Many people feel that their 9-5 isn’t cutting it anymore, whether it’s because they’re not paid enough, not pursuing their passions, or working in a toxic environment. They want to get out, but don’t know where to begin. Enter the side hustle.
A side hustle is a part-time job or project that brings in income. Many side hustles are one-off projects like transcription or selling stock photos. However, there are certain side hustles you can start and grow into businesses. So, keep reading to uncover some of my favorite side hustle ideas to help you pursue your passions, while potentially making profits.
Side Hustle #1: Create Digital Products
Creating digital products is a great side hustle for content creators, influencers, or creative people wanting to make money from the content they create. The great thing about digital products is that you only have to create them once.
Types of Digital Products
- Online Courses: If you’re a content creator or influencer, you can teach people about your area of expertise. Your audience will receive lifetime access to the course, allowing them to study the lessons you offer. You can also add downloadable PDFs such as checklists or worksheets within the course for your audience to use.
- eBooks: Similar to creating an online course, you can teach people about a specific area of expertise and put it into an eBook format. This option is great for people who would rather write their lessons than record them via video.
- Presets: If you’re an influencer or content creator creating Presets to edit photos, you can sell the preset settings you use to edit your pictures. This idea may be better suited for people with an audience, but you can also sell your presets via online retailers.
- Digital Products: If you’re a creative individual skilled at graphic design or layout, you can create digital products such as planners, calendars, invitations, posters, and more using content creation platforms.
How to Scale
You can create more products to sell as you grow your audience on social media, creative marketplaces, or online stores. Eventually, you can aim to hire a team to manage your products and advertising.
Side Hustle #2: Become a Freelancer
Becoming a freelancer is a great option for people who want to charge for their skills. Freelancing is also a great side hustle option because you can learn a skill as you work. You can learn a skill or refresh your current skills and sell it as a service.
You can start by posting your services for a reasonable price on freelance platforms.
Types of Freelancing
- Blog Writing
- Social Media Management
- Content Creation
- Video Editor
- Web Designer
- Graphic Designer
- Translator
- Website Coder
- Podcast Script Writer
How to Scale
Once you get a few clients and some good reviews (social proof), you can use that to promote your skillset.
Eventually, you can reach out to brands who may need your services, such as copywriting for a brand’s website or blog posts. As you grow your clientele, you can offer monthly retainers or bundles and aim to hire freelancers to help you grow.
Side Hustle #3: Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great way to enter the online world. Affiliate marketing is where you sign up for an affiliate program, and you receive unique links for specific products. When someone makes a purchase through your unique link, the brand providing the link will give you a small percentage or commission.
You can advertise your affiliate links via blog posts, sales funnels, and social media platforms. If you’re an influencer, you can place these links in your bio on your social media accounts, with proper disclaimers, and direct your audience to your bio to purchase.
How to Scale
You can scale your affiliate marketing business by growing your audience, offering more products, using paid advertising and email marketing, and outsourcing to a team.
Side Hustle #4: Online Tutoring
Online tutoring is a great side hustle idea for teachers who love the idea of taking their talent online. You can sign up for tutoring websites or, even, launch your own website. You could also post your tutoring services on public spaces/websites if you don’t want to be limited to only tutoring websites.
How to Scale
You can build an agency and outsource the work to your team. In addition, you will need to build your social media presence, establishing yourself as an authority in the tutoring space. You can do this by posting valuable content on social media platforms. You can look into outsourcing or advertising if you are unsure about where to start! (You can even look into ENTRE Institute for entrepreneurial resources).
Side Hustle #5: 1:1 Online Coaching
1:1 Online Coaching is where you virtually meet with people individually and coach them on a specific industry or topic. For example, let’s say you’re a content creator specializing in helping people start online businesses. You can host 1:1 online coaching via a video call and walk people through the steps to start an online business.
How to Scale
You can aim to build an agency and add more team members, training them on how to coach clients. If you want a more passive business, you can create an online course instead of coaching. If you still want to provide coaching on a smaller scale, you could offer it as a service separate from your online course as well.
Side Hustle #6: Start a Blog
Starting a blog is a great side hustle idea for people who like to write and don’t mind taking it slow. Building an audience and growing your blog organically takes a long time. So, patience and persistence will be as key aspect of this idea!
How to Scale
The easiest way to scale a blog is to outsource your work to a team. Unless you want to write your blog posts yourself, you can hire a team of freelance bloggers. You can also hire a social media manager to post your content on various social channels.
Side Hustle #7: Start a YouTube Channel
Like starting a blog, starting a YouTube channel isn’t a quick way to make money. As mentioned above, patience and persistence is key. As part of improving your skillset, you could become a freelance video editor, content creator, YouTube script writer, or anything else related to YouTube.
How to Scale
As you grow your YouTube channel, you can outsource video editing, scriptwriting, social media management, and content creation to a team. As you continue to make videos, you can search for a production company to work with/alongside you.
Ready to Take Your Side Hustle to the Next Level?
If you’re ready to begin your entrepreneurial journey and take your side hustle to the next level, but don’t know where to begin, ENTRE has got you covered.
ENTRE teaches everyday humans how to leverage their skills and gifts to create an online business and action plan.
So, if you’re ready to jump into entrepreneurship and receive the proper skills, guidance, and coaching you need to create an online business, click here. ↴
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