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🐧 How to create your expat side hustle
5-figure case study, 4 pricing methods, Mom Test, 5 growth tactics
Dexter Zhuang
April 08, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Hey expats. Income generation & side hustles were hot topics last week. 🔥
That’s why today we’re walking you through step-by-step how to build your own side hustle from scratch and nail your first sale 🏆️
Today in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:
🎯 How to choose your profitable niche
⚡ Research customer needs
⭐ Design your price & offer
🪝 Create your distribution & sales
P.S. We’re exploring a possible Money Abroad meet-up! 🎉
Location: Singapore, SF, Sydney, TBD based on demand. Yes, we want to see your lovely faces in person! Reply to express interest and tell us where you’re based.
💸 Create your own expat side hustle
🎨 1. Identify your skills
The first step to creating your side hustle is identifying which skills you want to monetize.
Two simple approaches: self-reflection and consulting your circle.
Self-reflection
Think back to 3-5 experiences when you felt like you were thriving in your work or personal life. Write down what happened in each experience, then identify the strengths or skills you were exercising in each story.
Having trouble labeling your strengths? Feel free to grab this reference list.
Consult your circle
Ask 5-10 people in your circle who know you from various aspects of your life — including your friends, family members, colleagues, and mentors — to answer the question:
“What do you see as my unique skills or strengths?”
How I applied this step:
Doing both self-reflection and consulting my circle helped catalyze me to run a five-figure career coaching side business for 3 years. I discovered that coaching was my superpower after I received positive feedback from multiple colleagues I coached on career growth (plus, I felt in my element doing it).
🧠 2. Identify your curiosities
While skills are critical, don’t forget about what interests you.
Why? Your curiosities are essential to helping you stay motivated.
Especially in case you hit a rough patch (kind of inevitable).
How I applied this step:
In my early 20’s, I loved nerding out on career and psychology books. I also liked ideating my own frameworks for navigating my career. Later, I realized that I could apply these same curiosities to creating actionable frameworks and exercises in my career coaching practice.
🎯 3. Choose a niche
OK great now you have list of your skills and curiosities, you can choose a niche based on the intersection of your skills and curiosities.
Here’s five examples:
Marketing skills + Fashionista → selling trendy bags
Speaking skills + likes business → business speaking gigs
Teaching skills + AI nerd → teaching AI courses
Ops/sales skills + likes real estate → self-storage service
Ex-consultant + likes helping others → case interview prep
How I applied this step:
I constructed my niche using my existing skills and interests:
Coaching skills/tech background + career nerd → tech career coaching
⚡ 4. Learn about customer needs
This is where you’ll want to talk to potential customers in your niche. Your goal here is to determine:
Who is your target customer
What problems they struggle with (that you are uniquely positioned to solve)
For this section, I’ll share a few quick rules about customer development I learned from The Mom Test. Why is it called the Mom Test? It’s because:
“Never ask your mother if your idea is good, because in the case of doubt, she will lie to you to not hurt your feelings.”
The Mom Test rules: