About The Proper Hustle
No Gatekeeping. No Gurus. Just the Real Work.
I've carried out years of research while building my businesses, and a lot of the content online about starting your own side hustle is written by organisations trying to sell you the latest payment machine or business bank account, or it's trapped behind a paywall or email sign-up.
Most of the guides are written by people who have never actually operated a heat press, packed an order at midnight, or stood at a market stall all day and taken £6.00. I have. They sell dreams. I share the reality of what it takes to build your own side hustle.
I'm Billy Giles, and I built The Proper Hustle from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire. Everything on this site comes from running real businesses with my own hands—not theory, not AI-generated waffle, just real business experience. I want to share that experience with you, and hopefully it helps you through your own journey.
Billy Giles - The Proper Hustle
Contact: bgiles@theproperhustle.co.uk
Who's Actually Behind This
I spent 20 years working in engineering before I ever ran a business (I'm in year 30 now), and that problem-solving mindset and manufacturing experience has shaped everything I've built since.
Over the years I've started and run three businesses from my front bedroom, with no loans and no investors:
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The Lucky Lorry — an eBay clothing business I started with £72 and grew to over 1,800 items sold.
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GoTo Workwear Ltd — a garment-decoration and workwear supplier I ran for five years, reaching £100,000 contract quotes as a one-man operation, and twice a finalist at the Hyndburn Business Awards.
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Shelley's Waxmelts — which I helped build from a £6 market stall into the leading wax melt brand in our town, with a high-street kiosk and a website shipping nationwide. Also 2 time finalist at the Hyndburn Business Awards.
Across the three, I built close to £180,000 in turnover from scratch—while working full-time.
Along the way I taught myself the things most people pay for: accounting, graphic design in CorelDRAW, heat-transfer and sublimation printing, website building and HTML, SEO, and candle and wax melt making—plus a lot of smaller skills picked up along the way. That's why I can write these guides from experience instead of guesswork.
Why This Site Exists
I started The Proper Hustle for the person I was when I started my first business—working full-time, sitting on an idea, and unable to find a straight answer that wasn't trying to sell me something or written in pages of hard-to-understand government spiel.
There's no overnight-riches promise here and no jargon for the sake of it. Just the practical steps that take a kitchen-table idea and turn it into something that actually pays.
It's not going to be easy, though, and you'll need to sacrifice a lot once you start the ball rolling. It will take over your life—so pick something you enjoy thoroughly.
Everything is split into two parts.
The Makers Lab is where the how-to guides and honest equipment reviews live—the hands-on side of getting a product made and sold.
The Ops Room is where you'll find the free tools and calculators that handle the boring-but-essential bits, like working out your margins or your tax position.
Between them, you've got the making and the running of a small business in one place.
The best thing you can do to get started is to start small and question everything you do. Always focus on your customer and what they want—excellent customer service should be at the forefront of every decision you make.
Being Straight With You
This site will always be free. I want it to become a reliable source for anyone looking to take the first steps into the world of business, as I did many years ago.
In order to keep it free, some of my links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them—at no extra cost to you. I will only ever point you towards equipment and services I've actually used, or that experience tells me will be suitable, and my recommendations will always be well thought out.
I will start hosting small ads in various places on my site which will generate revenue per visit. I will always try to keep these ads non-invasive to enhance your experience.
One important note: everything I share is based on my own real experience. I'm a maker and a business owner, not an accountant, solicitor, or safety assessor. Treat my guides as a genuine head start from someone who's been there—but always confirm the current rules and get professional advice before making big legal, financial, or safety decisions. The responsibility for your business is yours, and getting that bit right is part of doing it properly.
Billy Giles — founder of The Proper Hustle, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire.
Got a question? Reach me at bgiles@theproperhustle.co.uk