This Q&A spotlights Side Hustle with Scott Goodfriend, who was working as an executive producer in New York when it released The best food tours. Goodfriend coordinates food tours throughout New York City, “allowing participants to experience the city’s culinary scene in a whole new light.”
Photo credit: Courtesy of Ultimate Food Tours. Scott Good friend.
When did you begin your side business and where did you discover the inspiration for it?
I moved to New York from Los Angeles in 2011. I have at all times loved traveling and getting lost walking around different cities. When I moved to New York, I used to be fascinated by the ability to travel anywhere in the world by subway, even very distant neighborhoods. I researched different restaurants and began considering: well, possibly I’ll eat at a few different places, so I began planning walking routes to various restaurants on Google Maps. My friends discovered I used to be doing it and wanted to join.
Eventually the news spread. My out-of-town friends and family began calling me when they got here to New York. They told me about the area they wanted to visit and asked if I could plan a food tour. I enjoyed the challenge and was eager to do it, so I probably planned 50-100 tours over the course of about seven years.
All this time, I used to be a broke, independent TV producer living in the East Village and making a living on $1 pizza. I lived close to Chinatown and thought I could take a short walk and find something higher. Not only did I find delicious food, but I also discovered the variety, depth and complexity of Chinese food, which I became obsessed with. I began doing a lot of research on the regions, cuisines and history, and the Chinese experience on the Lower East Side. I began taking people to Chinatown and they fell in love with the tour. They told me to go into it as a company, and I at all times rejected the idea, saying I didn’t want to create a website or do marketing (sweet, sweet irony – but more on that later). A friend encouraged me to put my trip on a program called Airbnb Experiences. I posted a Chinatown tour on Airbnb in 2019; Airbnb rose to the top in a short time frame. Then Covid-19 hit, shutting down my business for over a year.
In 2021, I reworked the trip and re-listed it on Airbnb, bringing it to the top of my “Things to do in New York” list. People began asking me what other trips I had taken, so I wrote more. Eventually I had to hire people to help run tours and marketing. It became overwhelming because I used to be also working my dream job as an augmented reality producer at Meta, but then….
I used to be a part of Meta’s layoffs in 2023! I had to make a decision: move to one other company that I actually loved and respected, or pursue my entrepreneurial dreams. I made a decision to work full time at Ultimate Food Tours. It was great and I learned a lot from it. I’m very glad I jumped.
What were the biggest challenges you faced in building your side team and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge in building my business was deciding where to focus and invest my time. You need to be strategic about what parts of the business you invest in and what you focus on. Since entrepreneurship has no manual, the solution is often to use it, analyze the results, draw conclusions from them and do higher next time.
How long did it take for you to achieve stable monthly income? How much did the side hustle earn?
Ultimate Food Tours has grown tremendously over the last few years and I’m fortunate that it is now my full-time job. Before I began working full time, I used to be making about $30,000 a year. I probably saw consistent revenue between the second and third year. At the time, I used to be only doing Ultimate Food Tours on weekends, so I used to be making about a few thousand dollars a month.
What does your total annual revenue appear like today?
I currently make about $200,000 a year and have seen the brand grow about threefold year over year.
What do you enjoy most about this side hustle?
I like having the ability to take my passions and turn them into business strategies. A terrific example of this is our content marketing. I come from a family of foodies and have at all times loved history and filmmaking, so I created a community series called Origin Stories, that tells the story of famous New York foods and the best places to eat them. We have three seasons and plan to start creating longer-form content soon. I’m very pleased with this because we are able to use our platform to drive traffic to local restaurants while building our own brand. It was the conceptualization and execution of win-win strategies that basically got me excited about the opportunity to run a business.
Being an entrepreneur is a lifestyle! When I began, I put in about 20 hours a week. Since my assistant became a full-time job, I probably work 50 to 60 hours a week. Combining my passion with work allows me the flexibility to pursue what I like and earn money from it. I also use external technology to help streamline my funds and save time so I can focus on my business and personal life.
What is your advice for others who want to start their very own successful side hustle?
Stay organized! It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the different spreadsheets and numbers floating around. Using accounting software helps free up time in my schedule, allowing me to focus my attention on other areas of the business, equivalent to marketing and developing additional tours.
Regardless of what your idea is, what your big dream is, take that first step now! Buy that domain name, post on social media, whatever it is. Just do one small thing a day and the rest will fall into place. Make it a part of your routine and you’ll see the results.
If you work full-time, try to bite off what you’ll be able to chew and plan your extra schedule around your current commitments. You’ll give you the option to see if there’s room for growth, and if you actually think you would like to pursue this full-time, start implementing things that can prepare you to take the leap when you are feeling ready.
Network and chat with other traders! The most precious thing I discovered was talking to other individuals who had began their very own businesses and food tour firms. They knew what needed to be done, were able to fill many of the gaps in my time management, and gave me the knowledge I needed to successfully start my very own business.