A Sydney man has quit his job in law after his side hustle outstripped his annual salary by almost four times the amount.
Andrew Chong, 27, was frustrated working the corporate grind for some time and was looking for a way out.
The aspiring entrepreneur had tried a dozen different side hustles over the years, from selling shirts, teaching dance lessons and offering marketing services to small businesses.
However, they all “failed pretty terribly,” he told news.com.au.
Unperturbed, Mr Chong, kept trying, determined to be his own boss one day.
“I never really envisioned myself taking orders very well,” he explained. “At some workplaces and at others I realised I wanted to be able to have oversight over everything, influence the entire company.
“If you’re a team member with 30 other people, your input is one thirtieth of what it could be.”
Then in March last year, the then-25-year-old stumbled upon a lucrative side hustle that has netted him $400,0000 in the preceding 18 months and he now has a team of 15 working under him.
Andrew Chong is making more money from his side hustle than his job in law.
With more time on his hands during Australia’s national lockdown in March 2020, Mr Chong signed up to Fiverr, a global freelance services marketplace.
He offered to write resumes for jobseekers, which he did in his spare time after clocking off his day job as a legal officer.
“It [the resume writing] was in the background for a long time, I had my profile up, no activity for a month or so, then it started blowing up,” he recalled.
Around mid-2020, he was slammed with resume requests, starting from a base rate of $50.
“That period was wild, sometimes I wouldn’t sleep for two or three days,” Mr Chong said.
“When I see potential I really have to sacrifice stuff, I was working full-time, trying to balance things.”
Mr Chong said for the first 50 clients, he “made sure they were the happiest they could be” and gave it his all.
As a result, the Fiverr algorithm prioritised him and soon more orders were piling in.
