What is your side gig?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Members don't see this ad.
cyanide12345678 said:
Side gig update:

have a guy working 20 hr/wk doing SEO work at ~4/hr on the other side of the world and a girl writing weekly blog posts for $5/post that i just edit and post. I can personally do those things, but it's not worth my time. My two shifts salary is roughly more than the cost i will incur for the two employees working all year round. SEO has been going on for 1 month now and beginning to see organic traffic ~ 100-150 visitors a day. Which is almost nothing in the grand scheme, but the site is barely 1 month old now.

I'm doing social media marketing myself on my days off - and roughly have 22k followers on Facebook, 5k Twitter and minimal insta and other places. Starting to get to a point where any Facebook post generates 10-15 website visits and leads. I roughly post 4-5 times a week.
Click to expand...

Where did you find folks to do that the SEO and writing for you?
 
cyanide12345678 said:
I recently started an affiliate travel website that is a meta search engine that is now starting to gain traction.
Click to expand...

Congrats!!! This is awesome. I hope your site continues to grow and take off. Remember us little people when Alphabet buys your company and you get many Lambos.


cyanide12345678 said:
Our jobs are hard and burn out is real. You're smart enough to be a doctor, then you're probably smart enough to do other things as well.
Click to expand...

Amen. The only person keeping you from working outside of the ED is...you.
 
Renaissance Man said:
Where did you find folks to do that the SEO and writing for you?
Click to expand...

Upwork.com

It basically used to be called odesk a decade ago. I've used it multiple times over the decade, it has freelancers from all over the world.

My SEO guy is Indian and my blog writer is Pakistani. She's a decent writer, she charges $5/1000 words, so it was very affordable. Im a better writer so i spend 30 minutes and edit things. But the blog purpose is really SEO, we fit keywords in the article so Google keeps seeing active page additions to the website with keywords related to travel which will help with organic ranking over time. I personally don't care if anyone visits the blog itself.
 
namethatsmell said:
Congrats!!! This is awesome. I hope your site continues to grow and take off. Remember us little people when Alphabet buys your company and you get many Lambos.




Amen. The only person keeping you from working outside of the ED is...you.
Click to expand...


Hahahahha alphabet won't be buying this. I don't think this will be a multi million dollar thing. I think in 5 or so years i probably will start seeing a few thousand a month of revenue at max. I can go back to my native country and have a maid, a driver, a cook, a fancy home, and every luxury imaginable at $3000/month of income.

On the other hand, my 34 year old brother just sold his cloud computing tech company for probably 10-20M (i think the number is somewhere in that range because he had a 10M offer 2 years ago, he never gave an exact number - he just said "enough to retire"). But they were the third fastest growing company in Austin, had made the inc 5000 list 3 times for fastest growing companies in the country, and had grown from 0 to 50+ employees in a few years.

But he was always the genius of the family id be happy with 3k monthly passive income
 
The site was officially completed around jan 18-19th, so 3 weeks ago. I mean.... It's just brand new right now. But traffic is starting to happen *fingers crossed*

In the last 2-3 months I've started 3 ventures online, and eventually decided to pursue this venture fully as the other two required some daily work like responding to customer service emails or 3 clicks to fulfill an order. I didn't want a second job, i wanted a mostly passive income. I left those two sites and haven't worked on them since i started this.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20200208-174029_Chrome.jpg
    Screenshot_20200208-174029_Chrome.jpg
    52.1 KB · Views: 219
I've got this side gig that took me 2 years to create. $240K initial investment that I can get back at any time. It generates on average about 16-17K/yr but last year generated about 25K/yr. All of it..."passive income". In 5 years, it will generate about 23K/yr on average or about ~2K/mo completely passive free income. In 10 years it will be worth 472-622K and if I want to sell the business (which requires no work on my end I might add), then I can sell it for over double my original investment. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

The name of the business is called "Investing in a mutual fund for 2 years at 10K/mo".
 
Last edited:
Spouse and I have mostly done investing, ourselves. In the enviable position that I could retire now with the investment earnings. However, I don't want to at this time - still young. I put a lot of time into becoming something that is allegedly useful, and I feel like I provide good care. I am not quite ready to turn my back on medicine. I may turn my back on EM and do a quick fellowship with the way things are heading; we'll see. For now, my job is pretty good. We have started a small business that I don't see making a ton of money, nor is it the goal for it to. But it should turn a profit after several years and is something enjoyable. And the money keeps earning money at this time. We are doing some other very interesting things (at least I think so) with our earnings, not profitable, necessarily, but very fulfilling. But to describe further would identify me. You may PM me if dying to know.
 
Groove said:
The name of the business is called "Investing in a mutual fund for 2 years at 10K/mo".
Click to expand...

My goal is to get to that level of investment after the home gets paid off. Anyone who can maintain that for 10 years should have 2.5 mil, not counting returns on investment. The question is will we sustain a level of income that will allow us to continue doing so...
 
bravotwozero said:
My goal is to get to that level of investment after the home gets paid off. Anyone who can maintain that for 10 years should have 2.5 mil, not counting returns on investment. The question is will we sustain a level of income that will allow us to continue doing so...
Click to expand...

I started investing at that level right after my loans got paid off and I invest about 120K/yr. I do not have my house paid off though and am about to refinance it at 3.5% For some reason, owing money on a house that I may not intend to stay in long term doesn't really bother me as much as the educational loans did. Regardless, I've got about 500K saved but I'm not anywhere near @GeneralVeers level. The point I was making in my post was that traditional stock market investing generates "passive income" just like any other entrepreneurial endeavor, be that real estate, small business, etc.. It's easy to get caught up so much in side businesses that generate "passive income streams" that we forget that's what traditional investing does....it generates passive income. It's just less tangible than say...rent checks in the mail.

I'm so jealous of some of the peeps on here that started saving aggressively early in their career. I'm mid forties and once I paid off the 400K loans, have been largely playing catch up since I had nothing saved in my original career before medicine. I think I had a small IRA in residency but I blew it as a downpayment for my house. So, I guess I'm a slave to this specialty at least for the next 15 years. I should have 3.9-5.1 mill at that point and then I'm out!
 
Last edited:
bravotwozero said:
My goal is to get to that level of investment after the home gets paid off. Anyone who can maintain that for 10 years should have 2.5 mil, not counting returns on investment. The question is will we sustain a level of income that will allow us to continue doing so...
Click to expand...

How would that not count returns on investment? 10 years x 120k/year=1, 200,000 last I checked. With a 5% after inflation real return, you would have 1,584,000 if you were starting from 0 net worth. Can you explain your math?
 
here's an idea for a side gig - set up a kiosk at your nearby international airport departure terminal, offer lovenox shots for the intercontinental flights, $100 a pop. Complementary compression stockings with each shot.
 
Groove said:
I'm so jealous of some of the peeps on here that started saving aggressively early in their career. I'm mid forties and once I paid off the 400K loans, have been largely playing catch up since I had nothing saved in my original career before medicine. I think I had a small IRA in residency but I blew it as a downpayment for my house. So, I guess I'm a slave to this specialty at least for the next 15 years. I should have 3.9-5.1 mill at that point and then I'm out!
Click to expand...
~ 2 mil with no outstanding debt, I will transition to part time... 4-5 mil would be a pipe dream
 
Piebaldi said:
You mean medicine? I think we are undervalued at this point, and underappreciated. And we should not have to have side gigs in general - simply my opinion.
Click to expand...
We don't have to. Lots of people want them either for extra income or so they can give up medicine.
 
gutonc said:
Defense?
I quote $600/h for all work outside of court. Minimum to appear in court is $1500 for 2h and $700/h beyond. plus expenses I did this recently and the plaintiff didn't even blink at covering it. Perhaps I need to raise my rates.

Plaintiff?
I haven't been asked yet, but I'd start with $20K cash up front just to consider reviewing documents and then $2K/h minimum to actually do anything. My soul is for sale, but not cheaply.
Click to expand...
So how do you decide which side to work for?
 
Anyone here buy and empty plot of land and use it to generate income? I'm thinking about getting a plot of land, using it as a solar farm, and selling electricity back to the grid. Plenty of sunlight in Texas.

Thoughts?
 
How much do you guys think the "prestige" of your residency / institution will help with some of these side gigs like consulting or expert testimony? You think it would be easier to do some of these things from a program like Stanford (layman recognition) versus a top-tier EM program like Cinci etc?
 
DragonSalad said:
How much do you guys think the "prestige" of your residency / institution will help with some of these side gigs like consulting or expert testimony? You think it would be easier to do some of these things from a program like Stanford (layman recognition) versus a top-tier EM program like Cinci etc?
Click to expand...

Depends

Consulting is very vague in this context
 
I doubt training at a prestigious university system will help much, but working at one would probably be more impressive to a lawyer and help you get your foot in the door.
 
Being boarded in multiple specialties also helps.

For those into buying rental properties, what should be the ideal ratio of monthly rent vs the property value? 1% of property value, 5%?
 
DragonSalad said:
How much do you guys think the "prestige" of your residency / institution will help with some of these side gigs like consulting or expert testimony? You think it would be easier to do some of these things from a program like Stanford (layman recognition) versus a top-tier EM program like Cinci etc?
Click to expand...

I'd guess that having a brand name in your credentials is more impressive than having quality training at a lesser known institution.

Unless you want to, you know - practice medicine 😉
 
WilcoWorld said:
Genuine question - multiple boards helps what? Establishing you as an expert?
Click to expand...

Yes, as far as I've noted. I've seen quite a few people get good expert witness consulting work that were double boarded, including my residency PD.
 
2020 projections
1. FSER shift work - 350K working 8-24 hr shifts/mo
2. Medical director admin job - 60K. I spend about 10 hrs/mo
3. Long term rentals - 40K income
4. STRs - 50K income
5. FSER ownership partner income - 350K. 2021 projection 5-600K but highly volatile. Could be $0-1.2M
6. Syndicated Apt Investing - 25K
7. Chart review - 10K
8. Stocks -Who knows
9. Hospital/CMG work - ZERO!!!!

When I started my career, and many many mistakes, I thought I would work in the hospital until I retired. Seemed like a plan I would be happy with. SDG EM job >>>>>> CMG job. The lost of control and autonomy becomes unbearable. Some may be happy working in the hospital til retirement, but save you $$$, create passive income, and you can choose to do whatever you want in your 50's and enjoy your hard work and watch your kids grow.
 
Last edited:
DragonSalad said:
How much do you guys think the "prestige" of your residency / institution will help with some of these side gigs like consulting or expert testimony?
Click to expand...
It helps but there's more to it than that. Having a fancy resume helps if a case comes to trial, but only if the jury is impressed. The majority of this work involves reviewing charts often hundreds of pages long, being able to distill that into a form understandable and persuasive form to the attorney your working for, during a deposition by attorney's, and a minority of the time to a jury of people who likely have little or no medical experience. Most cases don't go to trial and get settled either in the chart review or pre-trial deposition phases.

This work pays very well, but it's not my favorite. I've done some of this work, but mainly for local attorney's who've shared my name by word of mouth, because they have felt I could be helpful to them. If you can explain the case in a way that allows them to assess their chances of winning or losing, really well, then you're worth good money to them. If you can also be persuasive to a jury in a courtroom setting, you're worth even more. You could save the med-mal insurance company they work for, millions, simply by allowing them to understand the medical aspects well and properly assess their chances and whether to settle, or fight.
 
Last edited:
I do chart review for Lawyers too and its easy money. Typically $300/chart to give my opinion and takes me 30 mins. Prob make 10K this year. Work is sporadic but maybe this will lead to some more referrals.
 
Anyone look into franchising? Thoughts? Also, infusion clinics seem to be all the rage these days. I know a FSED that's partnered up with one!
 
emergentmd said:
2020 projections
1. FSER shift work - 350K working 8-24 hr shifts/mo
2. Medical director admin job - 60K. I spend about 10 hrs/mo
3. Long term rentals - 40K income
4. STRs - 50K income
5. FSER ownership partner income - 350K. 2021 projection 5-600K but highly volatile. Could be $0-1.2M
6. Syndicated Apt Investing - 25K
7. Chart review - 10K
8. Stocks -Who knows
9. Hospital/CMG work - ZERO!!!!

When I started my career, and many many mistakes, I thought I would work in the hospital until I retired. Seemed like a plan I would be happy with. SDG EM job >>>>>> CMG job. The lost of control and autonomy becomes unbearable. Some may be happy working in the hospital til retirement, but save you $$$, create passive income, and you can choose to do whatever you want in your 50's and enjoy your hard work and watch your kids grow.
Click to expand...

You are incredible. I bet you could make even more money giving seminars.
 
Apollyon said:
Well, at the same time, you're unlikely to hurt someone doing those things.
Click to expand...
True, unless you're legitimizing their insane delay of actual medical care. Yeah, you're not directly hurting them in that scenario, you're just enabling them to pull a Steve Jobs.

Even if there's no real harm done, it's too close to selling snake oil for my comfort zone.
 
BoardingDoc said:
True, unless you're legitimizing their insane delay of actual medical care. Yeah, you're not directly hurting them in that scenario, you're just enabling them to pull a Steve Jobs.

Even if there's no real harm done, it's too close to selling snake oil for my comfort zone.
Click to expand...

Darwin
 
BoardingDoc said:
True, unless you're legitimizing their insane delay of actual medical care. Yeah, you're not directly hurting them in that scenario, you're just enabling them to pull a Steve Jobs.

Even if there's no real harm done, it's too close to selling snake oil for my comfort zone.
Click to expand...
I didn't realize this until I read your post. I'm thinking of it as a one time thing, whereas you are thinking chronic. In my case, I'm nearly 100% right. In your case, I would say you are 100% correct.
 
BoardingDoc said:
True, unless you're legitimizing their insane delay of actual medical care. Yeah, you're not directly hurting them in that scenario, you're just enabling them to pull a Steve Jobs.

Even if there's no real harm done, it's too close to selling snake oil for my comfort zone.
Click to expand...

You would be delaying medical care if you were doing this sort of thing in an inpatient/hospital ED setting. As a standalone clinic, these places are cash pay and you're not seeing any other kinds of patients.

As for selling snake oil, plenty of EP's are forced to do that anyway due to our 'quality of care' and 'service-oriented' environment we find ourselves in. Plenty of us have ordered tests and given medications that we knew weren't needed, some of which are likely more harmful than what you'd be giving in an infusion clinic. At least you'll get paid there.
 
bravotwozero said:
As for selling snake oil, plenty of EP's are forced to do that anyway due to our 'quality of care' and 'service-oriented' environment we find ourselves in. Plenty of us have ordered tests and given medications that we knew weren't needed, some of which are likely more harmful than what you'd be giving in an infusion clinic. At least you'll get paid there.
Click to expand...
I don't see how occasionally being cajoled into providing unnecessary medical treatments in the ED makes opening a clinic to do it full time more palatable.
 
BoardingDoc said:
I don't see how occasionally being cajoled into providing unnecessary medical treatments in the ED makes opening a clinic to do it full time more palatable.
Click to expand...

You're just not burnt out enough. Give it a couple of years, until the last vestiges of empathy and professionalism have been extinguished. 😉
 
BoardingDoc said:
Ahh. Unless I was exclusively marketing myself as a hangover treatment clinic, I don't think I could get into that morally.
Click to expand...

As an EM doc who owns an IV and regenerative clinic as my side gig I can say it is only as immoral as you make it. I tell every patient that comes in that wants one of our products, that there is no medical evidence that they provide any benefit. I tell them that I have patients that say they get great response, and others that notice no difference. I give them the info and they make an informed decision. Granted my clinic also does cosmetic, HRT and sports/ortho procedures, so IVs are not a huge part of my income. I recently departed from a malignant FSED ownership, and I felt more sleazy NOT telling the guy with a papercut (85% of our patients) that he could be taken care for 1/4 of the cost at the urgent care around the corner, than anything i'm doing for my patients now.
 
beebermd said:
I tell every patient that comes in that wants one of our products, that there is no medical evidence that they provide any benefit. I tell them that I have patients that say they get great response, and others that notice no difference. I give them the info and they make an informed decision.
Click to expand...

Wow. Just Wow.

HH
 
beebermd said:
As an EM doc who owns an IV and regenerative clinic as my side gig I can say it is only as immoral as you make it. I tell every patient that comes in that wants one of our products, that there is no medical evidence that they provide any benefit. I tell them that I have patients that say they get great response, and others that notice no difference. I give them the info and they make an informed decision. Granted my clinic also does cosmetic, HRT and sports/ortho procedures, so IVs are not a huge part of my income. I recently departed from a malignant FSED ownership, and I felt more sleazy NOT telling the guy with a papercut (85% of our patients) that he could be taken care for 1/4 of the cost at the urgent care around the corner, than anything i'm doing for my patients now.
Click to expand...

So you rationalize your snake oil because you feel your other job was shadier. No thanks.
 
BAM! said:
So you rationalize your snake oil because you feel your other job was shadier. No thanks.
Click to expand...

Why are we discouraging entrepreneurial risk taking by calling it snake oil? So what if there's no obvious benefit to the IV hydration? I'm pretty sure the last time i pushed Tpa, there was only questionable benefit as well.

This person is running a business. It's not a charity clinic. It is a for profit business venture.

A lot of benefit in society is based on perception. Are Gucci, channel, Louis Vuitton, Versace running unethical businesses designed to rip off people by selling products worth less than a hundred bucks for thousands of dollars? They provide a service to people who want it, whether or not there is benefit to their product isn't the question really. There's a perceived demand that they are fulfilling. It's business.

So hey... More power to you for taking risk, setting up something, putting in the time and effort, it takes guts, courage, and a lot of hard work to be an entrepreneur - even if you think it's snake oil, this person probably put in a lot of work and money in getting this up and running and i hope him/her the best.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Angry Birds
What is your chest pain hospitalization criteria?
Replies
13
Views
2K
xaelia
xaelia
B
Malpractice for part time side gig
Replies
8
Views
3K
southerndoc
southerndoc
HemorrhagicShock
Is There Any Money to be Made in Telehealth with EM Training?
Replies
10
Views
3K
cyanide12345678
cyanide12345678
cyanide12345678
What is your rich life like?
2 3 4
Replies
192
Views
18K
Splenda88
S
Angry Birds
Prison medical director role? Good gig or hell?
Replies
22
Views
3K
GassYous
GassYous
Top