I turned my passion for the outdoors into a community for startup founders. It's become a side hustle that makes me $10K in revenue.

This as-told-to composition is according to a conversation alongside Alena Beliauskaya, a 37-year-old merchandise director based in San Francisco. The following has been edited for dimension and clarity.

Here in San Francisco, it seems akin everyone is a startup founder.

I'm the director of merchandise administration at Wolf Games, an AI narrative games company, anywhere I activity part-time. On the side, I run 12 Scrappy Founders, a founders community in the Bay Area alongside paid memberships and sponsored events.

When I archetypal moved current for my job in March 2025, I wanted to create friends, so I started going to originator events, but the interactions were so transactional. The archetypal inquiry everyone asks you is, 'What's your goal at this event?' So, I started hosting my own events.

I'm an outdoorsy individual and affection extreme sports, so I'd scheme a weekend hike, a backpacking trip, or dirt biking in Tahoe and invitation another founders to associate me. Now, I create complete $10,000 in income all duration and obtain residence $2,000 to $3,000 in profit.

I've worked in startups for concerning 15 years and am a founder

It was natural to build my network about another founders. These are the group whose lives and problems I comprehend best. Finding like-minded group who comprehend startups and additionally desire to expend Saturday riding dirt bikes in Tahoe is value additional to me than another 100 LinkedIn connections.

At our events, there's no formal networking, and nobody pitches. People got to cognize all another by spending eight hours on a trail or learning to journey a motorcycle together.

I started my community collection charging $0 and now acquire $10,000 in monthly revenue

I didn't accusation at archetypal since we started alongside hiking, which doesn't disbursal anything. But whenever we started dirt biking, I normally paid out of my pocket and afterward asked group to reimburse me.

This hobby was starting to obtain up a lot of my liberated time, and I idea concerning monetizing it, but I debated at archetypal since I idea that if I turned it into a business, I power halt enjoying myself.

I started thinking concerning monetization about fountain this year, following so many members told me I needed to since they were getting so much value. I started rolling out memberships at the commencement of this summer.

We have complete 600 founders in our community

To join, the person's startup needs to be at the seed, Series A, or Series B stage. Most members have AI startups, since that's what is happening correct now. You additionally have to be based in the Bay Area, since events are in person.

We're all connected on Slack, and there are concerning 20 paid members. There are two tiers correct now. General affiliation is $99 a month, which includes liberated members-only events, precedence access, personalized introductions to founders and investors, and admission to the personal associate phase and Slack community. Our center membership, which is full, expenses $3,000 a year, and center members get to activity alongside me on anywhere the community goes next.

We additionally monetize operating alongside brands that sponsor many of our events. Recently, we partnered alongside Red Bull. I run paid experiences akin difficult hikes, overnight camps, dirt-biking, go-karting, pickleball, poker nights, and roundtables.

I'm not preparedness to create my flank hustle a full-time job

I fair desire to fig out how to develop and nurture this community fine and have item joyful in my liberated time.

I allocate much of my liberated period in this flank hustle. Almost all Saturday, I expend the complete day outdoors alongside the founders. Besides that, I expend concerning three to four hours a day organizing.

My direction to those wanting to start a flank hustle is to discover item you love. You already expend the entire day at your full-time job, and frequently don't have much energy left. Your flank hustle should bring you joy, which volition motivate you to keep going.

Do you have an engaging flank hustle to portion alongside Business Insider? Email publishing company Manseen Logan at [email protected].