48 hours with the side hustle final boss

What’s your favourite TV show? And what did you do with your love for it? Well, Bengaluru-based Rahul Jadhav loved Game of Thrones so much, he built a seven-figure business inspired by it. Back in 2012, when only two seasons of the HBO drama were out, Jadhav started a Facebook meme page called Game of Love. He shared reactive memes on everything from Jon Snow’s death and the Red Wedding to fun facts on where different scenes were filmed.

With time, it grew into the show’s largest Facebook community, with two million members. In 2014, the 37-year-old built a corresponding fandom website called Wiki of Thrones. The platform raked in so many eager beavers that the traffic alone made him up to ₹4 lakh a day. Yeah, let that sink in.

“I shifted my attention to GoT because I knew it was going to be big. Look at Star Wars—70 years later they are still releasing new content,” he says. Today, seven years after the disastrous final season of GoT aired, Jadhav’s fan site is still thriving. When the show’s prequel House of the Dragon is in season, he employs three full-time staff and up to six freelance writers to publish content. The success of his platform opens doors for more experimental opportunities.

In other months, Jadhav keeps himself busy with his many, many side gigs. He runs a weekly crochet community, is an investor in a coffee company, has his own small-batch thechaa brand, and is building at least two innovative AI platforms. On Instagram, he’s also a budding creator who recently completed a 30-day craft challenge.

If you’re wondering how Jadhav gets it all done, he looks to his ADHD for answers. “I got diagnosed four years ago and I finally got why it’s hard for me to focus on just one thing every day,” he says. “Even in college I knew I couldn’t work a regular job; I couldn’t stop myself from being passionate about many things at once.” Early on, he decided to eliminate deadlines or goals. He’s not chasing followers or financial success on a set timeline, so being his own boss comes in handy.

“My formula is, I start with something I love as a hobby, and if it holds my attention, I go deeper to see how to build a community or monetise it,” Jadhav explains. “I also live on my Notion [a productivity app]; I’d be completely lost without it.” If only a productivity app was the secret, we would all be gig-maxxing like Jadhav. To get a glimpse into how differently time unfolds for him versus the rest of us, we spent 48 hours shadowing the side hustle final boss.

“Slow mood” Sunday

7 am to 10 am

Of course, Jadhav is an early riser. He wakes up by 7 am, brews his black coffee on a V60 drip, and proceeds to take care of his mini butterfly farm. Sorry, did we not mention that he helps caterpillars metamorphose? Coming from a farming family, he always had a green thumb, and he enjoys watching the process unfold.

“I learnt that caterpillars are drawn to lemon and curry plants, so I got some pots. Often the wind blows caterpillars away, so if I spot one outside I bring it in. Now I have about 20 butterflies in and out of the house.” Often, he shares Instagram Stories on how people can do the same in their gardens. As if the whimsy wasn’t a flex enough, for the last year Jadhav also has an ongoing streak of working out every single day. So, once he checks on his little friends, he heads over to the gym.

10:30 am to 4 pm

From morning to early evening over weekends, you’ll usually find him at Cubbon Park, where he hosts Crafty, a weekly crochet meet-up that attracts anywhere between 40 to 60 people. You see beginners learning how to work the crochet needle and yarn, and experts finishing extensive projects, all sitting side by side, gorging on snacks together.

With over 10,000 followers on the community’s Instagram, Jadhav has built a name for himself. He has hosted stitching workshops at the Museum of Art & Photography and also takes private classes for events and birthdays, positioning a fun hobby as a viable side hustle.

4:30 pm until bedtime

The Cubbon crawl usually ends with a fish thaali at a neighbouring joint, followed by a lazy ride back home. “I click a lot of photos at the meet-up, so I come back and turn them into posts,” Jadhav explains. Every now and then, an odd Reel touches 100k views, bringing in a horde of new crafters.

Socials updated, he finally slips into the slow Sunday mood that most of us embody all weekend. “Maybe I’ll go for a light walk around my house, but I just like to relax before the new week,” he shares.

“What, like it’s hard?” Monday

7 am to 10 am

Coffee, butterflies, gym: rinse and repeat every morning. While some of us may count this as productivity, for Jadhav his mornings are sacred downtime. “I never schedule a meeting before 11 am; I need time in nature and a slow start,” he says.

10:30 am to 1 pm

Jadhav works out of a WeWork in Koramangala, where he’s a bit of a social *ahem* butterfly. The day begins with a round of hugs and hellos with fellow solopreneurs. “I’ve also been learning Mandarin. When I get to my desk, I spend about 20 minutes revising the words I’m studying,” he says.

Next up is the Crafty expansion. After learning that many professional crocheters were unable to find their audience, Jadhav decided to build a web directory that lets shoppers discover what’s out there. Imagine Etsy but homegrown. “I’m working with a developer on that, so I check in on the progress and add updates,” he explains.

1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Jadhav then catches a quick lunch at a neighbouring north Karnataka canteen and returns to yet another gig. “My friend Radhika and I have been vibe-coding for months. We built an extension to improve the UI of Wikipedia and we also built a virtual clothes try-on tool,” he says.

One day, the duo decided to Claude-code Daily Play, a website that links to hundreds of word games. They also post Instagram videos of them trying new games to draw a wider audience. Jadhav explains, “Once the traffic grows, we plan to have a promoted games section that can be monetised and maybe we’ll also start a digital tip jar.”

3 pm to 5:30 pm

It’s only post-lunch that Jadhav finally arrives at his GoT gig. He spends hours researching theories and vetting content before it’s published. “We compete with the likes of Forbes for clicks. Every US visitor brings us 20 times the value on Google ads,” he shares, adding that there’s constant innovation to stand out.

Over the years, the diehard fan has built several interactive touch points on the platform. There’s a dictionary that helps with the Valyrian translation of words, a Targaryen family tree, and even a GoT-themed Wordle. Every day, he ensures that all the ducks are in a row on the website and the corresponding socials.

5:30 pm to 6:30 pm

The last hour at work is for play. This is when Jadhav ties loose ends and kickstarts upcoming blue-sky ideas. For instance, in 2025 he made a few batches of thechaa, the Maharashtrian chilli condiment, which instantly sold out. He’s now in the process of getting FSSAI approval to launch the brand. This becomes his research time.

That’s not all. His language learning also inspired him to build a new bot that helps with vocabulary. He uses the fringe time to run tests on Claude before heading home for the day. If your brain is twitching to understand how Jadhav bops around between tasks, it’s his ironclad schedule. “I know Sundays are exclusively for Crafty. I know lunch time is for Daily Play,” he says. “And I know that once House of the Dragon is in season everything else takes a back seat. This mental list of priorities helps me organise.”

7 pm until bedtime

Weekdays ideally end with solo craft time. Whether that’s life sketching, experimenting with a new recipe or DIY-ing a gift for a friend. “Right now, I’m crocheting a Spider-Man beanie,” he says.

Wrapping up the chaos of the day, Jadhav is in bed with his Kindle by 11 pm. No infinite doomscrolling for this multi-hyphenate. If only we could all exercise this level of productivity maxxing and self-restraint, Netflix would run out of business and the world would truly be our oyster.