A side hustle means any activity that supplements your day job that helps you make more money. Usually people start looking at this in the form of a part-time job or work done for side hustle apps like Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, Rover, or TaskRabbit.
If you want a good side hustle, look past the part-time jobs and side hustle apps. Instead, look at a side hustle as a path to build your own business and keep all the profits. There will be opportunities for professional growth, and a way to earn income in your spare time.
So for it to be as good side hustle, you are looking to create some kind of return on time invested. That means your side hustle needs to be financially viable and, over the long term, relatively stable.
Most side hustles aren’t profitable right away, since your primary focus is developing your product or service and finding how to reach your first customers. You want to keep costs low in the early stages and work exclusively on developing your processes and looking for your niche to develop.
Where to Start?
Obviously to cover all these parameters the best place to start is online. The main reason is it is cheap and can be developed and tracked with little expense. If it doesn’t take off then you can side line it and try something else. For example I started selling QR Codes back in 2010 and it never took off however it was very cheap to leave there and my few customers covered costs.
Come 2020 and the thing took off and today I have tangible products as well as all the digital side all working together for a profitable side hustle.
If the idea of side hustling sounds good to you, here are some ways you can start building a profitable business in your spare time today. I have done most of these over my 20 year career online
- Create and sell your own handmade goods – Maybe not hand made but I sold a lot of USB sticks with different products like Artwork, Videos, Music, Images and Training then posted them all over the world. A great place to look for things you can sell and a platform for you to use is https://www.etsy.com/. I know people using this for great side hustles.
- Create your own designs for a print-on-demand business – I did this with T-shirts and developed a range of t-shirts all revolving around different Phobias.
- Start a drop shipping business – I did this for a while too. I sold socks and led lighting through Alliexpress.
- Start a zine and sell digital subscriptions – I did this at the very start of my internet career and then moved to writing eBooks and digital magazines
- Join the gig economy – The gig economy is a free market system where companies work with independent contractors or freelancers rather than hire full-time staff. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reported in 2017 that 55 million people in the United States were “gig workers,” making up 34% of the economy. There are lots of sites where you can offer your talents.
- Teach an online course – This site your on is part of my teaching portfolio and had a quite a few before I semi retired A few years ago. I use Camtasia a lot to make my tutorials. There are many platforms you can use to deliver your courses on a one time basis or a subscription based product.
- Start a blog – Blogging is usually about a specific area. I use blogging like you are experiencing now to generate interest in my product Product Creation Training. Alternatively you could use affiliate products or referrals to use as your income generators.
- Start a YouTube channel – My YouTube channel has over 293,000 views and I use it like my blog to direct traffic to my various sites and products however as with blogging you can use it to rate and sell different products and services. YouTube has more than a billion users who watch hours of videos each day. As the popularity of the site has soared, so have the opportunities for creatives looking to craft their own video content.
- Become an influencer – Take Loki the Wolfdog, for example. What started as an account dedicated to adventurous photos of Loki developed over time to become a whole line of products. It didn’t happen overnight, but by consistently posting content that people wanted to see, the creators were able to amass a following of diehard Loki fans.
- Start a podcast – People listening to podcasts has been growing steadily every year. A podcast used to be a must-have for comedians. Then it became a must-have for writers and journalists. Now, podcasting has changed into a staple for almost anyone looking to build an online audience for their brand and turn a side gig from home into a profitable business.There have been concerns that an oversaturation of podcasts could kill podcasting, but data shows the appetite for podcasts hasn’t slowed down. Podcasting, like social media and blogging, has become a staple of the broader world of online content.
So there you are, just a small sample of what we can help you develop a side hustle. All of my side hustles were started by doing tutorials, watching vidoes and learning the trade. Its called investing in yourself and can help develop a number of side hustles over time and even lead to A FULL TIME CAREER.