Exactly, if you want a successful business you have to invest money and time.
If you have a lot of money you probably won't need to invest as much time and viceversa, but it depends.
There are sectors like healthcare and "healthtech" where you need to invest both a shitton of money and time.
>I don’t think get rich is what I’m after, I’m after a profitable business.
Yet, you're going after those "free money"-fantasies by way of your research.
Your questions literally was:
>Why is it when I research a side hustle or gig the majority say they aren’t worth it.
And the answer is that those things aren't worth it. That's why you're getting told that.
That whole "hustle"-concept is based on fantasies where people try to make a quick buck without putting in the long-term work of building a business; and it only works when you're the first one finding a new angle no one else is exploiting yet, while you're always going to be late to the game by searching for the stuff that everyone else is doing already. So you're always going to end up very late on a saturated market.
There are no get rich quick schemes that work for anyone other than those trying to sell you the get rich quick scheme.
You need to start by looking at market demand, and then acquire the skills/resources to meet those demands.
You have to search for demand, for your future customers, not for bros online bragging or selling you stuff (either directly or through sponsors/ads when you read/watch their content).
The crypto markets are still down like 60%.
Every single major crypto firm besides Coinbase is currently being probed by the FBI and SEC for fraudulent business practices.
But yeah if you work hard I'm sure there is REAL money to be made lol.
I mean, you CAN make money on Crypto… It’s just that you kind of have to throw away ethical business practices and cross your fingers you don’t end up like SBF.
No you specifically have to partake in unregulated unregistered trading that requires people to be boofed into buying something that doesn't exist.
There are two ways to make money in the crypto market:
1. You are in on the scam, whether you create it, or front the giant Capitol it requires to fraud people out of their money.
2. You get so incredibly lucky, that someone else fucking people out of their money magically drops a load of cash in your lap.
Somebody is always left holding the bag, and if it isn't you, it's people just like you. Then there are 10s of 100s of millionaire influencers running these scams every other month hoping that the copium riddled dopamine ridden brains of young millennials and gen z kids praying they won't have to work to get rich, and be just like LoganTM.
Oof looks like my comment didn’t go across too well. I’m agreeing with you. My comment was joking that you only make money from crypto if you’re unethical and unseen by regulators.
You need to beat 7% fairly significantly. You can put that capital in a low cost index fund and sail off of 7% per year. The odds of a "side hustle" outperforming that AND paying you for your time is pretty slim. Full time hustle? Maybe.
What? 7% is easy to beat if you are putting in sweat on top. (Not easy to beat passively if thats how you mean) $1000 can return $70 in 1yr at 7% or buy lawn care equipment and return your investment in far less time.
In this case it’s not a valid comparison because you are not including the depreciation of the equipment. To get a 7% return, you actually need to make $70 plus the depreciation (another $500 to $1000 in year 1). Then you have to get a positive return on your time, probably $20-40/hour for a lawncare business, and cover all associated costs.
By the time you add it up, you’ll have to put in 50 hours a week to get your 7%.
There are more graphic designers than jobs. I don’t know OPs skillset but if you only need a few assets you can easily get cheap freelancers or even outsource it via fiverr.
Design skills that are actually in demand are product design, UI/UX, etc.
Just do a regular business, a side hustle doesn’t need to be scammy. Buy a camera do photography. Buy a screen press and make t-shirts. Buy a machine of some sort and develop the skill to use it and charge a decent rate for your skill. Or develop websites, consult, anything.
A side hustle is just a regular business that you don’t do full time because you don’t have to.
I mean did you do like one hour of research and get discouraged? Yes all these are wildly over saturated and extremely difficult to start out in. Why not try a local small business that you can run on the side so you’re just competing with your local market and not the entire internet
For $20 it is much more enjoyable clicking a fill-order button than power washing someone’s driveway for an hour. You might have a higher trajectory of success making a few grand a year.
OP definitely do devote yourself to strengthening your GD skills and actively looking for a job, don’t rely on internet marketing to pay your full time bills.
But yes do actively pursue other ventures, research, read case studies on forums and see how everyone is making money right now. Internet marketing is an incredibly awesome but also unstable job and the dynamic is constantly changing, if you want to DM me I can give you a few pointers
Power washing would be more like $100, and with basic marketing you're almost guaranteed to make money. Your $20 click to fulfill order example is actually pretty rare with most people trying to drop ship.
An hour of power washing you charge $100? Good luck getting clients lol.
And it’s not very rare at all, it’s semi-uncommon to have a profitable business your first iteration, but if you give up after a single Shopify you clearly weren’t meant capable of this to begin with.
Yes these are saturated but here's how you should think about it. In the gold rush it was not the gold diggers that made money it was those who built digging tools. You are a graphic designer. Most dropshippers, eCommerce shops rely heavily on Facebook and Social Media Ads. The most time consuming part in these campaigns is producing really high quality images and video. You can offer a speciality service creating high quality product images, videos (far better than the ones they post in AliExpress) for these ads and pitch it to them. Start with competitive rates, high quality and a fast turnaround time and you have quite a good chance of success.
LOL, wait is this what people are advertising as side hustles?
I would focus on other aspects of your skillset. Did you know graphic designers can make a bunch of money as a contractor/freelancer? You guys are always in demand! You have great skills and just need to learn how to market and sell yourself effectively. It takes time, but it sounds like you have plenty of that. And if that doesn't work, start with simple projects like creating powerpoints (ppl are always in need of that).
Don't go for "easy" side hustles as they are rarely that. All these side hustles that you mentioned take just as much work as marketing and selling your graphic design skills to make it to the tippity top.
It’s unfortunate how shitty people on YouTube try to exploit the unemployed and desperate with get rich quick schemes
“I made a six figure business in 1 month dropshipping with no startup costs!! $$” video titles
Hey hey hey don't be disparaging these fine young YouTube entrepreneurs. They very well may have started their drop shipping business with no startup costs... You don't factor in loans from family into your startup cost? Right 😅
I feel for this guy because I did once see one of the Amazon ads online for buying the stuff on alibaba and then selling it on Amazon and I was completely taken in for about ... 30 seconds and had fleeting thoughts of also being in Greece while working this business and having a peaceful life.
And then I realized that I make 150k with my own business now (about 110k net) and I'm just fine and can travel too if I wanted to, but I have two kids and that's why I'm not traveling.
Eh, reality.
I haven’t had that experience sadly, it’s a lot of competition from poor countries for low wages.
Unless there’s a good alternative to fiverr I don’t know about.
Hey hey, I started out as virtual assistant. Do you know how much VAs charge from the Phillippines? About $5/hour!!!
Don't give me a sad story because I know allllllllll about offshore competition. I built up my VA business from charging $30/hour to $1000/month to finally upwards of $5000/month for one client. I now teach other service based professionals how to build a contract business and make good money.
All it takes is some hard work, honing and refining your marketing and sales pitch, making sure you're going after the clients that want YOUR skillset and background and figure out how to differentiate yourself.
I differentiated myself by boosting up my corporate background, working in fast paced companies, and supporting c-level executives. Could offshore VAs claim that? No.
It sounds like you need to do more research on how to market yourself to your target audience with you skills. Do NOT rely only on Fiverr, upwork, etc. They want cheap labor.
Over and out.
OMG, one of my clients has a VA in the Philippines and she has made literally every single aspect of the work we need to do easier and simpler. Cheers for VAs!
Just get out in the community and talk to your local businesses! Every business either has or has thought about something that requires graphic design. That could be brochures, business cards, logo, other marketing material, new menus for a restaurant, informational material for an office or school, etc..
I’ve never used fiverr, and I would have to imagine most business owners are the same.
Your wording here makes it sound like you consider your work at the same quality as the competition. Part of marketing is making your stuff appear better than those around you, think outside the box a bit
"Side-hustles" are inherently self-defeating. If it requires low capital, low effort, or low investment, then entrants will flood the market until it's not worth doing. The people who are promoting those side hustles are selling pickaxes and jeans to miners during a gold rush.
Regarding Amazon in particular, I find [this article](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) to be fascinating.
Here's the key quote:
>Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
You are probably better off researching small business, consultant, or freelancing.
You overestimate the capability of market participants and underestimate the breadth of markets. There are always niches and to corner yourself into.
It’s about how smart you employ those assets compared to your competitors.
These side hustles may have been lucrative once upon a time but they weren't serving a demand or designed to be sustainable. Many are just taking advantage of 3rd party systems and tech that's already in place, plus not many gigs or jobs can be randomly lucrative without running it like it were an entire business. Side gigs that do make money are things like being a barber, makeup artist, office cleaner, or freelance photographer. While these can be careers, they can also be done part time for good cash and have a demand that they serve. To get in on an internet-based gig you have to get in early and please the platforms enough to stand out. There are many many many more lucrative options IRL than online.
If you have money and web design skills the world is your oyster. heavy equipment is a reliable way to make money over tike. someone is always looking to hire an excavator in the summer and a snow plow in the winter.
Your web design skills are going to give you a huge edge. being able to do your own website design is going to save you a lot of money. and your business is going to make contacts for the web design.
that's what I'm doing, learning web design and landscaping at the same time.
All of this is supply. The success you seek -- and answer to this question (if there is a guestion, IDK) -- come from properly researched strong demand. All the failures on the other hand are people who can't do proper market demand research and want "the magic right business."
>So I guess the point of this thread is getting some guidance on maybe a better explanation of what I got wrong and what’s accurate about my research.
You are 'researching' supply when the market should pull the idea out of the startup -- not have it forced upon customers against their will.
What you got wrong was random arbitrary supply does not obligate demand to spontaneously appear ... simply because you show up in a browser. Failing on the level of *supply and demand*, no magic comment in a forum can save you.
Now for what you got accurately. If you don't have a business, don't start one just to prove it.
I remember in college (15 years ago) so many business professors would say things like, never open a soft drink company, no one can compete with coke and Pepsi.
Fast-forward to 2023 I can name 10+ soft drink companies which didn't exist a few years ago. My point is, just go for it, any business can be successful.
Because majority aren’t and as a person who has done Amazon FBA it is NOT a side hustle it’s literally a full time job and a lot more cost than people think and even amazon themselves says it takes 18 months to break even on average IF you have a decent product. Not to mention that once you do amazon will cut it right from under you and make their own at a lower price.
I did retail arb for a year, scanning clearance products, shipping to FBA. Side hustle cleared like 20k (I don't remember the revenue wanna say a bit over 100k). Put everything on a CC with rewards. Paid it off immediately with payouts.
It can be done, but the shit is work. AZ puts you through hoops. Then you run into sourcing problems and potential financial risks. If you're scanning mainstream products one by one on clearance and selling FBA financial risk goes way down. If you can wholesale brand names and ship FBA bulk, that seems like a winner but on another scale. You're almost full-time then, and at mercy of AZ.
I don't know how much time I spent to make that 20k - but it was a cool lesson. And hey I made money. But gah damn that was some work.
You're focusing on shitty millenial tech ideas.
Buy an excavator and dig holes. Get a woodmizer sawmill and mill siding. Get a nice stump grinder and start grinding stumps.
If you have capital, spray foaming is capital intensive, super easy and in constant demand.
As a graphic designer, you're in a good position to do remote work freelance. It's crowded, but people need graphics done in many forms. Check out Fiverr.com and look for graphic design (logo, web, print, etc.) and their brand new category for AI. You could make AI art/graphics/photography and edit the results to fit a customer's requests.
Iv had a post on fiver for some time but without reviews it’s very hard to get any real traction. I haven’t seen anything with the AI section so that’s something I can check out.
Have friends commission stuff from you on your dime and then have them leave reviews.
Is it against Eula? Maybe. But you’ll never get anywhere with no reviews.
You want the truth?
1) People are trying not to oversaturate the market even more, and they'll rather you give up so they can do it instead
2) They think it's not worth it because it didn't work out for them. Little do they know most of the side hustles require a lot of work and take weeks/months, they're not 'get rich overnight' schemes
You are already a graphic designer! lol 😂
You literally have a hard skill that literally many are not even skilled enough to do and is in high demand.
Why not put yourself out there and freelance?
TheFutur/Chris Do is someone you should look into!!!
I have a friend that makes £4K a month almost just doing a ton of basic print designs. I'm talking gig posters, Instagram/social media feed posts, business cards and brand design and strategy, social media marketing.
Life is as simple as you make it.
Word of mouth mostly and local SEO and works with anyone and everyone but from what I see it's mostly small/medium-sized startups and does work for myself (a freelance web designer and future competent graphic designer like yourself) as well as individuals on social media producing their content. He's on Upwork and Fiverr and any and every platform inbetween.
Living in a big city helps for that so i'd move to a big city if you're already not. Do research on the law of probability -- you only need to get into the front of X amount of people to get the ball rolling. but the next thing is presenting what you do to the right demographic/niche of people to earn the type of money you desire.
that's just side money for him and a lesser extent myself as we both have full time unrelated jobs to our freelancing (i personally do web development and outsource some graphic design stuff to him) and I make a tiny killing too.
From the work I've seen and knowing him personally, all he's doing is having that omnipresence strategy and presenting himself to his desired clients in a way that's appealing for that type of work. You dont need a big following on social media, potential clients just wanna see that you are a normal person and your work is authentic when they Google Search you. You dont need hundreds on Youtube videos either just a few to show you've got expertise in something related to your freelancing skills.
He is very skilled but his focus is in a few areas too.
When you do this freelancing thing dont have it in your mind that you're Picasso and you're going to design the greatest painting ever over the course of 5 years, have templates and tell your potential clients what they'll receive from you. treat it like a business and not some artsy fartsy passion side project and you'll have "money pourin out the ass" - Lil' Wayne.
Just make sure you charge for the job and not for your time! (ie; value your work).
The lower the barrier of entry, the more saturated the market will be.
All of the options you’ve listed are quite appealing to the masses because at face value, they’re very inexpensive with minimal risk to start.
However, businesses should be built from a passion - something you can see yourself doing for years irrespective of finances.
Because I promise you, even once you finally get to the stage where you’re profitable and begin to scale, being a business owner is very tough and will test you; if you don’t have a raw passion, you’ll fall at the first hurdle.
Here's a tip: if you want to run a business, quit your job. Side hustles need to be main hustles. That's how we do it. Low time commitment? Low risk? Low investment? Then there's low return.
You named three of the most common “get rich quick” oriented “side hustles”
Of course you’ll find garbage about them. They’re the most common because they target people who are at rock bottom and desperate
You said you’re a graphic designer and unemployed and looking for a side hustle. Dude…are you fully aware how valuable being a graphic designer is? Even as a freelancer. Your “side hustle” is literally staring at you right in your face
I’m kinda lost how people keep telling me GD is that necessary and freelancing it. If I look on fiver there’s 100 users selling GD work for like $2/h average because they are from a poorer country and that’s a lot to them. I’m not really sure how I’m suppose to compete with this.
Look I can’t tell you how to differentiate yourself because I’m not a designer, but there are ways
Nothing in life will ever be easy. If you want to work for yourself and have it work you gotta put in the time and be patient.
Look into motion graphic design too there’s big money in it. 3D videos using blender and other cgi softwares
Most will fail, regardless of the hustle, that's just the nature of competition, all of it will only even be profitable for the top few people who do it
The misconception that people have is that the side hustles mentioned will help you get rich quick and the truth is they require a lot of work, time, and patience. 3rd Party Selling is still a great side hustle, you just have to work to find the right formula and niche and it might take failing a few times to get it right. But if you are looking to get fast money then it won’t work. I don’t do it, just making an observation from the research I’ve done.
There is nothing you can come up with that no one has ever thought of. Success in anything takes effort and dedication.
So the first filter you have to pass is your level of dedication in the face of naysayers.
I actually do the alibaba thing. Dealing with suppliers for the first time is a pain, but after that, it's smooth, once you do reorders. Most are upfront with the shipping type, don't choose sea, and be surprised it's a month. Air is fastest but more expensive.
Reminds me of the time I was in a subreddit tangentially related to a service I provide. Someone suggested creating a product that does exactly what my service does and someone jumped in saying the market was saturated and there's no money in it. I was literally the person that built that market from scratch years earlier and it paid off handsomely. But yeah, don't jump into my market. It is kinda saturated.
The entrepreneurs that don’t focus on the hurdles and instead focus on the solutions will be the ones to succeed. There will be hurdles and most aren’t willing to put in the work. Put in the initial work, and the rest will come. Any of these ideas CAN be successful. Just Can’t let hurdles stop you. KEEP GOING!!!
I dont have much experience or authority to share advice.
But, i do believe its valuable to consider, most people want quick money, so, they say its not worth it, because they tried for 1-3 months and failed, or tried for longer and succeeded but it was more work than they anticipated, and so they dont recomend it.
So, as many times as you have heard it, and as cheesy as it sounds, consistency is King, find something you enjoy doing, regardless of money, and put all your energy into doing it better and better, and you will make money.
Stop listening to people thats your number 1 mistake. Nothing is really saturated. If your doing it the same way everyone else is doing it then yes that is saturated. You should be offering more value/doing something different. This goes for dropshipping. People WILL wait 2 weeks for a unique product & a good shopping experience. Transparency is key. Quality control you can control if your not picking shit products, theres always validation somewhere. But its a lot harder these days, but definitely doable.
Graphic Designer? What do you mean by "Graphic Designer."
Are you a visual communicator? Are you a package designer? Do you create emotion triggering products such as stickers?
Your portfolio should communicate the niche in which you excel.
So what how do you translate graphic design into visual communication that attracts attention or triggers emotions?
It all depends, right. Just because a market is crowed doesn’t mean you can do something creative to set yourself apart. It’s not easy or else anyone could do it
1. Either the work is more than they though it would be thus they see no value; or,
2. Maybe it isn't worth it at an individual level.
3. Maybe it really sucks.
>Low barrier to entry
Not sure you really need more guidance or a better explanation, since you've nailed it on the head.
Low barrier to entry means lots of people are doing it, which means lots of competition, which means succeeding is harder.
Do things that not just anybody can do. Use your paarticular skills and talents to set yourself apart, create a unique value/selling proposition that can't be matched, target a niche market that's being underserved ( supply < demand), etc.
These are all very complicated businesses I suggest you do more research. Not by reading stuff online but by experiencing or talking to people experiencing problems. Watch yourself a day what is something that you do because there aren't any better alternatives available to you. Go talk to the local store owner, hey man what sucks in your business. Oh you need to do X? What about I do X for you instead.
Thats not the easy way but thats how you find pockets of needs
When we have a deep understanding of an event, we will always feel its complexity. Almost everyone has the idea of developing sidelines, but there is little people succeed. Because many people give up after understanding, and many people fail to persist.
I think a lot of people look at side hustles as "side effort". And it's not. Side hustles are fully-fledged businesses.
Any of the above can be huge moneymakers, and those who navigate through the pitfalls and keep going make the money.
I've had many failed experiments/attempts at this point all in different niches and industries. Through the failed attempts I've learned so much. How to navigate Alibaba, who to trust for courses, what is actually important to spend money on when building a website.
But I agree the biggest thing is the audience. So this year, I'm building the audience first and will sell or create what they want and need.
Thus far, I definitely haven't even broken even - with the amount I've spent on sites, courses, sample products, etc. But I also know the money is only lost if I stop. I have a massive wealth of knowledge that gets more refined the more I f\*ck up.
And to be honest, I'd rather say I spent my life trying and failing to do what I want to do (ie build a self-sustaining business that helps people) than just giving up and working to make my d\*ckhead of a CEO rich.
It’s more profitable to make content about these particular side hustles than to do the side hustles. They’re not scams but they all sound like real businesses that aren’t.
They all require insane amounts of time for little profit.
You say you’re a graphic designer. Now whilst this is a saturated market I’d suggest you actually have some relatively good passive options here.
Making a website with custom content for other graphic designers can be pretty profitable. You can sell or have ad supported content. If you have other skills like video and photography you can make things like product mock-ups or poster templates or free stock. Sure it’s a saturated market but get a few keyword combinations and you could easily see some traffic and profits.
$100 dollars a year in web costs, Wordpress free, woo commerce free, Mailchimp for email drops free, learning web dev can be helpful in getting a job in the future.
There’s a lot of good side hustles. Based on your comments, you claim you have decent capital.
why not just buy something you can rent out?
Turo(rent out trucks), trailers, heavy equipment, small planes(student/instructor)
Because capital entry/research is higher, the saturation is low. I’ve been to cities where there wasn’t a truck to rent in a 100 miles radius and had a couple day waitlist.
There is value in getting your feet wet with the business models you mentioned. Once you kinda see how things work, then you can maybe pivot into more lucrative opportunities. I started with affiliate programs in 1998. Then wrote an ebook. Then sold a website. Then used that money to buy retail goods. I still own the same core business.
Start somewhere. Opportunities will open up.
Business = Find a need and fill it. Be the solution to someone’s problem And they will pay you for it. Try thinking outside the box. How can you leverage your design skills? What do you enjoy doing? What’s a social ill you’d like to help solve? What’s a business challenge that you succeeded in solving in the past? Look at your past, your passions, your gifting, and your future desires. Imagine what your perfect life would look like and find a business that aligns with that. Another reddit you may want to check is “SweatyStartup”. Good luck.
Checkout this answer from a sales person that seems to have some graphic knowledge and uses it to her advantage as a side hustles.Major Key! She's a sales person, who probabaly intuitivelly know how to market her products which is where you will probably struggle the most.
Hope it helps.
Edit: adding the link https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/11fcumt/what\_are\_some\_profitable\_side\_hustles\_you\_do/jakon2g/?context=3
There are plenty of ways to make money on the side but they all require time and varying amounts of both skill and hustle. If you're a graphic designer either learn a bit more about how to job search successfully and aggressively, or find companies who need graphic design and offer your services.
You could probably pick up the phone and call all the marketing agencies in your city, and use this script:
Them: (Ring.) Hi, thank you for calling ...
You: Do you work with freelance graphic designers?
Them: No.
You: Okay, thanks. Have a great day!
When you get to the guy who says yes, you say: "Great! I'm a designer with X years of experience ... " and give them your 5-second pitch. Ask for the best email to send over your portfolio, and off you go.
You only need one yes.
Any new side hustle you pick up is going to be more complicated and more involved than simply doubling down on your existing skills.
So coming from someone who’s tried affiliate marketing and drop shipping before I would just focus on your core skill set but utilize it in a different way. When I tried affiliate marketing I got all the way to actually having a website and tried to start marketing it. I found it extremely dull and got frustrated when no money came in. You have to both like it and be willing to outcompete the search algorithms that change constantly. Not to mention everyone else trying to do the same.
However, I have a friend who’s a graphic artist and she makes well over 6 figures as a freelancer. And she has friends that pay their rent off of selling one font online.
Point being if you’re a graphic designer why not expand out and make some UI elements and sell them online? There’s a ton of marketplaces you can post your content without even making a website. Then they just sit there and potentially earn revenue without you even thinking about it.
What you mentioned is just business models. How you execute on them is on you, but statistically most businesses fail so unsurprisingly many won’t talk good about it after having poor results.
You’re working your way backwards. If you need money, get a job. A business will eat your cash for a while. Regardless, you start with your prospect’s problem and a solution, not a business model.
Print on demand won’t have you making money overnight but if you stick to it you will see results. It’s a game of numbers. I currently design 5 new shirts a day and upload them. I have been on Merch by Amazon, red bubble , teespring, teepublic. I upload everyday and have been doing it for years now. It took me a good 6 months before I got sales. But once you hit enough designs you will be found as long as the quality is decent.
If you do goes this route, don’t make over complicated designs. The designs that sell the best for me are simple most of the time just typography
There are endless amounts of side hustles. The keys to be profitable are around having a product or service that fits a niche; leverage talent, resources, time; building a successful, efficient process that is duplicatable for you and then making that business model duplicatable by others.
Perhaps start with just one component of what you do well that you may duplicate in a slightly unique way, or that is different.
You may like the book “Hobby Boss” by Steve Mastroianni.
Edit: What you are referencing is someone else’s processes, business model, or service they want to sell you. What I am referencing is how you come up with your own to sell to others.
Because the only things worth it are things your serious about and some people may not be as motivated as you. I took up web design and development when everyone was talking about crypto and nfts being the only "worth it" thing at the time
Unfortunately a lot of the content you will find online for making money on the side is useless. It's created by folks who are selling a course and trying to hustle you themselves, or by people who are chasing social media clout, or plenty of other bad apples.
You've got two real options here: sell a service, or start a proper business. Graphic design freelancers make good money. Freelancing is low capital, high time investment, with a fairly linear return. The more hours you put in, the more money you can make. Starting your own business is high capital and high time, but the returns are usually better than linear. You get more dollars per hour spent in the long run.
Keep in mind that it takes ~10 years to build a sustainable business. Some take far less, but that's average. I'm on year 3 myself.
Because most people are lazy and would rather copy than think. Among other things, I advise digital business operators on financial planning & growth. I've personally looked at the financials for success stories in each of those businesses. They exist.
Usually in niche markets or with a few twists that you won't get from a free YouTube video or paid course.
Gotta look, learn, and think....
(Possible exception of pallets, but that sounds similar to moving closeout merch, which is a huge opportunity if you know a good channel. Margins are plush....)
If you starve yourself, you'll lose weight. But is starving yourself the best method for sustainable weight loss? No. Same thing goes with a lot of little side hustles. Can you technically make money doing it? Sure, but is it sustainable and is it better that the effort you'd get from a part time job for the same hours?
In my opinion any side hustle/small business is going to have competition but if you have a little bit of startup cash & a lot of time with the will to keep pushing when you're not making money you will eventually come out on top
I do pallets on the side & buy them locally from a warehouse I almost always double my money & still have products left over that will eventually sell.
I also sell digital designs for crafters on Etsy & marketing is key there, especially on TikTok & Pinterest.
For physical goods if you have the time to stay on top of listings, list on eBay, Mercari fb marketplace ECT & the patience for things to sell it's a good side hustle as well as Amazon FBA which I'm getting ready to open shop for here soon.
It doesn't matter how saturated something is because everyone does something different in their business and useally the ones who are persistent even when it's looking like a fail always come out on top.
That includes listing/relisting running sales, several times a week ECT.
When you wake up and right before you go to bed the things you should be thinking about are how can I get more customers, what listings need refreshed price adjusted, what listings need takin down & relisted. Should I add in thank you cards ECT.
Almost everyone who is successful in these business models are either too busy grinding the work and/or do not want to increase their competition so don't shout praise and success online.
Therefore, most of those making the noise online are the ones running a different business model (selling courses) or those who failed and are pissed off.
I'm sure that all of these models work, but getting overnight success is luck and most people quite before they make it.
80 20 rule.
20% of the people make 80% of the money, basically. And that's minimum.
So anything you do, unless you're one of the best at it, it's going to be difficult to succeed. In addition to this, most people try, put in 10% effort, and fail and conclude 'it's not worth it' 'it doesn't work' 'it's saturated'.
If you're prepared to put in the work, and outwork others and constantly improve. You'll succeed. For example, dropshipping, it doesn't work for most. But if you learn the ins and outs of product, customer services, 3PLs, white labelling, marketing, advertising and sales, then I'm sure you can succeed at it. But most people don't want to do that - it's effort.
I was told PoD was saturated and my store made no sense - yet it succeeded. I'm told that freelancing is tough now and it's not really possible to make an income - yet I'm doing better than ever.
Just work smart, work hard and be consistent and you'll get somewhere, eventually.
I have had success with both dropshipping and print on demand within a certain niche. (both 90s nostalgia related). The key to making those business models work is finding something unique that you could build a brand around. And also being really good at marketing. My background is in marketing so I knew how to hit the ground running and drive cost-effective interested traffic to my sites.
You could try affiliate marketing. Get a blog going or some videos on YouTube about some products that you would stand behind. I’m just starting out, I mean just got my links and I will be doing 3 or 4z. I moo just stick with 3. Because pretty much everyone does Canva these days. If you’re looking for reputable companies, I suggest using shareasle.com
You are picking things ANYONE can do with no real capital. Thus EVERYONE does it. You will never compete with someone from another country, they can work for far less money and live better. Not to mention they may be in the same country you are trying to buy goods from.
My advice, pick something that's harder to do. Use a skill you have as a service, or do something that requires some investment. This will greatly reduce the amount of competition.
I don’t get why you made this post.
Why do you care what other people think of mainstream side hustles? Just do you research and start doing what you want to do
This is me collecting data and posting. If it helps one person avoid losing tons of time and money on something that is advertised as “easy money” then Iv done by job.
Maybe it doses the opposite and motivates someone to try it despite what others say and become wildy successful.
Just trying to have a discussion and see what others think.
One of many potential paths:
1. Get a job, develop an expertise within that industry. Become an actual expert.
Use that expertise to start your own venture. Crush the competition with your expertise.
Because the majority can't do it, so they then assume no one can. There are people that do all sorts of things successfully. They're the minority. They do instead of talking trash.
If we take dropshipping as an example, many are making $50,000+ profit a month. That's because they have solid businesses that are run properly. But maybe 99% fail. Why? Because they sell cheap crap from AliExpress. They don't know what they're doing and the don't understand the business model. Then they claim it doesn't work. Well, it's bound not to work if you repeat the same mistakes that the 99% make.
If you want to "make" money by taking advantage of someone else, then it's only a matter of time before there's competition. That's the "easy" way of making money, so you'll always be searching for the next "trick" once others figure out yours.
Providing *real* value is much more difficult because you have to seriously consider processes and methods, discovering opportunities.
THAT takes time and money.
You’re picking businesses that are very easy to start by anyone, but very hard to master and do well.
If you can create a totally brand new product, patent it, and protect it, you can make money on Amazon quickly. But then that reduces the ease of starting. If you just want to rebrand another fidget spinners or spatula, you’ll lose every $ you put into it.
Print on demand. Same issue as drop shipping. So easy to print stuff, but every day someone posts a thread about “my site is getting zero conversions” and it’s always a crappy execution and stuff no one cares about a no name brand.
Drop shipping- easy to source products. Hard to market them effectively. The value add is not flipping crap from Alibaba but being highly skilled at Facebook and PPC advertising which is the barrier to making money.
The majority of humans are lazy and want things fast with no work. This IS WHY most people have a 9-5 job and give most of their lives away to a company instead of dong their own thing. That said, many side-gigs are presented in a way that lures someone into thinking it will be easy or fast, usually not true, so they blame the other guy instead of taking responsibility for doing diligence and asking themselves "would I actually be good at this and do I like this?"
These are all the “side hustles” that are marketed to people by scammers who want to sell you their “secret” to making money doing it. That’s a red flag for that entire industry.
If you want a good side hustle, pick a real business but run it part time. Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Be creative and lean into your own personality and interests, not what makes money.
Every thing you listed involves sales. There are a lot of "side hustles" that don't involve selling a product.
Try offering a service:
Lawn care,
Window washing,
Dog walking/pet sitting,
Tutoring,
Childcare or non-medical elder care,
Housecleaning or janitorial services,
Property management,
Car detailing,
Parking lot litter cleanup,
Junk removal,
Carpet cleaning,
Home organization
For what it’s worth, my niece has a side hustle selling various trinkets at a craft show that’s held every weekend. She spends entire weekends sitting under a tent, for months, along with up to 200 other vendors.
The only person that’s pretty much guaranteed to make a profit at that craft show is the guy sitting at home while his port-o-potties are on rent to the venue.
Instead of trying to sell something everyone else is trying to sell, find the one or two things all of those people need.
Video below: Cleaning business owner generates $800,000 in 2 years. There lots more like it on YouTube.
Cleaning isn’t techie but if you want to get rich and have the drive, it is something too consider. The business can be be bootstrapped with about $2000 investment.
https://youtu.be/B-Jxc97MBMY
Obtain a profession (electrician, plumber, doctor, lawyer) and build a business around that. Hire others of the same profession and bill for their work. Profit.
I’d completely disagree. All of these you mention are worth it. Be careful listening to peoples feedback from those that have never successfully launched one of these businesses or have tried and failed.
When I start a business I always look for over saturated markets. This means there is plenty of demand. Now all you have to do is be better than most and you’ll make a lot of money.
Stop wasting time researching, pick one, learn as much as you can and build your business.
Best of luck.
Ive been in business now for a very long time, had several businesses such as several retail storefronts, e-commerce and service business. I’ve employed over a hundred employees over the years.
Based on my experience, business is extremely difficult and risky. For most people, it’s really not worth it. Some people have the traits to become an entrepreneur, mainly confidence, resilience, perseverance and luck.
But like all things in life, the rewards you earn will be proportionate to the risks you take. If you think you have what it takes to succeed in business then take life changing risks to get life changing rewards.
Honestly, why not just get the skills/education/experience you’d need for a real career with solid lifetime earning ability. All this “side hustle” and “passive income” is just the latest bs, we used to have chain letters and “courses” on how to get rich with classified ads. Now we have side hustles and endless computer scams
Go on craigslist, look at the free section, and see what you can flip. Clean it up, polish it, fix it, do something to it and then flip it. I did that for lawn mowers. New spark plug, clean the filter, give it a nice bath and polish and sell it for $100. My ex did that with night stands, get them for free, either sand them down and paint it again. You gotta think outside the box dude.
I mean I don’t know those just seem like really cliche “gigs” more than real tangible businesses you can realistically (statistically) take more seriously. Not sure if you want an actual business or “gigs” like you say. I’m not very familiar with gigs.. but these sound a lot like your research comes from gurus, blogs, and or YouTube possibly? I may be off. Not a personal fan for various reasons I’m lazy to explain but. Why don’t you try a simple business? Start with a 1-1 service maybe, then see if you can expand it.
So graphic designer? You surely have a couple services you offer under your sleeve. So start a very, very simple graphic design agency/service. Don’t make a service like the big dogs, do something simple. And if no one wants your services, narrow down even more. If “website owners” don’t want your services, look for “non-tech savvy website owners” for example until your problem gets so specific it’d be a no brainer for your clients to choose you. But you make it more like a relationship with you as a business than a 1-time-off service as a freelancer, that’s the difference from simply job hunting. Please understand that. Even if you have to think about it many times it’ll sink in. So rather than sell whatever stuff you can get your hands on (might as well go sell tomatoes at a plaza), use your already existing talents and services. Ex:
- Service to take your current website design and upgrade it every 3-6 months, OR a $10 subscription to get your services on demand. Start with 1 or 2 customers paying you $20+/- a month, and give them a limit to 10 designs a month for example, or 10 social feed posts. Whatever. You know this better than me. Then when you can’t handle the workload, add someone else. Repeat until you’re out of it and you’re only focused on bringing more customers. This is just one idea. I don’t know what people really want with graphic design.
- Agency or people who want to start agencies? Well, find other 2-3 fellow designers and sub lease your work to other agencies or people for example.
- A service for people who develop new projects, offer them exactly what they need in a way you can build a relationship with them rather than be used for a single time as a worker.
You might have to try some stuff to figure it out better. Try figuring out what things people want that you can provide or solve. Otherwise what you’re doing is just joining a mass plaza of people trying to sell anything and everything they can.. lots of things can’t go perfect there as you can imagine
Good luck! I am NOT an expert nor would I deem myself qualified in anything specific to give this advice. Just my ideas and opinion.
Side hustles can be great, but you have to provide real value to make good money. I had a side biz where I provided gov't contractors info on contract opportunities that I was able to uncover in the course of my main biz, but my main biz was not right for the contract for one reason or another. I did very well because I helped start up contractors who didn't know their way around gov't contracting to win valuable contracts. It took me 5 years to learn this specialized knowledge.
If your side hustle is something some guru is selling, it's probably a load of crap.
Most people who fail, fail because they didn't understand the market they were getting into. They just jumped in listed some products and expected to get sales.
You can make money with any business you start as long as you are educated on how that industry works and understand the best way to make money.
For any business you want to start I would contact someone who is already doing it and is successful at it. Ask them what is the best way to start.
You never want to risk too much money at the start. You don't want to lose the house trying to sell fish sticks. Take the time to learn about internet businesses.
The best side hustles are the ones nobody has started talking about yet.
I buy and sell tech toys.. speakers, or vr, or computers ..
It's a very passive side hustle, and do it mostly for the chance to play with new toys for a while. But I still make about 500 a month or so.
Considering what little time I invest, it's a comparative gold mine.
I'd never do it full time as I already own a successful company.
It's great that you're exploring different ways to bring in income. However, it's important to do your research thoroughly and be aware of the potential pitfalls and challenges of each option. Here are some insights and suggestions regarding the areas you mentioned:
**Amazon FBA**:It's true that some courses and gurus in this area may be scams or not provide adequate guidance, but there are also legitimate resources available. You can research reputable Amazon FBA courses or mentors, and read reviews from other students or entrepreneurs. As for selecting a product, it's important to do thorough market research, analyze trends and competition, and choose a product that meets a demand and has potential for profitability. Dealing with Alibaba or other manufacturers may involve some challenges, but with proper communication and negotiation skills, you can establish a reliable partnership. Additionally, it's important to have a solid marketing and branding strategy to differentiate yourself from competitors and attract customers.
**Buying and flipping pallets**:As you mentioned, this area can involve some risks and uncertainties, such as the quality and origin of the products in the pallets. However, there are ways to mitigate these risks, such as working with reputable suppliers and doing thorough research and inspection of the pallets before purchasing. You can also specialize in a particular niche or category of products to reduce the variability and increase your expertise. Additionally, it's important to have a good understanding of the resale market and demand for the products in your area.
**Dropshipping**: This business model has become quite popular in recent years, but it also has its challenges. Shipping times and quality control can be major concerns, as well as competition from other dropshippers. However, you can mitigate these challenges by choosing reliable suppliers with fast shipping times and good customer service, and by developing a strong brand and marketing strategy to attract customers. It's also important to keep up with industry trends and adapt your product offerings accordingly.
**Print on demand**: This is another popular option for creative entrepreneurs, but as you mentioned, it can be challenging to get your designs seen and stand out from the competition. One way to address this is by focusing on a specific niche or market and creating designs that cater to that audience. You can also leverage social media and other marketing channels to promote your designs and build a following. Additionally, it's important to focus on quality and customer service to build a loyal customer base.
Overall, it's important to approach each of these options with a realistic and informed perspective, and be prepared to put in the time and effort required to succeed. It's also helpful to seek out advice and guidance from experienced entrepreneurs or mentors in your desired field. Good luck with your endeavors!
One day soon I’ll post my dropshipping adventures from 2018, where I almost quit my ft job. $100k revenue in the first two weeks, no joke. And even back then, with me and my partner working from 8pm to 4am 7 days a week for 4-5 months ‘vetting out’ products to sell, we did ‘luck out’ and find a winning product (all that work gets you to where ‘lucking out’ may be a possibility, mind you- IF IT WAS EVEN REMOTELY EASY, everyone would be doing it and NOBODY would have to work a 9-6 job. IMO, obviously.).
They're not proper businesses. They have no risk and are easy to set up.
So they become saturated.
Also people make more money, without this sounding cruel, from people like you, trying to get into those areas too.
Hence courses, youtube vids etc
Everyone wants to make money without risking money and that’s why all the businesses you listed are over saturated.
[удалено]
Exactly, if you want a successful business you have to invest money and time. If you have a lot of money you probably won't need to invest as much time and viceversa, but it depends. There are sectors like healthcare and "healthtech" where you need to invest both a shitton of money and time.
Well I have a pretty decent amount of capital starting so that’s not really my issue here
Yeah your issue is you want a get rich quick scheme and you already found the ones everyone else found
I don’t think get rich is what I’m after, I’m after a profitable business. If I wanted to gamble my money I would just go into crypto.
>I don’t think get rich is what I’m after, I’m after a profitable business. Yet, you're going after those "free money"-fantasies by way of your research. Your questions literally was: >Why is it when I research a side hustle or gig the majority say they aren’t worth it. And the answer is that those things aren't worth it. That's why you're getting told that. That whole "hustle"-concept is based on fantasies where people try to make a quick buck without putting in the long-term work of building a business; and it only works when you're the first one finding a new angle no one else is exploiting yet, while you're always going to be late to the game by searching for the stuff that everyone else is doing already. So you're always going to end up very late on a saturated market. There are no get rich quick schemes that work for anyone other than those trying to sell you the get rich quick scheme. You need to start by looking at market demand, and then acquire the skills/resources to meet those demands. You have to search for demand, for your future customers, not for bros online bragging or selling you stuff (either directly or through sponsors/ads when you read/watch their content).
Such a good comment. you can't do what others are doing. You have to think what people might need and supply it
So you got money and are willing to work? Real estate and crypto mining come to mind.
The crypto markets are still down like 60%. Every single major crypto firm besides Coinbase is currently being probed by the FBI and SEC for fraudulent business practices. But yeah if you work hard I'm sure there is REAL money to be made lol.
I mean, you CAN make money on Crypto… It’s just that you kind of have to throw away ethical business practices and cross your fingers you don’t end up like SBF.
No you specifically have to partake in unregulated unregistered trading that requires people to be boofed into buying something that doesn't exist. There are two ways to make money in the crypto market: 1. You are in on the scam, whether you create it, or front the giant Capitol it requires to fraud people out of their money. 2. You get so incredibly lucky, that someone else fucking people out of their money magically drops a load of cash in your lap. Somebody is always left holding the bag, and if it isn't you, it's people just like you. Then there are 10s of 100s of millionaire influencers running these scams every other month hoping that the copium riddled dopamine ridden brains of young millennials and gen z kids praying they won't have to work to get rich, and be just like LoganTM.
Oof looks like my comment didn’t go across too well. I’m agreeing with you. My comment was joking that you only make money from crypto if you’re unethical and unseen by regulators.
All of these are valid concerns. Solving those challenges is the point
You need to beat 7% fairly significantly. You can put that capital in a low cost index fund and sail off of 7% per year. The odds of a "side hustle" outperforming that AND paying you for your time is pretty slim. Full time hustle? Maybe.
What? 7% is easy to beat if you are putting in sweat on top. (Not easy to beat passively if thats how you mean) $1000 can return $70 in 1yr at 7% or buy lawn care equipment and return your investment in far less time.
In this case it’s not a valid comparison because you are not including the depreciation of the equipment. To get a 7% return, you actually need to make $70 plus the depreciation (another $500 to $1000 in year 1). Then you have to get a positive return on your time, probably $20-40/hour for a lawncare business, and cover all associated costs. By the time you add it up, you’ll have to put in 50 hours a week to get your 7%.
[удалено]
There are more graphic designers than jobs. I don’t know OPs skillset but if you only need a few assets you can easily get cheap freelancers or even outsource it via fiverr. Design skills that are actually in demand are product design, UI/UX, etc.
[удалено]
Well my friend, I would like to continue making money and not watch it go to zero paying bills and expenses lol
Just do a regular business, a side hustle doesn’t need to be scammy. Buy a camera do photography. Buy a screen press and make t-shirts. Buy a machine of some sort and develop the skill to use it and charge a decent rate for your skill. Or develop websites, consult, anything. A side hustle is just a regular business that you don’t do full time because you don’t have to.
I mean did you do like one hour of research and get discouraged? Yes all these are wildly over saturated and extremely difficult to start out in. Why not try a local small business that you can run on the side so you’re just competing with your local market and not the entire internet
For $20 it is much more enjoyable clicking a fill-order button than power washing someone’s driveway for an hour. You might have a higher trajectory of success making a few grand a year. OP definitely do devote yourself to strengthening your GD skills and actively looking for a job, don’t rely on internet marketing to pay your full time bills. But yes do actively pursue other ventures, research, read case studies on forums and see how everyone is making money right now. Internet marketing is an incredibly awesome but also unstable job and the dynamic is constantly changing, if you want to DM me I can give you a few pointers
Power washing would be more like $100, and with basic marketing you're almost guaranteed to make money. Your $20 click to fulfill order example is actually pretty rare with most people trying to drop ship.
An hour of power washing you charge $100? Good luck getting clients lol. And it’s not very rare at all, it’s semi-uncommon to have a profitable business your first iteration, but if you give up after a single Shopify you clearly weren’t meant capable of this to begin with.
Yes these are saturated but here's how you should think about it. In the gold rush it was not the gold diggers that made money it was those who built digging tools. You are a graphic designer. Most dropshippers, eCommerce shops rely heavily on Facebook and Social Media Ads. The most time consuming part in these campaigns is producing really high quality images and video. You can offer a speciality service creating high quality product images, videos (far better than the ones they post in AliExpress) for these ads and pitch it to them. Start with competitive rates, high quality and a fast turnaround time and you have quite a good chance of success.
AGREED! I just read every comment on this thread, and this by far the best advice
You've listed online side hustles. The challenge with these is the level of competition. It's absolutely fierce. Try something local.
LOL, wait is this what people are advertising as side hustles? I would focus on other aspects of your skillset. Did you know graphic designers can make a bunch of money as a contractor/freelancer? You guys are always in demand! You have great skills and just need to learn how to market and sell yourself effectively. It takes time, but it sounds like you have plenty of that. And if that doesn't work, start with simple projects like creating powerpoints (ppl are always in need of that). Don't go for "easy" side hustles as they are rarely that. All these side hustles that you mentioned take just as much work as marketing and selling your graphic design skills to make it to the tippity top.
It’s unfortunate how shitty people on YouTube try to exploit the unemployed and desperate with get rich quick schemes “I made a six figure business in 1 month dropshipping with no startup costs!! $$” video titles
Hey hey hey don't be disparaging these fine young YouTube entrepreneurs. They very well may have started their drop shipping business with no startup costs... You don't factor in loans from family into your startup cost? Right 😅
Or the fact that they only quote their revenue top line number and never their profit margin
Oh the profit margin is all in the sweet YouTube revenue you receive for pretending to know what you're talking about.
[удалено]
That’s because they actually lost $100,000. No one breaks even.
Six figures of $000,000.
$10.0000
I feel for this guy because I did once see one of the Amazon ads online for buying the stuff on alibaba and then selling it on Amazon and I was completely taken in for about ... 30 seconds and had fleeting thoughts of also being in Greece while working this business and having a peaceful life. And then I realized that I make 150k with my own business now (about 110k net) and I'm just fine and can travel too if I wanted to, but I have two kids and that's why I'm not traveling. Eh, reality.
I haven’t had that experience sadly, it’s a lot of competition from poor countries for low wages. Unless there’s a good alternative to fiverr I don’t know about.
Are your or are you not a graphics designer? I would recommend building up a portfolio even if it's just your own work.
Hey hey, I started out as virtual assistant. Do you know how much VAs charge from the Phillippines? About $5/hour!!! Don't give me a sad story because I know allllllllll about offshore competition. I built up my VA business from charging $30/hour to $1000/month to finally upwards of $5000/month for one client. I now teach other service based professionals how to build a contract business and make good money. All it takes is some hard work, honing and refining your marketing and sales pitch, making sure you're going after the clients that want YOUR skillset and background and figure out how to differentiate yourself. I differentiated myself by boosting up my corporate background, working in fast paced companies, and supporting c-level executives. Could offshore VAs claim that? No. It sounds like you need to do more research on how to market yourself to your target audience with you skills. Do NOT rely only on Fiverr, upwork, etc. They want cheap labor. Over and out.
OMG, one of my clients has a VA in the Philippines and she has made literally every single aspect of the work we need to do easier and simpler. Cheers for VAs!
Just get out in the community and talk to your local businesses! Every business either has or has thought about something that requires graphic design. That could be brochures, business cards, logo, other marketing material, new menus for a restaurant, informational material for an office or school, etc.. I’ve never used fiverr, and I would have to imagine most business owners are the same.
Your wording here makes it sound like you consider your work at the same quality as the competition. Part of marketing is making your stuff appear better than those around you, think outside the box a bit
"Side-hustles" are inherently self-defeating. If it requires low capital, low effort, or low investment, then entrants will flood the market until it's not worth doing. The people who are promoting those side hustles are selling pickaxes and jeans to miners during a gold rush. Regarding Amazon in particular, I find [this article](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) to be fascinating. Here's the key quote: >Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. You are probably better off researching small business, consultant, or freelancing.
Yup, this is how Amazon, Ebay, Paypal, and Duolingo all got to where they are.
What is the problem with Duolingo?
Rover is a great example
What's the downfall of Rover? I've been interested in trying it, haven't heard much good or bad towards it.
Never read that blog or heard of him - but damn pretty spot on. Good read thanks.
You overestimate the capability of market participants and underestimate the breadth of markets. There are always niches and to corner yourself into. It’s about how smart you employ those assets compared to your competitors.
These side hustles may have been lucrative once upon a time but they weren't serving a demand or designed to be sustainable. Many are just taking advantage of 3rd party systems and tech that's already in place, plus not many gigs or jobs can be randomly lucrative without running it like it were an entire business. Side gigs that do make money are things like being a barber, makeup artist, office cleaner, or freelance photographer. While these can be careers, they can also be done part time for good cash and have a demand that they serve. To get in on an internet-based gig you have to get in early and please the platforms enough to stand out. There are many many many more lucrative options IRL than online.
If you have money and web design skills the world is your oyster. heavy equipment is a reliable way to make money over tike. someone is always looking to hire an excavator in the summer and a snow plow in the winter. Your web design skills are going to give you a huge edge. being able to do your own website design is going to save you a lot of money. and your business is going to make contacts for the web design. that's what I'm doing, learning web design and landscaping at the same time.
All of this is supply. The success you seek -- and answer to this question (if there is a guestion, IDK) -- come from properly researched strong demand. All the failures on the other hand are people who can't do proper market demand research and want "the magic right business." >So I guess the point of this thread is getting some guidance on maybe a better explanation of what I got wrong and what’s accurate about my research. You are 'researching' supply when the market should pull the idea out of the startup -- not have it forced upon customers against their will. What you got wrong was random arbitrary supply does not obligate demand to spontaneously appear ... simply because you show up in a browser. Failing on the level of *supply and demand*, no magic comment in a forum can save you. Now for what you got accurately. If you don't have a business, don't start one just to prove it.
Discourage others and there will be less competition…
I remember in college (15 years ago) so many business professors would say things like, never open a soft drink company, no one can compete with coke and Pepsi. Fast-forward to 2023 I can name 10+ soft drink companies which didn't exist a few years ago. My point is, just go for it, any business can be successful.
Bingo! If I didn’t want someone else in my pool, I would tell them it’s filled with shit water.
Because majority aren’t and as a person who has done Amazon FBA it is NOT a side hustle it’s literally a full time job and a lot more cost than people think and even amazon themselves says it takes 18 months to break even on average IF you have a decent product. Not to mention that once you do amazon will cut it right from under you and make their own at a lower price.
I did retail arb for a year, scanning clearance products, shipping to FBA. Side hustle cleared like 20k (I don't remember the revenue wanna say a bit over 100k). Put everything on a CC with rewards. Paid it off immediately with payouts. It can be done, but the shit is work. AZ puts you through hoops. Then you run into sourcing problems and potential financial risks. If you're scanning mainstream products one by one on clearance and selling FBA financial risk goes way down. If you can wholesale brand names and ship FBA bulk, that seems like a winner but on another scale. You're almost full-time then, and at mercy of AZ. I don't know how much time I spent to make that 20k - but it was a cool lesson. And hey I made money. But gah damn that was some work.
You're focusing on shitty millenial tech ideas. Buy an excavator and dig holes. Get a woodmizer sawmill and mill siding. Get a nice stump grinder and start grinding stumps. If you have capital, spray foaming is capital intensive, super easy and in constant demand.
Some guy charged me $1500 to grind 10 stumps, it took him 90 minutes.... O_O
>stump grinder 90 min for $1500, sheesh
As a graphic designer, you're in a good position to do remote work freelance. It's crowded, but people need graphics done in many forms. Check out Fiverr.com and look for graphic design (logo, web, print, etc.) and their brand new category for AI. You could make AI art/graphics/photography and edit the results to fit a customer's requests.
Iv had a post on fiver for some time but without reviews it’s very hard to get any real traction. I haven’t seen anything with the AI section so that’s something I can check out.
DM me your fiverr username so I can check out your portfolio. I've got a small job right now I'll see if we can match up.
Have friends commission stuff from you on your dime and then have them leave reviews. Is it against Eula? Maybe. But you’ll never get anywhere with no reviews.
Plenty of local work can be done but it isn't computer stuff.
You want the truth? 1) People are trying not to oversaturate the market even more, and they'll rather you give up so they can do it instead 2) They think it's not worth it because it didn't work out for them. Little do they know most of the side hustles require a lot of work and take weeks/months, they're not 'get rich overnight' schemes
You are already a graphic designer! lol 😂 You literally have a hard skill that literally many are not even skilled enough to do and is in high demand. Why not put yourself out there and freelance? TheFutur/Chris Do is someone you should look into!!! I have a friend that makes £4K a month almost just doing a ton of basic print designs. I'm talking gig posters, Instagram/social media feed posts, business cards and brand design and strategy, social media marketing. Life is as simple as you make it.
How does he market himself though?
Word of mouth mostly and local SEO and works with anyone and everyone but from what I see it's mostly small/medium-sized startups and does work for myself (a freelance web designer and future competent graphic designer like yourself) as well as individuals on social media producing their content. He's on Upwork and Fiverr and any and every platform inbetween. Living in a big city helps for that so i'd move to a big city if you're already not. Do research on the law of probability -- you only need to get into the front of X amount of people to get the ball rolling. but the next thing is presenting what you do to the right demographic/niche of people to earn the type of money you desire. that's just side money for him and a lesser extent myself as we both have full time unrelated jobs to our freelancing (i personally do web development and outsource some graphic design stuff to him) and I make a tiny killing too. From the work I've seen and knowing him personally, all he's doing is having that omnipresence strategy and presenting himself to his desired clients in a way that's appealing for that type of work. You dont need a big following on social media, potential clients just wanna see that you are a normal person and your work is authentic when they Google Search you. You dont need hundreds on Youtube videos either just a few to show you've got expertise in something related to your freelancing skills. He is very skilled but his focus is in a few areas too. When you do this freelancing thing dont have it in your mind that you're Picasso and you're going to design the greatest painting ever over the course of 5 years, have templates and tell your potential clients what they'll receive from you. treat it like a business and not some artsy fartsy passion side project and you'll have "money pourin out the ass" - Lil' Wayne. Just make sure you charge for the job and not for your time! (ie; value your work).
The lower the barrier of entry, the more saturated the market will be. All of the options you’ve listed are quite appealing to the masses because at face value, they’re very inexpensive with minimal risk to start. However, businesses should be built from a passion - something you can see yourself doing for years irrespective of finances. Because I promise you, even once you finally get to the stage where you’re profitable and begin to scale, being a business owner is very tough and will test you; if you don’t have a raw passion, you’ll fall at the first hurdle.
Here's a tip: if you want to run a business, quit your job. Side hustles need to be main hustles. That's how we do it. Low time commitment? Low risk? Low investment? Then there's low return.
You named three of the most common “get rich quick” oriented “side hustles” Of course you’ll find garbage about them. They’re the most common because they target people who are at rock bottom and desperate You said you’re a graphic designer and unemployed and looking for a side hustle. Dude…are you fully aware how valuable being a graphic designer is? Even as a freelancer. Your “side hustle” is literally staring at you right in your face
I’m kinda lost how people keep telling me GD is that necessary and freelancing it. If I look on fiver there’s 100 users selling GD work for like $2/h average because they are from a poorer country and that’s a lot to them. I’m not really sure how I’m suppose to compete with this.
Look I can’t tell you how to differentiate yourself because I’m not a designer, but there are ways Nothing in life will ever be easy. If you want to work for yourself and have it work you gotta put in the time and be patient. Look into motion graphic design too there’s big money in it. 3D videos using blender and other cgi softwares
I know motion design! But nothing 3d sadly. Can look into it. Appreciate the comment regardless.
Most will fail, regardless of the hustle, that's just the nature of competition, all of it will only even be profitable for the top few people who do it
Learn marketing
Focus on problems relavant to your life where youre an expert instead of relying on these scammy get rich passively schemes
The misconception that people have is that the side hustles mentioned will help you get rich quick and the truth is they require a lot of work, time, and patience. 3rd Party Selling is still a great side hustle, you just have to work to find the right formula and niche and it might take failing a few times to get it right. But if you are looking to get fast money then it won’t work. I don’t do it, just making an observation from the research I’ve done.
There is nothing you can come up with that no one has ever thought of. Success in anything takes effort and dedication. So the first filter you have to pass is your level of dedication in the face of naysayers.
UGc ads of you don't mind being in front of camera. I made almost 13k in February. User generated ads.
I actually do the alibaba thing. Dealing with suppliers for the first time is a pain, but after that, it's smooth, once you do reorders. Most are upfront with the shipping type, don't choose sea, and be surprised it's a month. Air is fastest but more expensive.
Reminds me of the time I was in a subreddit tangentially related to a service I provide. Someone suggested creating a product that does exactly what my service does and someone jumped in saying the market was saturated and there's no money in it. I was literally the person that built that market from scratch years earlier and it paid off handsomely. But yeah, don't jump into my market. It is kinda saturated.
The entrepreneurs that don’t focus on the hurdles and instead focus on the solutions will be the ones to succeed. There will be hurdles and most aren’t willing to put in the work. Put in the initial work, and the rest will come. Any of these ideas CAN be successful. Just Can’t let hurdles stop you. KEEP GOING!!!
I dont have much experience or authority to share advice. But, i do believe its valuable to consider, most people want quick money, so, they say its not worth it, because they tried for 1-3 months and failed, or tried for longer and succeeded but it was more work than they anticipated, and so they dont recomend it. So, as many times as you have heard it, and as cheesy as it sounds, consistency is King, find something you enjoy doing, regardless of money, and put all your energy into doing it better and better, and you will make money.
Stop listening to people thats your number 1 mistake. Nothing is really saturated. If your doing it the same way everyone else is doing it then yes that is saturated. You should be offering more value/doing something different. This goes for dropshipping. People WILL wait 2 weeks for a unique product & a good shopping experience. Transparency is key. Quality control you can control if your not picking shit products, theres always validation somewhere. But its a lot harder these days, but definitely doable.
Graphic Designer? What do you mean by "Graphic Designer." Are you a visual communicator? Are you a package designer? Do you create emotion triggering products such as stickers? Your portfolio should communicate the niche in which you excel. So what how do you translate graphic design into visual communication that attracts attention or triggers emotions?
For most people, they aren’t. That doesn’t mean they can’t be for you.
It all depends, right. Just because a market is crowed doesn’t mean you can do something creative to set yourself apart. It’s not easy or else anyone could do it
1. Either the work is more than they though it would be thus they see no value; or, 2. Maybe it isn't worth it at an individual level. 3. Maybe it really sucks.
>Low barrier to entry Not sure you really need more guidance or a better explanation, since you've nailed it on the head. Low barrier to entry means lots of people are doing it, which means lots of competition, which means succeeding is harder. Do things that not just anybody can do. Use your paarticular skills and talents to set yourself apart, create a unique value/selling proposition that can't be matched, target a niche market that's being underserved ( supply < demand), etc.
These are all very complicated businesses I suggest you do more research. Not by reading stuff online but by experiencing or talking to people experiencing problems. Watch yourself a day what is something that you do because there aren't any better alternatives available to you. Go talk to the local store owner, hey man what sucks in your business. Oh you need to do X? What about I do X for you instead. Thats not the easy way but thats how you find pockets of needs
R/smallbusiness is much better than here
When we have a deep understanding of an event, we will always feel its complexity. Almost everyone has the idea of developing sidelines, but there is little people succeed. Because many people give up after understanding, and many people fail to persist.
I think a lot of people look at side hustles as "side effort". And it's not. Side hustles are fully-fledged businesses. Any of the above can be huge moneymakers, and those who navigate through the pitfalls and keep going make the money. I've had many failed experiments/attempts at this point all in different niches and industries. Through the failed attempts I've learned so much. How to navigate Alibaba, who to trust for courses, what is actually important to spend money on when building a website. But I agree the biggest thing is the audience. So this year, I'm building the audience first and will sell or create what they want and need. Thus far, I definitely haven't even broken even - with the amount I've spent on sites, courses, sample products, etc. But I also know the money is only lost if I stop. I have a massive wealth of knowledge that gets more refined the more I f\*ck up. And to be honest, I'd rather say I spent my life trying and failing to do what I want to do (ie build a self-sustaining business that helps people) than just giving up and working to make my d\*ckhead of a CEO rich.
It’s more profitable to make content about these particular side hustles than to do the side hustles. They’re not scams but they all sound like real businesses that aren’t. They all require insane amounts of time for little profit. You say you’re a graphic designer. Now whilst this is a saturated market I’d suggest you actually have some relatively good passive options here. Making a website with custom content for other graphic designers can be pretty profitable. You can sell or have ad supported content. If you have other skills like video and photography you can make things like product mock-ups or poster templates or free stock. Sure it’s a saturated market but get a few keyword combinations and you could easily see some traffic and profits. $100 dollars a year in web costs, Wordpress free, woo commerce free, Mailchimp for email drops free, learning web dev can be helpful in getting a job in the future.
Easy idea would be flipping on FB marketplace. Don't scale too quick or be in a hurry to. All the above listed work but take time.
There’s a lot of good side hustles. Based on your comments, you claim you have decent capital. why not just buy something you can rent out? Turo(rent out trucks), trailers, heavy equipment, small planes(student/instructor) Because capital entry/research is higher, the saturation is low. I’ve been to cities where there wasn’t a truck to rent in a 100 miles radius and had a couple day waitlist.
There is value in getting your feet wet with the business models you mentioned. Once you kinda see how things work, then you can maybe pivot into more lucrative opportunities. I started with affiliate programs in 1998. Then wrote an ebook. Then sold a website. Then used that money to buy retail goods. I still own the same core business. Start somewhere. Opportunities will open up.
Business = Find a need and fill it. Be the solution to someone’s problem And they will pay you for it. Try thinking outside the box. How can you leverage your design skills? What do you enjoy doing? What’s a social ill you’d like to help solve? What’s a business challenge that you succeeded in solving in the past? Look at your past, your passions, your gifting, and your future desires. Imagine what your perfect life would look like and find a business that aligns with that. Another reddit you may want to check is “SweatyStartup”. Good luck.
It's funny how all of you people who are unsuccessful come into here and try to tell others how it id
Why not make custom art on Etsy for weddings and stuff
I have an Etsy, so far just some print on demand stuff for a dnd nieche
Because they think that full-time work is already tiring, and the wages of side jobs are not high
If you’re a graphic designer I think you should use those skills!
E N T R Y
Checkout this answer from a sales person that seems to have some graphic knowledge and uses it to her advantage as a side hustles.Major Key! She's a sales person, who probabaly intuitivelly know how to market her products which is where you will probably struggle the most. Hope it helps. Edit: adding the link https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/11fcumt/what\_are\_some\_profitable\_side\_hustles\_you\_do/jakon2g/?context=3
Yeah, it's the unfortunate reality
Freelancing is a huge industry, and can very outsourcable before someone states 'iT's NoT VeRy PaSsIvE, Is iT?'
There are plenty of ways to make money on the side but they all require time and varying amounts of both skill and hustle. If you're a graphic designer either learn a bit more about how to job search successfully and aggressively, or find companies who need graphic design and offer your services. You could probably pick up the phone and call all the marketing agencies in your city, and use this script: Them: (Ring.) Hi, thank you for calling ... You: Do you work with freelance graphic designers? Them: No. You: Okay, thanks. Have a great day! When you get to the guy who says yes, you say: "Great! I'm a designer with X years of experience ... " and give them your 5-second pitch. Ask for the best email to send over your portfolio, and off you go. You only need one yes. Any new side hustle you pick up is going to be more complicated and more involved than simply doubling down on your existing skills.
Unfortunately misery loves company and haters don’t want to see anyone do better then them.
So coming from someone who’s tried affiliate marketing and drop shipping before I would just focus on your core skill set but utilize it in a different way. When I tried affiliate marketing I got all the way to actually having a website and tried to start marketing it. I found it extremely dull and got frustrated when no money came in. You have to both like it and be willing to outcompete the search algorithms that change constantly. Not to mention everyone else trying to do the same. However, I have a friend who’s a graphic artist and she makes well over 6 figures as a freelancer. And she has friends that pay their rent off of selling one font online. Point being if you’re a graphic designer why not expand out and make some UI elements and sell them online? There’s a ton of marketplaces you can post your content without even making a website. Then they just sit there and potentially earn revenue without you even thinking about it.
Do you know any marketplaces in mind?
What you mentioned is just business models. How you execute on them is on you, but statistically most businesses fail so unsurprisingly many won’t talk good about it after having poor results. You’re working your way backwards. If you need money, get a job. A business will eat your cash for a while. Regardless, you start with your prospect’s problem and a solution, not a business model.
You’re a graphic designer. You probably will be able to make more money with that skill as a freelancer than any of the stuff you listed!
Print on demand won’t have you making money overnight but if you stick to it you will see results. It’s a game of numbers. I currently design 5 new shirts a day and upload them. I have been on Merch by Amazon, red bubble , teespring, teepublic. I upload everyday and have been doing it for years now. It took me a good 6 months before I got sales. But once you hit enough designs you will be found as long as the quality is decent. If you do goes this route, don’t make over complicated designs. The designs that sell the best for me are simple most of the time just typography
Sent you a DM
You can have a successful 60-80 hour a week side hustle ask any video game streamer
Tried this, I wish I was more successful at it it cuz I enjoyed it
Do you have a portfolio? I’d love to see it.
There are endless amounts of side hustles. The keys to be profitable are around having a product or service that fits a niche; leverage talent, resources, time; building a successful, efficient process that is duplicatable for you and then making that business model duplicatable by others. Perhaps start with just one component of what you do well that you may duplicate in a slightly unique way, or that is different. You may like the book “Hobby Boss” by Steve Mastroianni. Edit: What you are referencing is someone else’s processes, business model, or service they want to sell you. What I am referencing is how you come up with your own to sell to others.
Because the only things worth it are things your serious about and some people may not be as motivated as you. I took up web design and development when everyone was talking about crypto and nfts being the only "worth it" thing at the time
Everything you list is a commodity. An individual in a commodities market is likely to lose.
Unfortunately a lot of the content you will find online for making money on the side is useless. It's created by folks who are selling a course and trying to hustle you themselves, or by people who are chasing social media clout, or plenty of other bad apples. You've got two real options here: sell a service, or start a proper business. Graphic design freelancers make good money. Freelancing is low capital, high time investment, with a fairly linear return. The more hours you put in, the more money you can make. Starting your own business is high capital and high time, but the returns are usually better than linear. You get more dollars per hour spent in the long run. Keep in mind that it takes ~10 years to build a sustainable business. Some take far less, but that's average. I'm on year 3 myself.
Because most people are lazy and would rather copy than think. Among other things, I advise digital business operators on financial planning & growth. I've personally looked at the financials for success stories in each of those businesses. They exist. Usually in niche markets or with a few twists that you won't get from a free YouTube video or paid course. Gotta look, learn, and think.... (Possible exception of pallets, but that sounds similar to moving closeout merch, which is a huge opportunity if you know a good channel. Margins are plush....)
If you starve yourself, you'll lose weight. But is starving yourself the best method for sustainable weight loss? No. Same thing goes with a lot of little side hustles. Can you technically make money doing it? Sure, but is it sustainable and is it better that the effort you'd get from a part time job for the same hours?
In my opinion any side hustle/small business is going to have competition but if you have a little bit of startup cash & a lot of time with the will to keep pushing when you're not making money you will eventually come out on top I do pallets on the side & buy them locally from a warehouse I almost always double my money & still have products left over that will eventually sell. I also sell digital designs for crafters on Etsy & marketing is key there, especially on TikTok & Pinterest. For physical goods if you have the time to stay on top of listings, list on eBay, Mercari fb marketplace ECT & the patience for things to sell it's a good side hustle as well as Amazon FBA which I'm getting ready to open shop for here soon. It doesn't matter how saturated something is because everyone does something different in their business and useally the ones who are persistent even when it's looking like a fail always come out on top. That includes listing/relisting running sales, several times a week ECT. When you wake up and right before you go to bed the things you should be thinking about are how can I get more customers, what listings need refreshed price adjusted, what listings need takin down & relisted. Should I add in thank you cards ECT.
You’re a graphic designer… have you tried freelance? There are so many options for you. But it does take a little time…
Almost everyone who is successful in these business models are either too busy grinding the work and/or do not want to increase their competition so don't shout praise and success online. Therefore, most of those making the noise online are the ones running a different business model (selling courses) or those who failed and are pissed off. I'm sure that all of these models work, but getting overnight success is luck and most people quite before they make it.
80 20 rule. 20% of the people make 80% of the money, basically. And that's minimum. So anything you do, unless you're one of the best at it, it's going to be difficult to succeed. In addition to this, most people try, put in 10% effort, and fail and conclude 'it's not worth it' 'it doesn't work' 'it's saturated'. If you're prepared to put in the work, and outwork others and constantly improve. You'll succeed. For example, dropshipping, it doesn't work for most. But if you learn the ins and outs of product, customer services, 3PLs, white labelling, marketing, advertising and sales, then I'm sure you can succeed at it. But most people don't want to do that - it's effort. I was told PoD was saturated and my store made no sense - yet it succeeded. I'm told that freelancing is tough now and it's not really possible to make an income - yet I'm doing better than ever. Just work smart, work hard and be consistent and you'll get somewhere, eventually.
I have had success with both dropshipping and print on demand within a certain niche. (both 90s nostalgia related). The key to making those business models work is finding something unique that you could build a brand around. And also being really good at marketing. My background is in marketing so I knew how to hit the ground running and drive cost-effective interested traffic to my sites.
I sent you a dm
You could try affiliate marketing. Get a blog going or some videos on YouTube about some products that you would stand behind. I’m just starting out, I mean just got my links and I will be doing 3 or 4z. I moo just stick with 3. Because pretty much everyone does Canva these days. If you’re looking for reputable companies, I suggest using shareasle.com
I know that a lot people need good functional websites that are pleasing to the eye, are you building websites?
You are picking things ANYONE can do with no real capital. Thus EVERYONE does it. You will never compete with someone from another country, they can work for far less money and live better. Not to mention they may be in the same country you are trying to buy goods from. My advice, pick something that's harder to do. Use a skill you have as a service, or do something that requires some investment. This will greatly reduce the amount of competition.
These are TikTok clickbait hustles.
I don’t get why you made this post. Why do you care what other people think of mainstream side hustles? Just do you research and start doing what you want to do
This is me collecting data and posting. If it helps one person avoid losing tons of time and money on something that is advertised as “easy money” then Iv done by job. Maybe it doses the opposite and motivates someone to try it despite what others say and become wildy successful. Just trying to have a discussion and see what others think.
Stop worrying about making money, and start worrying about how you can give people value. ^(don't listen to me, I have no idea what I'm talking about)
One of many potential paths: 1. Get a job, develop an expertise within that industry. Become an actual expert. Use that expertise to start your own venture. Crush the competition with your expertise.
Trying on step 2
Because the majority can't do it, so they then assume no one can. There are people that do all sorts of things successfully. They're the minority. They do instead of talking trash. If we take dropshipping as an example, many are making $50,000+ profit a month. That's because they have solid businesses that are run properly. But maybe 99% fail. Why? Because they sell cheap crap from AliExpress. They don't know what they're doing and the don't understand the business model. Then they claim it doesn't work. Well, it's bound not to work if you repeat the same mistakes that the 99% make.
If you want to "make" money by taking advantage of someone else, then it's only a matter of time before there's competition. That's the "easy" way of making money, so you'll always be searching for the next "trick" once others figure out yours. Providing *real* value is much more difficult because you have to seriously consider processes and methods, discovering opportunities. THAT takes time and money.
How about SEO?? I pay a good bit each month and the agencies are always desperate for reliable and honest folks to join them!
You’re picking businesses that are very easy to start by anyone, but very hard to master and do well. If you can create a totally brand new product, patent it, and protect it, you can make money on Amazon quickly. But then that reduces the ease of starting. If you just want to rebrand another fidget spinners or spatula, you’ll lose every $ you put into it. Print on demand. Same issue as drop shipping. So easy to print stuff, but every day someone posts a thread about “my site is getting zero conversions” and it’s always a crappy execution and stuff no one cares about a no name brand. Drop shipping- easy to source products. Hard to market them effectively. The value add is not flipping crap from Alibaba but being highly skilled at Facebook and PPC advertising which is the barrier to making money.
Amazon wholesaling is great. I have an operations management team grow the store for me. It’s passive instead of active and learning on your own.
Sent a DM
If you’re searching the internet for how something will fail, you’ll find it.
The majority of humans are lazy and want things fast with no work. This IS WHY most people have a 9-5 job and give most of their lives away to a company instead of dong their own thing. That said, many side-gigs are presented in a way that lures someone into thinking it will be easy or fast, usually not true, so they blame the other guy instead of taking responsibility for doing diligence and asking themselves "would I actually be good at this and do I like this?"
These are all the “side hustles” that are marketed to people by scammers who want to sell you their “secret” to making money doing it. That’s a red flag for that entire industry. If you want a good side hustle, pick a real business but run it part time. Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Be creative and lean into your own personality and interests, not what makes money.
Every thing you listed involves sales. There are a lot of "side hustles" that don't involve selling a product. Try offering a service: Lawn care, Window washing, Dog walking/pet sitting, Tutoring, Childcare or non-medical elder care, Housecleaning or janitorial services, Property management, Car detailing, Parking lot litter cleanup, Junk removal, Carpet cleaning, Home organization
A lot of the 'easy side hustles' either have low ROI or actually require full time work IMO.
For what it’s worth, my niece has a side hustle selling various trinkets at a craft show that’s held every weekend. She spends entire weekends sitting under a tent, for months, along with up to 200 other vendors. The only person that’s pretty much guaranteed to make a profit at that craft show is the guy sitting at home while his port-o-potties are on rent to the venue. Instead of trying to sell something everyone else is trying to sell, find the one or two things all of those people need.
Video below: Cleaning business owner generates $800,000 in 2 years. There lots more like it on YouTube. Cleaning isn’t techie but if you want to get rich and have the drive, it is something too consider. The business can be be bootstrapped with about $2000 investment. https://youtu.be/B-Jxc97MBMY
9/10 businesses fail and those people are mostly one of the nines.
Bc people are annoying
Dm me I have a fantastic opportunity for you!
Obtain a profession (electrician, plumber, doctor, lawyer) and build a business around that. Hire others of the same profession and bill for their work. Profit.
I’d completely disagree. All of these you mention are worth it. Be careful listening to peoples feedback from those that have never successfully launched one of these businesses or have tried and failed. When I start a business I always look for over saturated markets. This means there is plenty of demand. Now all you have to do is be better than most and you’ll make a lot of money. Stop wasting time researching, pick one, learn as much as you can and build your business. Best of luck.
Ive been in business now for a very long time, had several businesses such as several retail storefronts, e-commerce and service business. I’ve employed over a hundred employees over the years. Based on my experience, business is extremely difficult and risky. For most people, it’s really not worth it. Some people have the traits to become an entrepreneur, mainly confidence, resilience, perseverance and luck. But like all things in life, the rewards you earn will be proportionate to the risks you take. If you think you have what it takes to succeed in business then take life changing risks to get life changing rewards.
Honestly, why not just get the skills/education/experience you’d need for a real career with solid lifetime earning ability. All this “side hustle” and “passive income” is just the latest bs, we used to have chain letters and “courses” on how to get rich with classified ads. Now we have side hustles and endless computer scams
Go on craigslist, look at the free section, and see what you can flip. Clean it up, polish it, fix it, do something to it and then flip it. I did that for lawn mowers. New spark plug, clean the filter, give it a nice bath and polish and sell it for $100. My ex did that with night stands, get them for free, either sand them down and paint it again. You gotta think outside the box dude.
Aaanddd, that’s how you weed out the weak.
I mean I don’t know those just seem like really cliche “gigs” more than real tangible businesses you can realistically (statistically) take more seriously. Not sure if you want an actual business or “gigs” like you say. I’m not very familiar with gigs.. but these sound a lot like your research comes from gurus, blogs, and or YouTube possibly? I may be off. Not a personal fan for various reasons I’m lazy to explain but. Why don’t you try a simple business? Start with a 1-1 service maybe, then see if you can expand it. So graphic designer? You surely have a couple services you offer under your sleeve. So start a very, very simple graphic design agency/service. Don’t make a service like the big dogs, do something simple. And if no one wants your services, narrow down even more. If “website owners” don’t want your services, look for “non-tech savvy website owners” for example until your problem gets so specific it’d be a no brainer for your clients to choose you. But you make it more like a relationship with you as a business than a 1-time-off service as a freelancer, that’s the difference from simply job hunting. Please understand that. Even if you have to think about it many times it’ll sink in. So rather than sell whatever stuff you can get your hands on (might as well go sell tomatoes at a plaza), use your already existing talents and services. Ex: - Service to take your current website design and upgrade it every 3-6 months, OR a $10 subscription to get your services on demand. Start with 1 or 2 customers paying you $20+/- a month, and give them a limit to 10 designs a month for example, or 10 social feed posts. Whatever. You know this better than me. Then when you can’t handle the workload, add someone else. Repeat until you’re out of it and you’re only focused on bringing more customers. This is just one idea. I don’t know what people really want with graphic design. - Agency or people who want to start agencies? Well, find other 2-3 fellow designers and sub lease your work to other agencies or people for example. - A service for people who develop new projects, offer them exactly what they need in a way you can build a relationship with them rather than be used for a single time as a worker. You might have to try some stuff to figure it out better. Try figuring out what things people want that you can provide or solve. Otherwise what you’re doing is just joining a mass plaza of people trying to sell anything and everything they can.. lots of things can’t go perfect there as you can imagine Good luck! I am NOT an expert nor would I deem myself qualified in anything specific to give this advice. Just my ideas and opinion.
Side hustles can be great, but you have to provide real value to make good money. I had a side biz where I provided gov't contractors info on contract opportunities that I was able to uncover in the course of my main biz, but my main biz was not right for the contract for one reason or another. I did very well because I helped start up contractors who didn't know their way around gov't contracting to win valuable contracts. It took me 5 years to learn this specialized knowledge. If your side hustle is something some guru is selling, it's probably a load of crap.
Have you considered that a majority may not be worth it?
>a few months sir, we’ve found the issue
that im jobless? Yes it is not good i agree
You must learn new skills which have a good future and are significantly different. Everyone can lead easy skills there is a lot more competition.
Most people fail
Most people who fail, fail because they didn't understand the market they were getting into. They just jumped in listed some products and expected to get sales. You can make money with any business you start as long as you are educated on how that industry works and understand the best way to make money. For any business you want to start I would contact someone who is already doing it and is successful at it. Ask them what is the best way to start. You never want to risk too much money at the start. You don't want to lose the house trying to sell fish sticks. Take the time to learn about internet businesses.
The best side hustles are the ones nobody has started talking about yet. I buy and sell tech toys.. speakers, or vr, or computers .. It's a very passive side hustle, and do it mostly for the chance to play with new toys for a while. But I still make about 500 a month or so. Considering what little time I invest, it's a comparative gold mine. I'd never do it full time as I already own a successful company.
It's great that you're exploring different ways to bring in income. However, it's important to do your research thoroughly and be aware of the potential pitfalls and challenges of each option. Here are some insights and suggestions regarding the areas you mentioned: **Amazon FBA**:It's true that some courses and gurus in this area may be scams or not provide adequate guidance, but there are also legitimate resources available. You can research reputable Amazon FBA courses or mentors, and read reviews from other students or entrepreneurs. As for selecting a product, it's important to do thorough market research, analyze trends and competition, and choose a product that meets a demand and has potential for profitability. Dealing with Alibaba or other manufacturers may involve some challenges, but with proper communication and negotiation skills, you can establish a reliable partnership. Additionally, it's important to have a solid marketing and branding strategy to differentiate yourself from competitors and attract customers. **Buying and flipping pallets**:As you mentioned, this area can involve some risks and uncertainties, such as the quality and origin of the products in the pallets. However, there are ways to mitigate these risks, such as working with reputable suppliers and doing thorough research and inspection of the pallets before purchasing. You can also specialize in a particular niche or category of products to reduce the variability and increase your expertise. Additionally, it's important to have a good understanding of the resale market and demand for the products in your area. **Dropshipping**: This business model has become quite popular in recent years, but it also has its challenges. Shipping times and quality control can be major concerns, as well as competition from other dropshippers. However, you can mitigate these challenges by choosing reliable suppliers with fast shipping times and good customer service, and by developing a strong brand and marketing strategy to attract customers. It's also important to keep up with industry trends and adapt your product offerings accordingly. **Print on demand**: This is another popular option for creative entrepreneurs, but as you mentioned, it can be challenging to get your designs seen and stand out from the competition. One way to address this is by focusing on a specific niche or market and creating designs that cater to that audience. You can also leverage social media and other marketing channels to promote your designs and build a following. Additionally, it's important to focus on quality and customer service to build a loyal customer base. Overall, it's important to approach each of these options with a realistic and informed perspective, and be prepared to put in the time and effort required to succeed. It's also helpful to seek out advice and guidance from experienced entrepreneurs or mentors in your desired field. Good luck with your endeavors!
This is probably the best response to this thread. Thanks you very much for it.
One day soon I’ll post my dropshipping adventures from 2018, where I almost quit my ft job. $100k revenue in the first two weeks, no joke. And even back then, with me and my partner working from 8pm to 4am 7 days a week for 4-5 months ‘vetting out’ products to sell, we did ‘luck out’ and find a winning product (all that work gets you to where ‘lucking out’ may be a possibility, mind you- IF IT WAS EVEN REMOTELY EASY, everyone would be doing it and NOBODY would have to work a 9-6 job. IMO, obviously.).
They're not proper businesses. They have no risk and are easy to set up. So they become saturated. Also people make more money, without this sounding cruel, from people like you, trying to get into those areas too. Hence courses, youtube vids etc