In September 2021, when I was 27, I got laid off from my role as customer success manager after four and a half years working for a financial technology company. Luckily, I had been working on my side hustle since April 2020.

I started my money-coaching business The Wealthy Wolfe because I wanted to help what I knew firsthand to be an underserved group of people: daughters of immigrants, who struggled with growing their wealth and were tired of advice from predominantly white male financial advisors who didn't I don't understand where they were coming from.

When I lost my job, I felt expendable and like I didn't have any agency or ownership over my career. I didn't want to go through that again. I realized there was no better time to go out on my own, so I took the leap. 

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I'm so glad that I bet on myself. At the end of 2020, I had made $6,300. It was a start. By the end of 2023, I had earned over $100,000 a year, for the second year in a row.

Here are three steps I took to turn my side hustle into a lucrative, full-time business.

1. I expanded my reach online

I knew that if I wanted to reach my ideal audience, I needed to meet them where they were. My online presence at the time was a very static Instagram page. Creating video content wasn't something I was very comfortable with, so I decided to enlist an expert for help. 

I hired a coach that specialized in marketing and TikTok, and started posting a minimum of two videos a day. I even recently had a video go viral. In it, I talk about the dynamics of lending money to immigrant parents and how that can affect your motivation to save for yourself.

TikTok leads have been responsible for 80% of my new one on one coaching applications. The other 20% of my leads come from Instagram, podcast interviews and writing about my personal experience with money.

Finding my niche, curating my content and getting my voice out there has helped me build trust with my audience and consistently bring in new clients. Between my Instagram, email list and TikTok, I currently reach a community of 44,000 people and counting. 

2. I diversified my sources of income

Every month, I work with up to 15 clients in my three-month coaching program. My one-on-one coaching accounts for roughly 75% of my revenue, and I have two passive income streams with my digital workshops and my budgeting template.

I started taking on brand deals with several financial companies and running live corporate workshops about personal finance. Brands and corporate work aren't always consistent, so I don't rely on them as much as as the other incomes streams. But the exposure that has come from working with these organizations has definitely been beneficial for my business.

When it comes to conversations about money, women of color are often missed by these big companies. I've found that this representation gap can lead to earning potential for creators like me in this space.

3. I focused on perfecting one service

Early on, I fell into a common side hustle trap, which was overdoing it and launching too many programs too fast.

In 2022, I started a group coaching offering after I had barely sold out my one-on-one coaching slots. It was confusing for an audience that was still getting to know me, and it was a lot of work to get it up and running.

Ultimately I stressed myself out, and I didn't even have enough people to fill up the program.

I decided to cut my losses, and I removed the group coaching program entirely to focus on the one-on-one, and made sure to promote that one consistently throughout the year.

I have heard so many stories from my clients about the bad experiences they've had with financial experts who didn't have the cultural context needed to make them feel seen and heard. 

So when they sit down with me, the first thing I do is customize a plan that takes their lived experience into account, whether they need help budgeting, paying off debt or coming up with scripts to talk with their loved ones about money.

My one-on-one coaching brought in $100,000 in revenue alone last year, and I have worked with over 100 clients since starting my business. This tailored approach, and being able to focus on developing one signature program, has been crucial for my long-term side hustle success.

Parween Mander is the founder of the Wealthy Wolfe. She is a South Asian money expert on a mission to provide honest and relatable financial coaching for women of color from immigrant upbringings through one on one coaching and mentoring. She is an Accredited Financial Counselor in Canada and is a certified Trauma of Money Facilitator.

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