Cover Image: © Clever Girl Finance Inc.
This book is dedicated to my mom, Emily, for being an incredible role model while I was growing up watching her be the ultimate side-hustle queen, and to all the clever girls working hard to create multiple streams of income to achieve their financial goals.
About the Author
Bola Sokunbi is a Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI), investor, finance expert, speaker, podcaster, influencer, and the founder and CEO of Clever Girl Finance, a personal finance platform created to empower women to achieve real wealth and live life on their own terms.
She started Clever Girl Finance in 2015 to provide women with the tools and resources she wished she had when she began her financial journey.
She is also the author of the bestselling books Clever Girl Finance: Ditch Debt, Save Money and Build Real Wealth and Clever Girl Finance: Learn How Investing Works, Grow Your Money.
Today, she lives with her husband and twins in New Jersey.
Acknowledgments
If you’d told me I’d write three books in three years, I would never have believed you. Yet here I am on my third book, three years later. I am so honored and grateful to have yet another opportunity to share my story, knowledge, and the stories of others as part of my mission to help women achieve financial wellness.
To my husband, my children, and my family, thank you so much for your continued love and support and for constantly cheering me on.
To my incredible mentors, advisors, and friends who constantly encouraged me while I was working on this book, I appreciate you so much!
To the amazing women who have allowed me to share their honest and open entrepreneurial journeys throughout this book: Camilla Banks, Vickii Onabolu, Ayesha Chidolue, Tiwa Lawrence, Kalyn Johnson Chandler, Wonuola Okoye, Sahirenys Pierce, Nike Olagbegi, Fisola Adepetu, Emilie Aries, and Ebony Ruffin; thank you!
A massive thank-you to the Clever Girl Finance team, Esther Bangura, Yazmir Torres, Jui Khopkar, Anita Wikina, and Stacy Jeffries, who kept things running smoothly while I was chin-deep writing this book. And to Kate Braun, my amazing editor, for working through my book edits.
Finally, a big thank-you to the incredibly hard working team at Wiley who have supported me through editing, publishing, and promoting what you now hold in your hands—my third book!
Love always,
Bola
It’s Time to Make Your Side-Hustle Dreams a Reality!
I’m so excited that you have this book in your hands and are about to embark on this incredible journey of starting or growing your side hustle. Rest assured, it’s not by accident that you are here!
It could be that you are familiar with the Clever Girl Finance platform, or you’ve read one (or both) of my first two books: Clever Girl Finance: Ditch Debt, Save Money and Build Real Wealth or Learn How Investing Works, Grow Your Money. Maybe you’ve taken one (or a few) of the free Clever Girl Finance online courses. Or perhaps a friend or even an online algorithm recommended this book to you.
However you got here, you are here now, reading this book—most likely because pursuing your passions and increasing your income through a side hustle is something you’ve wanted to do for a while.
You see countless people doing exactly this every single day. You see them promoting their businesses and sharing behind-the-scenes photos on social media, you’ve admired their products and/or services, you’ve listened to their interviews on your favorite podcasts, you’ve watched videos of them online, and somewhere in the back of your mind, you’ve yearned to do your own thing…just like them.
You’ve imagined what it would be like for you to be on the other side, running your own side hustle. And not just any kind of random side hustle: an incredibly successful one that in turn gives you the opportunity to build your dream business, increase your income, and ultimately afford the life you desire and on your own terms.
But perhaps you’ve hesitated. After all, you’ve heard that starting, running, and growing a business is incredibly hard. It could be that you’ve even tried in the past, but things didn’t quite turn out how you’d imagined. Maybe you feel like there’s so much you don’t know and are overwhelmed by the thought of trying to figure it all out on your own and making too many mistakes along the way. Or it could simply be that you are afraid to go at this alone.
Well, not to worry. I’ve written this book specifically for women like you, to guide, encourage, and motivate you on this journey to building an amazing business. Like I said, you are not here by accident. In this book, I’ll show you just what it takes to build, run, and grow an incredibly successful side hustle—because you have what it takes.
I’ll be sharing the key insights from my experiences as a multi-side-hustle business owner and now a full-time entrepreneur. I’ll let you in on the mistakes I made along the way and the many lessons I learned that have led me to where I am today: the founder and CEO of one of the largest personal finance platforms for women, a business I started as a simple side hustle.
I’ll be challenging you to ditch any fears holding you back from following your passion, showing you exactly how to lay out the right plans (and financials) that work best for you, and guiding you step-by-step as you build a business your customers and clients will rave about and one that you’ll love running as well.
As with my previous books, I’ll be bringing some of my amazing entrepreneur friends along on this journey with us to also share their unique experiences building their own incredibly successful side hustles that span across a wide variety of industries and niches.
At the end of this book, you’ll walk away with a renewed mindset, a solid blueprint for your business, and a wealth of insight and motivation not just to start your business, but to take it to the next level.
Because—WHY NOT YOU?
So, buckle up, girlfriend, it’s going to be an exciting ride. Let’s go!
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
I’ve written this book to help you craft the ideal blueprint for building a successful side hustle. As with any good blueprint, the idea is to reference it as necessary while you lay your foundations and build your business. There are several ways in which you’ll be able to leverage the content in this book, but here are a few recommendations to help you make the most of it:
You can read through this book all at once and then circle back to work on the action steps, or you can read it a section at a time and implement what you learn as you go along.
As you read, take your time. Take notes, highlight, and bookmark the areas you’d like to revisit that stand out to you the most based on the stage you’re at with building your business.
Plan to work through the action steps at the end of each section to help you craft your strategies and fine-tune your blueprint.
Once you are done reading the book, review your notes, highlights, and bookmarks.
Keep things organized by creating a Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel workbook where you can create tabs for each of the different spreadsheets suggested through the book, depending on what’s relevant to you.
Keep this book as a reference as you work on your business. There might be areas you are focused on immediately and areas you’ll need to come back to later as you make progress.
Ultimately,