This Aspect Hustle Highlight Q&A options Ross Friedman, 26, of Boston, Massachusetts. Friedman is the founding father of Slacker Media Group, a dwell occasions firm curating experiences on the intersection of music, way of life and leisure. See how he grew the enterprise from aspect hustle to profitable full-time enterprise, right here. Responses have been edited for size and readability.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Slacker Media Group. Ross Friedman.
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What was your day job or main occupation while you began your aspect hustle?
I began my enterprise after I was in highschool and continued to run it by means of faculty. Through the early days of the enterprise, I used to be a full-time scholar.
When did you begin your aspect hustle, and the place did you discover the inspiration for it?
I began my enterprise on the finish of 2016 after I was 16 years outdated. I had been DJ-ing since I used to be 11 and needed to discover a house to play publicly and social gathering with my associates. I did some analysis and located some corporations that had been operating “Teen Nights” in different cities, however there have been none within the Boston space. I made a decision I’d begin up my very own, and the remaining is historical past.
What had been among the first steps you took to get your aspect hustle off the bottom? How a lot cash/funding did it take to launch?
For my enterprise, step one was to discover a venue. Unsurprisingly, not many nightclubs had been prepared to lease their membership to a 16-year-old. After reaching out to nearly each nightclub and occasion venue within the Boston space, I used to be lastly capable of lock down a date on the Center East Downstairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts — albeit on a Monday evening.
It took about $3,000 to lease the venue and market the occasion, which I had saved up from DJ-ing Bar Mitzvahs and proms. That first occasion introduced in over 400 individuals, and I made about $3,000 in revenue, which confirmed me that this may very well be a viable enterprise.
Are there any free or paid assets which have been particularly useful for you in beginning and operating this enterprise?
YouTube and Google are entrepreneurs’ greatest associates. Entrepreneurs must be a Swiss military knife in some ways. Between these two platforms, when you’re passionate sufficient, you’ll be able to be taught something free of charge.
That mentioned, I do imagine that faculty additionally performed a giant half within the success of my enterprise. One professor specifically, Richard Sparacio, uncovered me to a brand new mind-set about enterprise that essentially modified how I work. My professor assigned a guide known as The E-Fable by Michael E. Gerber that actually spoke to me. The guide talks about what number of small enterprise homeowners typically attempt to do all the things themselves inside their enterprise, and in doing that, they begin working for the enterprise as a substitute of getting the enterprise work for them. The guide focuses on the significance of establishing repeatable and teachable techniques inside your online business so as to get out of that cycle. After studying the guide and discussing it at school, I used to be capable of take a step again from the place I used to be with my very own enterprise and commenced to construct out my very own techniques and processes that might result in hiring my first full-time worker and scaling the enterprise to our first $1 million yr. Since that time, the expansion of the enterprise has been exponential.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Slacker Media Group
In case you might return in your online business journey and alter one course of or method, what wouldn’t it be, and the way do you want you’d performed it in another way?
I actually want I had realized to rent earlier. I’ve at all times had an ideal crew round me, from the early days to now, however for many of my profession, I used to be the one particular person engaged on the undertaking full-time. I made myself accountable for a lot, and in the long run, it restricted the expansion of the enterprise. Studying to convey individuals in and to delegate duties effectively has modified my enterprise and my life.
In relation to this particular enterprise, what’s one thing you have discovered significantly difficult and/or shocking that individuals who get into such a work ought to be ready for, however possible aren’t?
Stress. The dwell occasions business is an especially difficult business to be in; that, coupled with the inherent stress of entrepreneurship, could be an excessive amount of for many individuals. Having the ability to handle the stress of operating a enterprise based mostly on variables that I’ve no management over has been one of many greatest challenges of my profession. Having labored on it for a few years, although, studying the stress administration talent is one thing that has benefited me immensely not solely in my skilled life but in addition in my private life.
Are you able to recall a particular occasion when one thing went very fallacious? How did you repair it?
There are such a lot of situations the place issues have gone horribly fallacious, however the greatest for me and everybody else within the dwell occasions enterprise was the pandemic shutdown. Earlier than the shutdown, I used to be throwing faculty nights in Boston, nonetheless figuring out of the Center East Downstairs. I had simply locked in a weekly Thursday evening residency and had put all the things on the road to make it work. Then, the world shut down.
With in-person occasions off the desk, I did not decelerate — I simply shifted gears. I threw myself into studying all the things I might about social media, viewers progress and brand-building. From what I realized about social media, I made a decision to launch the Slacker College community, which is a sequence of focused Instagram pages mixing school-specific content material with Slacker content material. That community enabled me to have a built-in viewers to focus on for occasions as soon as the world opened up.
So, when occasions got here again, I hit the bottom operating. That social community turned the engine behind my first nationwide tour — and we offered it out.
How lengthy did it take you to see constant month-to-month income? How a lot did the aspect hustle earn?
It took me years to see constant income. The dwell occasions business could be very risky and carries lots of monetary threat, so pre-pandemic, there have been years the place I did nice, and a few years the place I did not. Issues actually turned worthwhile for me proper after the pandemic, and in fall 2021, I revamped $100,000 in solely two and a half months.
What does progress and income seem like now?
We’re on monitor to do almost $2.5 million in income throughout over 150 occasions this yr, with over $1 million already generated year-to-date. Our lifetime gross sales at the moment are over $4 million, and we have introduced in over 250,000 attendees to our occasions.
How a lot time do you spend engaged on your online business on a every day, weekly or month-to-month foundation? How do you construction that point? What does a typical day or week of labor seem like for you?
As a start-up, solo entrepreneur, I used to be at all times “working” on my enterprise. Since I used to be accountable for all the things, I by no means actually separated work from non-work. It was at all times on my thoughts, both within the entrance or within the again.
Up to now yr, I used to be lastly capable of convey on my first full-time worker, and I’ve now introduced on a second full-time worker this yr. Constructing the crew round me has utterly modified my life, and I am now doing a more healthy 40-hour work week on common. After all, some weeks require extra, however I’m so fortunate to have an incredible crew that has allowed me to reclaim a few of my time and make this enterprise sustainable for the long term.
What do you take pleasure in most about operating this enterprise?
I acquire private happiness and pleasure from making others glad. This enterprise has allowed me to do this at such a big scale, and it brings me immense pleasure to know that I’m making a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals’s lives just a bit bit higher. Nothing makes me happier than being on web site at a profitable occasion and seeing individuals smiling and having a good time.
What’s your greatest piece of particular, actionable enterprise recommendation?
Begin a to-do checklist. Placing issues in writing not solely makes it simpler to recollect what must get performed, however it really forces you to consider what particular actions you’ll take. As fundamental as it’s, a to-do checklist makes you manage your ideas, motivates you to really execute in your concepts and offers you an ideal sense of satisfaction when you’ll be able to test one thing off your checklist.
This text is a part of our ongoing Younger Entrepreneur® sequence highlighting the tales, challenges and triumphs of being a younger enterprise proprietor.
