Words by

Iryna Zubenko

Photo by

Joana Fontinha for The Reykjavík Grapevine

Juggling long hospital shifts and family time, Seth Sutherland is on the hunt for extra krónur

American expat Seth Sutherland maximises every hour he’s not on call as an ICU nurse at Landspítali’s Hringbraut branch. With two kids at home, including a six-week-old, Seth also manages Airbnbs and is about to launch a massage candle business with his wife.  

Seth Sutherland, 31, an ICU nurse

I work as an ICU nurse at Landspítali. That’s my full-time job. On the side, I manage Airbnb units in the U.S., just doing everything I can do long-distance — communication, pricing adjustments, listing editing, managing the cleaners and local teams, and so on. In addition, together with my wife, Agnes, we’re starting a massage candle business. We’ve been working on it since October, trying to get all the products sourced, getting the right products and packaging, and going through the legal hoops to get registered and ready for launch.

Also, I’m a private pilot. I actually have a double flight this evening. After I’m done with you, I’ll be heading to the airport to do some flying. I haven’t gotten my commercial ratings yet, but I’m headed that direction.

A 24/7 commitment 

I work 80%, which, in my opinion, is still full-time. We do rotating eight-hour shifts — 15:00 to 23:00, 23:00 to 07:00 and 07:00 to 15:00. So a couple of nights, I’ll be working the night shift, and then I’ll be off for a day, and then I’ll work the morning shift, and I’ll be off for a day and then I’ll work three evening shifts, and then I’ll be off for like three days. It’s constantly a rotating schedule. I’m working a lot, but not a tonne. The hardest part about working as an ICU — or any nursing job — is just the shift work. 

For the Airbnb side hustle, I work with one owner on five units that we’re currently managing in Maine. If there’s anything that needs to be done in person, the owner will just run over, change the batteries on the remote, or something. Then I have another cabin in Kentucky; I actually have subcontracted somebody to help with messaging in that cabin, because it’s in a different time zone. My wife is also a co-host with me. If I’m at work or flying, then she will respond to messages on Airbnb.

Money matters

With Airbnb, a big thing for me is the money. I would say that’s the entire thing, because there’s not a lot of joy that you get from taking care of guests complaining when you’re trying to take a nap. The worst part is answering messages when you don’t want to. Once my wife and I were on a date night at Improv Iceland — it was the English one because I’m American — but something came up on Airbnb and I just had to send five messages, which is a lot. Usually, the guest sends a message, I send a message back and that’s it. This whole thing was happening while Improv Iceland was on. That was annoying. 

I do get a thrill out of it when customers say things like, “Wow, we had a wonderful experience” and leave five-star reviews. That is very satisfying and it keeps me going.

With the candle business, it was also very much the money. I was talking to ChatGPT about ways to make extra income, looking at products that people use and consumable products that people can buy more of. It gave me a tonne of different ideas, but one that really stood out to me was massage candles. I was like, “What the heck are massage candles?”

A massage candle is massage oil created in candle form. When you light the candle, it heats the oil, and then you can pour the oil on your skin and use it as massage oil. I started searching and found out that they’re a niche product very much associated with sex massages. But the more I researched, the more I found that a few are not like that. We want to create a product that is very luxurious, self-care and nature-oriented. The cool thing about it is that it creates its own ambiance and you can use it daily. This isn’t just a weird sex niche product; this is actually something that people can use in the wellness space. It’s fantastic for use by yourself or with a partner. We want to incorporate natural Icelandic scents into the massage candles.

It started with money, but now it’s turned into more of a passion project where this goes into a whole ethos of our society — we’re just way too stressed. We’re always on our phones, very out of touch with ourselves and nature. This product that we’re making helps people on the journey of connecting back with nature and just slowing down, which is something weird for me to say managing Airbnb because I’m on call 24/7. This is almost like what I need in life is the massage candle and what I’m doing is the Airbnb. 

So far, we’ve spent 1,500,744 ISK to source the products, scents and packaging. Maybe after we launch, it’s going to get stressful, but for now, it’s just been very fun researching, watching candle videos on YouTube and learning about all the different candles. I’ve watched a tonne of candle videos and candle unboxings to see how other people package candles, just kind of diving fully into the candle world because I’ve never done anything like this before. 

Intentional multitasking

I try to be intentional about spending time with my kids and my wife. But then I’m also always doing something. This just gives me an outlet. I get much more fulfilment out of doing stuff, creating stuff, putting stuff together business-wise. My favourite part is just that aspect — making things work, finding a problem, fixing it and moving forward to the next thing.

The main thing is prioritising your life, figuring out what’s important and what’s not and focusing on those things. I have a tonne of things that take up my time. But I’m very intentional. I have everything in my Google calendar. When I’m flying, that’s my flying time. When I’m at work, that’s my work time. My wife and I schedule date nights, so that we can intentionally set time apart to spend with each other. As a parent with young kids, that’s a bit more tough. 

As Seth prepares to launch his fiery side hustle, follow along at hugr.is 

Want to share how you’re making ends meet? Email us at grapevine@grapevine.is with the subject line “Side Hustle.” We’ll happily keep your identity anonymous.

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