The rise of the side hustle, entrepreneurship’s new wave

Forget the 9-to-5 grind. Today's entrepreneurs are flipping the script—making business fit their lives, not the other way around. The rise of side hustles proves you don't need to dive in headfirst. You can dip your toes, tweak your ideas, and grow at your own speed.

Take Madison Stefanis. Her lightbulb moment came when she sold an old SLR film camera for $250 during her first year of college. She realized she could turn Gen Z’s obsession with nostalgia into a product. That idea became 35mm Co., a vintage-style, reusable film camera brand that now captures more than $4 million in yearly revenue. Balancing school and her side gig, she hit seven figures while still in school. 

She dropped out of college with only one semester left. 

“Dropping out was an easy decision. When opportunity comes your way, you just have to take it. I was learning so much more by running a business than by sitting in a classroom,” says Madison. Four years after launching 35mm Co., the 23-year-old left her home in Melbourne, Australia, and moved to New York City to grow the brand in North America. 

Around the world, 35% of entrepreneurs are juggling their businesses with regular 9-to-5 jobs, and 18% started as side hustles before going full-time. Young adults aged 16 to 24 are leading the way, with 50% engaging in side hustles— double the rate of those over 55. This shift makes one thing very clear: entrepreneurship is no longer a one-size-fits-all journey.Here’s what a few founders have learned by pursuing entrepreneurship on their own terms. 

Lesson 1: Growing a side hustle is a balancing act

The side hustle is an exercise in discipline. You have to be comfortable with duality. As a student juggling lectures and exams, Madison packed more than 20,000 orders from her parents’ living room before securing a third-party logistics provider. 

“I was full-time at school and working a part-time job while slowly growing this side hustle. It was a lot of long days and late nights,” says Madison, who launched her Shopify store in 2021 and soon went viral on TikTok, her biggest sales channel.

For Domonique Brown, a visual artist and founder of lifestyle brand DomoINK, growing her business meant walking a tightrope as well. When she launched, she was working a 9-5 marketing job and in the process of earning a masters’ degree. 

“It was more of a personal project at first. I decided to design Black art and home decor because I couldn’t find art that reflected me. Then I realized it was something other people were seeking too.”

Domonique plans her days with precision. She learned it’s not about the time you put in, but the way you use that time. Each hour needed to be accounted for. Her daily commute became a time to work on her art and answer emails. And she set strict boundaries between her 9-5, her side hustle, and her personal life. 

“I put my 9-5 as the priority but as soon as I clock out, it’s about DomoINK.”

Like Madison, Domonique used social media to scale. She connected her Shopify store to Instagram and Pinterest where she can make sales directly through the platform. In addition to selling through multiple channels, she leveraged her social following to land exclusive product lines with Target, Walmart, Urban Outfitters, and Macy’s.

She doesn’t see side hustling as a means to an end, but as a way of life.

“The hustle never stops,” says Domonique. “Even if your product is doing well and business is growing, you’ll always be chasing new goals.” 

Lesson 2: Know when to make your side hustle the main hustle 

Every person with a side hustle eventually faces a game-changing decision. Do you go all-in? If so, when? 

Christy Dawn grappled with this as a full-time model. When she wasn’t on set, her days were consumed with thrifting clothes and altering them into one-of-a-kind pieces. She cared deeply about reducing waste but felt that modern sustainability movements didn’t go far enough. 

“Sustainability is a flat line. You’re just sustaining, you’re not healing. We wanted to go beyond that,” says Christy. 

So, Christy and her husband, Aras, started her eponymous company, a regenerative fashion label partnering with Indian cotton farmers to craft ethically made dresses that rejuvenate the land.

They wanted to go all in from day one, but had to be strategic about when that happened.

"It was hard because I wanted to focus my energy on Christy Dawn, but we needed the money from my modeling career to grow the side hustle," Christy explains.

Christy and Aras didn’t pay themselves a salary for five years, until they attracted investors and could manage Christy Dawn as a full-time venture. Now they draw 7-figures in revenue and have become a favorite among celebrities like Taylor Swift.

“I don't think either of us had any idea that it would grow to the size that it's grown. People ask, ‘how did you build this?’ Just one step at a time, one dress at a time.”

Side hustle entrepreneurs are used to being lone wolves, but Madison realized early she needed to build a pack for 35mm Co. 

“Finance is not my strong point, so finding a CFO saved my life. Those are the things you don't really think about when you first start a business, particularly a side hustle,” says Madison. “Getting clear on pricing and unit economics was a huge lesson.”

Since building a team, Madison has been featured on Shark Tank and even has expanded 35mm Co. into major retail stores. 

Entrepreneurship isn’t one size fits all

There’s a profound shift in how people approach work, income generation, and time. Madison, Domonique, and Christy and Aras show the duality of the side-hustle: the delicate balance between passion and practicality. 

The beauty of entrepreneurship is that it looks different on everyone. And because of that, each journey becomes unique as the person pursuing it. Entrepreneurship can happen a little bit at a time. It has never been an all-or-nothing game. 

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*Shopify partnered with Gallup and Censuswide to conduct separate, related surveys inside and outside the U.S., respectively.

Results for the Gallup entrepreneur poll are based on responses from a survey of 46,993 U.S. adults (18+ years old) conducted online May 1-14, 2024. All participants are members of Gallup’s probability-based, nationally representative panel.

Results for the Censuswide data based on responses from two online samples; among 14,047 general consumers (including 1,767 business owners) and 1,428 business owners conducted May 8-13, 2024. Participants are all adults in the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.