Today we are interviewing one of our favorite entrepreneurs of 2019, Nick Loper on WoodBows.

1: Describe how did you first get into blogging/side and what made you get into blogging?

I was inspired to start blogging after reading a friend’s blog. It seemed like a fun creative outlet. I started in 2009 under a personal domain, and transitioned into SideHustleNation.com in 2013.

At that time, in 2013, I started The Side Hustle Show podcast as well.

The surprising thing is, to me at least, is the podcast took off much faster. Not that either were hits right out of the gate, but I definitely thought of myself as a writer first and a podcaster second. That’s definitely flipped over the years.

2: Where can we find you other than your blog?

The podcast (mentioned above) has become my main channel, but there’s a thriving Facebook community for Side Hustle Nation as well. I try and spend some time in there making sure everyone plays nice.

3: What are the best services you are offering to your readers?

I wrote The Side Hustle: How to Turn Your Spare Time into $1000 a Month or More. It’s free on Kindle and gives a great introduction to this unique, low-risk brand of entrepreneurship – along with plenty of actionable advice.

4: What do you think is the best strategy that worked well for you to get more money?

Helping people.

5: How do you manage time to run your blog efficiently and what percentage of the time are you spending on blogging versus your personal/family time?

I typically work 8-5 Monday through Thursday, and have the weekends blocked off for family time. I try and batch all my meetings and recordings on Tuesday, so I have longer blocks of “deep work” time the rest of the days for writing, marketing, or other projects.

6: How do you want to improve your blog/business in the next year?

I’m always experimenting with new stuff. I think YouTube is a new channel for me to play around with.

7: What was your greatest failure in your blogging/life and what did you learn from that?

Writing about stuff nobody was searching for. I’ve deleted over 700 posts from my site because they either weren’t relevant or weren’t getting any traffic. I was hoarding all this content because it took years to create, but it wasn’t serving anyone.

Before sitting down to type these days, I have a pretty good idea of what keywords I’m targeting and what my goal is for the post.

8: Tell me about your proudest achievement in your side hustle/blogging?

Not having to go back and get a real job for the last 11 years.

9: Who has impacted you the most in side hustle/blogging and how?

I take a ton of inspiration from Pat Flynn and how he runs his business with transparency and integrity. And I also owe a lot to the annual FinCon conference – I’ve been to every one since 2015 and have learned so much from that community.

10: How do you motivate yourself to keep the side hustle/blog up and running?

It’s still fun! It’s rewarding to be able to do the work and see results, but also to hear from all the readers and listeners who take action on this stuff and are improving their lives because of it.

11: What advice or suggestion would you give to the fresh bloggers to become successful?  

Figure out who you help and how you help them. I see too many sites that are either way too general or don’t have a clear answer to “why am I here?”

Conclusion

Hope you enjoyed Nick’s answers as much as we do.