Side Business

How to launch a business that needs no investment, has no fixed costs and
requires no employees, with only a few hours a week

Chapter 1: Introduction 3
The Side Business Manifesto 3
Whom is this book for 5
About the author 6
Chapter 2: The three most attractive markets 9
Wealth (500 words) 9
Health (500 words) 9
Relationships (500 words) 9
Chapter 3: The three types of businesses 10
Physical goods (500 words) 10
Services (500 words) 10
Digital products (500 words) 11
Chapter 4: The four systems of every business 12
Customer acquisition system (500 words) 12
Customer fulfillment system (500 words) 12
Leadership system (500 words) 13
Management system (500 words) 13
Chapter 5: The business that needs no investment, has no fixed costs and
requires no employees 14
What market? (500 words) 14
What type of business? (500 words) 14
Its business systems (500 words) 14
Chapter 7: Case studies 16
David Garland’s createawesomeinterviews.com (500 words) 16
Nathan Latka’s getlatka.com (500 words) 16
 Pat Flynn’s http://www.greenexamacademy.com (500 words) 16
Chapter 8: Welcome to the Side Business Club (500 words) 17
Chapter 1: Introduction

The Side Business Manifesto

Typically, people call "side businesses" to ventures they are not giving their full
and exclusive attention.

Projects they are working on in their weekends that, once they perform well, may
replace their salary and become their new full-time job.

That's not what we're talking about here.

What this book is all about, is building businesses that do not require your full and
exclusive attention, whether you decide to make of them your only income source,
or not.

Businesses that you can manage (if you want to be the manager) or delegate to an
employee (if you don't). Or even be fully automated.

The alternative is "all-in businesses", which do need your full and exclusive
attention to flourish.

The last kind of business are probably the ones you are most familiar with:

● Businesses where the owner is the first coming in the morning and the last to
go home at the end of the day.
● Businesses that you can tell when the owner is present and when he is not,
just because of the quality of service they provide.
● And last but not least, businesses where the owner just can't go for an
extended vacation because he is afraid of what he will find (or won't find) on
his return.
"Side entrepreneurs" have a better quality of life than "all-in entrepreneurs". And
there's a reasonable explanation to that.

All-in entrepreneurs need their venture to entirely fulfill their personal financial
expectations.

Imagine that pressure.

It is literally an all-in bet where, if they were right (or lucky), it was all worth it.
But if they were not, they will end up in a precarious situation.

While for side entrepreneurs, each venture adds up to meet their goals.

That also means that they can take a venture failure with much more resilience.

The problem is that the media has got us to believe that all-in entrepreneurship is
the only way.

And they do so by omitting that, for every million-dollar company entrepreneur

they promote, there are thousands of "all-in entrepreneurs" that went broke and
hundreds of side entrepreneurs that reach that same million dollar revenue through
their portfolio of businesses.

And for that same reason, lots of all-in entrepreneurship books have been written.

Some of them teach you how to start by building a product, launch it to the market
in record time, and iterate fast if/when you fail.

Others teach you how to build a following of potential customers and niche
authority, so you can ask them directly what do they want and be their preferred
provider.

But all of them presume you will be fully committed to it and, consequently, not
working on anything else.
This book is different.

Whom is this book for

This book is not for those trying to become the next Elon Musk.

Not that I have any problem with him. In fact, I do admire him a lot.

But if you're in the business of building the next unicorn, I'm not the person who
can help you get there (nor do I know who can).

I can only teach what I do know, have done, and have helped others do.

This book is for those who want to build multiple revenue streams, leverage
technology, and the internet not just to find customers but also for all the processes
in their businesses.

And for those who will be equally satisfied collecting $100,000 from a fancy tech
startup than from 10 different small businesses that average $ 10,000 each.

The latter is not only possible but much easier and faster.

And not only that, but

● Less risky, because you diversify your risk among multiple businesses
● Less stressful, because you can afford one failure or two
● It is more fun because each venture is a lab to try and test different things to
learn and apply to the rest

Believe me.

I have left my corporate job at investment banking to launch my big fancy tech
startup and then transitioned to side entrepreneurship.

And let me tell you, it has not been an easy path.

Not because side entrepreneurship is hard, but because all-in entrepreneurship is.
If you're still at a 9 to 5 job, you are in a privileged position. You still own your 5
to 9s.

And with that much time, and the framework you will learn in this book, you can
do wonders.

And if you got stuck in an all-in business, all is not lost, but you have to be willing
to commit your weekends (if you still own them).

Let's start this journey.

Welcome to the Side Business Club.

About the author

Gabriel Roitman graduated from the same business school he then became a
professor five years later.

And he has been teaching marketing and sales to hundreds of students per year
ever since.

He started his career as a securities analyst at the most renowned investment bank
in Chile.

Early on was recruited by the most prominent local venture capital firm, where he
had the opportunity to examine more than 500 startups for the next two years.

That was until he decided to build his first business at the age of 27: a venture-
backed fintech company called Finvox, where he is still Founder & CEO.

Finvox has it all:

● Investors that had put over one and a half million dollars
● A board of directors which meets every quarter
● A team of software developers
● An office where all those software developers go to work and where the
board of directors meets quarterly
What Finvox also has, is a full-time CEO position that he fills.

Yes, it is an all-in business.

But since the launch of Finvox, Gabriel has launched four other businesses: side
businesses.

The first one is a digital agency that helps small and medium businesses to acquire
customers through the internet.

While his agency is a full-time job for several people, he doesn't even have a desk
for himself.

He founded it, developed all the processes, but then hired a general manager to
take care of the daily operations for him.

The last three business goes one step further.

Not only Gabriel don't do daily work there, but no one does (at least no one on his
payroll).

One of them is an eCommerce site for dog food called Dogit.

At Dogit, all the daily work relies on suppliers.

And the other two are online courses, where customers pay with their credit cards
to access video content that they discovered on Facebook through online ads
(funded by the same account that receives the course payments).
Chapter 2: The three most attractive markets

Wealth (500 words)

● People are always looking to improve their financial situation
● This can take the form of finding a job, getting a raise, starting a business,
saving or investing money
● You can compete in this crowded market by finding a new angle (or niching
down), like “starting a consulting business”, “saving money while
travelling”, “getting hire by a cool tech startup”, etc. (this book, for example,
is on starting side businesses that don’t require your full attention)

Health (500 words)

● Health is another of the top of mind worries on every human being
● This can be as broad as exercising and nutrition, but also can take the form
of skin care, supplements, sleep, hair care, etc.
● You can compete in this crowded market also by finding an angle (or
niching down) like “skin care on a budget”, “lose weight while you sleep”,
“exercises you can do at the office”, etc.

Relationships (500 words)

● Relationships are one of the most important things for people
● We are talking about friends, marriage, parenting, being liked or respected
by your peers, etc.
● As with the wealth and health markets, the way to compete in the
relationships market is by niching down, like “single parenting”, “how to be
respected as an accountant”, etc.
Chapter 3: The three types of businesses

Physical goods (500 words)

● Selling physical goods usually require an upfront money investment (you
can do drop-shipping but is getting harder to compete as your providers job
is to deliver their products through as many drop-shippers as they can, and
even though, they might ask for a minimal quantity for you to buy from
them)
● One of the great things about physical goods is that you can scale very fast:
It doesn’t take a hundred times the effort to sell a hundred time more
quantity
● One thing to consider before entering a physical goods business is the
logistic costs. You have to get the product from the factory to the customer’s
door, and that could imply to store the item for a while
● Another thing to consider is the dynamics of the unsatisfied customers.
Normally, you have to get a new item to his location and bring back the
other one back to the factory.

Services (500 words)

● Most new businesses start as a services business. That’s because in a service
business almost all the money and time investment starts after you get a
customer, so your risk is minimum, and because usually is the business
owner himself who will provide the service (at least at the beginning)
● The main problem with services businesses is that they are harder to scale,
because a hundred time more customers literally imply a hundred times
more work to do. And while you can hire people to do it, usually you have to
train them to provide the service in the exact way you want it to be provided,
so the customer experience doesn’t rely on a specific employee.
● And if you are the one providing the service to customers at first, it is
impossible to do it a side business, unless your customers are willing to
receive the service on weekends, but even then, you won’t be able to manage
more than three or four customers (sacrificing all of your quality time and
freedom)
 ● One more issue with services businesses is that customers are used to pay
after they receive the service (unlike physical goods businesses), so you are
taking a risk with every customer. You can charge before to mitigate this
risk but if all your competitors are charging after, this could be a
disadvantage.

Digital products (500 words)

● Digital products are anything a customer can download or access online after
he buys.
● Digital products usually take the form of text, images, audio or video, but
they can be anything you can attach to an email or publish in a website and
protect it with a user and password, like powerpoint presentation templates,
Excel spreadsheets or Google sheets, etc.
● The beauty of digital products is that you build them once and then you can
sell them thousands of times, with zero extra effort or money investment.
● The three main things to consider before entering a market with a digital
product is
○ Competitors: There may be a lot of competitors offering digital
products in the same market (even for free as part of their inbound
marketing strategy) so you have to differentiate yourself self and your
product.
○ Customer acquisition costs: Delivering your product to a customer
might be free, but getting a customer to come and buy it won’t be.
You will have to invest in Facebooks Ads, Google Ads, etc. (but this
will be a variable cost, not a fixed cost)
○ To the date of this book, it is way harder to sell high ticket digital
products than to sell high ticket physical goods or services.
Chapter 4: The four systems of every business

Customer acquisition system (500 words)

● First and foremost, a business needs to have a customer acquisition system:
a repeatable (and ideally scalable) way to bring prospects and make them to
buy.
● Most businesses divide this process into two sub-processes:
○ Lead acquisition system: Get the attention of strangers who might be
in the market for our offer and educate them on our benefits (AKA
Marketing)
○ Lead conversion system: Help those people to make the purchase
decision (AKA Sales)
● This system can be run completely online through digital marketing and
sales automation tools, it also can be done fully offline through traditional
marketing and a sales staff, or it can be hybrid, for example acquiring leads
with digital marketing but closing the sale through the phone, video
conference or in-person meeting.

Customer fulfillment system (500 words)

● A business’ customer fulfillment system consists in the step-by-step process
it conducts whenever a new customer purchase.
● It is important to write this down and follow it every time to secure a
standard customer experience that don’t rely on you being in charge all the
time, so you can delegate and eventually scale your business without losing
it uniqueness.
● Most successful businesses include as a part of this same process, steps to
○ Gather customer feedback
○ Increase customer’s lifetime value through upselling, cross-selling
and/or repeated sales
○ Ask for referrals

Leadership system (500 words)

● This has to do with managing the people that works in the business
○ How to search for them
 ○ How to select the best candidates
○ How to train them
○ How to reward and motivate them
○ Etc.
● When a business lack of a written leadership system, it develops a dangerous
dependency on certain specific individuals

Management system (500 words)

● The management system has to do with the cash flow of your business
○ How and when you charge your customers
○ How and when you pay your providers and employees
○ How and when the business pays you as the owner
● Ideally, you pay your providers and employees only when there’s a
customer, and only after they pay you first
●
Chapter 5: The business that needs no investment, has no
fixed costs and requires no employees

What market? (500 words)

● Any market can do. But try to stay in Wealth, Health or Relationships, at
least at the beginning.
● Between Wealth, Health and Relationships markets, choose the one you feel
more comfortable with.
● Remember to niche down
● Digital products are ideal for side businesses because

What type of business? (500 words)

● You can build a side business selling physical goods, services or digital
products, but there are a few considerations for the first two.
● To build a side business selling physical goods you need to do drop-shipping
(you need a provider to manufacture the goods, package it with your brand
and ship it to your customer’s door)
● To build a side business selling services, you need to find a reliable source
of freelancers that provide the service by your standards, charge only by task
and not a monthly fee, and that you can pay them by credit card. You can
use upwork.com, freelance.com or other similar services

Its business systems (500 words)

● For your customer acquisition system: create an online automated marketing
and sales funnel
● For your customer fulfillment system: automate the customer experience
using the same marketing automation tools (like mautic.org,
autopilothq.com and similar)
○ If you are selling physical goods, create an automated process to let
your provider knows of any new purchase, and an automated process
to ask your customer if he received the product correctly
○ If you are selling services, create an automated process to assign tasks
to your team of freelancers, via email or Trello, and also an automated
process to ask your customer if he received the service correctly
 ○ If you are selling digital products (which I recommend the most for
side entrepreneurship): you can automate all the customer experience,
from the buying process to months after the purchase. I recommend to
have an automated process that last 100 days after the purchase, first
welcoming the customer, then nurturing him on how to take the most
of the product, asking for feedback and then for referrals.
● For the leadership system: You will ideally won’t have any employees, so
you won’t be needing a leadership system, but if you must (specially if
you’re selling services), it is a good idea to have cash bonuses associated
with with customer satisfaction survey.
● For the management system: There are three things you need to do if you
want to automate your cash flow
○ Charge with credit card: You can create an ecommerce for the 3 types
of businesses (yes, even if you are selling services)
○ Pay everything with credit card: even to freelancers through platforms
like upwork.com
○ Charge your customers upfront, so you don’t need working capital
and don’t have financial risk.
○
Chapter 7: Case studies

David Garland’s createawesomeinterviews.com (500 words)

Nathan Latka’s getlatka.com (500 words)

Pat Flynn’s http://www.greenexamacademy.com (500 words)

Chapter 8: Welcome to the Side Business Club (500 words)

● Side entrepreneurship is rewarding, but it can be lonely

● It is convenient to join a mastermind or community
● Join the Side Business Club NOW at sidebusinessclub.com FOR FREE to
access every new resource I share with the community to help you thrive as
a side entrepreneur