I’ve always stressed that young adults should focus on one main thing: developing new and marketable skills that help them grow.
Recommending various online side hustles has been the main avenue I’ve covered to promote this idea, and there’s a few reasons for this:
- Starting a side hustle when you are young will force you to learn things school cannot hope to teach.
- You’ll have a competitive advantage over your competition when applying for jobs.
- You can kick-start your path to wealth generation and diversify your income at an early age.
It doesn’t matter if you start a blog, an online business, or take part in some other entrepreneurial endeavor; the point is to just start somewhere!
What Is ‘Young Money?’
Since I’ve already shared plenty of stories about how I personally made money during school, I wanted to extend an invitation to other awesome finance bloggers and successful entrepreneurs to do the same.
Therefore, say hello to the brand new and inaugural post for my first interview series on this blog!
Young Money is going to highlight the stories of young, successful side hustlers or business owners who decided to take on challenges to learn, improve their financial situation, and grow.
We have an awesome first guest today, who has used not one, but two different and lucrative online side hustles to generate a staggering amount of wealth as a young adult just several years after graduating.
Enough of my rambling, let’s hear from Kyle, the owner of the personal finance blog Financial Wolves.
About Kyle:
My name is Kyle. I live in Minneapolis, MN and love traveling the world. I have a few core philosophies that make who I am, and you will see them intertwined within my blog:
- I believe in taking ownership of your outcomes
- Financial autonomy can unlock ultimate happiness
- The online economy and workforce are just getting started
- We need to be more global
- Income is almost always better than cutting expenses
I’ve worked in finance for the past 8 years in a variety of roles, including from corporate, investing and advisory perspectives.
Starting out my career I knew I wanted variety of experiences from a number of different perspectives.
I thought that would be a great way to round out my career and provide me with a different viewpoint than others.
I’ve also built several sites into the six-figure income range and continue to look for opportunities to build my portfolio of online income strategies.
I believe that making money online can open doors for anyone to achieve financial freedom and ultimately live a better life. I made the leap and I’m so glad that I did!
What Side Hustle/Business Did You Start?
To me, there are two different side hustles that have led to financial windfalls for me.
The first is building my niche websites.
I actually created a website that scaled into a six-figure income producing business in less than a year, and I eventually sold this website for $200,000.
Secondly, the next side hustle I started out was creating a freelance consulting business.
Initially, I had to really work to build a reputation and trust with my clients. I focused on becoming great at just 1-2 aspects of consulting. This allowed me to produce a high-quality work product for clients, which resulted in repeat business.
When & Why Did You Start?
I initially started because these ventures because I wanted to help others.
I also had significant student loan debt. I had this urgency that told me I needed to repay my student loans fast and take control of my financial future. I realized the best way to do this was to take action.
For my freelancing side hustle, I made about $10,000 to $15,000 during my first six months. I actually started my freelancing side hustle first, and this was an awesome move that helped me extinguish my student loans. Through this, I was able to invest faster and have additional wiggle room in my personal finances.
From there, I wanted to take a bet on myself. I learned so much from my freelancing side hustle that I was motivated to teach others how to make money on the side.
Plus, I loved the idea of meeting people from all over the world and helping them with their business. I loved the idea of then helping people with their personal finances through my own website. Given my background in finance, it was a natural fit to create a personal finance based site.
Results:
Combined between these two side hustles, I’ve earned over multiples of six-figures in additional income.
I’ve now been able to buy my second house (first one is an income property). I’m currently looking to purchase a third property as well. I like the idea of using small amounts of capital to put towards high returning side hustles or investment opportunities.
I think that using the proceeds from the side hustles to invest in real, stable assets is quite valuable. This will help build a foundation for continued wealth building no matter the economic environment we end up living in.
From a life perspective, I’ve realized that there is so much more to life than working and building something for someone else.
Start creating, not following.
Wins & Losses:
The biggest win was definitely seeing all the hard work payoff and the corresponding learning that came out of the process.
I truly believe that I became a better person from all the work that I put in. I also made some friends along the way.
The biggest loss was putting in all the work and having a sense/question of ‘is this really working?’
There are times as an entrepreneur you feel completely lost in your work. You can start to question everything that you are doing. This is truly one of the biggest deterrents of most people when it comes to starting an online business.
You simply fear failure.
Once you overcome that and realize the world is a big place, you can start to move forwards.
There’s always going to be room for one more participant in an industry. Just focus on producing great work and never settle for mediocre.
What Advice Do You Have For Students/Young Adults?
Start now.
No seriously, start right now.
Looking back on everything that I did, I am really saying to myself that I should have started this earlier.
The online world has opened new doors for me in my life including traveling the world, investing in real estate, find new friendship and so much more.
When you are young, you have the opportunity to do crazy things and learn because you have one thing not everyone has… time. You have all the time in the world to recover from mistakes.
It’s now easier than ever to build an online business. So, take a bet on yourself and build something that will put more money in your pocket, not someone else’s.
Are you ready to bet on yourself?
I challenge you to take on a new side hustle. Today. Not tomorrow. Go something now and change your mindset about making money autonomously.
Final Thoughts:
I’m really happy to have had Kyle featured for the first post in this series.
Kyle has only been out of school for 8 years. In that time, he’s gotten out of debt, started 2 successful online businesses, and bought a rental property to continue to build wealth. Now that’s impressive.
I think this story truly highlights a few things.
Firstly, as Kyle says, the time to start is now.
There is no better time to aggressively work to improve your finances than when you are young. By tackling debt, saving, and working to increase your income, you are laying a foundation for financial success early on.
Secondly, I think Kyle’s story really exemplifies the fact that you never know how things will end up.
You might start your own blog or business during college or shortly after graduating, and who knows, maybe you’ll be able to sell it down the line for a massive influx of cash.
Or, alternatively, you might create a career for yourself through building your own business and brand. The possibilities are truly endless, and this should excite (not frighten) young adults or students.
I’d like to thank Kyle for taking time to be a part of my new series!
My author box plugin is naturally breaking the day I’m looking to publish this, but checkout Kyle’s info down below and give him a follow on his socials!
His new blog Financial Wolves is getting off the ground, but I expect we’ll see some pretty stellar content coming out alongside the great reads that have already been published.
About The Author:
Kyle is the founder of Financial Wolves, a blog focused on helping you make more money to achieve financial freedom. After repaying student loans, I’ve shifted my focus to make more money from side hustles, real estate, freelancing and the online economy. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
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