What Is a Side Hustle?
The general notion of a side hustle involves any type of work that one undertakes in addition to one’s main job. It is, of course, not only about making more money, even though most often that would be the prime aim. A side hustle may be an outlet for one’s passion, help in learning new skills, or even serve as a testing ground for a possible career change.
Why Start a Side Hustle?
Most people do start a side hustle due to a variety of reasons, some of them including:
- Extra income: The most apparent benefit is the added cash that can be generated.
- Skill development: In fact, many side hustles are born from finding new things to learn or honing what you already possess
- Career exploration: A lower-risk way of investigating and trying out other careers.
- Flexibility: Most of these side hustles afford somebody the flexibility of working when they please because it has to fit around their main job.
- Financial Security: More than one source of income cushions you against uncertainties.
On to some of the popular, potentially lucrative side hustle options.
Online Freelancing
With the whole world having gone digital, freelancing has been amongst the most accessible side hustles in recent times. Working on various platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com, a person can get connected with other skilled people through other people from anywhere in the world.
Writing and Content Creation
If you have a way with words, content creation just may be your ticket to extra income. Examples of this include:
Blog posts and articles
Website copy
Social media content
eBooks
Product descriptions
Start by building a portfolio of your best work and selling yourself to potential clients. You can also try using content mills or freelance writing platforms to find your first gigs.
Graphic Design
Content today is high in all industries, and if you have a creative mind and sound at design software, then the below might be for you:
Logo Design
Social Media Graphics
Infographics
Book Covers
Branding Packages
Build a great portfolio displaying your style and skill. The two big centers where clients can be found and art presented to the world are 99designs and Dribbble.
Virtual Assistant Business
Email management
Scheduling
Data entry
Customer Service
Social media management
To pull it off, be sure to emphasize your organizational skills and any prior experience. Fancy Hands and Zirtual are sites to locate clients.
Teaching and Tutoring
It pays well to share knowledge. Some of the ways you can sell knowledge include:
Online Tutoring
Along with remote learning, and the growth in that space, comes a rise in online tutoring. You can tutor on academic subjects, test preparation, GRE, GMAT- or a language you know. There are sites like VIPKid-opening up the opportunity to teach English to Chinese kids and others like Chegg Tutors that could be used to tutor students from different countries.
Make Courses
For once, do create an online course and sell it, if you’re a master at something. Sell your courses using Udemy, Coursera, or Teachable. Among the trending course topics are digital marketing, programming and web development, personal finance, creative skills such as photography, writing, and music, besides health and fitness. What will be a great course? Providing value to the students in the course.
Now, with the use of the Internet, it is easy to sell a product or open a small business.
Dropshipping
How can one sell without holding inventory?
- You will set up your online store using platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce.
- A customer places an order in your store.
- You buy that item from a third-party supplier.
- The supplier ships the product directly to the customer.
But this model requires a minimum initial investment but with some decent marketing abilities for an accurate niche of competitive markets.
Handicrafts and Custom-made Goods
If you have art in your hands, sell your artifacts on Etsy or other local crafts events. Some art that generally does well includes:
• Handmade jewelry
• Home Decor
• Bespoke clothing and accessories
• Printed artwork
• Candles and soaps
Pay special attention to individual, quality workpieces that will— over time— help build the brand and customer base.
Print on Demand
Print-on-demand services allow you to sell customized products without any inventory on hand. Ever. You design products like:
– T-shirts and Apparel
– Mugs
– Phone Cases
– Wall Art
If someone goes on to buy a product, though, the print-on-demand service prints the item and ships it to the end customer. As simple as that. You can get started on sites including, but not limited to: Printful and Redbubble.
Gig Economy and Task-Based Work
The gig economy is a flexible way to make money when it best fits into your life.
Ride-Sharing and Delivery
Other driving and delivery job opportunities include Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart. Great gigs—especially if you like having some flexibility in your schedule—most require a reliable vehicle and a good driving record.
TaskRabbit and Odd Jobs
TaskRabbit matches customers with people who will complete a designated task. Popular services include:
Furniture assembly
Home repairs
Moving and packing
Yard work
Cleaning
If you are handy or like helping people, this may be a fabulous side hustle opportunity.
Real Estate and Property-Based Side Hustles
Real estate can provide a bevy of options to generate extra income if you are not a property owner.
Airbnb and Short-Term Rentals
Extra space in one’s dwelling, or other property, can be rented on a short-term basis via websites like Airbnb or VRBO. Of course, this can be quite fruitful when done around tourist locations, or during events.
Real Estate Photography
Real estate is moving online, and great photos are essential to the listings. If you happen to be that person with a great camera and a good sense of photography, you might want to offer your services to realtors or homeowners free of charge.
Property Management
If you’re an effective person, very organized, and generally like working with people, property management might prove to be a good side hustle. Among other tasks, you would engage yourself in the following activities:
Finding and screening tenants
Collecting rent
Manage the repairs and maintenance
Handle complaints from tenants
You would need really strong people skills and overall, a decent working knowledge of the local rental laws.
Consultant Freelancing
If you have a specialization in your job, you may realize you can freelance as a consultant for almost everything. This could be in areas such as:
Business strategy
Marketing and branding
Financial planning
HR consulting
IT Consulting
To be a good consultant, you must stick to a niche that you master in which clients can measure what value they get.
Creative Side Hustles
If you are one of those people who happen to be artistic then, well, here are some things you can do to monetize your art.
Photography
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Apart from real estate photography, you may sell your service for
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Portrait photography
Event Photography
Stock photography
Photo editing and touching
Now you can flex your talents and build a nice portfolio, focused on an area of your specialty.
Music and Audio Production
Should you have any talent in music, here is how you may be able to side hustle:
Music Lessons
Beats or jingle creation and sale
Voice-over
Podcast Editing
All the audio services’ customers are on Fiverr but also check out SoundBetter.
Video Creation and Video Editing
Video is the new queen, and with such skills, one can even make money in ways such as video editing for YouTubers, creating explainer videos for businesses, wedding videography, and even video advertising on social media. Create a demo reel in which one showcases his or her skill and keep your finger on the pulse regarding video editing software and techniques.
Creating Blogs and Content
It seldom comes right from the very beginning, but blogging may be a rewarding side business with good recompense. Some popular niches to blog in include those dealing with:
Personal Finance
Travel
Food and recipes
Life and wellness
Technology and gadgets
Other than affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, display advertising, or selling any digital products or courses, any of the following could be used as a method of monetizing your blog.
The knack when it comes to monetizing with blogging is a valid, intriguing content base and appealing to an interested audience.
Pet-Related Services
Pet-related side hustles could prove to be fun and still highly rewarding to animal lovers.
Pet Sitting and Dog Walking
Rover brings together sitters and walkers with pet owners. It’s more or less a free-flowing gig because you’ll get to set your prices and set your time to render the service.
Pets grooming is on-demand, and with skills and proper equipment, it’s quite easily a business to take on the road. Some of the services could be as follows:
Bathing
Nail clipping
Cutting and styling
Photography
Taking photographs is an artistic job. Niche—you can offer several services in your business, but specialize in photography services for a series of pet photos taken and pets’ event photography.
Series of a pet and its owner
Series of events of a pet and its owner
Action shots of playing pets
Holiday shots of pets
Health and Wellness Services
If you are into healthy living, here are some sideline jobs you may want to offer:
Personal Training
Personal or group fitness training. You may want to specialize in areas like the following:
Weight loss
Strength training
Yoga or Pilates
Sports-specific training
Nutrition Coaching
Help people live healthier lives by eating better and reaching their health goals. This would also include things such as:
Meal planning
Nutrition education
Personalized diet plans
Massage Therapy
If you are a licensed massage therapist, this is a pretty lucrative side gig to consider. You can either:
Start and partner with a local spa or gym.
Offer mobile massages.
Focus on one modality with extra training in sports massages, pre-natal massage therapy, etc.
Steps to Success with Your Side Hustles
- Choose something you love: As your side hustle is going to take all of your free time, the best thing that could make it worth your while is choosing to do something you love.
- Start small and scale: Go into a viable, reasonably manageable work capacity first, then scale up the levels as you become conversant.
- You have good time management and use utilities like calendars and to-do lists quite well to balance your side hustling with your main job and other commitments in your personal life.
- Continuous learner: Don’t be satisfied with the extent of your skills; prepare yourself for regular upgrading and follow the latest trends.
- Network: Make friends, peer groups, and mentors in the fields of your interest.
- Keep finances in order: Record correct books of income and expenditure; save for paying taxes.
- Knowing when to scale or pivot: The ability to change tack if the side hustle isn’t working.
A side hustle opens up a world of opportunity: the ability to give your income an added boost, pursue your passion, or develop new, diverse skills. You might be able to do it only to cross a little more cash off your wish list or for an alternative career, but surely there is something called a side hustle that your interest and ability can equal.
But let’s not forget, this is what a side hustle is all about difficult balancing between your day job and personal life. So start small, keep it consistent, and feel free to test the options before you finally hit the bull’s eye for yourself.
Yes, that side hustle could easily be turned into major money and pride with just the right type of commitment and mindset. Well, then what is holding you back? Take a look at these options, narrow in on that one side hustle that you are passionate about, and make today the first day of adding some income to your bank account!
