I like side hustles. I’m not exactly sure why this is, but I think I like the idea of always having some time of cash flow in place since that’s basically been my situation since I started working as a caddy in Jr High.
One of my current side hustles is driving for Lyft. I initially tried this four years ago when Lyft first launched in the Twin Cities. At the time, driving for Lyft was easy. They needed cars on the road, but there weren’t many customers yet, so they basically paid drivers to potentially drive. I “drove” for a lot of hours but didn’t end up driving anyone. Basically, I worked from the Caribou on Grand Ave in St Paul, which Lyft assumed might be a potential hot spot location for passengers.
Now, in 2016, I actually do drive people. I’ve done this for a couple months and have driven over 250 passengers over that time.
Most often, I work from home with the app on, then head out of the house if a ride request comes in. I then run some errands (pharmacy, grocery, side hustles) after being paid to leave the house. Also, during certain peak times, I’ll head out to pick up some extra cash.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
1. People are tired. Tired. I’m tired because I have two kids under four. But, I underestimated how tired other people are. Some are tired because they’ve partied too hard, but more are tired because their employer expects them to close then open (clopen).
2. I live near the Lake Street Bridge. I don’t drive in the evenings very often, but if I do will probably end up driving Axed up dude-bros to house parties or clubs. They stink, but I appreciate that they’re leaving their cars at home.
3. I’ve driven two types of people to drivers test locations: Immigrants and people who’ve lost their license due to DUIs.
4. If I have more than one person in the car and they work in jobs that don’t have regular hours, the most common comment I hear from them is, “Ugg, I have to work tomorrow.”. It makes me think that people doing hourly work would appreciate more regular hours. See #1 for another reason.
5. Airport pickups are the best. People are friendly and the trips are relatively long. Living near the airport, this has become a sweet spot for me.
6. It’s shocking how many people who live along a mass transit line will hire a car. There are cases when driving someone (especially when combined with the time it takes me to get to them) makes me scratch me head about why they thought hiring a car was their best option.
7. As far as I can tell, the only reasons for round trips are alcohol and/or cigarettes. They’re always super nice passengers.
8. I’ve picked up people in nearly every neighborhood of Minneapolis, St Paul, and surrounding suburbs and have never had a bad experience with a passenger. Maybe it’s due to the times of day I choose to drive or the need for an app to use this particular services.
9. There appears to be a filter on where you can be when picking people up from the airport. Basically, you can’t loiter at the airport as a Lyft driver and pick people up when they request a ride. Perhaps this is a concession to taxi drivers? So, figuring out locations near (but not at) the airport is one of the games to be played.
10. This is a business everyone should try as a social experiment. You’ll get paid to meet people you wouldn’t ordinarily meet during times you wouldn’t normally monetize. That lead to a high return investment in understanding your community better.
11. If you want to make decent money doing this, use a car that costs you next to nothing and cherry pick your hours.
That’s it. Let me know if you have qny questions.
