Side Hustle: Amazon Consulting Business Making 25K Monthly
It’s been quite an interesting journey:
I started out in music. I dropped out of college to go all‑in on a music career, thinking it was a solid plan—until I realized how much money I was burning and how little I was making. My girlfriend and I even argued about it. With no other option, I went back to school. While I was there, I met a friend who was selling used music gear on eBay, and we decided to team up and make some money that way. I eventually expanded the business to Amazon, built out several brands and storefronts over six years, and had some real wins. Then Amazon opened up its China marketplace—the most cutthroat market on the planet—and my business took a nosedive. I couldn’t compete, and I’ve never been comfortable with change, so I basically stopped making money altogether. That’s when it hit me: I needed to explore other side hustles. I sat down and mapped out what I knew, then figured that since Amazon is such a mature, well‑established platform with a huge pool of practitioners, training and consulting made a lot of sense. So that’s what I went with.
I found a consulting partner on LinkedIn, and together we designed our service offering. We then used LinkedIn content to attract clients. In the early days, as we were trying to figure out exactly what to sell and at what price point, we were even taking on gigs like “write 500 words for $4.50.” It took us six months before the Amazon consulting business finally got off the ground. Then the pandemic hit—so many offline businesses stalled, and a wave of people pivoted to Amazon—which gave our business a nice boost. Today we’re running at a 40% gross margin and bringing in about $25,000 a month.
My takeaways on losses:
1. Don’t fear change. Fear of change will cost you the market.
2. Find a business mentor who’s both willing and able to field your questions and guide your decisions.
3. Hire people who are better than you at what they do, and give them the room to handle the things you can’t.
He’s doing this part‑time.