Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of the multi-billion-dollar dating app, Bumble, has had unparalleled success in taking her business from side hustle to global giant. Her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is practical and inspiring: According to her, the possibilities are “endless” regarding what you can do with a side hustle. Whether you have a great idea for an app that solves a real-world problem or a plan for monetizing your hobbies, she believes “you can monetize anything” if you do it correctly.
Here’s Whitney Wolfe Herd’s tips on how to build a successful side hustle.
Bumble’s CEO built a multibillion-dollar business – here’s her advice for starting a side hustle: ‘You can monetize anything’
Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and CEO of Bumble, has built a multibillion-dollar business in just a few years. Her success is a testament to her hard work and dedication, and she has some advice for anyone looking to start a side hustle.
This article will discuss some of Whitney’s tips for making your side hustle successful.
Find Your Passion
When starting a side hustle, focusing on what drives you is important. Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd believes that inspiration and passion form the base of any successful business venture. By homing in on your desires, you can more clearly visualise what you want to achieve and how it adds value to your life.
Wolfe Herd advises potential entrepreneurs to ask themselves four questions when starting a business: What am I passionate about? Do I bring unique skills or perspectives that others would be interested in? What problem am I solving? Is there potential to monetize what I’m doing? If the answers to these questions inspire confidence, honing in on your passion is a great first step toward launching a successful side hustle.
At its core, finding your purpose and creating an action plan helps lay the groundwork for achieving success. Knowing what you’re trying to achieve helps establish objectives – having clear expectations of yourself will push you closer towards achieving them. Wolfe Herd notes, “if it’s something you’re truly passionate about and believe in…you can monetize anything.”
Identify Your Target Market
Understanding the needs and wants of your target market is an essential part of building a successful business. Whether you have a product or service to offer, it’s important to get a clear understanding of who you’re marketing to, as well as what they’re looking for.
According to Bumble’s CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, having a deep knowledge of the type of audience you want to attract is key to being successful. When she first launched Bumble, she focused on creating an inclusive platform for people from all walks of life: “We wanted to make sure everyone felt like they had a place at the table.” Herd went on to explain that Bumble took its time honing in on its target market and looked toward Millennials and Gen Z-ers because they “are incredibly trend aware and value diversity in product offerings—in both their physical and virtual lives.”
To effectively identify your target market, Herd emphasises the importance of listening and responding accordingly. First, research what people say about your niche online or through any other form – whether surveys or focus groups – take note and use this information to drive decisions around who you’re marketing toward. Just as importantly, once someone is within your target audience ensure that they’re getting value out of engaging with your product or service: “Make sure users are having beautiful experiences,” advises Herd. “Think beyond just…the basics.”
Create a Business Plan
Creating a business plan is important to a successful side hustle. A good business plan will incorporate market analysis and research, financial projections, branding, sales and marketing tools, and operational plans. By doing this level of planning first, you are setting your venture up for success.
When creating a business plan it is important to include the following:
- Analysis of your competition: Understanding your industry and its competitors is essential to succeed in any business venture. Include competitor analysis in your plan to help you determine how best to position yourself in the market.
- Write down your strategies & objectives: You must define measurable goals that will allow you to monitor progress towards reaching them. Consider where these goals will take your business in the short run, mid-term and long run.
- Identify potential investors: You may need initial capital or investments later on so it’s important to figure out who the potential investors are from the start. This can help keep those relationships active and prepare for getting funding with confidence when needed.
- Analyse finances & costs: An accurate projection of how much money it will take to get started and how much money it takes to keep running throughout each month/quarter/year for at least five years down the road will prove invaluable moving forward.
- Outline marketing & customer service strategy: This includes customer acquisition methods like press releases, search engine optimization (SEO) tactics, social media campaigns, etc., as well as outlining customer service initiatives such as return policies, customer satisfaction surveys etc., that can be adapted over time & tweaked accordingly.
Having an actionable plan written down makes it easier to reach milestones quicker while overcoming any unforeseen surprises along the way more gracefully!
Monetize Your Side Hustle
Starting a side hustle requires time, commitment and a willingness to take risks. Fortunately, Bumble’s CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd has some sage advice for entrepreneurs to turn their passion project into something that makes money: “You can monetize anything.”
Herd successfully marketed her original idea for Bumble, creating an app that sought to revolutionise how women interact with other people online. In addition to creating a business model that monetized the app itself, Herd also found unique ways to drive revenue: “We monetized the consumer experience by creating advertising spaces, special content series and partnerships exclusive to our app which users found interesting and valuable.”
At its core, this is what successful side hustles need to reach the pinnacle of success: targeted marketing towards a specific consumer base. By understanding your target demographic and crafting content specifically for them – such as products or services tailored towards their needs – you can make waves in whatever industry you find yourself in.
In addition, one of Herd’s key words of advice is partnership: find individuals or businesses who supplement your offerings and ensure everyone benefits from your collaborations. This could be anything from product testing or mini-events designed to attract potential customers – making sure everyone has a vested interest in what you offer helps create a strong network of individuals dedicated to the same goal – providing end consumers with exceptional service or products.
The bottom line is this: if there’s something out there that people want and need then it can be monetized – no matter how challenging it might seem at first glance! As long as you put your creativity and entrepreneurial spirit first, you will succeed!
Tips for Making Your Side Hustle Successful
Starting a side hustle can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. It is possible to build a successful business from the ground up. Bumble CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd, is living proof of this. She was able to turn her idea into a multibillion-dollar business.
What can you learn from her success story? First, look at some of her key tips for starting a side hustle.
Set Goals and Track Progress
When successfully starting a side hustle, setting goals and tracking progress are two of the most important steps. It’s easy to lose motivation when progress is not tracked and goals are not set, so break down your long-term goals into smaller, achievable tasks and track your progress along the way.
Before starting your side hustle, spend time researching, planning and outlining what needs to be done to reach your end goal. Consider factors like how much time you have available, which skills you need to learn or improve upon to complete necessary tasks, what will be required in terms of marketing and promotion – coming up with a comprehensive plan is important for setting yourself up for success.
It’s also helpful to track progress throughout the entire process – short-term milestones (achieving a specific objective) and long-term successes (bigger accomplishments). This helps you stay motivated as you work on your side hustle. Additionally, tracking quantifiable data like sales and customer feedback gives you essential insight into which areas need improvement and where successes are occurring. Investing the extra effort upfront will set you up for future success and help keep you motivated down the road.
Utilise Social Media
Using social media to promote your side hustle activities is essential. By leveraging social media platforms, you can spread the word of your venture quickly, reaching a much larger audience and potential customer base than traditional marketing methods.
Social media encourages users to provide feedback, engage with others in conversations, share content, and interact with brands online. These factors contribute to greater opportunities for brand awareness and lead generation.
When utilising social media for your side hustle, it’s important that you first spend some time researching the different available options before deciding which platforms are best suited for your business needs. For example, if you’re looking to promote a service-based business such as life coaching or web design then LinkedIn may be the best starting point. If you’re selling products or running an online store then Instagram and Facebook may work better for you.
Whichever platform or platforms you decide to use, make sure you commit yourself properly and regularly– post fresh content regularly; engage with other people’s posts; have a well thought out branding strategy; be personable; think strategically about when and how often to run promotions or discounts etcetera.
Invest in Yourself
Whatever your side hustle, success depends on investing in yourself. Invest in research, learning and development to become your best to ensure long-term success. Investing resources in your venture that will help you achieve your goals faster, such as tools, equipment and mentorship is also important. Additionally, create a budget and allocate some of your earnings towards building a fund for future investments.
In addition to investing in yourself and your side hustle, it is also important to be mindful of how much time you devote to it each day. To balance the demands of a side hustle with other commitments such as friends, family or other responsibilities, you must plan out each day or week and set realistic times to focus on activities related to achieving success with your side hustle. Having routines can be an effective way of sticking to more achievable goals without becoming overwhelmed or stressed out.
Also consider taking advantage of online courses or tutorials to further upskill yourself making sure that you have the knowledge or capability necessary for performing certain tasks related to running your side hustle efficiently. Moreover, networking should not be discounted – meeting like-minded people interested in similar topics can lead interesting conversations and establish relationships that could potentially aid in business growth and expansion.
Have Patience
It may take some time before your side hustle takes off and you reap the rewards of your hard work. But in the words of Bumble CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, “You can monetize anything — all it takes is a little patience and creativity.” So while it may take some time to grow your profits, if you are willing to take on the challenge, try something outside your comfort zone, put in the hard work and dedicate yourself to formulating creative business solutions—you will see results.
Perhaps most important for those juggling multiple obligations is that patience and consistency are key. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that you have to “go big or go home” but trying too many things at once can inundate you with far too much overwhelm and even sabotage your success. Therefore try starting small by dedicating a certain amount of time each day or week towards a singular goal related to your side hustle or potentially breaking tasks down into smaller achievable goals that when met will slowly move you towards achieving greater success. Patience is essential because progress towards success won’t happen overnight – it’s often one small step after another before you can build something successful—so don’t give up!
When it comes to launching a side hustle, preparation is key. From assessing your skills and interests to researching new markets, you must take stock of how much time and energy you can devote to a side gig. But, with the right tools and knowledge, starting a successful business is possible — something that Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd proves.
Wolfe Herd told CNBC, “My biggest advice for starting any business is that it’s not as difficult as people think and if you’re passionate about something there is a way to monetize it.” Having come from humble beginnings as a self-made entrepreneur, she shares hard-won advice that anyone can use when launching their venture: “Know your worth; understand the marketplace; be flexible and stand behind what you believe in! These principles form the foundation of an amazing start up story when taken together.
Though entrepreneurship involves risk, having the necessary tools, resources and support for success may mean less trial-and-error when it comes to problem solving. Take Wolfe Herd’s advice — understand the marketplace, find your niche and monetize what you love —with thoughtful planning and strong executional skills—and you may be off to an amazing start!