Author’s Note: E-commerce is neither economics nor something taught in school. This article is meant to explain the ins and outs of it and each side hustle related to online selling. These side hustles include Dropshipping, Remote Closing, Amazon FBA, ROI Marketing Agency, Reselling, and more. Not only will it explain the ins and outs, but it will also explain the entrepreneur mindset, what books to read, how to study effectively, what skills are needed for each side hustle, the level of difficulty, and more. It’s not a get-rich-quick article but shows how many young entrepreneurs became successful in a short time and could even retire their parents. Reading this can be, for many, the first step to discovering a future career they desire, but in the end, it revolves around what you will do next.

Curious about how people did it? How people became millionaires without having to go to college in their 20s? What do they do to reach the top of modern society and retire in their 30s? Most of these specific people, known as “the 1%,” did something similar to reach their goal; they started a side hustle surrounding a particular business model, beginning as an entrepreneur. The secret about this business model is simply being the intermediary in one way, shape, or form. Being the intermediary, or the “middleman,” where connects other businesses to the consumer or client. Doordash, for example, is an app that focuses on connecting restaurants to customers using drivers willing to make money by simply driving the food to the customers. The CEO of Doordash, Tony Xu, became a billionaire in just seven years after the launch of Doordash while the business model remained the same: food delivery. The same theory applies to entrepreneurs who can find success within today’s economic state. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median income salary for the U.S. would equal about $54,132 a year. These entrepreneurs could make that much in a month and, for others, a day to make $54k. Dave Ramsey, the host of “The Ramsey show,” gives financial advice to many people on the phone. In one episode, around three years ago, he was giving advice to Jake from Indianapolis if he should go to college or not. The reason is that Jake, at 16, was making $50k to $70k a month by running three e-commerce websites. 

Some say that entrepreneurs are simply risk takers that end up rich, but Athletic Director and former business and marketing teacher, Melissa Bahnson expresses that “they are to an extent, but they have calculated risk takers.” meaning that the profit they create isn’t like winning a game of blackjack, they don’t gamble away money to get back millions.  They follow trends to calculate demand and utilize convenient business forms as well.

Now, what is E-commerce? It is a form of business where anyone can sell products online—by definition, electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet. No physical store is needed, just an online website that can be created using apps like Shopify, a tool used for creating websites for online businesses. There are three approaches for an online business: consumer-to-consumer, business-to-business, and business-to-consumer. Shopify, Amazon, and eBay are examples; within each one, you can generate profit on your own. 

 There are multiple forms of E-commerce, but the umbrella term “e-commerce,”or online retail, is having a website listing products for sale and consumers choosing products they want to buy. Consumers add them to their basket and checkout, make a card payment, and the company receives and processes the order. The company has a warehouse where they pick the stock, pack it up, and ship it to the customer. The other side hustles are not only selling goods online but also assisting significant transactions with selling as a service online like SMMA, remote closing, etc.

Dropshipping

Drop shipping is a form of retail business wherein the seller accepts customer orders without keeping stock on hand. The retailer purchases inventory to be shipped directly to the customer. Dropshipping’s main focus after start-up would be social media advertisements to get customers to buy the product. The products found through suppliers that sell the product are lower than the market value as they focus on selling the products to retailers, so they would not need to advertise these products to consumers. All the retailer needs is a computer, a phone, and WIFI, with some start-up money for advertising to start generating profit with this online business model. Ideally, advertising would cost $ 1k- $ 5k. 

First, find the store’s main product on sites like USA dropshipping or CJ-dropshipping, and make sure to have an account on their sites to link with your store. Once found the product that will be marketed, create a name and logo, and open up Shopify to customize the website. Once done, link it to a domain/URL that can be purchased on GoDaddy, a URL store to buy a URL name` to avoid copyright infringement. Link the store’s social media to the site as well and link the store’s URL to the social media. Start listing products and setting a drop-ship price; if CJ sells it for $15, you can set it at $39.99 or a reasonable price for the product’s value. Once you have, everything else needed to open the store, create some advertisements for the launch/first month, schedule their release, and then open the shop. Putting money into ads will increase the circulation of followers and viewers interested in buying.

Making $10k isn’t too tricky with drop shipping, especially with a winning product. Sell a product that will earn $30 in revenue, at least 12 units each day, that’s $360 in a day, and for the entire month, it’s $10k. Most of the money would go back into advertising which can be costly depending on what platform, how long the ad will run, and how many people will see the ad on average. 

The dropshipping trend has declined in 2023 as more and more entrepreneurs enter the online retail market. NBW economics teacher, Kevin Dyke, explained that “Essentially in a competitive market, there’s a finite number of customers, so if you had more firms or businesses that enter into one sector of the industry, some of those customers are actually going to gravitate to the new business which means the existing business that is in the market lose customers so the demand shift to the left, in a microeconomics sense, it decreases revenue that they are bringing in and decrease the economic profits that they would have made.” 

E-commerce

 It’s not guaranteed to be easy to dropship now, but it’s possible to turn dropshipping into an e-commerce store where products are purchased in bulk.  E-commerce can be a 6-figure business compared to drop shipping. SHEIN, an online retailer from China that focuses on selling women’s apparel, started as a dropshipping site and is now worth $100 billion, according to Insider. The big difference comes from selling stuff in bulk as a brand. First is developing a design for the product and doing market research to see if the product will sell. Source some manufacturers and come up with a business plan with a budget along with the product and packaging. Like dropshipping when it comes to designing the web store and creating ads, e-commerce takes it to the next level by focusing on branding to build the store to gain attention and become more extensive. 

What makes E-commerce so big as a primary business model is the convenience of buying items now compared to before.  UW-Milwuakee Professor in Business accounting, Ruth Kallio-Mielke, expresses that “once it develops a groundswell of support, it’s so much faster to make money than it would be in a traditional brick and mortar business setting.” 

Amazon FBA

The full name is Fulfillment by Amazon which is similar to dropshipping in terms of business model. Instead of an online store, Amazon stores and ships the products. The concept is similar to manufacturing and selling a product through retail stores like Walmart, except this is with Amazon, and it’s all online of course. The process is simple, send the product of choice to Amazon FBA, they store it for you, a customer buys it, Amazon packages and ships it to the customer. Amazon FBA handles customer service like refunds and or returns. 

The issue with Amazon FBA and why some entrepreneurs don’t thoroughly recommend this strategy is that Amazon is very competitive with the different product selections. It’s hard to generate constant revenue with Amazon FBA, as the payout is every two weeks. The process is simple on paper, but it’s strict with Amazon FBA with their fees, packaging restrictions, inventory expectations, and lack of advertising for the product. Is it possible to make a profit with Amazon FBA? The answer is yes, but just extremely difficult and not impossible. 

SMMA (Social Media Marketing Agency)

Social Media Marketing is vital for a business/company, so an agency that specializes in that has the potential to make a profit with that type of service. SMMA is a creative business that develops social media marketing strategies and campaigns for clients. Iman Gadzhi, an SMMA entrepreneur, claims it’s an ideal beginner-friendly business model that, if done right, there’ll be 3-4 new clients per month and make $72k per year on the low, $96k per year on the higher end with recurrent profit and close to zero start-up capital.  

The process to start is a little tricky without some guidance online from videos or an online course, but to summarize, it’s picking a service and niche, or the type of industry like clothing for females or gyms, and pricing that service. A contractor will do the services that an agency will hire to complete a client’s request, while the agency’s central role is to find and sell the service to those clients. The clients would correspond with the type of niche that was picked out, so if the niche is gyms, for example, the services would specialize or gear towards them. The most significant difference between SMMA and a traditional agency with a large office, many employees, and high prices would be that SMMA doesn’t need an office, has minimum expenses or overheads, and has one or two services offered for clients. With this model, there’s minimum cost, and it can generate lots of profit for both the owner and contractors.  

Affiliate Marketing (Remote Closing)

High ticket Affiliate Marketing, or remote closing, is completing advertisements for other businesses online through social media as a third party. Picture it as an online real estate agent; you help a homeowner sell their house to a client or potential buyer, and at the end of the purchase, the agent gets paid. The same thing happens online, except the homeowner is an online business, and the potential buyer are the consumers. Affiliate marketing utilizes a unique affiliate link made by the affiliate user that the consumers click on via website, blog, social network, etc. The link provides the affiliate network with a transaction record once a consumer purchases the product and provides a cut of 5-10 percent of the sale. 

The trick here to turn up a profit is to complete High ticket affiliate marketing, which sells high-value products and has a page meant to link clients with the marketer via a chat funnel or phone call to go one on one to sell the high-value product. These products can be programs or courses online, which could trade up to $5,000, and the 10% would be $500 off of one sale. 

Clothing Brand 

 One of the more creative online businesses is opening a clothing line. People who want to profit from their creativity and cultural influence can start a clothing line. The process isn’t complicated, though it has its challenges. Find a particular niche or style for clothes and create designs for shirts, crewnecks, hoodies, or any type of clothing but let it be original and creative to give it quality. 

Many have used Adobe Illustrator and multiple other 3D or 2D rendering tools to design them to submit a design to a manufacturer. Some manufacturers offer both a designing, manufacturing and delivery service. Next, build a website and social network to advertise the line with a specific product once the manufacturer sends a finished product. Some lines now offer a pre-order of their product before they entirely release it to gain a complete record of how many orders are needed for the manufacturer. To avoid being overwhelmed by the clothing line and manufacturer with many demands, cap the number of orders to a certain amount. 

Some clothing lines create simpler designs with embroidery. Embroidery machines are a must for mass production. However, a simple design embroidered into crewnecks and hoodies can remove the need for a manufacturer if you produce the product though supplies to make it would prove challenging for start-ups.

The critical thing with clothing lines with manufacturers is working with a good one and advertising. Being creative with designs is also important but not extremely difficult as a clothing designer with little to no experience can profit from a product with only text on a long sleeve shirt. The more designs are done, the more experience comes with it, and taking classes in fashion design and marketing would take the business to the next level of opening a franchise or company. 

Designs can be simply because they could be merchandise for a bigger store. Korben Moelter, an NBW senior, owns a small service-based business with fishing equipment. His small business is called Getting Jiggy with it Bait Co, and he has merchandise to support his small business. “I do custom orders as well; if someone wants a certain color or even a certain type of animal fur, I can do it for them. I also sell T-shirts and other merch, backpacks even,” said Moelter. Moelter explains that the reason behind this is, “ Fishing rulers, it’s a very niche market, and I stay away from lead stuff for the health impact on the ecosystem. It is just harder to get that because there’s lower margins, so I won’t be able to make as much money from that.”  Korben saw the merchandising with clothes as his advertising. “I thought it would be good just to get my name out there just because one person could only do so much in advertising. Wearing my backpack around, I was able to get my name around”, said Moelter.

Some entrepreneurs don’t make much profit compared to others using this model as the cost for manufacturing, advertising, and storage is high. Still, it acts as an outlet for an artist to flex their ability to be creative. According to Red Points, a large Revenue Recovery company, “On average, a clothing brand can make profits of anywhere between $23,751 and $140,935, depending on its expenses, marketing efforts, company size, product types, location, and target customers. A clothing line owner can also make over $51,000 per year.” Red Points made it clear that clothing lines would have to know their average total revenue and invest accordingly with the expenses they mentioned. For example, they explained, “When it comes to average revenue per user (the total monthly revenue you make divided by the total number of users making purchases), anything over $216 will put you in the top 20% of clothing businesses. If your ARPU is less than $46, that will put you in the bottom 20%, and it means you have some serious work to do.” 

Reselling

Reselling is a simple and effective way to make money. Reselling is the action of buying something and selling it at a higher price. Like dropshipping, the entrepreneurs in this category build their websites and social media to advertise their products as the method is how to get products. One of the most common niches as far as products go is reselling shoes which is a big market for resellers. Resellers purchase some of the newest shoes on the market that are rare to find and uncommon to come across in the nearest Nike store, for example. When a specific product is about to be released, resellers could up their chances to be one of the first to buy the product by using AI to automatically buy the product when there’s a finite amount of the product. This action is called scalping.

Say only 50,000 Jordan 1 Retros are made and about to become available in the public market. Once a reseller buys it at the initial price, they can market up the cost of the Jordan 1 from $150 to $300. Because of the rarity, every other reseller will also market up the price to the point where it’s no longer going to be overpriced because the market value increased. Reselling is very common, and even students could profit from reselling.

For example, Sydney Milhouse was an NBW student who graduated in 2022 that started a reselling shoe business at the beginning of her senior year. Milhouse and her boyfriend, Hayden Pauls, are owners of Fly Kicks, where they focus on reselling new and authentic shoes. Her business was featured in the Norse Code’s 3rd spring issue in our 6th volume during 2022 as it went into detail about their journey but also mentioned reselling’s merit with big resale companies like Stock X and Flight Club. Milhouse and Pauls saw this as an opportunity to join the market on reselling shoes, and now Fly Kicks has their very own sneaker warehouse to process orders and ship them.

Bahnson said, “What Sydney is doing is great, but it’s nothing revolutionary; it’s been done for a long time. But, she is finding success in it because of all her skill set and the product she is drawn into and getting that information to the right target market people.”

Reselling is an overall market, and the main issues that follow along with it are advertisement and restocking. Shoe reselling is one of the biggest markets for this type of business as it comes with the multiple trends of shoes. Sneaker conventions, where resellers such as Fly Kicks attend to negotiate, buy and sell rare collections, and the need for specific brands like Adidas or Nike. 

Info product

If done right, one of the most popular and profitable business models, as an info product, is creating an online course, book, newsletter, membership sites, templates, or even live events. An info product is usually a long, detailed explanation of how something works, delivered as a product to buy to an audience hungry for information. Many online coaches who teach different types of business like SMMA or remote closing would offer up a course filled with exclusive videos that teach the business fundamentals at a price over $1.5k in some cases. Selling eBooks would be cheaper, but depending on the importance of the book, it would sell constantly. Having passive income after publishing it online would be a recurring income instead of a non-recurring, once-in-a-while income. Same with courses and memberships, but advertising them would only prove challenging with a significant social media presence. Hence why remote closing benefits info products. 

Ebooks can sell on Audible, but courses would have to be from a website made to gain a client’s attention to consider buying. Having a Newsletter sells a subscription for news, original reporting, commentary, or industry analyses that can be updated daily or weekly. Newsletters can follow a specific niche or not, like an entire website commentating on weekly sports games, and people will subscribe if the content is that interesting. 

Tools to use

The difference between the traditional brick-and-mortar businesses back then and the revolutionizing online businesses now is the number of tools utilized to make things easier and more convenient. Not physical tools but software, apps, and AI. 

Shopify and Wix are two common apps to utilize for business websites as it not only offers to customize the webpage, it provides product listing, automatic sale analysis, chart and graphs on sales, linking with supplier and advertisement service apps, and more. Shopify offers its membership at $3 for three months to kick off a business. It then switches to $30 a month for its basic features and the more premium, higher-end services at $2000 a month for already established businesses. 

Adobe Creative Cloud is a collection of software for graphic design, video editing, web development, and photography. Photoshop, Indesign, illustrator, and several others offer endless potential for creativity compared to pen and paper. It can be essential for ad development, logos, video advertisement, and more. The issue with using Adobe is the level of difficulty using it and its cost to use. Adobe can appear complicated but, at the same time, offers videos that teach how to use each software. With mastery of Adobe’s Creative Cloud, it creates opportunities for projects to be done more efficiently. The cost for every program is around $55 per month, which can’t be avoided, but once the business utilizes the full potential of Adobe and starts to generate revenue, $55 can be easily paid off. 

Chat GPT is not the only AI out there that people can use. Many different types of AI are way more useful than Chat GPT for business. The Ai mentioned is meant to be used conveniently to reduce start-up time starting a business. Wizard.io, Midjourney, or Durable are AI that builds a website in minutes, simply picks a template and adds content, and automatically sets up an organized website. Validator AI can give feedback on a business idea for free. Logo Ai is for, you guessed it, creating a logo for free. Dall-E 2 or Stockimg.ai can generate any image with a specific description. Quillbot is an AI that rewrites any text in minutes and can help reword the same email to different clients without spending time writing email after email on the same subject. Grammarly is a standard AI grammar correcting tool yet has merit for making sure there are no typos in any formal documentation, which is a great asset and removes some time on editing and revising.

Mindset

Before getting into business or side hustle, it’s essential to remember that entrepreneurs have certain mindsets that can be considered uncommon. To think like an entrepreneur is one thing for the business aspect, but considering that same person’s mindset for their everyday life is another. Entrepreneurs are not motivated by the gains; millionaires are not motivated by the cars they can get or the luxuries they now have. These people that are considered the “1%” or “the lucky ones” did not rely on motivation; it’s discipline. 

New Berlin West Philosophy teacher Jaclyn Jecha defines being disciplined as “having a routine and going through that routine almost the same way, every day, in a way that is going to benefit you, your family, company, etc. If it’s like getting up early to go to the gym or waking up early to meditate, whatever it is, it’s going to be that every day.” Becoming successful isn’t easy, and it’s not easy for these entrepreneurs who make six figures in their 20s; they discipline themselves to become successful. Committing to the gym to improve the body’s health is a common hobby to become disciplined.

Living by a particular philosophy and mindset is valuable for entrepreneurs as it improves their persistence in problems and creative thinking. Being a “Sigma Male” is a common misconception as it became a trending meme to claim to be one without fully understanding the meaning. According to Prakhar Verma, a personal growth coach and owner of DesignEpicLife.com, “Sigma is a personality archetype of a dominant introvert who is self-reliant and independent. Their power doesn’t come from a social hierarchy; it comes from their being.” The sigma mindset is an example of an entrepreneurial mindset, unrestricted to gender, that gives the qualities of a self-reliant leader, but another is a growth mindset. The Japanese word kaizen is the philosophy of continuous improvement and becoming 1% better daily. Kaizen is a growth mindset and a Japanese business philosophy. 

Learning about the success of others comes at the risk of an increase in dopamine. Dopamine is a hormone that allows the body to feel pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation. Seeing a TikTok video of entrepreneurs teaching their method on how they made 6-7 figures or a gym influencer flexing their body while sending a motivational quote on Instagram increases dopamine levels but would give a false sense of success. Thinking that you’ve achieved success without doing anything at all to reach that goal is worse than striving for success and failing. Failing for the first time or failing after a thousand times means that each time there’s a lesson to be learned afterward, and the main goal for entrepreneurship, or any side hustle, is to keep pushing forward for success. Businesses usually fail due to startups, and cash flow, but also being in the wrong mindset as being in the wrong mindset would lead to a lack of innovation, creativity, persistence, flexibility, and discipline. 

Getting into business just to get rich and successful is an example of being in the wrong mindset. The rise in dopamine levels can cause this feeling or result from it. Billionaire Entrepreneur and Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban says, “Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.” Motivation will only start the process without discipline. 

The younger generation can now accrue profit in this economy once they set their sights on being unique and outside of the box. Kallio-Mielke said, “I’m in awe of the younger generation of people who are starting these companies and have an open mind of what’s possible. I think the older generation, some people do, but a lot of them don’t think that way.”

Jordan B. Peterson, a Canadian Psychologist suggests that “a handful of hyper-competitive men, who are obsessed with hitting the of the given dominance hierarchy they’re in will happily work 80s hours a week and they’ll forgo everything else.” He explains that “they’re damn good at what they do and part of that is they’re smart, disciplined, and they’ll work nonstop all the time. It’s like an obsession and that’s the sort of people who run things.” While he expresses that it’s only for men, being self-obsessed like the way Peterson described isn’t exclusive at all, it’s a trait that’s unlocked after finding a purpose in life and gunning for that goal. 

Having the trait of being self-obsessed can be deemed immoral as there can be a lack of emotion or empathy for others, which include family. There’s merit to being self-obsessed like how Peterson described it but on the side of the coin, if viewing it as a “good vs evil”, the good side of it can be Kaizen, the philosophy idea to keep bettering yourself by 1% every day. The concept is to pick something to improve on either lifestyle, skill set, or perception, and grow either by a lot or a little bit each day. The two sides can be view like “everyone is my competition, I will sacrifice and strengthen myself to meet my goals no matter the cost” to “I will become a stronger individual, I have no enemies as I want to be a kinder person and take life slowly since rushing things wouldn’t make my goal come any faster. What I do today will make me a better person for tomorrow”. These two side perceptions are still the growth mindset in which many of the “philosophical entrepreneurs” utilize both in order to reach their goals. 

Learning the business 

This article will not teach you how to open your own business online properly; it’s meant to inform the methods and how young entrepreneurs make so much money without ever stepping foot in college. Bahnson expresses that “People have these big dreams, but there are baby steps to get there, and I think a little of it is luck too.” but explains that “You will hear that from businesses and companies, and if you read books; right timing, luck, and being patient too. Never settle; always anticipate.” This goes to show that even if the time was taken to study, it has to go with having a mindset that fits the bill and truly proves merit once the time’s right and profit starts to come in.

As far as studying, picking up books by authors who are entrepreneurs is great for learning different entrepreneurs’ philosophies and strategies. While these same entrepreneurs had done the same thing, learning strategy, and creativity will prove essential for profit-making. Dyke said, “The only time firms enter the market is if firms are making an economic profit already, so if they’re firms that are earning money, other smart entrepreneurs will say ‘Hey I can make money doing the same thing’ and get in. Whether or not they’re successful will depend on the quality of their product.” Essentially, these entrepreneurs first learn the best business plan that fits their skill set; this would make a good entrepreneur better once they keep an open mind on the environment. 

Kallio-Mielke even explained that “I’ve heard that high school students, and college students in particular really embrace entrepreneurship and people of prior generation, especially my generation, we were scared to take the risk and there’s not as much risk now because there’s not as much money require to start a business, it’s fantastic.” to express that entrepreneurship is worth learning now more than ever. Entrepreneurship can work with many other careers to create a business, like opening a dental service or a graphic designer starting their own service advertising other companies. Entrepreneurship and the mindset that comes with it have proven to have merit, but learning takes time and patience. Ultimately no teacher can teach someone how to think, but they’re multiple ways to learn different structures and what to do.

Youtube has thousands of videos on making money online with many entrepreneurs; some are willing to teach people for free. A few have a channel that also offers courses to teach some fundamentals and methods which can go into more detail with each model. An education like this doesn’t require a degree or a high school diploma; it’s not meant to fill up a resume to have these skills but to have the ability to be the boss hiring others—someone who dropouts can have the opportunity to be successful without the traditional education.

Entrepreneur Iman Gadzhi made $1 million at 18 after being a high school dropout by getting into the Social Media Marketing Agency business and E-learning industry. Gadzhi offers a $1,500 course on how to start your own agency from scratch, and though it may be expensive, it’s an investment to be committed to learning how to build one with +20 hours of step-by-step tutorials. 

There are many other videos for free on how to start an agency or a dropshipping store, but they’re also videos on improving one’s mindset fit for an entrepreneur. One of the first steps to learning business could be to enhance the mindset or simply learn where to start. When learning that from an entrepreneur, it is best to remember that not every entrepreneur will share all their secrets or ideas. Having a creative mind will help fill any gaps and invent different ideas unique to your business. Many entrepreneurs could try selling the same product online but learning how to implement a unique touch in advertising will make sales.

Books recommended

There are so many books out there that share different perspectives and philosophies around entrepreneurship, strategy, and mindsets. These books are just a fraction of the many out there that could benefit one or more areas of skills. The 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, and The 33 strategies of War are three great books by Robert Greene that teach different skills for self-improvement and persuasion. Rich Dad Poor Dad is an excellent book by multi-millionaire Robert T. Kiyosaki that guides a better perspective on money, such as knowing assets and liabilities. How to Get Rich is a wonderful book with a simple name by publisher and entrepreneur Felix Dennis that introduces his strategy and philosophy with business. Other books to look into are: The 4-hour work week by Timothy Ferriss, Atomic Habits by James Clear, Side Hustle by Chris Guillebeau, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al Ries and Laura Ries, Invent & Wander by Jeff Bezos, The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason, Why “A” students work for “C” students by Robert T. Kiyosaki, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Francesc Miralles and Hector Garcia, and Quit like a Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung. 

How to Study

There are a couple of different methods to study, and it doesn’t have to be business related. These techniques are useful to prevent burnout and stay consistent, similar to how an athlete could run a mile, but if they sprint at the very start, they will exhaust all of their stamina to continue. The same goes for mental; it’s vital for any kind of study that these techniques will help remain focused and consistent. 

In the Pomodoro Technique, developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s, the concept here is that one Pomodoro, Italian for tomato, should equal 25 minutes of deep, focused work. Set a timer for 25 minutes of complete focus work, and after the timer goes off, take a 5-minute break. This cycle is one Pomodoro. Repeat this cycle four times, and then after the 4th Pomodoro will be a 30-minute to an hour break. This break is meant to help refocus and not strain the brain mentally. A different version of the technique consists of using the timer to get motivation for studying where the timer is set for 5 minutes, and if attention is not locked into the subject, take a small break and try again. Repeat the process till attention is locked in for more extended periods.

Created by Richard Feynman, an American Physicist, the Feynman Technique is a simple yet effective 4 step process. The first step is to pick and study a topic, then explain it to someone unfamiliar with it, like a child using their level of understanding with simple language. The third step is to fill the gaps in knowledge, and the fourth step is to return to studying to perfect their knowledge and then repeat the process in step 2. When indulging in a new topic or concept, this technique is meant to see if a topic can be rediscovered by someone trying to explain it to a child. If the explanation feels incomplete or “off” when describing it in simpler terms, many gaps need to be filled. A topic can be fully understood if there’s no issue with explaining it to a child or someone unfamiliar with it.

An excellent method is the PQ4R method for reading books to study. PQ4R stands for preview, question, read, reflect, recite, and review. Preview is looking at headings, titles, authors’ notes, summaries, and any text that is given that is not the main text. Question is questioning the context of the book and thinking of a goal to strive for to answer the questions. Reading is reading the book while reflecting; reciting is taking notes by reflecting on what was read and recounting every essential detail of the story. Review is looking back at every point and connecting back to the questions. Simply reading the book without a particular goal won’t show productivity or attention to every detail, especially when reading business books with many hidden messages and strategies to build something grand.

Some other study techniques to look into as well that are useful are the Loci method, second brain, Retrieval Practice, or box breathing.

The art of business came a long way from simple trading one item at a time to selling on mass. Entrepreneurship isn’t restricted to anyone, same with becoming financially free. Research from Zippia shows that there’s 22 million millionaires out there in the U.S, 19% are U.S young adults and rising. All have their own strategy and theories within this art. E-commerce is simply one branch of ways to make profit online through selling. Many other avenues such as content creator or video editor have lots of potential, all it takes is having a better understanding on both assets and people.

No one was born to be average and as stated in the U.S constitution, the unalienable rights include the pursuit of happiness. For many entrepreneurs, the goal is to become financially free, the ability to not worry about finance. The new generation of entrepreneurs didn’t simply focus on what side hustle to reach that goal but it’s the effort they put out independently. The harder it gets, the closer to success.