One woman is sharing how she turned her side hustle as a property manager into a £2.5m ($3m) business.
Jamie Stark Inlow, 32, became a property manager in her spare time but has been able to turn it into a fully-fledged enterprise.
She left her nine-to-five job in education in 2019 to move to Scottsville, Virginia with her husband and child.
Outside of her higher consultancy work, Ms. Inlow decided to turn her neighbor’s spare apartment into an Airbnb.
This led to the creation of her business, Be Still Getaways, which now includes over 120 rental properties.
Last year, the side hustler earned just under $ 2 million and is set to earn $ 3 million in 2023 under current estimates.
In order to make her side hustle a main hustle, Ms. Inlow had to work three jobs and did not hire staff until 2021.
Speaking to CNBC: Make It, the 32-year-old shared how she was only paying herself $10,000 in the early years.
She explained: “There were many times that I ran a payroll for staff before I ever paid a dime to myself.”
“I was still working full-time [outside of] Be Still Getaways, and that is how we scale. It wasn’t like, ‘We have a couple of properties, maybe I’ll dabble around making a website.’
“It was go time. I got business cards. I spent every dollar that I had on search engine optimization.”
The company has only recently expanded as it only had 30 rental properties by the end of 2021.
In the autumn of 2021, Ms. Inlow partnered with realtor Sydney Robertson to create a new branch of the company – Carriage House – which helped in expanding the business’ reach.
However, the entrepreneur shared that those wanting to turn their side hustle into their primary business will need to put in the effort to make it a success.
Ms. Inlow added: “This is a demanding and [grueling] line of work at times … It’s not like weekends are off. It’s not like you punch the clock at 5 p.m.
“For [people] to be happy and be OK with that, you have to give people good vacation and you have to pay them well.”
With the business’ success, her husband has joined the team which presents new opportunities for the entrepreneur.
“That was, I think, almost more scary than when I left my job because he [husband] was the benefit holder,” she said. “Having that stability was beautiful and amazing, but it ultimately wasn’t making him happy and that was a challenge for our family.”
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