Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a Freelancer Built a 3000 Monthly Side Hustle in Spreadsheet Consulting
Transcript
- Luna: So Lucas, I have a confession. I spend about two hours every week manually copying data from one spreadsheet to another for a volunteer gig I do. And I keep thinking, there has to be a better way. Lucas: There absolutely is. And that frustration you're feeling is exactly what's fueling a surprisingly lucrative side hustle that a lot of people overlook. Today we're talking about spreadsheet consulting. It sounds boring, right? But boring pays. Luna: Boring pays. I like that. Who are we talking to today? Lucas: We're talking to Emma. She's a former retail manager who now makes about three thousand dollars a month building custom spreadsheets for small business owners. She still works her full-time job in operations. This is purely a side hustle. Luna: And before we dive into her story, I want to mention something. This show is ad-free by design. We keep it that way because we think that makes for a better listening experience. If that kind of thing matters to you, and you want to support that choice, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small gesture but it genuinely helps us keep the lights on without having to interrupt the conversation with ads. So thanks to anyone who's already done that. Now, back to Emma. She got started in a pretty unusual place. Luna: Where? Upwork? Fiverr? Lucas: Nope. Reddit. Specifically, the r/excel subreddit. She was just answering people's questions for fun, helping them debug formulas. One guy asked if she could build a whole inventory tracker for his small hardware store. She said yes, charged him two hundred dollars, and that was her first client. Luna: Two hundred dollars for a custom spreadsheet? That seems low actually. Lucas: It was low. She admits that. But it was a starting point. From there, she started raising her rates. By client number five, she was charging five hundred to a thousand per project. And now she's got a waitlist. Luna: Wait, a waitlist for spreadsheet work? That's wild. What kind of businesses are hiring her? Lucas: Mostly micro-businesses. Things like a local bakery that needed a production scheduler, a wedding photographer who wanted a client management tracker, a landscaping company that needed job costing sheets. Stuff that's too niche for off-the-shelf software, but too small for a custom app. Luna: So it's like the gap between 'just use Excel' and 'hire a developer.' Lucas: Exactly. And the thing is, most small business owners don't know what's possible in a spreadsheet. They're using Excel like a digital piece of paper. Emma comes in and shows them how to automate calculations, add drop-down menus, connect sheets together. It's transformative for them. Luna: I can imagine. So how does she structure her pricing now? Per project or hourly? Lucas: She does per project, almost exclusively. She learned early on that hourly pricing punishes efficiency. If she gets faster at building a tracker, she makes less money. So she quotes a fixed price based on the complexity. Usually between five hundred and two thousand dollars per project. Luna: And how long does a typical project take her? Lucas: She says the average is about ten to fifteen hours spread over two weeks. So her effective hourly rate is around fifty to a hundred dollars. That's not bad for a side hustle she can do in the evenings after her kids go to bed. Luna: That's impressive. But I imagine the hardest part is finding those first few clients. How did she get past that initial hurdle besides Reddit? Lucas: She actually used a very targeted approach. She went on Google Maps, found local businesses in her area that looked like they were run by one or two people, and sent them a cold email offering a free thirty-minute spreadsheet audit. No strings attached. She'd look at how they were tracking things and suggest one improvement. Luna: A free audit. That's smart. It's low risk for them, and it lets her demonstrate value. Lucas: Right. And about one in three of those free audits turned into a paid project. She did that for about six months and built up a steady pipeline. Now she gets most of her work through referrals. Luna: So what's the biggest mistake she sees people make when they try to start a spreadsheet side hustle? Lucas: She says it's trying to be too fancy. People want to use macros, VBA, Python scripts. But most small businesses just need clean, well-organized data. They need something that works and that they can understand. Over-engineering is a liability, not a feature. Luna: Keep it simple. That's good advice. So for someone listening who thinks they might have this skill, what's the first step? Lucas: Emma's recommendation is to pick one type of spreadsheet and get really good at it. For her, it was inventory management. She knows every variation. Then go find businesses that struggle with that specific problem. Don't try to be a generalist at the start. Luna: That makes sense. And how does she handle scope creep? I imagine clients asking for more features mid-project. Lucas: She's very upfront about it. In her contract, she writes that any change beyond the original spec will be quoted separately. And she always delivers a working version first, then offers additions as separate projects. That way the client sees the value before asking for more. Luna: Good boundary setting. So what's the biggest piece of advice she would give to someone who's thinking about this but feels like they're not 'expert' enough? Lucas: She says, if you can solve a real problem for a business, you're an expert. You don't need to know every function in Excel. You just need to know how to build something that saves them time. One client told her that her spreadsheet saved them ten hours a week. That's worth way more than a few hundred dollars. Luna: Yeah, that's the key insight. It's not about being a spreadsheet guru. It's about being a problem solver. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why we wanted to feature Emma. Her story is a great reminder that you don't need a fancy tech skill to build a lucrative side hustle. Sometimes the most boring skills are the ones people will pay the most for. Luna: Alright, I'm convinced. I'm going to look at my volunteer spreadsheet tonight and see if I can turn it into something better. Lucas: And if you do, maybe that's your first client. Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll be back next week with another side hustle story.