some disclaimers:
- I’ll be dropping dates (so you can see a clear timeline of what lead me to today)
- When I talk about failures, it isn’t be in a bad or regretful way, but always in a necessary way to have grown and evolved in the way that I did; it only made me wiser
- When I say side hustle, I really mean online businesses that I was set on making me financially free, so whichever you prefer to call it, but since they were a fail they ended up being all but a side hustle at the time!
- I’m hoping this provides you with a raw reality-check of all the context and behind-the-scene stuff that really takes us to success
- I recommend anyone to make note and do the same with tracking your side hustle journey since it’s a wholesome track record of your dedication to keep going until you find the one that makes it for you!
Now that that’s done, let’s get it!
backstory
So, for some context, I have mentioned here and there, in previous blog posts, how I first got the entrepreneurial bug and desire to be my own boss at the very start of my 20s, when I turned 21!
Little did I know, 4 years would progress, and I wouldn’t be there yet, but even though that sounds quite disheartening, it actually isn’t in the slightest!
I had no idea what it took, the person I needed to become, the online business model that I even wanted to pursue, and I was figuring out life all at the same time. Quite a lot to deal with as any girlie in their 20s trying to make it in the online world, whilst adulting and working a 9 to 5!
However, this is all to say that since then I have really had my epic tests of trying and failing with multiple different side hustles, until I got to the online business model that really aligned with who I am and what I wanted to do (if not obvious already, it’s blogging; a lot more on that here!).
Even though it was slightly annoying at-times, and there were moments I was just thinking it’s best to give up this dream altogether, it taught me key lessons (comment if you’d like a blog post on this) that developed my self-growth, my vision and my work ethic and mindset that has transformed me into the woman I am today.
Therefore, I look on my hall of ‘failures’ as a necessary path to get me as close as I’ve ever been to my success (all to be documented right here)!
Good thing I kept a notebook with the exact dates I started each one, and how much money I made, so we can all look back together on that and really see how it can sometimes take a while to really see what will be the online business model that really resonates with you and is your solid ticket to financial freedom and living out our days in control of our life!
my hall
Alright so let’s see what my younger self was getting up to…
- November 2021 : Dropshipping £0
(don’t have a fixed date for this one)
I got into Dropshipping, yes the MIGHTY online business model many gurus talk about to make it online! Well, it wasn’t for me, and it most definitely wasn’t something that would have brought me any joy.
Not that it has to bring you joy, but to me, it wasn’t a side hustle I was invested in to try my best or commit myself to, or see it as worth sacrificing other parts of my life to dedicate myself towards.
At this point, I feel influenced by the illusion of the “get rich quick” narrative we get shown online (I was clearly on the wrong side of the side hustle algorithm), and so that completely put me off the side hustle world for a good while, since I didn’t have the resilience to keep pushing at the time.
- September 2021 : Tiktok and Instagram Content Creation £0
(rough estimate for this one also)
Yeah, this one is a surprising one!
Specially if you have read my content talking about building a profitable online business as an introvert, yeah who would’ve guessed I would have ventured out of the faceless, and into content creating on Tiktok!
But hear me out, I still remained faceless on that one too; the most I would show was my back just to have an element of making it slightly more personal.
This one was more of a passion project, that then made me realise it could be something I could make money from. It was in the niche of exploring London, recommending places to go to, promoting exciting things to do.
I absolutely LOVE exploring the city, and would always take the most photos, and videos, so I got into the idea of maybe giving it a try with content creation and thought why not?
I got some good traction, and if I carried on, I would have definitely maybe gotten some type of money online from it by now (because I genuinely believed in myself, as so should you all!) but I learnt, in the process, that I didn’t like video-editing, I didn’t like having to constantly be on social media to post every/most days, I didn’t have much money to keep going to all these places, and it kind of took some fun out of it for me.
Therefore, it wasn’t a solid sustainable side hustle, that I could make into my online business, and I preferred to leave this as something I did for FUN alone.
I am eternally grateful for having dived into this one though, since I really got into the work ethic necessary for social media, analytics, and I even got into some affiliate marketing, and almost started a Blog for this too! I really got immersed into different digital business models, strategies and it really opened my mind!
After this, I really didn’t have much direction, so I wasn’t really looking or trying anything for a while after this also.
- 23rd April 2023 : Vinted £47.99
Yes, we are back!
I had just started the full-time working world, of the conventional 9 to 5, and I knew it was absolutely essential for me to GET OUT.
That gave me, not only the motivation, but the mindset to really commit to something.
I didn’t know what, but I told myself I’d keep trying until I found the thing (side hustle) that would take me there.
I started small, and opened an account with Vinted, put my old clothes on there, photos, pricing, looked up how to optimise my listings, ordered some parcel bags to be ready for any sales that came in.
2 days later, and I made a sale for £9!!!! I was over-the-moon, it felt good to feel the beautiful power of making money effortlessly online! It felt good to get a taster of the digital world when it came to making money.
Then, it died down, and only in October of 2023 did I make another sale for £38.99, which made me super happy once again!
Even though, this side hustle provided me with some money online, I knew it wasn’t a sustainable business model, since it was down to luck or me waiting on customers to be interested, and even if that blew-up, I knew it would rely on me having to have unlimited amounts of clothes to keep supplying. SO, I kept Vinted up just in case, but expanded my search of side hustles.
- 10th May 2025: Amazon KDP Planners £0
At this point, I’m feeling quite driven to make it work with having side hustles online. My 9 to 5 was so draining, that I felt no other choice but to keep pushing in my free time to find a way out, that would be a solid sustainable path.
So, I immersed myself in content and found the side hustle of selling KDP planners on Amazon.
This is basically the side hustle of you designing a planner, for a specific audience or with a particular aesthetic, and then Amazon would print and deliver it to the customer, upon purchase.
It sounded good, I liked the idea of designing, and sounded like many others online had had success with it, so I poured in so many hours of my weekends, and even annual leave, to get this side hustle going.
But as you can predict, I made £0.
Now, this could be because I didn’t niche down enough, or I didn’t do enough research on my competitors, but it also deep-down just wasn’t something that fuelled me to keep going, and even though it’s known that many times you just have to keep going with 0 results, and it should start picking up at some point, this side hustle didn’t feel worth all the time I was putting into it.
- 24th May 2023 : Digital Products £0
Not much time at-all after and I’m already starting a new side hustle, at the same time as doing Amazon KDP, which is selling digital products online.
I mean, how could I not try this one?! £0 investment, and once you create it once, it can just be sold for an infinite life-time. It’s honestly great, but not something I found my groove in.
I opened an Etsy store for this one too, and decided to target digital products at people just like me, who needed digital planners, calendars, journals to help them on their online businesses with time management, productivity and organisation.
However, I didn’t feel like I had the skill to really be able to provide something that people actually needed, wanted, or stood out from the competition. I did try my best to see how I could improve my skill, learn from others (for free on Youtube), and tried to see what was selling well on the platform. But it didn’t get me anywhere.
Maybe I didn’t do it for long enough, I didn’t market it well enough, or maybe it just wasn’t for me (which I believe was the main reason), since I wasn’t truly proud of what I was creating and putting out (even if it was the best I had in me).
I kept it going for some months, at the same time as all the other side hustles I was doing (mostly alongside print-on-demand, and freelance) but it resulted in £0 too…
It felt discouraging at-times continuously trying at side hustles and not seeing the success, or even feeling like it was aligned with me, but it’s what lead me to today and I would never change it otherwise.
- 15th June 2023 : Print-on-demand £0
With the amount of content I was consuming, all around making money online, of course I wasn’t going to miss out on being exposed to print-on-demand!
It really sparked my curiosity, because once again, I loved the idea of simply designing, and the company fulfilling and shipping for me. I would have all the fun and they would deal with all the customer service. And honestly, I still look to get into this business model more seriously in the future, because I genuinely believe it to be a good one. I tried both Printful and Printify, and I’d say Printify had a lot more variety of suppliers, and types of product so if I revisit this side hustle, I would fully go with Printify instead.
I started doing some aesthetic designs for tote bags, accessories, and posted this to an Etsy store I opened, just for this business.
However, I used mock-up photos, which weren’t great quality, and didn’t have much of an intention or niche. I was more-so trying this side hustle, with the aim of it providing me with SOME money, but not necessarily making me financially free; and the strategy reflects that (as is so much easier to see in retrospect).
Inevitably, I ended up making £0 from this side hustle too!
At this point, it really feels like I might just about have to accept my fate of working a 9 to 5 for most of my life, and have to just put up with what a depressing reality it is. But something in me just couldn’t allow this for myself. My drive was stronger, my self-love was stronger, my passion to set my loved ones financially free was stronger.
I allowed myself the lows of just letting it go, without having a plan to keep chasing the dream life, but once I processed those emotions I bounced back into the search of what would take me there.
…
These were the main side hustles I ventured in but to condense this blog post down for you all, I will briefly go over the next few I tried:
- 7th June 2023 : providing Freelance Services on Fiverr £0
- 4th September 2023 : Pinterest Affiliate Marketing £0
- 12th December 2023 : Blogging on Medium £0.12
the shift
Now in the last 2 side hustles, you can see I mentioned both Pinterest and Blogging…
It was really only towards the end of 2023, after a whole 6 months of trying, testing and failing at diverse side hustles that I came to start to enjoy certain ones I was trying.
I notices I absolutely LOVED Pinterest; it was aesthetic, it was beautiful, it had a HUGE audience on there who had more for a specific intention than other social media platforms, AND aligned with values more since it was a lot more manageable. (I wanted to maintain balance in my life as much as possible, and not have to manually be on socials as I had in previous side hustles):
- Easier to create and design Pins, using Canva
- Easy to batch Pins, so more time-efficient
- THE MAIN ONE, wait for it,… you could SCHEDULE pins up to 30 days in advance, so you wouldn’t have to even be on the platform, it would just post for you…
This was revolutionary for me, and I knew I wanted to take Pinterest seriously.
It’s been a whole ride with what my Pinterest has looked like, but I have finally established a brand identity for in her Full Effect and have created a consistent aesthetic on there that has blown my Pinterest page to over 100k views monthly!!! (screenshots for proof below) thank you all! ♡ xx
Check out my Pinterest here, and engage with whichever Pins you love, so I can engage back and create even more for you all! ( username: inherfulleffect )
Now, the only slight downside to me was that there is no creator fund as other social media platforms, at least in the UK, and so making money directly through Pinterest wasn’t as obvious to me, but I knew it was somewhere I could nurture and build a community that aligned with something I was creating (I just didn’t know what yet).
Alongside that I came across the idea of Blogging again, but this time on Medium which is a platform that hosts multiple bloggers, and the more views you get the more money; but to get actual reads is super hard and only paid me about 12p, which honestly still made me super happy at the time but didn’t feel like it was going to be sustainable.
This takes me to…
- April 2024 : self-hosted Blog and brand: in her Full Effect £0 (for now!)
I loved the idea of blogging, but needed something that I could own, something that I could build on with more control.
That’s where I found out about self-hosted Blogs…
Now, when I searched up whether this would be profitable, the results were quite insanely polar opposite and many people said they had no traction after literal YEARS, but that didn’t quite sway me… I felt I had something different to offer, for the first time in my side hustle ventures, it felt like this was the one for me!
At this time, I felt like I was really craving to find other girls who were going through the exact same as me, since no one in my circle were starting (or even displaying the desire) to start their online business, quit their 9 to 5s, have their financial freedom, and make money online. Specially being a girlie in my 20s, I felt like I missed that. I was also looking up networking events, and communities I could look into join myself, but I didn’t really see anything that resonated with me…
So that’s when it clicked, why don’t I just create the community myself?
All of the BIGGEST dreams flooded my brain, my creativity, my excitement, my plans, the future of this Blog and what it will become.
Honestly girlies, the content I post here is the absolute tip of the iceberg, I have a lot of abundant plans coming to this space, as my brand grows and progresses.
That was really the moment I found what would be the solid online business model for me, that would bring in sustainable profits, set me financially free, and fill my cup.
today
So, today, I have this Blog and brand (in her Full Effect), with a community I am building both here and on my Pinterest.
This all came from me seeing that Blogging was really an online business model that aligned with who I was; I loved writing, sharing my thoughts behind the screen, creating a community of like-minded girlies in their 20s who can all come together, find relatability, find peace, and nurture relations with others who share the same ambitions.
So far, I have made no money from this Blog, but I will very soon, and will be documenting it all on here for you to follow along the growth, and take whatever you want from it for your own journey too!
For now, check out my time-stamped journey of the stats and my personal experience as a beginner blogger here:
- 1 month into Blogging
- 2 months into Blogging
- 4 months in!
summing it up
As you can literally see, it hasn’t been a short or easy journey to get to where I am today. It hasn’t been obvious to me to see what was the online business model that most fit with me, and it hasn’t been smooth to always stay motivated and on-track.
But, it has all grown my resilience, my determination, my drive, and my focus to get me closer to my dream life, and has made me increasingly more knowledgeable, more grounded, and wiser in the choices and strategies I make in my online business today.
I hope this has provided you with a behind-the-scenes scoop on exposing my personal hall of ‘failures’ in the side hustle world, and has made it feel relatable, providing you with more hope when you encounter those lows, that it is absolutely necessary to go through it and normal too.
Keep chasing your dreams, and always see any ‘failure’ as a stepping stone to getting closer to your goals. Allow yourself to feel your emotions along your journey, but don’t ever lose sight of your goals.
You owe it to yourself!
Thank you for reading girlies, and check out more of my blog posts here where I go into all things blogging, making money online, and being a girlie in her 20s. ♡