Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a Librarian Built a 5000 Monthly Side Hustle in Research Consulting
Transcript
- Lucas: So we talk a lot on this show about side hustles that come from skills you already use at work — but we've never really looked at one that starts with a library science degree. Luna: I was wondering when we'd get to librarians. They're basically expert searchers. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the angle today — a public librarian in Columbus, Ohio named Maria. She's been at the same branch for about eight years, and two years ago she started moonlighting as a freelance research consultant. She's now pulling in around five thousand dollars a month. Luna: Wait — what does a freelance research consultant actually do? Is she just Googling things for people? Lucas: That's the funny thing — it's way deeper than that. Maria does literature reviews for academics, competitive landscape reports for early-stage startups, and even historical fact-checking for a law firm that was working on a case involving old zoning ordinances. She charges seventy-five dollars an hour, and her clients are mostly small businesses and authors who need someone who can dig through databases they don't have access to. Luna: So she's leveraging her library's database subscriptions? That feels like a gray area ethically. Lucas: She's careful about that. She only uses publicly available databases or ones she subscribes to personally — like a JStor individual account. She told me she never touches her library's institutional subscriptions for client work. That's a hard line she drew from day one. Luna: Good. Because that could get messy fast. But how did she even find clients? It's not like there's a 'research consultant' category on Upwork that's booming. Lucas: She actually started on LinkedIn. She posted a short status about how she loves doing deep dives into niche topics, and a former colleague who now works at a startup reached out. That first client led to a referral. Then she started cold-messaging authors on Twitter who were writing history books, offering to do a free sample lit review on a chapter. Three of them converted into paying clients. Luna: The free sample approach — that's smart. It demonstrates the skill without a big commitment from the client. What's the typical project size? Lucas: She says most projects run eight to twelve hours total. A full literature review for a master's thesis might be fifteen hours. The law firm project was bigger — about forty hours spread over three months. She keeps a cap of twenty hours per week because she's still full-time at the library. Luna: Twenty hours on top of a forty-hour week? That's a grind. Lucas: She admits it's intense. But she loves the research part so much she says it doesn't feel like work. And the money — seventy-five an hour, twenty hours a week during peak season — that's six thousand gross. She averages around five thousand because some weeks are slower. Luna: That's impressive. But I wonder — is this something that scales? Can she ever quit the library and do this full-time? Lucas: She's thinking about it. The challenge is that clients come in bursts. There's no retainer model yet. She's experimenting with a monthly subscription for a couple of small startups — five hundred bucks a month for up to eight hours of research on demand. That could smooth out the income. Luna: The subscription model could be a game-changer. It turns irregular project work into recurring revenue. I've seen that work for copywriters and designers — no reason it can't work for research. Lucas: And the barrier to entry is surprisingly low. You don't need a library degree — Maria has one, but half the skill is just being a persistent, organised searcher. Knowing how to use Boolean operators, how to evaluate source credibility, how to synthesise information quickly. That's teachable. Luna: Speaking of things that are useful — if today's episode gave you a concrete idea or a new way to think about your own skills, that's exactly why we do this show. And the way we keep it ad-free and focused is through listener support. So if you found value, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a simple way to say 'keep going.' Lucas: Yeah, we really appreciate that. It lets us keep drilling into specific stories like Maria's without any sponsor interruptions. Luna: Alright — back to the nuts and bolts. Maria mentioned that one of the biggest unexpected challenges was pricing. She started at fifty dollars an hour and quickly realised she was undervaluing her time, especially when she was using specialized database knowledge. Lucas: She told me she raised her rate to seventy-five after her third project. One client actually said, 'I was wondering when you'd charge more.' So she learned that confidence in pricing is part of the skill. Luna: What tools does she use? I imagine it's not just Google. Lucas: She uses a mix. For academic research, she's on JStor and Google Scholar. For competitive analysis, she uses Crunchbase and SimilarWeb. She also swears by a tool called Connected Papers — it maps out academic papers by citation relationships. And for keeping everything organised, she uses Notion with a template she built herself. Luna: That's a solid stack. And I'd add that research consultants can also use public records databases, patent searches, even social media listening tools. The field is wide open. Lucas: Absolutely. And what I love about Maria's story is that she's not selling a product — she's selling a skill that most people don't realise they need. Startups especially are drowning in information but starved for analysis. They can find data, but they can't interpret it quickly. Luna: So the value prop is: 'I'll save you ten hours of reading and give you the three key insights.' That's worth seventy-five bucks an hour. Lucas: Exactly. She also does a deliverable — a two-page synthesis document with sources cited. Clients love that because it's tangible. Luna: Let's talk about the elephant in the room — does her employer have a problem with this? Many libraries have moonlighting policies. Lucas: She checked. Her library's policy only restricts work that creates a conflict of interest — like using library resources or competing with the library's services. Since she's not doing that, she's in the clear. She also keeps her side hustle completely separate: different laptop, different email, different hours. Luna: That's the right move. I've seen people get in trouble for blurring those lines. But if you're clean, it's a great way to build a second income. Lucas: And Maria is proof that you don't need a flashy background. She has an MLIS from a state school, no corporate experience, but she built a five-thousand-dollar-a-month business just by leaning into what she's naturally good at. That's the takeaway I hope listeners grab. Luna: I think the question for our audience is: what's your version of this? What's the skill you use daily that other people would pay for? Lucas: And if it's research — or organisation, or synthesis, or even just knowing how to find a definitive answer — there might be a market you haven't considered. Maria's LinkedIn inbox is proof. Luna: Alright, next episode we're looking at how a flight attendant built a side hustle in travel itinerary consulting. That should be a fun one. Lucas: Looking forward to it. Until then, keep digging.