Business

The Side Hustle Report – Edition #1

Own Your Category – Neck Pillows and Solar Power This is the first edition of The Side Hustle Report, the newsletter aimed at budding entrepreneurs in search of a new business idea for a side hustle or two. Why do we believe there is a need for a weekly newsletter with all the ample resources available on the internet? Ideas are ten a penny Ideas are ten a penny. What we look to do is not only provide you with an idea but a ‘package’ of essential resources. These essential resources include a brand name and a premium domain name. The domain name is the most important element of this ‘package’. These resources make our strategy unique in the side hustle space. It allows an entrepreneur to set up a business with minimal capital and benefit from potential customers from day 1. This sets us apart from the usual ‘experts’ who will suggest setting up a business in one or more popular areas such as drop shipping, self publishing a book on audible or selling your services as a self help coach. These are all potentially viable ideas, not particularly unique and definitely with no competitive advantage. Yes, you can buy a course on how to drop ship, but in order to succeed you need an angle, a competitive advantage. We will provide that. About Us A little about us. We operate DomainMoonshots.com. As the name suggests we are a domain listing platform that features an array of quality domain names all of which we believe represent excellent opportunities for a side hustle or startup. What do I know about startups and side hustles? To start with, I published a book on the subject called Reality Distortion – 100 Startup ideas. I am also an entrepreneur having set up numerous businesses from online gaming to vending, from health clubs to bars, so I know a thing or two about side hustles and startups. Finding inspiration for a side-hustle or startup can be a challenging task. However, with the right resources, entrepreneurs can uncover innovative ideas that have the potential to succeed. That’s where the Side Hustle Report comes in. We look to provide at least two business ideas each week. In this week’s report we look at two business ideas which are backed by both affordable and attractive domain names. The Power of Domain Names Why do domain names play such a pivotal role in our strategy? For a few reasons. Owning a good domain name reduces the risk of a new venture. Remember, we are talking about side hustles here. Our aim is to provide ideas that can generate regular income with a relatively small investment and minimal effort, although the last part of the equation could well change as your side hustle grows together with your ambitions! By buying an exact match domain name for a popular search term this should allow you to generate significant traffic to your website with minimal marketing spend. The biggest challenge for any new business is building customer leads and sales. In most cases you will need to spend heavily on marketing to generate your first sale and develop a loyal customer base. Our strategy allows you to short cut this process. You will see the power of exact match domain names with this week’s featured side hustles where the domain name is an exact match for the product behind the business. Let’s take the example of a Neck Pillow. That term receives over 60,000 monthly searches (Source: Wordstream).  The .net extension is the second most popular domain extension behind the .com and should rank high on Google when searching for the term “Neck pillow”. Let’s say 10% of the searches lead to a visit to your site, that’s up to 6,000 visits a month. Now taking the average cost per click of $1.16 (Source: Wordstream) that’s nearly $7k a month in free advertising for your new venture. That’s a major kickstart for any new venture. Of course buying the domain name at the right price is key to this strategy and that is what our platform DomainMoonshots.com is all about. So, having given away part of the story by revealing our first potential side hustle, let’s get stuck in… Side Hustle Idea #1 NeckPillow.net Neck pillows may not seem the most exciting business to get involved in, and it probably wouldn’t be our number #1 choice if you didn’t have the opportunity of buying a leading domain name in this space. That is where NeckPillow.net comes in. Possible Business Model This is how this opportunity could work… Buy the domain names and set up a website offering a small range of neck pillows and one or two travel accessories sourced from Alibaba. Your unique selling point could be products that  undercut Amazon competitors with goods shipped directly from China. You may wish to buy hoodie neck pillows which will differentiate your product line up even more. We touched on drop shipping earlier. It’s a simple low cost business model where you don’t need to invest heavily in inventory. In this case you probably want to order a few samples of possible products you wish to feature on your new website. Having a good website is key to your success of course. Although you may have organic traffic landing on your site you will need highly visible and enticing calls to actions such as ‘Buy Now’. Also an easy to read and well designed website. However, don’t let that put you off! You can set up a responsive search engine optimized website for under a few hundred dollars using sites such as Fiverr.com so the total cost of setting up your new business is going to be less than $1,000 including the domain name purchase. A little about the domain name and its possible uses The domain name NeckPillow.net offers a unique opportunity to create a product or service that solves a common problem. With the rise of remote work and