to sell. He shared with me that the mini figures can sell, specifically the Star Wars Storm Troopers, which people need to build an army of them. Unfortunately, when you buy a set, it may only come with 2 or 3 storm troopers and to build an army, one would have to buy lots of sets and get other parts they weren't interested in as much. As a result, we bought 5 sets of LEGO 75165, Imperial Trooper Battle Pack. It came with two stormtroopers and two Imperial Death Troopers. He opened all 5 sets and sold the troopers initially in lots of 5, meaning a person would have to buy 3 sets to get 5 troopers. His offer wasn't unique to those who sold LEGO as we would periodically see similar offers on eBay but his was the cheapest. His goal was not to maximize profit but just to make some money and have fun doing it. As the mini figures sold, we started buying more and offering larger lot sizes of 10 and 20. We had a great formula for success until the product was discontinued and he had to look at other ways to sell LEGO. Matthew's initial investment was less than $100 and based on what was selling he was making about 30% profit.
Michael's photography start up costs were a bit more financially expensive. It was recommended that for his initial craft fair, which attracts 30,000-50,000 people he should get two of each picture, with matting and 3 of the photos we framed as 11x14. As we learned pictures are a challenge to sell as the buyer has to have an idea of where they are going to hang it and of course the buyer has to like the photo before buying it. The are now hanging in our house as after 2 years we couldn't sell those at the price worth making any money. We spent about $400 initially to fund his pictures and he sold about $700 worth his first showing, some from family and friends but many from strangers which helped validate that he had a talent that was just starting to materialize.
In both cases, we made sure we captured all the costs, including all eBay and PayPal fees for Matthew and the craft fair fees and PayPal fees for Michael. After all costs were documented on a spreadsheet, we paid the boys the profit on each product they sold, not waiting until they sold enough to break even. This was a big motivator for both kids to continue to sell as they were seeing immediate satisfaction. Depending on what you want to sell, your initial investment may vary.
For example, if you are making cupcakes, it may only cost you a few dollars for ingredients. If you are creating a blog site like this one, the costs can range from $50-$500 depending on the option you choose to set up the site. My recommendation is to start as cheap as possible to keep costs as low as you can. Regardless of what you choose to start, make sure you document your costs by item such as cost of flour and to get as granular as possible such as a bag of flour will make 10 dozen cupcakes. Then, take the cost and divide by 10 and that's how much the cost of flour is for you to make 1 dozen cupcakes. This will help greatly in the future to make sure you are selling at a profit.
Chapter 3) Setting Up An Online Marketplace
Pick the marketplace that fits your product. Selling art and handmade items sell best on Etsy while eBay is great for selling just about anything else. For more advanced users Amazon and Walmart offer marketplaces for general items. Specialty items such as LEGO also sell really well on sites like BrickLink and Brickset. Check to see if there is a specialty marketplace for your product.
Pick one marketplace to start and learn as much as you can about it. Each site has its own unique features, benefits, and rules.
Understand the costs to sell. Is there a listing fee, how much is the site taking per sale/transaction, etc?
Online marketplaces are great as they connect the seller (you) with millions of potential customers. Sites like eBay have close to 200 million registered users on its site with 10's of millions active every day.
The key is how do you get started. This section will not review the sign up details but things we experienced as we were starting out on eBay and Etsy. Details matter and making sure each section of your product is filled out is critical. The algorithms (just a fancy word for how the software makes decisions) are based on many factors one of which is did you complete the entire product section with things like color, shipping dimensions, and pictures- don't forget pictures. The better the picture the better your selling experience will be. If you can include more than one picture, it will help your chances of getting higher in the search and give the prospective buyer a better understanding of what you are selling.
The other major thing we have learned, especially pertaining to eBay (but I am sure for the other sites as well) is that engagement matters. It is not the type of platform where you set it up once and just watch the orders come flowing in. You have to be on it constantly, and in my opinion at least once a day in some form to have the algorithm see you are engaged (most social media platforms work in a similar way also).
First, I will cover what did not work for us, mainly using the experience of my son Michael in setting up and maintaining his online Etsy store. Michael is the true definition of an artist who only wants to take pictures and has no interest in any other side of the business. The business part is what I enjoy and with my help, I set him up on Etsy. Etsy charges $.20 per listing per quarter or $.80 per year. In all, not that much if you are selling a bunch of items.
The nice thing about Etsy and eBay is you can increase your quantity and still only pay the one listing fee. With handmade or art based items, descriptions are key as the user has to search on a key word that describes your item. For Michael, his business was called touch of nature photography and he had photos and a few we turned into notecards. I played around with the search engine optimization (SEO) words on the Etsy site, but he wasn't getting very many hits. Except one day he got his first and only sale online and it turned out to be a great one.
The sale itself was only $10 for a digital print of a dam in our hometown. However, the person who bought it worked for the Massachusetts State House Library, and it was featured in 2019 in their summer display about Waterways of Massachusetts in the State House in Boston. It will also be archived in the State House library forever. It was a pretty cool and unexpected result from just a $10 sale. However, with that being his only sale, and trying multiple approaches to get his product sold, we opted to pull the listing after a year and focus solely on craft fairs which have turned out to be very successful for him.
Conversely, Matthew has had a tremendous amount of success selling on eBay and the LEGO specific site of BrickLink. Selling LEGO, or any defined product, is a bit easier as there is already a set name and number that people search. Plus there are ways eBay makes it easier to list similar products which copies over all of the relevant data. Another key factor for success is listing the product on eBay as they recommend.
For example, if eBay states the product is best sold at $7.50, if you sell for more than that, it may not sell as well because eBay will put it further down in the search listing. Conversely if you offer it for a lower price, you may get a better chance at selling but may also lose out on potential revenue. My recommendation is to always use what eBay states, at least in the beginning so you can build up your site and customer credibility until you gain the knowledge of what works and what does not.
The last thing you absolutely need to understand is the platform fees. eBay recently moved to Managed Payments which ultimately cuts out their partnership with PayPal. In doing so, it costs 12.5% plus $.30 per transaction. The 12.5% is on most products but each selling category (ie toys may be different than books) is different. You may also get charged a listing fee of $.30. I have not seen it recently but when Matthew first started he had to pay listing fees.
As an example, if you sell something for $10.00, it will cost you $1.25 (which is 12.5% of $10.00) plus $.30 for a total of $1.55 just to get started. However, if you sell something for $1.00, it will cost you $.125 plus $.30 for a total of $.425 just to get started plus you have to factor in the cost of the item and if there are any shipping costs and listing fees. This is just a quick overview as I wanted to give you something to think about as you start to plan your selling strategy.
Chapter 4) Understanding Marketplace Costs
Understanding selling costs from the marketplaces like eBay and Etsy can be confusing but it is possible to figure out. This blog post will help.
We are going to cover just one tip because it is so important to understand and get right. If you miscalculate, you could be losing money on every sale and not know it. My goal is to prevent you from getting into that situation. In this example, I will explain the selling structure of eBay and their new Managed Payments program. The costs that will be outlined are for most products, but you will need to check the actual costs for each item category you are selling.
For example, selling books and toys are in two different categories and as such, the selling costs are different. In most categories including toys which is where Matthew's LEGO sets fall under, the cost of the category is 12.5% plus $.30 per transaction. So if you sell a product for $10.00 it will cost you $1.25 ($10.00 x .125) right? Not quite . eBay charges 12.5% on the total of the sale of the product, the shipping that the buyer paid and the tax that was collected, which varies by state (some states do not charge tax). At the time of this article being written eBay collects tax from 44 states in the US.
For us to get the complete picture of how much your sale will cost, let us use the following example costs. For simplicity, we are going to say you are selling something you already own and as a result, the cost of the product is zero. You list and sell the product on eBay for $10.00 and you charge $2.76 for shipping. The buyer also lives in a state where they charge tax of 6% or $.60 ($10.00 x $.06). The total costs can be summarized as follows:
Item | Cost |
Product sale | $10.00 |
Shipping cost | $2.76 |
Sales tax | $.60 |
Total cost | $13.36 |
Based on this chart the buyer will pay eBay $13.36. One nice thing about eBay, and I assume all of these marketplace sites, is they collect the tax and pay the government tax on your behalf. This saves the seller a lot of time not having to process and pay sales tax. However, while they take care of the sales tax, they still put it in the calculation when they charge you for the sale of your product. Adding one more column to the chart above, the costs eBay will charge you in their Managed Payments program is as follows:
Item | eBay fee at 12.5% Cost |
Product sale | $1.25 |
Buyer's shipping cost | $.345 |
Sales tax | $.075 |
Total cost | $1.67 |
Transaction fee | $.30 |
eBay's fee | $1.97 |
In this specific example, the eBay fee is $1.97 ($13.36 x .125 plus $.30) on a product sale of $10.00 or 19.7% of the product sale. The 19.7% is much different from the 12.5% you might have been expecting and why it's so important to understand the marketplace costs so you don't lose money on the sale. When Matthew first started selling on eBay, we really did not pay attention to the costs. We knew there was a listing fee at the time of $.30 per item when he was selling the post cards but that was about it. Since he was under 18 at the time, the account was in my name and I let him list and sell.
All was going great up until I got a monthly invoice from eBay. It came as a shock to me that I owed eBay $42 and it was automatically deducted from my PayPal account at the time. I quickly started to learn about the costs eBay (and PayPal at the time) charges on each sale and built a spreadsheet to track our progress. I also helped him by building out a second tab that he could input some sample data to identify how much profit he was making on each sale.
To continue how to start your own side hustle, or help a child get started, please read chapters 5-9 at Start a Side Hustle: The Family Business Method- Part 2.