I built a $300,000 side hustle while working full-time at Google

Insider

Last year, Sundas Khalid made $600K. Half from Google and $300K from a side hustle she runs just 5 hours a week. By 2024, her content creation income even surpassed her Google salary, with help from a virtual assistant and editors.

Transcript

00:00I earned $600,000 last year, half of it from my full-time job at Google and half of it from my

00:05side hustle as a content creator. My name is Sundas Khaled and I currently work at Google

00:10as Principal Analytical Lead. But before Google, when I started my career, I'm actually a first

00:15gen grad. I have a six-year gap between my high school and my university. Outside of work, I

00:20create content talking about data science, tech, educational content to demystify and teach other

00:26people how they can enter this field. So when I decided to go back to school, I actually went to

00:31business school. But eventually, I took this one class that exposed me to the world of data science,

00:37analytics. That was my aha moment. And I decided to pivot and teach myself how to code. And fast

00:43forward to now, that has been one of the best career decisions ever because that has not only

00:48helped me explore different career paths, but also has tripled my salary since when I started 11 years

00:54ago. When I started my career in 2014 as a data engineer, I was earning $77,000. Then I got

01:02promoted, which got my salary from $77,000 to $130,000. Then I decided to pivot career to a data

01:09scientist role. And my salary went from $130,000 to $230,000. What helped me triple my salary is

01:17basically doing a lot of market research. I ended up looking up salaries on Wikipedia. So I kind of

01:23strategized my career based on what I'm interested in, but also what gets me the most ROI from the

01:29time that I input into that career. Having multiple job offers definitely helped me negotiate my salary

01:35when I got a job at Google. I actually had an offer from Microsoft. I used that offer to negotiate

01:41my compensation package from Google. And you would be surprised that I was able to negotiate almost

01:46$100,000 more using a competing offer. Getting promoted in your corporate job is a skill of its

01:54own because it's not just about doing the work. It's actually who knows about your work. Yes, you can do

01:59all the hard work, but if other people don't see the work that you're doing, then it's going to be

02:04difficult for you to get to that next level. So what personally helped me is not only doing a great job

02:10at my core work, but also talking about it and making sure that other people know what I'm doing.

02:16And in addition to that, going above and beyond and trying to figure out what bigger problems that my

02:22org, my team is currently trying to solve and how I can add value to those problems.

02:27How I got into content creation was pretty accidental because when I started working in tech as a data

02:32engineer, I realized that I was the only woman on my team. And I wanted a community of people who look

02:37like me, who come from a similar background as me, who had the same accent as me. So eventually,

02:43I pivoted to finding that community on Instagram. So I started posting my small wins. I met a lot of

02:48other people that eventually exploded. And eventually, I realized that Instagram only allows 60 seconds.

02:55And if I'm posting educational video, I need to go more in depth. And that's how I started posting

02:59on YouTube. And I currently have about 900k followers across all social media. The moment that I realized

03:06that this is actual business and more than just a hobby is when I made more money from one Instagram

03:13video than I was making at my full time job in an entire month. And that's when I decided to like

03:18build a system around my side hustle. For example, when I started, I was editing my own YouTube videos,

03:24a single YouTube video, which is like a 10 minute long video could take you five to 10 hours to edit.

03:29And if this is not a skill that you have, you can actually spend days editing the video. So I started

03:34hiring editors, I have built a system around my contact creation, and I have outsourced whatever

03:40I can to buy me time, whether that is editing, whether that is responding to brands over emails,

03:46I only have to spend five hours per week, that could be after work or over the weekend. And that's how

03:52I'm able to continue my full time job, which is 40 hours per week, and also do contact creation on the

03:57side. So if you want to become a content creator, these are three things that I would advise you.

04:02One is that figure out your niche, what exactly is a niche that you want to have on social media

04:08platform, and focus on that niche, pump out content on that niche. The second advice I would have is be

04:14consistent, you cannot post one month and then take a one month break, you have to consistently post

04:20because all the social media algorithms, whether that is YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, you name it,

04:24they all favor consistency. And number three is that you don't have to do it all. If editing is

04:30not your skill set, there are so many people who are also looking for their side hustle as an editor,

04:36you can hire those people to scale your content and save time for more creative stuff, which is what I'm

04:41doing today. The advice to anyone who is trying to grow their income, do a lot of research and understand

04:47what skills are high paying, go find a career that will use those skills, whether that is coding,

04:53whether that is doing data analysis, figure out what the compensation for each role and skill set

04:57looks like, and then optimize your career plan according to that.

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