E112: Taking the leap from side hustle to full-time entrepreneur with Tommy Griffith
We’re excited to announce that SEO Brothers and Opteo have partnered with UGURUS as sponsors of our show.
Tommy Griffith has been doing search engine optimization for more than 10 years. He previously managed SEO at PayPal and Airbnb, and now runs ClickMinded, a digital marketing training platform for marketers and entrepreneurs.
Episode highlights:
- Hear how starting a fraternity lead to an obscure set of knowledge and an idea that kicked off Tommy’s SEO career.
- Learn why Tommy’s second business venture failed, and what skill set he gained.
- Learn from Tommy’s experience—it’s a secret power to say “no” to projects that aren’t your specialty.
- Can you work on your side hustle at your job? Here’s Tommy’s experience with the subject.
- Do you make sacrifices with a full-time job and a busy side hustle? Of course. Here are Tommy’s.
- Learn about momentum in leaving a main job and heading into entrepreneurship.
- Run time: 39:33
- Best advice ever received: Your work should be work to other people and feel like play to you.
- Habit that contributes to success: Getting up at 5am
- Recommended book: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Recommended tools: Ahrefs
Links:
- Timothy Ferriss’ The 4-hour Work Week
- Exit velocity by Patrick Burke
- @tommygriffith on twitter
- ClickMinded
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Ahrefs
A few extras from Tommy:
- Burning The Boats Blog Post – going all in on a side project
- SEO Strategy Guide
- Digital Marketing Strategy Guide
- SEO Checklist
Quotes:
- “I started selling the book at $10 and nobody bought it. I dropped the price to $5 and nobody bought it. I increased the price to $47 and 250 people bought it.”
- “It is the most underrated aspect of digital marketing.”
- “I did everything you could imagine wrong.”
- “We thought we needed to be every step of the process.”
- “ClickMinded was not this instant ah-ha moment. It was probably idea #15.”
- “Where your magic pixie dust is.”
- “I would relentlessly say no.”
- “People don’t let each other change.”
- “The wounds were fresh …I knew how bad it could go.”
Takeaways:
- Working on a side hustle and nervous about telling your day job? There’s a good chance they won’t mind.
- Think about changing your environment away from long-term connections to allow for something new to come into your life.
- Think about the current job where you’re getting paid. How can you compound the things you know well?