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15 Side Hustle Ideas for 2023 - businesses my friends & I have tried and made it work

Reading Time: 12m 15s

List of Content:
  1. Introduction
  2. Hustle Idea #1: Make a Physical Product and Sell It
  3. Hustle Idea #2: Teaching Calligraphy Workshops
  4. Hustle Idea #3: Freelancing a Skill You Know
  5. Hustle Idea #4: Gig Economy: Food Delivery Uber/lyft
  6. Hustle Idea #5: Business Coaching
  7. Hustle Idea #6: Package Your Knowledge Into a Course
  8. Hustle Idea #7: Start a YouTube Channel
  9. Hustle Idea #8: Start an Etsy Shop
  10. Hustle Idea #9: Write a Blog
  11. Hustle Idea #10: Social Media Marketing
  12. Hustle Idea #11: Selling Books on Amazon Self-Publishing
  13. Hustle Idea #12: Consulting
  14. Hustle Idea #13: Offering The Service You Learned in Your Formal Education
  15. Hustle Idea #14: Flipping Things
  16. Hustle Idea #15: Room Decoration
  17. Conclusion

Introduction

In the past four years, I've tried nine different kinds of businesses, like side gigs and side hustles, and two of these side hustles brought me to quit my job in 2019. So I've been doing my thing full-time for about three and a half years.

If you're considering starting a business this year, keep reading because I will share the nine things I've tried in the past four years and six other business ideas that my friends are doing and making money with.

The hustles I share in this article will be a combination of passive income streams and non-passive income streams, so we'll start with the ones I've tried first.

Hustle Idea #1: Make a Physical Product and Sell It

So I first tried making a physical product and selling it. So the first thing I ever did when I started my calligraphy business, I sold greeting cards.

Initially, the idea seemed the easiest when considering starting a side business selling greeting cards because I wanted to do something. So I started with greeting cards.

Some other friends are selling other kinds of physical products, such as bubble tea holders, crochet products, beauty products, clothing and for those.

It's more difficult to start because you have to find Like A supplier or like a Manufacturer for those things. When I started selling green cards, I went to a print shop, just like printed greeting cards.

So it depends on the kind of physical product you want to sell. If it's like a handmade thing, it's easier to start because you do it in your own house. But starting is more difficult if your passion isn't something else and you must look for a supplier or manufacturer.

But you can still do it. I think I want to sell some journals in the future, so I'll probably have to find a manufacturer to make the journals or something like that.

Hustle Idea #2: Teaching Calligraphy Workshops

The next thing I tried while working in my nine-to-five job was teaching calligraphy workshops. You can host workshops if you have a skill and others are interested in learning it.

But it'll be helpful If you want to host some creative Workshop, maybe a photography Workshop or a how to plant things Workshop.

First, you can rent a room or find a cafe willing to host you, and you don't need to find a very formal place to teach. You can find your place.

Hustle Idea #3: Freelancing a Skill You Know

The next side hustle idea is freelancing, a skill you know, which could be photography. Video editing, writing articles.

I did on-site calligraphy and offered wedding calligraphy services, a great way to start a business if you already have a skill you know and don't have to go out and learn something. Another thing is like teaching languages, that's another thing.

Hustle Idea #4: Gig Economy: Food Delivery Uber/lyft

The next one I tried was last year, and I only did this for a month. But I tried delivering food with uber eats, which was an experience. It was cool to try it out, but I don't like it because I don't like driving, and I suck at parking. But there are so many of these gig economy kinds of side hustles you can try, like food delivery, taxi services, grocery delivery and Taskrabbit.

Hustle Idea #5: Business Coaching

After quitting my job in 2019, I wanted to take my calligraphy business from an in-person kind of business to a more online business, and that's when I started business coaching. So I was specifically helping calligraphers with starting a business.

So if you've already done something you know how to do, you can coach and teach others how to do the same thing. If you want to do this or how you can do this, you can start by offering a couple of people free beta coaching packages.

So I did this at the beginning when I was I had like low self-confidence, I didn't know if I could coach people, and I didn't know if my advice would be helpful, so I found three people who wanted to start a calligraphy or an art business, and I coached them for free for like a month or two. And then, they got results, and I started offering pay packages.

Hustle Idea #6: Package Your Knowledge Into a Course

From there, You can do one-on-one coaching. You can do group coaching, and then the other thing that a lot of coaches like to do or a lot of people who teach things is once you build an audience.

You can package your knowledge into a course, so that's also what I did. I have a course called the calligraphy instructor Academy, which is about how to host a calligraphy Workshop. It's very, very Niche.

If you can get a system running or have a big enough audience, you could like to make passive income from selling the course. For me, my calligraphy instructor Academy course. It's super, Niche, and I don't sell it passively. I wish it were sold by itself. It's good that I tried; I know how to create a course - and I think, in the future, I'll make another kind. Of course, that isn't a super duper Niche.

Hustle Idea #7: Start a YouTube Channel

Two years ago, I started a YouTube channel, and honestly, it has been taking so long to get it off the ground like I was. I made so many videos. It wasn't until last month that one of my videos got bigger, the whole time I was doing YouTube, I felt like I was shrugging along, and the growth has been slow and steady. So, if you want to make money, YouTube is not the fastest way.

But if you have that passion for liking and sharing things with people and are willing to put in a lot of time and energy, I'm not saying it will take two years. It took me like two years to get to a point where I'm happy, but you don't know how long it will take you to get monetized and build an audience.

And, you can, you know, don't have to be monetized to make money off YouTube. You can have a YouTube channel and sell your course or your other services, your coaching Consulting, but it's like a labour of love. You need to want to do YouTube to be consistent and sustain this because it is a lot of energy.

Hustle Idea #8: Start an Etsy Shop

The next business I started was an Etsy shop, which I have been very happy about. It's about two and a half months, and I'm making consistent sales. But Etsy shops are a great way, especially if you sell digital downloads; it's more of a passive income stream.

You can start an Etsy shop and sell physical products, but starting an Etsy store is great because everything's in one system, like the payment systems and everything. And if you have good SEO, you might not even need to promote social media like people can find your product through Etsy search.

Hustle Idea #9: Write a Blog

The other thing I have is a Blog on my Denacolligraphy website, and that blog is actually not monetized, but you can monetize a Blog. So many people make a full-time income from blogging, and there are several ways. You can do Affiliates, You can do ads, and you can use the blog to promote a product or service that you offer.

There are so many ways to monetize a Blog. Those are all the things that I have tried myself, and I'll give you some other ideas, and these are business ideas that my friends or people I know have done, and they're successful doing them.

Hustle Idea #10: Social Media Marketing

So the first one is social media marketing. Many friends like freelance social media management, like they help companies or brands or, just like other business owners, manage their social media like the social media calendar, writing captions, or making posts and doing strategy work.

Hustle Idea #11: Selling Books on Amazon Self-Publishing

Another one is selling books on Amazon, so self-publishing books. I don't know much about it, but it can be very lucrative if you know what you're doing and find a good Niche for Amazon self-publishing.

Hustle Idea #12: Consulting

So the next one is Consulting, and I have a couple of friends who are Consulting on what they used to do when they were in a job.

So I do know somebody who was working in non, like, the non-profit sector, and then She quit her job, and now she's doing non-profit Consulting because she already has that experience, and now just she's doing her own thing but in the same field.

Hustle Idea #13: Offering The Service You Learned in Your Formal Education

The next thing is offering the service you learned in your formal education.

So I have one friend who went to school for counselling or a therapy program, and then I have other friends who are accountants. They worked at accounting firms, or they worked in corporate accounting, and they are now taking On their clients on the side, like helping people do their taxes or bookkeeping and stuff like that.

Hustle Idea #14: Flipping Things

The next one is flipping things that you really like or have a lot of knowledge about.

So I have friends who do this in the fashion world and then friends who do it in the sports cards world. I've never done it myself, but  I've heard you can make much money. I don't know.

Hustle Idea #15: Room Decoration

The next thing is something I want to do in the future, and hopefully this year. One of my goals this year is to buy an investment property and rent it out monthly or do Airbnb.

So I have friends doing this, and honestly, I love the whole Airbnb idea. I want to design a place, and I love meeting people and helping Travelers, so that would be fun.

Conclusion

So honestly, I just gave you a lot of different ideas, and there are so many more ways that you can make money, so many different ways, So many. There is a way to make money in anything you're interested in.

You could do so many things, but when you are trying to start up the thing, it takes a lot of energy and work to do one thing.

So if you are thinking about starting something, especially if it's like your first business, start with the easiest. Still, then also like you should probably have an interest in it like don't Do it just for the money, or because like you're going to be doing it for a long time, or at least one or two years, and if you're not interested, then you might like at the end not want to do it anymore and pivot.

That happened to me; I love calligraphy, but I knew it wasn't the full-time thing I wanted to do. The full-time thing that I want to do like content creation, sharing my journey, and YouTube and making passive income.

So Etsy is great, but I did the calligraphy and the business coaching. I knew it would be a stepping stone to where I wanted to be.

I wouldn't have been able to start my YouTube If I didn't start my calligraphy side business. After all, with YouTube like I, I never thought I would be a YouTuber because I didn't have the confidence to be on video, and I wouldn't say I liked how I looked. But I had to do a lot when I started the calligraphy business. I did like a lot of Instagram stories with my face in it.

So I got a lot of practice, and because I did that so much when I started the coaching business, I put myself out there and, like all, helped me build up the confidence to do YouTube.

So you should go after your passions, but I understand that some of you might need Quick Cash, and that's why you want to start a side hustle.

So if it's for quick cash, the gig economy offers a service you already know, like video editing, photography, or teaching, maybe tutoring. So those are the easiest ways if you need cash immediately.

When you start any business, the business strategy and picking the right business is really important, but having an entrepreneurial mindset's also super important.

I have an article about The mindset shifts I made going from employee to entrepreneur, so check out if you want to start a business and be in the right mindset.

Article source: https://youtu.be/6ARcHQeM148