Doing the side-hustle slide Meet three women for whom moonlighting shone brightly enough to become their main gigs By: AV Kitching Posted: 5:45 PM CST Monday, Jan. 22, 2024

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This article was published 22/01/2024 (649 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Everyone seems to have a side hustle these days. Coffeeshop baristas moonlight as internet entrepreneurs, peddling everything from homemade jewellery to clothing and home décor on Etsy. Your student’s teacher could have a part-time gig as a drummer in a local band. The ultrasound technician at your hospital appointment is rolling out pizzas on the weekend for their pop-up restaurant, and the dentist you see on a Monday is the same person you see on a Friday when you’re looking for help on how to dress.

More often than not these side hustles remain just that — but there are some whose moonlighting has been so successful that they’ve been able to make the leap, pivoting from just evenings and weekends to full-time jobs.

Heather Barnes is one such person. Barnes, 34, a Grade 2 teacher for eight years, decided to tackle simple home renovations during her maternity leave. She posted her efforts on her Instagram page @ourbarnesyard and much to her surprise started to gain followers almost instantly.

“Over the first five months of doing this I gained about 5,000 followers,” she says, incredulously.

However that wasn’t enough for Barnes to give up her teaching job so when her maternity leave ended she went back to school, staying on in teaching for two more years while she ran her social media channels. After that, she switched to her side hustle full-time.

The pandemic, a blight for some, was a blessing for her. It was during those dreary times that Barnes was able to grow her audience. Stuck at home, she shared DIY renovations and her new obsession with plants.

While plants may have brought people to her page — Barnes’s Instagram account, at time of writing, has 187,000 followers while her TikTok has 133,000 — it was her renovation projects which kept them there.

The first one she did by herself. Barnes converted the front entry closet in her home into a mudroom. She found the task simple and started taking on bigger and more complicated jobs.

“I’ve done flooring by myself, I’ve done trim work by myself, I did our basement bathroom 75 per cent by myself, I have done fireplaces by myself. I am living proof of someone who is doing things I never thought I could do,” she says.

“I am living proof of someone who is doing things I never thought I could do.”–Heather Barnes

Barnes uses her account to encourage her audience to try their hands at renovation. She says doing it the way she does — by starting small and building skills project by project — will ensure success.

“In Instagram it looks like things can happen so quickly but remember that big projects take time. It is OK to plug away at something at weekends. Start where you are and build on those skills and over time you can really create a home you can feel proud about. If you have never hung a picture don’t necessarily go renovate a bathroom right off the hob! Hang that picture first,” she explains.

While she makes it sound easy, not everyone can do what she does. The daughter of a contractor, Barnes used to tag along with her dad to jobs to help him. As a child she was allowed to handle hammers, nails and a handsaw under supervision and her desire to build was encouraged.

“I grew up with the idea that this is a world you could be a part of but I never thought I could make this my career. Maternity leave was very lonely and understimulating for me – teaching is such a high-energy job – and I wanted something I could channel my energy into. I never thought it could become a business,” she shares.

Her hard work ethic coupled with genuine passion for what she does has helped her success. Whilst Barnes was fortunate to have a background in building and DIY, she had to learn everything else from scratch.

“I don’t have a business background, I have had to learn how to do everything – from how to start a business, to accounting, to product development. It was really hard when I was teaching full-time: I would come home on my lunch hour, shoot content, go back to school and teach, come home from work and shoot content then go to sleep. I did this for two years and it’s not really an easy road. It doesn’t happen overnight. But I am eternally grateful for the flexibility of this job – I can be there for my child when I need to be there for her,” she says.

She’s respected in her field and recently appeared at The Winnipeg Renovation Show. Her following is large enough to have opened a new income stream: brands now pay her to advertise their products.

“The main meat of my content is free, and then twice or three times a month I run a piece of branded content, and I get paid for that. I also do affiliate marketing sales for Amazon and LTK, and get a percentage of sales,” she says.

Barnes and husband Haddon are currently working on a new project together, one she is documenting in her own imitable style. The couple is working on van conversions and has just embarked on their second one.

And as per, she is documenting the process on her Insta and TikTok.

 

‘Something shifted in me’

Like Barnes, Ashley Gulakow, 33, was on maternity leave she started posting online in 2018. Lonely and with only her eight-month-old son for company, she shared small snippets of her day. As her audience grew, Gulakow started getting pitches from brands seeking collaborations.

Gulakow chose to return to full-time work in April 2019, as a surgical assistant at Health Sciences Centre and St Boniface Hospital but found herself at a crossroads after her mother, who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, died.

“My mother was admitted for end-of-life care in the same hospital I was working at and it was extremely hard to focus on my work. I took a leave of absence to spend her last days with her when she was transferred to Riverview for end-of-life care.

“In that time, something shifted in me. While I had loved working in health care, I wanted to help people in a way that helped them in an impactful way before they became sick. So, I decided to go back to school to study holistic nutrition and did not return to my previous job. I just didn’t align or feel passionate about what I was doing anymore,” Gulakow shares.

After starting her business Here for the Wellness, where she sells personal care products and remedies made from plant-based ingredients, Gulakow currently has four income streams: Here for the Wellness, affiliate marketing; digital marketing, and coaching and collaborations.

“Affiliate Marketing is something I have stepped into over the last year, and focusing more on this over collaborations, sponsored posts. I share links to products I love, have purchased with my own money, and when a follower clicks my link and purchases through me, I earn a commission as a thank you from the brand for the marketing they didn’t have to do,” she explains.

In her digital marketing and coaching arm, Gulakow creates and sells “done for you” digital products online, teaching interested people how to become a content creator, converting her own training and advice into guides her clients can purchase in digital form and learn on their own time.

She has moved on from blogging and considers herself a content creator, posting regularly on @ashleygulakow where she has 16,500 followers.

“Hiring content creators is the new wave of marketing.”–Ashley Gulakow

“I create content for brands I love or have previously purchased with my own money. I do not align with collaborations if I have not tried them or would not recommend them personally. Brands compensate me for my time and work instead of paying for marketing and advertisements. Hiring content creators is the new wave of marketing” she says.

Gulakow currently earns between $7,000 to $15,000 a month, but readily admits that not having a stable pay cheque every month can be somewhat stressful. However, it is that irregularity that keeps her accountable and consistent, she says.

“I am grateful I am in a position now where I have a ballpark of what I can expect each month. But you never know what can happen. Which is why I am very passionate about having multiple businesses and streams of passive income,” she says.

For those looking to make the switch, Gulakow says the best time is now.

“Start. Don’t wait, stop waiting, there will never be a perfect time. Just start. It really is an amazing job, it has brought amazing opportunities my way, and I am able to do this while raising two little boys and to me, that’s the best job in the world.”

 

‘Take the risk’

Amanda Buhse, who owns Coal and Canary, agrees.

“What’s the worst that could happen? It might not work and you have to shut it down… take the risk,” she encouraged.

Buhse, 38, was a graphic designer for 12 years, and started creating candles in her kitchen with her best friend as a way to spend some time together. They sold some to people in their circle.

“We thought we would call it a day after selling a few. We started to post as @coalandcandles on Instagram, which was new back then so it was easier to build a community. And then stores started to reach out and asked to sell our candles,” she explains.

The year she started Coal and Canary Buhse sacrificed everything — including hobbies and spending time with friends — to dedicate herself to the business. She would come home from work and spend her evenings pouring candles and weekends were dedicated to growing her business.

Things came to a head when the side-hustle, previously confined to her non-working hours, started to seep into her daily life. Buhse found herself fielding calls during the day, juggling her full-time responsibilities with emails to wholesale customers who wanted to stock her products.

“It was becoming hard. My role as senior web and print designer at clothing company Ricki’s was intense and what started happening was people were trying to call me during daytime hours. It was so challenging, and I had to make a decision. My husband Jeff had a really good, secure job, he said ‘if you want to do it I will fully support you’ so I took the jump and never looked back,” she says.

This September Coal and Canary celebrates its 10th anniversary. Buhse says she can’t quite believe how far she’s come and says, even though she has been an entrepreneur for ten years, she still gets scared every day.

“Being scared is part of the daily goings on.”–Amanda Buhse

“It never gets easier; it gets more complicated. Being scared is part of the daily goings on, and it’s also a great motivator, it’s a great way to learn how to be a creative problem solver and thinker. It makes you learn how to pivot and be flexible in life,” she says.

Today Buhse has a staff of ten and has big plans for a brand she launched from her kitchen table. There is a new collection on the way and she is looking to do a rebrand. It’s a big and exciting year for her, she says.

“I can’t believe it. I had no idea about anything when I first started. I think the reason for our success is that when we started, we were doing something authentically; it was just part of us. When people know who you are, they know who is making their products, and that you are just not out to make money – it show what you can do when you are authentically you.”

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca