How Daniella Flores Created a Side Hustle for Herself Between Back to Back Layoffs That Now Reaches Over 100,000 Monthly Users

• Course Instructor: Daniella Flores   

• Website: https://iliketodabble.com

• Course Topic: Launch Your Side Hustle/ Small Business

• Interesting Stats: I created iliketodabble.com back in 2017 in between back-to-back layoffs and since then it has gone on to become a global, award-winning money and side hustle resource website reaching over 100,000 monthly users through the website and social media.

1. Who are you?

I’m Daniella Flores, a queer non-binary Latina software engineer and sidepreneur. I created my site iliketodabble.com back in 2017 between back to back layoffs as a creative outlet. 

Now it is a global award-winning resource that helps over 100,000 monthly users between the site and social media.

2. What’s your course all about?

My course is the Launch Your Side Hustle course and is the complete no-nonsense guide to starting your side hustle/small business. 

It has everything you need to get your side hustle up and running including how to find your audience, how to pitch, price yourself, and more. You will also get bonuses like social media templates, how to build an email list, how to get featured in media, and interviews with other side hustlers and small business owners. 

It also includes insight from an accountant and lawyer with the most common questions answered in their video modules which you won’t find in any other course like it.

3. What makes you an expert in this field?

I’ve been side hustling since I was a teenager selling at thrift stores. Later that evolved into painting and selling my art, fixing and reselling PlayStation game consoles, reselling other items online, doing freelance coding work right out of college, coding websites, freelance writing and design work, a couple of Etsy shops, and now running 2 websites. 

I’ve started and stopped many side hustles in my life and finally found one that clicked and actually made into a side business of mine that generates mostly passive earnings. I’ve always had to have a creative outlet and love to always be learning new things. I understand that there are many out there similar to me – multi hyphenates craving to exercise their many gifts but unsure of where to start. 

Having a side hustle lets me do that while also creating financial independence for myself in my near future. Because of my side hustles, I will be able to leave my full time day job in the next 5 years and think that multiple streams of income can change anyone’s circumstance. I want to help them build the thing they never thought they could.

4. What is the transformation your course offers to the students?

They will go from clueless and overwhelmed to having the exact steps and tools to start their side hustle today. It offers to them the chance to build the thing they never thought they could, to be able to pay off debt and create a financial safety net around them, build their skills or develop new ones, have a creative outlet that they can also generate income with, and create a new future for themselves. 

5. Which market does your online course serve and how did you get into it?

The LYSH (Launch Your Side Hustle) course serves those looking to create a brand online whether it is service based, product based, content based, or all of the above. 

These individuals are anywhere from 18 years old to 40 years old, want to work from home, and create a flexible small business for themselves. They are sick of hustle culture rhetoric and want something that more fits their lives.

6. Why is it important to you to serve this market?

I think the narrative that hustle and grind culture pushes is toxic to both our minds and our society. We can’t create to our highest potential in a stressed mind set and think when we take the “hustle” out of it and replace with “dabble” or “experiment”, we not only find something that perfectly fits our lifestyle but we also go through a stage of self-exploration and discovery.

7. Describe the moment when you decided to create your own course. Where were you, what happened and why did you decide to do it?

I was actually speaking with a friend about why I haven’t created a course yet. It was funny because I thought about it for months before that conversation and kept putting it off. I thought it was a sign that I need to dive in already and get to creating.

8. How did you overcome doubtful moments during your course creation journey?

I usually forcefully push myself through them. I doubt myself all the time and probably every day. The only cure to anxiety is action. It gets easier with each time but once you start to feel doubt, put your content or whatever it is you are doubting out anyway (as long as it isn’t offensive or hurting anyone). 

My biggest doubt was no one would buy my course but creating a pre launch email landing page for folks to sign up on to receive updates about the course launch helped with that when I saw people signing up for the updates. 

Something like that could help you or polling any current audience you have. If you don’t have an audience, forums on places like Reddit or Facebook Groups might help so you can get a feel for what people want to learn in your course (as them simple yes or no questions about what they would want to learn in your course).

9. What are some of your tricks to deal with imposter syndrome?

My corporate day job at a fintech company helps the most with this. If there are people less qualified and less competent than me in positions higher than me, getting paid more than me, why can’t I reach for more? How did they get there? 

They applied, asked, and went for it. When you think you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing or shouldn’t have what you have, think again. 

If you have something to teach, you are 100% more qualified to teach that subject than someone who knows nothing about it. You don’t have to be an expert, you just have to start.

10. How long did it take you to create your course?

About 3 months with a couple weeks of testing.

11. How did your first launch go?

It was my first big launch like that and I didn’t have a good email sequence in place nor did I push it out to my social media as much as I should have. I was very much still talking TO my audience back then rather than how I am with them now which is talking WITH them. 

Having said all that, I still got a good amount of signups in the first few weeks and made $1,000 for the first launch.

12. How do you structure your launches in general now?

I take extra time to draft engaging email sequences with more clickable subject titles, usually include a free offering to get more signups in that sequence, schedule them out along with social media posts, include testimonials, and work in content marketing for my products through my blog as well. I am always testing and trying new things with every launch sequence.

13. Where does your traffic come from?

My email list, Pinterest, Google, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and referral traffic mostly.

14. Which content do you like producing the most?

I love creating infographics in Canva because it gets my creative juices flowing along with a good dose of analysis. Lately, video content has become a new joy of mine.

15. What online course platform are you using?

Teachable and am currently testing out Podia for some new courses.

16. What is amazing about this platform?

I like the flexible ability for landing page creation and the variety of file types you can include like video, downloads, and custom html.

17. Which features do you wish this platform would have?

I wish it was a little sleeker in the admin area which is why I have been testing out Podia.

18. Why did you choose this platform over other platforms?

It was actually the platform I took many online courses in myself so since I enjoyed learning in it and was familiar with using it, it was the perfect platform for me to start with.

19. Which other tools do you use to keep your online business running?

Godaddy, WordPress, ConvertKit, Sendowl, Canva, Google Docs, and Quickbooks.

20. How many students have you served so far?

140 students for the Launch Your Side Hustle course.

21. How much revenue have you created during your first launch, and ongoing?

$6,000.

22. What are you running costs to keep the online course business going?

$119 a month on Teachable.

23. What are some of the biggest mistakes you made along the way?

I should have learned more about marketing or hired someone to help with marketing when I first launched. Marketing is always the area I struggle in but as I learn, I grow.

24. How has your business changed since implementing an online course into the business model?

It has completely opened my eyes to the possibilities of other products and programs I could create and the potential of passive income down the road.

25. How has your personal life changed?

It has changed in the fact that I love getting notifications for new course sign ups and passive income. However, now I am spending more time building more new products and tend to spend too much time on admin work. I am working on hiring more and restructuring how I spend my time.

26. What’s the greatest transformational story you can tell about one (or more) of your students?

I had a student get her first sponsored partnership after my course with a big bank, one double his income from his blog and negotiate higher pay for a freelance client, one started an Etsy shop, and many started their very first websites.

27. If you could use a time machine and send yourself back to the time before you started out, what advice would you give yourself, knowing what you know now?

To stop spending so much time trying to make everything perfect. People aren’t looking for mistakes or thinking of ways I could make any of the content better – they just need the content to get started!

28. What is your million dollar piece of advice to those who are just getting started in their online course journey OR for those who are looking to scale?

Start now and tweak later. Not everything is going to be perfect or the way it should be the first time around. Just get it done and get it out there, then tweak from there. Take feedback seriously from your audience, make your content engaging, and most of all – make sure it solves their problem.