Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a Graphic Designer Built a 4000 Monthly Side Hustle in Notion Consulting
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this interesting side hustle I've been tracking — a graphic designer who started charging small businesses to build and maintain their Notion workspaces. She's now pulling in around four thousand dollars a month, working maybe fifteen hours a week on top of her full-time job. Luna: Okay, I have to stop you there. Notion consulting? Like, people pay someone to organize their databases? Lucas: Exactly. And it sounds niche — almost too niche — but it's actually a perfect example of what I call 'tool-specific consulting.' She saw that a lot of small business owners were adopting Notion because it's flexible and affordable, but they had no idea how to set it up in a way that actually saved time. Luna: I mean, I get that. I've used Notion for personal stuff, and it can get chaotic fast. But is there really a market for paying someone to fix your workspace? Lucas: Apparently, yes. She started by offering a free thirty-minute audit to a few local business owners she knew from her day job. Within two weeks, three of them said yes to a paid monthly retainer — each around five hundred dollars for four hours of work. That's a hundred and twenty-five dollars an hour, Luna. Luna: That's solid. But what's actually in that four hours? Like, what is she doing that's worth that rate? Lucas: Good question. The big pieces are: first, she builds custom dashboards for project tracking, client management, or content calendars — depending on the business. Second, she creates templates for recurring workflows, like onboarding new clients or tracking expenses. And third, she trains the team on how to use it all, usually through a monthly one-hour call. Luna: So it's part designer, part trainer, part systems architect. That's a pretty full stack for a side hustle. Lucas: And that's exactly why it works. Because the graphic design background gave her an eye for layout and user experience — she makes things look clean and intuitive. Most small business owners don't have the time or the design skills to do that themselves, even if they understand the tool. Luna: So she's really selling clarity and time savings. I can see how that would be worth a hundred bucks an hour for a busy founder. Lucas: Right. And she didn't stop at the retainers. She also built a small library of Notion templates — like a 'Freelance Client Manager' and a 'Quarterly Planning Dashboard' — that she sells on Gumroad for twenty to forty dollars each. That's contributed maybe another eight hundred dollars a month, mostly passive. Luna: Okay, so four thousand total: roughly thirty-two hundred from retainers and eight hundred from templates. That's a nice split. Lucas: And it's growing. She told me she's at the point where she could probably double her client load if she quit her day job, but she's not ready to make that leap yet. She likes having the stability of her graphic design salary while this thing builds. Luna: I'm curious how she finds clients. Because it's not like there's a 'Notion consultant' category on Upwork. Lucas: That's the interesting part. She doesn't use traditional freelance platforms. Instead, she posts in local small-business Facebook groups and in Notion-focused communities on Reddit. She also reached out to a few co-working spaces in her city and offered a free one-hour workshop on 'Getting Started with Notion for Your Business.' That workshop led to three paid gigs directly. Luna: So she's not just waiting for clients to find her. She's creating visibility in places where her target audience already hangs out. Lucas: Exactly. And she's very specific about who she works with. She only takes clients in certain industries — creative agencies, solopreneurs, and boutique consulting firms. That keeps her templates and dashboards reusable across clients, which makes her more efficient. Luna: That's smart. She's basically productizing her service without calling it that. I wonder if this could scale beyond Notion. Like, could someone do the same thing for Airtable or Monday.com? Lucas: Absolutely. In fact, I think the Notion niche is just one example of a broader opportunity. If you're already proficient in any popular SaaS tool — think Canva, Asana, HubSpot — there are small business owners who would pay for setup, optimization, and training. The barrier to entry is low because you don't need a certification; you just need to be genuinely good at the tool and able to explain it clearly. Luna: But there's a risk, right? What if Notion falls out of fashion? Or what if Notion itself improves its interface to the point where people don't need consultants? Lucas: That's a real concern. But she's already thinking about that. She told me she's learning Airtable on the side, and she's considering offering a 'migration service' — helping clients move from one tool to another. That way, she's not locked into any single platform. Luna: So she's diversifying her skill set. That's good. But let's talk about the time commitment. She's working a full-time job and then fifteen hours a week on this. How does she manage that without burning out? Lucas: She's very disciplined. She blocks out two hours every weeknight after dinner — eight to ten PM — and then four hours on Saturday morning. She doesn't take calls during the week. All client communication is async, mainly through Loom videos and Notion comments. She says the key is setting clear boundaries upfront: she tells clients she'll respond within twenty-four hours and that all requests go through a shared Notion database. Luna: That's a really good system. I think a lot of side hustlers fail because they let clients dictate the schedule. She's basically built a mini agency with very clear processes. Lucas: And she's not afraid to raise prices. When she started, she was charging three hundred dollars a month per client. Six months in, she raised it to five hundred. She only lost one client, and she replaced that slot within two weeks with a new client at the higher rate. That's a big lesson — don't undervalue yourself. Luna: Yeah, that's a hard lesson for a lot of freelancers. I think people worry that if they raise prices, they'll lose everyone. But the data shows that if you're delivering real value, most clients will stay. Lucas: And if they leave, it often frees you up for better clients. In her case, the client who left was the one who required the most hand-holding anyway. So it was a net positive. Luna: Honestly, this whole conversation is making me think about what tools I'm already good at that I could monetize. I spend a lot of time in Canva — maybe there's something there. Lucas: See, that's exactly the mindset. And if today's conversation helped you think about your own skills in that way, you know, we do have a way listeners can support the show if it adds value to their week. It's a small thing — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. If this episode saved you fifteen minutes of research, that's the link. Luna: Yeah, it's a tiny gesture that keeps the show ad-free and independent. And we genuinely appreciate it. Lucas: Okay, back to the Notion consultant. She also mentioned something that I think is worth highlighting: she doesn't just build workspaces — she does a quarterly 'audit and refresh' where she reviews how the client is actually using Notion and suggests improvements. That adds a recurring revenue component that feels high-value. Luna: So it's not just a setup and forget service. She's positioning herself as a long-term partner. That's a smart way to increase lifetime value per client. Lucas: Exactly. And she charges an extra three hundred dollars for that quarterly audit. It's a small upsell, but it adds up across multiple clients. She did the math: if she has ten clients on a quarterly audit, that's an extra three thousand dollars a quarter — or twelve thousand a year. Luna: That's substantial. So her four thousand a month could easily become five or six thousand just from upsells and word of mouth referrals. Lucas: And she's not even trying to aggressively grow. She said she's at a comfortable capacity right now. But if she wanted to, she could hire a junior person to handle the template building or the training calls. She's already thinking about that as a next step. Luna: That's the dream, right? A side hustle that's so successful it becomes a scalable business. But I think the key takeaway here is that you don't need a revolutionary idea. You just need to identify a specific pain point for a specific group of people and use a skill you already have. Lucas: And the barrier to entry is remarkably low. She had no formal consulting background. She just knew Notion really well and was willing to offer free help upfront to build credibility. That's a model anyone can replicate. Luna: I'd love to know how she handles the legal side — like, does she have a contract? Does she worry about intellectual property if she builds something custom for a client? Lucas: She uses a simple service agreement she found on a freelance contract template site. It covers confidentiality, ownership — she retains the rights to the templates she creates, but grants the client a license to use them. And for custom work, the client gets ownership after full payment. She's not a lawyer, but she said that basic contract has protected her in a couple of disputes. Luna: That's smart. So many side hustlers skip the contract because it feels awkward, but it's essential. Especially when you're dealing with client data and proprietary workflows. Lucas: Exactly. And she keeps it simple — no complex NDAs or non-competes. Just a straightforward statement of work and payment terms. She learned that from a previous freelancing mistake where she didn't have a contract and a client ghosted her after she'd done two weeks of work. Luna: Ouch. But a good lesson. I think our listeners would benefit from hearing that: even if you're just starting, get a contract. It doesn't have to be fancy. Lucas: Alright, let's wrap up with one concrete action step. If you're listening and you think you might have a tool-specific consulting side hustle in you, pick one tool you're already good at — maybe it's Notion, maybe it's Canva, maybe it's QuickBooks — and offer one free audit to a small business owner you know. That's it. One free hour. See what happens. Luna: I love that. It's low risk, high learning. And who knows, you might end up with a four-thousand-dollar-a-month side hustle. Lucas: Alright, that's it for this episode. We'll be back next time with another real story of someone who built something from the side.