<aside> 📑 Table of Contents (Click to Skip to Section) Project Scope Target Audience Motivations and Preliminary Observations Ideation Process Concept Proposals Conclusion and Next Steps References
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This project will focus on the business commerce space as it relates to side hustlers. Specifically, we will focus on the organizational methods in how side hustlers run their business based on their passion projects or hobbies. Our goal is to promote sustainable business practices so that side hustlers can maintain their passion projects amidst their busy schedules.
For many side hustlers starting out, the small business landscape can be confusing, intimidating, and paralyzing. Especially for creatives, endless possibilities to lead their business in various directions can be less exciting and more daunting. The resulting burnout can be associated with quitting their passion projects altogether. We want to help side hustlers maintain their current levels of business while still being able to commit to a full-time job.
Side hustlers can be defined as individuals who rely on a full-time job for a primary source of income but also monetize a passion project in their free time. In this side small business, side hustlers are self-employed and do not have other official employees. To define our scope, we will focus on beginner side hustlers who are a part of the creator economy which means they are individuals who sell a tangible product or service. These side hustlers still have full-time jobs, and they have been doing their side hustle for less than a year.
Industry research suggests that young people are straying away from the idea of a single career but rather having multiple sources of income to create wealth. A survey conducted by Bank of America indicates that 62% of Gen Z individuals (born 1997 - 2012) and 56% of millennial individuals (born 1996 - 1981) have started a side hustle since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (Bank of America, 2021). Therefore, we want to focus on young professionals (i.e. 18 - 35 years old, individuals in college, in the early stages of their careers) as we see them as an untapped market in the business commerce space. Additionally, as young professionals are more inclined towards side hustles, these types of gigs align with the type of –which is having a passion that makes money for fun and not as the only means of income. Bank of America also reports that 53% of “side hustlers” started to just earn extra money and 43% indicated they have a side hustle to supplement primary income (Bank of America, 2021). We specifically want to focus on young professionals whose side hustle is hobby-based as it is the highest-ranking category (41%) (Bank of America, 2021). Due to tax and commerce laws, we will focus on side hustlers in the United States.
Individuals with “side hustles” or hobbies are already aware that their talents earn them some extra cash, but how can technology further validate their legitimacy as a business owner, save time by being organized, and even help with long-term growth in their craft? Specifically, we hope to investigate how might we design organizational tools for beginner side hustlers to sustain their business operations?
Side hustles have risen in popularity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States Census Bureau reports that new business formation grew by 42% in 2020 (United States Census Bureau, 2021). We noticed that “side hustles” is an immensely growing trend among young people. Videos on TikTok tagged with “#SideHustle” have accumulated about 7.9 billion views since January 2022.
To further narrow our scope, we conducted a stakeholder mapping analysis to determine the forces at play in the sustainability of a side hustler’s passion project.