Side Hustle Ideas: The MFM Guide to Building Wealth on the Margins
In 2020, Kevin Espiritu was earning 45 million in annual revenue and employs 90 people. The gardening blog became one of the fastest-growing media-to-commerce companies in America.
The transition did not happen because Espiritu found a better idea. It happened because he asked a different question. Instead of wondering how to make more money from ads, he asked why brands paid for access to his audience when he already had complete access himself. The reframe changed everything.
On My First Million, the hosts and their guests have dissected hundreds of side hustles across every imaginable category. The conversations reveal a counterintuitive pattern: the most successful side hustles rarely stay side hustles. They are experiments that become companies, or they are learning exercises that fund the next thing. The designation “side” is temporary. The skills are permanent.
What Is a Side Hustle?
The term has accumulated baggage. For some, it evokes MLM schemes and dropshipping courses. For others, it represents the gig economy and its discontents. On MFM, the definition is simpler and more useful: a side hustle is any income-generating activity pursued alongside primary employment.
The framing matters because it removes the false binary between employee and entrepreneur. Codie Sanchez built a portfolio of small businesses while still collecting a corporate salary. Dharmesh Shah, a billionaire founder, built a word game as a weekend project just to teach his 11-year-old son that coding produces tangible things. Neither needed the side income. Both benefited from the optionality it created.
Shaan Puri and Sam Parr have featured side hustles ranging from gutter cleaning to TikTok affiliate marketing, from real estate leasing to SaaS arbitrage. The common thread is not the industry or the scale. It is the principle that small bets, made cheaply, can reveal opportunities that full-time commitment would never surface.
Case Studies: From $0 to Millions
Theory matters less than evidence. The podcast has documented specific operators who transformed marginal projects into substantial enterprises.
Epic Gardening: Content to Commerce
Kevin Espiritu’s journey from hobbyist to CEO offers a template for the content-to-commerce model. His revenue progression tells the story:
| Year | Revenue |
|---|---|
| 2016 | $17,000 |
| 2017 | $72,000 |
| 2018 | $225,000 |
| 2019 | $550,000 |
| 2020 | $2.8 million |
| 2021 | $7.3 million |
The inflection point came in 2019 when Espiritu stopped thinking of himself as a content creator who occasionally sold things. He started thinking of content as the top of a funnel for a products business. His first product launch—Australian metal raised beds imported on a whim—sold out 550 units in four days while the inventory was still crossing the Pacific.
The insight is worth pausing on. Advertisers pay to access audiences because direct access is valuable. A content creator who already has that access is leaving money on the table by subletting it to brands.
Wordplay.com: $90,000/Month in 48 Hours
When Wordle became a global phenomenon, Dharmesh Shah saw an opportunity that had nothing to do with HubSpot. He built Wordplay.com in a weekend, a clone with improvements: unlimited daily plays instead of one, and a challenge-friends feature that created viral loops.
The numbers are striking. Within months, the game had attracted 9.5 million users who played 45 million games with an average session time of 14 minutes. If Shah had optimized for advertising, the project would generate roughly $90,000 per month. He has not bothered—the game earns far less because he finds two ads per page aesthetically unpleasant.
The deeper lesson involves distribution. Shah did not go viral through luck. He had spent years building audiences on LinkedIn (one million followers), Twitter (300,000 followers), and through his blog and email list. Each channel contributed small amounts of traffic. Together, they solved what he calls the cold start problem: how do you get your first thousand users when no one knows you exist?
The answer, it turns out, is that you build the distribution before you need it.
Suck My Gutters Clean: Blue-Collar Excellence
Shaan Puri once devoted podcast time to a gutter cleaning company in Alabama. The name—Suck My Gutters Clean—is memorable for obvious reasons. But the underlying business does 2 million in annual revenue.
The lesson is not about gutters. It is about what happens when marketing sophistication enters categories where competitors still think Yellow Pages ads are cutting edge. The company’s landing page includes clear pricing, social proof, and a booking flow that eliminates friction. Most gutter cleaners are not thinking about conversion optimization. This one is.
Frameworks: How the Best Side Hustles Work
Across dozens of episodes, certain principles recur. They are worth isolating.
Skill Stacking
You do not need to be world-class at any single skill. You need to be competent at two skills that rarely combine. The TikTok realtor model demonstrates this: combine decent video creation with real estate licensing, and you create a category that barely exists. Leasing agents who also make viral content have no competition because the combination is rare.
Scott Adams popularized this concept: become top 25% at two or more skills, and the intersection becomes your monopoly.
The Godfather Offer
Sabri Suby, who appeared on MFM to share zero-capital business ideas, articulates a principle worth remembering. The best offers eliminate all risk for the buyer. He calls it the Godfather Offer—a proposition so favorable that refusing it seems irrational.
The structure is simple. You do the work first. You prove it generates results. Then you take a percentage of the upside. For a side hustler approaching a business owner, the pitch might sound like this: “I will build your Facebook ad funnel for free. You pay nothing unless it works. If it works, I take twenty percent of the sales from that channel.”
The person making this offer assumes all the risk. The person receiving it has no reason to say no.
Content as Distribution
The Epic Gardening and Wordplay examples share a common feature: both founders had built audiences before launching products. This is not coincidental. In a world of infinite competition, distribution is the scarce resource.
Nick Huber raised $40 million from 320 investors for his self-storage acquisitions. Ninety-six percent of that capital came from Twitter followers. He did not build a real estate empire and then start tweeting about it. He tweeted consistently about unglamorous topics until the audience became the funding source.
The implication for side hustlers is uncomfortable but important. The best time to start building distribution was five years ago. The second-best time is today. The project you launch next year will benefit from the audience you build this year, even if you do not yet know what that project will be.
The Flywheel Approach
Shah’s description of Wordplay’s growth introduces a useful mental model. No single channel drove the majority of traffic. LinkedIn contributed some. Twitter contributed some. His blog, email list, and word-of-mouth each added incremental visitors. The channels functioned as a flywheel—each putting a little energy into the system, the cumulative effect exceeding what any channel could achieve alone.
This suggests a strategic principle: build multiple small distribution channels rather than betting everything on one platform. The diversification reduces platform risk while compounding total reach.
Side Hustle Ideas from MFM
The podcast has featured specific ideas with varying capital requirements and skill profiles.
Zero-Capital Ideas
SaaS Affiliate Arbitrage: Build pre-made marketing funnels for specific niches (chiropractors, dentists, real estate agents) and give them away free. The catch: recipients must sign up for required software through your affiliate link. HubSpot pays 30% recurring commissions for up to one year. On an 2,880 per customer annually.
After-Hours Lead Capture: Small businesses close at 5pm. Their websites receive traffic at 9pm. Offer to field after-hours inquiries through live chat, nurturing leads until the sales team returns. Charge a percentage of closed deals. Scale by hiring overseas support staff.
TikTok Shop Affiliate: Create faceless, voiceless content promoting trending products. One example cited: a Himalayan supplement brand moved $9 million in 90 days through affiliate content. The tools required—AI voiceover, stock footage, CapCut editing—cost nothing.
Low-Capital Ideas
Leasing Agent Weekend Hustle: Get a real estate license and show apartments on weekends. Earn the first month’s rent as commission—typically 6,000 per lease in major cities. Combine with TikTok apartment tours for inbound leads.
Game Clone with Viral Mechanics: Identify a trending game with obvious improvement opportunities. Build a better version with features the original lacks. Monetize through advertising. The capital requirement is hosting costs—perhaps $50/month.
Scaling Ideas
Content-to-Commerce: Build an audience in a specific niche through content. Once you have attention, sell products to that audience rather than renting their attention to advertisers. The transition from media company to commerce company can dramatically improve margins.
FAQ: Side Hustle Questions Answered
How much can you realistically make from a side hustle?
The range is absurdly wide. A weekend leasing agent might earn 20,000 in a single week when a video goes viral. Espiritu made 45 million company. The variance reflects the underlying truth that side hustles are options, not salaries. Most expire worthless. A few pay off enormously.
What is the best side hustle to start with no money?
Service arbitrage requires no capital. Find businesses spending money on one marketing channel. Offer to build their presence on a different channel for a percentage of resulting sales. You invest time, not money. They assume zero risk. If it works, you earn. If it fails, they lost nothing. The Godfather Offer structure eliminates the capital barrier.
How do I find time for a side hustle while working full-time?
Shah built Wordplay in 48 hours. Espiritu worked on Epic Gardening during lunch breaks and evenings for years before going full-time. The question is not whether you have time. It is whether the side hustle interests you enough to claim time from leisure. The successful side hustlers featured on MFM universally describe their projects as compelling rather than obligatory. If the work feels like an additional burden, the idea may be wrong.
Should I quit my job to pursue my side hustle?
Sanchez’s approach was to build ownership gradually while employed. The corporate salary de-risked the transition. She made millions from side businesses before leaving the canopy of corporate employment. The framework suggests waiting until side income either exceeds primary income or reaches a level where the opportunity cost of remaining employed becomes intolerable. Espiritu quit making $450/month, which sounds insane until you learn he had calculated a clear path to growth and was willing to accept temporary poverty for long-term optionality.
What skills matter most for side hustle success?
Distribution appears more important than product. Shah had a million followers before launching Wordplay. Espiritu had an audience before selling raised beds. The operators who struggle are typically those with good ideas and no mechanism for reaching potential customers. The skill worth developing, before you know what you want to sell, is the ability to attract and retain attention in a specific niche.
Sources & Episodes
- [[episodes/he_turned_a_300mo_gardening_si|He Turned A 45 Million/Year | Kevin Espiritu Interview]] — Content-to-commerce model, revenue progression, acquisition strategy
- Month Side Hustle In 48 Hours | ft. Dharmesh Shah — Wordplay case study, cold start problem, flywheel distribution
- 3 Simple Businesses That Make Millions — Suck My Gutters Clean, blue-collar marketing
- Why You Should Side Hustle As A TikTok Realtor, Conan O’Brien Gets Acquired For $150M & More — Skill stacking, leasing agent model
- 5 Business Ideas To Start Today With $0 ft. Shark Tank’s Sabri Suby — Godfather Offer, affiliate arbitrage, TikTok Shop
- [[episodes/how_nick_huber_built_a_100m_se|How Nick Huber Built A $100M Self Storage Empire (#420)]] — Twitter-based capital raising, content as distribution
Related: Kevin Espiritu | Epic Gardening | Dharmesh Shah | Wordplay.com | Sabri Suby | Skill Stacking | Content-to-Commerce | Nick Huber | Sam Parr | Shaan Puri | TikTok Shop | Codie Sanchez