Everyone is tired of being limited by a single salary that only increases a tiny bit every few years. That's why side hustles are becoming pretty popular these days. Forget that! It’s time to start making some money on the side so that you can begin living life on your terms.
No matter how rewarding your full-time job may be, finding the right side hustle business idea and eventually becoming fully self-employed is even more meaningful than great pay and solid benefits.
The first obstacle everyone encounters when starting a side hustle is the idea. There have been a lot of articles published with “business ideas you can start this weekend.” The problem is, these “business ideas” consist of things like delivering groceries, babysitting, getting a minimum wage job or even becoming a barber (I kid you not, that was a real suggestion). Those are all incredibly lame options!
If that’s what you were looking for then this is not the right post for you. However, if you’re looking for a business idea that:
- You can start immediately
- Has the potential to replace your full time job
- Maximizes your income:time ratio
- You can operate from anywhere
This is definitely the article for you. Each of the business ideas below have been proven to bring in at least $500 monthly in addition to meeting all of the above criteria. I’ll also put you in touch with an “expert” in the field who has all of the info you need to get started.
Lets heading towards topic:
1. Graphic Designer
What Is It?
While having a formal background in graphic design is absolutely going to be helpful, it’s also relatively easy to learn the foundations of graphic design on your own. An increasingly easy-to-use Adobe Illustrator and even more easily accessible tools like Stencil and Visme are making it so that just about anyone with two opposable thumbs, a bit of creativity, and motivation can get paid to create or alter images. But before you can graduate from side hustle and start earning a full-time living as a graphic designer, you'll need to build your skills—I recommend starting with reading the foundational book Graphic Design School and Steal Like an Artist, the incredible book by Austin Kleon about how to become more creative. To accelerate your education in becoming a graphic designer even quicker, check out the online courses Graphic Design Fundamentals and The Graphic Design Bootcamp.
2. Drop Shipping
What Is It?
Drop shipping is an eCommerce model where you buy products from a supplier who then ships the items directly to your customer. This is ideal because it mitigates the age old problem of sinking $5,000 in your first batch of inventory that may end up collecting dust in your garage (while you eat the cost). Instead, you list your supplier’s inventory on your site and when an order rolls in they handle all of the shipping and logistics while you collect the profits.
The best part? You don’t need any coding, shopping or eCommerce experience to get started!
Cost To Start: ~$80 (for web hosting and a premium eCommerce site theme)
3. Web Design
What Is It?
Web designers are incredibly valuable for technology companies—which is why becoming a freelance web designer is a top side hustle business idea today. Web design is all about mastering the art of creating a beautiful, value-driven experience for the people using a website or app. There are always new websites popping up in need of professional web design, and foundational books like HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites by acclaimed web designer Jon Duckett and Don't Make Me Think by user experience legend Steve Krug will get you started down the right path to quickly determining whether or not becoming a web designer is a viable side hustle business idea for you.
Then you can move into more actionable online courses like Modern Web Design on CreativeLive and Learn Web Design and Profitable Freelancing on Udemy will teach you everything from foundational web design knowledge to earning your first freelance income as a web designer. On top of that, you can take even more immersive courses and learning experiences with access to direct instructor feedback and personal mentorship with platforms like Treehouse, Lynda and General Assembly to get up-to-speed even quicker with this career path.
4. Write a Kindle Book
What Is It?
Have you ever dreamed about writing a best selling book? Well, Amazon’s self-publication platform Kindle Direct lets you do just that. With the right market research you can write your category killing book and sell it to the masses without dealing with the cost and bureaucratic hassles of traditional publishing. The best part is, once you’ve published the book, it will continue to bring in revenue month after month with little effort on your part! People are earning anywhere from a few hundred dollars to well over $100,000 publishing on Amazon.
You don’t need to be the world’s best writer and you don’t need to be the world’s most renowned expert on a topic to publish a best seller. If fact, you can outsource almost every aspect of your book from the cover to the writing! All it takes is a little market research on your end.
5. Online Coaching
What Is It?
If you have something you're skilled at and very passionate about, you can turn that winning combination into offering your services with one-on-one online coaching. Just be sure to implement your own opportunity management system so you don't get caught up working with clients that you can't measurably help. Regina Anaejionu will give you a step-by-step plan for putting your skills and experience to work by developing an online coaching business—even as a side hustle idea in the time around your full-time job. Check out her content for a jump start on this side hustle business idea.
6. Start a Podcast
What Is It?
If you can create a regular audience for your podcast on a specific topic, this is a great way to get sponsors and fund this side hustle business idea. My podcast, The Side Hustle Project is actually my current side hustle, and because I had an existing audience here on my blog at the time I launched the show, I was able to broker a $5,000 sponsorship from Freshbooks to place ads on the first ten episodes before I even got started.
7. Affiliate Marketing
What Is It?
Let’s say that your friend has a product. They want to sell a million units on their website but there’s one little problem…They have ZERO idea how to market online. Being the digital marketing guru that you are, you offer to help drive traffic to your friend’s product on the condition that he pays you 2% of each sale that you influence. That is affiliate marketing.
It is a MASSIVE industry which means there’s is bound to be a niche that fits your knowledge base and skill set. You’re also not limited to marketing for one product. In fact, the more products you market for, the more money you make! It’s also extremely fun because it allows you to get super creative. You could arbitrage clicks from Google AdWords campaigns, work on building your own audience and include the products in your newsletter, or you could join an affiliate network and have a lot of the hard work taken care of for you!
The possibilities are endless.
8. Freelancing
What Is It?
Ahh the wonderful world of freelancing. Freelancing is a bit different than many of the other options on here, but it is equally as lucrative and there are many different ways to go about it. If you have a specific skill that you excel at, you can make money freelancing. And I’m not just taking about coding here. You can earn money formatting Kindle books, as a photographer, as a copy writer, as a virtual assistant or even playing Pokemon Go!.
If sales and marketing isn’t your forte you can use a platform like Upwork or Freelancer.com who have large active audiences already looking for your skills. The kicker there is that these platforms tend to take a significant cut of your fees. If you want to keep 100% of your dough you can handle the sales process yourself and start by reaching out to local businesses or focus on a specific niche.
Freelancing lets you become what career expert JT O’Donnell calls an “instant entrepreneur.” You have the ability to make money quickly, you pick & choose your projects and you can hone a skill set you may not use on a regular basis. That’s a huge win-win.
Cost To Start: Free!
9. Start Blog
What Is It?
Think blogging is no longer a viable source of income? Think again. Tens of thousands of bloggers, creating content on topics as diverse as scrapbooking, home cooking, travel, film, lifestyle, and more are launching self-employed careers thanks to a combination of blog subscribers, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and other revenue streams. Your first step is sharpening your writing abilities, understanding what your audience craves and learning how to write a blog post that drives traffic and brings you readers on a regular basis. Even blogging about tech gadgets and products you love can turn into a profitable side hustle business; take AwesomeStuffToBuy for example.
If you want to speed up the process of building your blog, I recommend setting up quick, affordable and easy website hosting with a company like HostGator and then hiring a talented freelance designer or developer on a high quality marketplace like Crew in order to free up more of your time to utilize on creating content, connecting with (and building) your audience. Then once you've been able to build a community around your blog, you'll want to invest in really understanding your readers—so that you can give them more of what they want, which is where online tools and services like Quantcast come into play.
Want to find a profitable niche business idea this week? Join my free online course Find a Profitable Business Idea today.
10. Selling on eBay
What Is It?
Similar to selling on Amazon, eBay is a place to make money selling just about anything you can think of as a side hustle, with the added excitement of using the auction selling model to sometimes get way more than you expected for that antique baseball card you picked up at a local street fair.
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