Share your experiences in creating side hustles

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I’ve often toyed with the idea of starting a small side business, but don’t know really where to start.

I’ve happened upon this online course (German) that seems exactly what I’ve been looking for, but €600 is way too much.

Does anyone know of a good and exhaustive comparable online course or book that is much cheaper (or even free), that teaches you how to do it, from generating ideas to testing their validity and finally launching it?

Oh, and no dropshipping :wink:

Update: the original title for this thread was “Anyone know good online courses to set up a “side hustle” (secondary income stream)?”

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Do you have an area of interest or skill that you are extremely knowledgeable or good at? The more niche it is the better.

Need to know this before giving you advice as otherwise it’s just a discussion about “I want more money” - well, everyone does!

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Well you could say my passion is making technology (or anything, really) as simple to use as possible (it’s also my job).

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I think you already know the answer: No such book or course exists. Road to the first 1k, 30 day money back guarantee, yada yada yada. Their business it to sell you how to build a business, lol. If you want it even cheaper, you can join Andrew Tate’s Hustlers University, it’s just $49.99!

My honest answer: I’m a programmer. It’s my main job and also my hobby, so I spend an unhealthy amount on it. Over the years I did a lot of things from building game mods, to mobile applications and establishing niche sites. Lot’s of things failed or were left unfinished/forgotten, but some worked out and I sold them for a good amount of money. Now I’m onto my next journey, hoping for the same outcome.

There is no plan or “6 module” solution, unfortunately. It’s just spending a lot of time on things you love and if you have luck, it becomes something and you can monetize it. Maybe you come across something in your life/work/career you think you could optimize, improve or invent? Most of my software projects came from that: Hey, there exists service Y for niche X, but it’s shit, I can create a better one and take over the niche - so I did, sold it to an interested party and learned a lot in the process.

If you are looking for resources, here are some (it’s not really a recommendation, just of what I like for motivation):

  • Marc Lou: Builds lots of micro-SaaS products in the hope, that they work out. Ironically, his most profitable project by far is a course/template with which you can build a micro-SaaS. But if you ignore that, he is quite interesting.
  • Tristan Severijns: He is building his e-commerce brand Exchange Life. It’s not really a side-hustle for him anymore, but maybe he motivates you and he really explains what worked good and what was bad, just very interesting + he’s not shilling anything, just documenting his journey.
  • Daniel Dalen: I have no fucking clue what he is doing and I wouldn’t believe anything he says about his business, but I like his videos for motivation. Also, he is not trying selling anything.
  • Search “building in public” on YouTube, there are plenty of people sharing their journey, trying to build something.

It’s not the “step-by-step” plan you asked for, but I don’t think something like that even exists - even if some guru tells you that, but only if you buy his course… :wink:

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Just go out and do stuff you enjoy and the money will follow. I’m a corporate drone, but before kids, I had spare time to do stuff and money just fell onto my lap in unexpected ways. They key is to be prepared so you are able to take the opportunities that come your way.

I was interested in certain technical gizmos, so I found one online in eBay and used it and it was good and bought a job lot of 100 from the seller and re-sold it at higher prices after packaging it into a kit. Then I did a deal with the seller, figuring out his source and got exclusive on the source and also bought more peripherals to sell with it. It was a mini-business, but I did it for the fun/challenge. I don’t recommend physical businesses as you have to deal with inventory and it is hard to scale, but it is good for learning (plus all the scammers that come after you etc. etc.)

Later, I got interested in computers and made a few websites. When the law in the UK changed requiring people to get an energy performance certificate, I grabbed a relevant domain, threw a bit of content on there and put google ads on there which generated monthly income without any work. Similarly, I had a hobby website and put adverts on there and found certain few pages got lots of hits and made decent money.

Another was that I got an android phone for the first time and then wanted to learn to program for it and learned java and wrote some apps that I wanted. I released them all for free and got many downloads. Then just on a whim, I released exactly the same app, but as a $1 paid app and the amazing thing was that people would pay for the app even though there was an identical free app available! I wrote more and more apps and in the space of 4 months was pulling in 3-4 figures a month in sales which was very lucrative as after Google’s cut it was pure profit with zero cost of goods (compared to ebay business where you had to buy stock, pay for postage and packaging, buffer for returns, thefts etc.).

I had to decide whether to pursue that full time or take another opportunity and took the other opportunity which didn’t give me free time to do this any more. Before I had a 9-5 job and it was very easy so I had energy to spend another 5 hours working on apps in the evening. The new job was financially rewarding but burned me out.

I think you have to just get out there and try stuff. There’s a stat about how many businesses fail and it is a big portion, so you just have to try, see some fail, learn from it and try again until you get it right.

But instead trying to start a business, why not work on your hobbies that you like and then see if the things you do can be monetized? e.g. do whatever you’re doing and record it and put it on youtube. If you make something, put it out there for free with donations, or sell it.

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Thanks for the links. Watched a few videos and was dismayed to find one guy had already implemented one of my ‘retirement projects’ and is already making 150k a month from it! Man, I need to retire soon, so I can start earning some real money!

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Wow, thank you @oswand and @PhilMongoose for sharing your experiences and thoughts! They were not the replies I expected, but probably the ones I needed :wink::grinning:

I will dive into the links and try to get into the mindset of identifying business opportunities when they present themselves.

Maybe I should change the thread title to “Share your experiences in creating side hustles”? :thinking:

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Smart idea.

If you are in software, there are also other ways to find ideas:

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The vague question starting this thread got more traction then expected so I’ll chime in again:
Amazon.com: Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future eBook : Masters, Blake, Thiel, Peter: Kindle Store

In general: find an unmet or poorly serviced need and focus on that. The more niche, the less scalable but more easily defendable.

My current side hustle isn’t really a hustle and doesn’t require much creativity. I spend a day or so a week trading derivatives and it’s an easy way to make money as long as you keep your feet on the ground. What helps is that I have the capital in place to back up the trading. As the saying goes, easier to make 10M from 1M than 1M from 0.

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I’m feeling generous so will give you a more concrete idea :slight_smile:

The idea is not original but works nonetheless.

Buy an apartment in an ultra low tax Canton/Town.

Live there.

Rent 1-2 rooms out to execs who work in a high tax Canton/Town but prefer a low tax rate.

This is done more often than people think. And the exec’s often don’t spend much time in their 1 room apartment. An edit/addition here: I recall a former colleague rented a room like this: he only used it to receive his mail, he never really stayed there. He was nervous the landlord would report him (practically this ex-colleague was living in the UK, his employer had no idea as his role required a LOT of travel) but the landlord obviously was happy with the situation (got the rent with zero hassle). If I’m not mistaken there’s a certain limit also where you can receive income like this and it’s tax free?

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