This Aspect Hustle Highlight Q&A options Ross Friedman, 26, of Boston, Massachusetts. Friedman is the founding father of Slacker Media Groupa reside occasions firm curating experiences on the intersection of music, way of life and leisure. See how he grew the enterprise from facet hustle to profitable full-time enterprise, right here. Responses have been edited for size and readability.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Slacker Media Group. Ross Friedman.
Need to learn extra tales like this? Subscribe to Cash Makers, our free publication filled with inventive facet hustle concepts and profitable methods. Join right here.
What was your day job or major occupation whenever you began your facet hustle?
I began my enterprise once I was in highschool and continued to run it by school. In the course of the early days of the enterprise, I used to be a full-time scholar.
When did you begin your facet hustle, and the place did you discover the inspiration for it?
I began my enterprise on the finish of 2016 once I was 16 years previous. I had been DJ-ing since I used to be 11 and wished to discover a house to play publicly and get together with my associates. I did some analysis and located some corporations that had been working “Teen Nights” in different cities, however there have been none within the Boston space. I made a decision I’d begin up my very own, and the remaining is historical past.
Associated: ‘1000’s of {Dollars} in Minutes’: The Aspect Hustle She Began in Excessive College Ought to Promote Over 30,000 Merchandise This 12 months — and Hit 7 Figures in 2026
What had been a few of the first steps you took to get your facet hustle off the bottom? How a lot cash/funding did it take to launch?
For my enterprise, step one was to discover a venue. Unsurprisingly, not many nightclubs had been keen to hire their membership to a 16-year-old. After reaching out to nearly each nightclub and occasion venue within the Boston space, I used to be lastly capable of lock down a date on the Center East Downstairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts — albeit on a Monday evening.
It took about $3,000 to hire the venue and market the occasion, which I had saved up from DJ-ing Bar Mitzvahs and proms. That first occasion introduced in over 400 folks, and I made about $3,000 in revenue, which confirmed me that this might be a viable enterprise.
Are there any free or paid sources which have been particularly useful for you in beginning and working this enterprise?
YouTube and Google are entrepreneurs’ finest associates. Entrepreneurs should be a Swiss military knife in some ways. Between these two platforms, for those who’re passionate sufficient, you may study something totally free.
That stated, I do consider that school additionally performed a giant half within the success of my enterprise. One professor specifically, Richard Sparacio, uncovered me to a brand new mind-set about enterprise that basically modified how I work. My professor assigned a e book known as The E-Fantasy by Michael E. Gerber that actually spoke to me. The e book talks about what number of small enterprise homeowners usually attempt to do every thing themselves inside their enterprise, and in doing that, they begin working for the enterprise as a substitute of getting the enterprise work for them. The e book focuses on the significance of establishing repeatable and teachable programs inside your online business so as to get out of that cycle. After studying the e book and discussing it at school, I used to be capable of take a step again from the place I used to be with my very own enterprise and started to construct out my very own programs and processes that may result in hiring my first full-time worker and scaling the enterprise to our first $1 million yr. Since that time, the expansion of the enterprise has been exponential.
Associated: I Took My Aspect Hustle Full-Time and Made $222,000 Final 12 months. Here is How — and Why Generally I Work Simply 10 Hours a Week.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Slacker Media Group
If you happen to might return in your online business journey and alter one course of or strategy, what wouldn’t it be, and the way do you would like you’d accomplished it in another way?
I actually want I had realized to rent earlier. I’ve all the time had an amazing crew round me, from the early days to now, however for many of my profession, I used to be the one particular person engaged on the challenge full-time. I made myself chargeable for a lot, and ultimately, it restricted the expansion of the enterprise. Studying to carry folks in and to delegate duties effectively has modified my enterprise and my life.
In the case of this particular enterprise, what’s one thing you have discovered notably difficult and/or shocking that individuals who get into this sort of work needs to be ready for, however possible aren’t?
Stress. The reside occasions business is an especially difficult business to be in; that, coupled with the inherent stress of entrepreneurship, will be an excessive amount of for many individuals. With the ability to handle the stress of working a enterprise primarily based on variables that I’ve no management over has been one of many greatest challenges of my profession. Having labored on it for a few years, although, studying the stress administration ability is one thing that has benefited me immensely not solely in my skilled life but additionally in my private life.
Are you able to recall a particular occasion when one thing went very fallacious? How did you repair it?
There are such a lot of situations the place issues have gone horribly fallacious, however the greatest for me and everybody else within the reside occasions enterprise was the pandemic shutdown. Earlier than the shutdown, I used to be throwing school nights in Boston, nonetheless figuring out of the Center East Downstairs. I had simply locked in a weekly Thursday evening residency and had put every thing on the road to make it work. Then, the world shut down.
With in-person occasions off the desk, I did not decelerate — I simply shifted gears. I threw myself into studying every thing I might about social media, viewers progress and brand-building. From what I realized about social media, I made a decision to launch the Slacker College community, which is a sequence of focused Instagram pages mixing school-specific content material with Slacker content material. That community enabled me to have a built-in viewers to focus on for occasions as soon as the world opened up.
So, when occasions got here again, I hit the bottom working. That social community turned the engine behind my first nationwide tour — and we bought it out.
Associated: This 29-12 months-Previous’s Aspect Hustle Introduced Folks ‘to the Darkish Inexperienced Aspect.’ It Made $10,000 Inside 2 Days and Sees 6 Figures a Month.
How lengthy did it take you to see constant month-to-month income? How a lot did the facet hustle earn?
It took me years to see constant income. The reside occasions business will be very unstable and carries loads of monetary threat, so pre-pandemic, there have been years the place I did nice, and a few years the place I did not. Issues actually turned worthwhile for me proper after the pandemic, and in fall 2021, I revamped $100,000 in solely two and a half months.
What does progress and income seem like now?
We’re on monitor to do almost $2.5 million in income throughout over 150 occasions this yr, with over $1 million already generated year-to-date. Our lifetime gross sales are actually over $4 million, and we have introduced in over 250,000 attendees to our occasions.
How a lot time do you spend engaged on your online business on a day by day, weekly or month-to-month foundation? How do you construction that point? What does a typical day or week of labor seem like for you?
As a start-up, solo entrepreneur, I used to be all the time “working” on my enterprise. Since I used to be chargeable for every thing, I by no means actually separated work from non-work. It was all the time on my thoughts, both within the entrance or within the again.
Prior to now yr, I used to be lastly capable of carry on my first full-time worker, and I’ve now introduced on a second full-time worker this yr. Constructing the crew round me has fully modified my life, and I am now doing a more healthy 40-hour work week on common. After all, some weeks require extra, however I’m so fortunate to have a tremendous crew that has allowed me to reclaim a few of my time and make this enterprise sustainable for the long term.
What do you take pleasure in most about working this enterprise?
I achieve private happiness and pleasure from making others joyful. This enterprise has allowed me to do this at such a big scale, and it brings me immense pleasure to know that I’m making tons of of hundreds of individuals’s lives just a bit bit higher. Nothing makes me happier than being on web site at a profitable occasion and seeing folks smiling and having a good time.
Associated: ‘Absolute Freedom’: Siblings Behind a Self-Funded 8-Determine Model Reveal 3 Secrets and techniques Aspiring Entrepreneurs Ought to Know About Development and Success
What’s your finest piece of particular, actionable enterprise recommendation?
Begin a to-do record. Placing issues in writing not solely makes it simpler to recollect what must get accomplished, however it really forces you to consider what particular actions you’re going to take. As fundamental as it’s, a to-do record makes you manage your ideas, motivates you to really execute in your concepts and offers you an amazing sense of satisfaction when you may verify one thing off your record.
This text is a part of our ongoing Younger Entrepreneur® sequence highlighting the tales, challenges and triumphs of being a younger enterprise proprietor.
