Did someone ever tell you to write your business idea on paper and put it where you will notice it daily? Whether it’s a business name or just the business concept — it’s essential to read it out loud and visualize your business flourishing every time you see it.
This easy-to-read guide is packed with practical tips and advice that will help you build a viable business model in a straightforward way! It will also help you identify your passion and purpose, upskill and expand your knowledge and refine your best side hustle ideas to make money.
Before you get started, it’s important to consider how this side hustle can impact your lifestyle, including time, work schedule, salary, daily stress and, in the end — overall goals. Remember that the side hustle can help you pay off your debts or plan the trip you’ve always dreamed of! Whether you’re planning to start your business, having temporary gigs or a part-time position, this guide is for you!
Table of Contents
When Is the Best Time to Start Your Side Hustle Idea?
There is no perfect timing. It’s always worth revising a business idea of what you’re naturally good at, drawn to and passionate about. Meeting a deadline shouldn’t compromise your reputation.
You can take some time to sit down and list problems or pain points you’ve observed recently in the business environment around you.
It could be a type of marketing service or vintage shop that isn’t available in your area, an online course, a design agency or even a dance class that you could offer in a different but unique manner.
First, write down your list of pain points and then try to develop a business concept that could solve or fix the problem. Secondly, mark at least two ideas for a side hustle that excites you most from this list.
Consider all those around you who encourage you to earn extra money from your talent.
A viable business model is when you:
- create the best solution to a problem that people are experiencing
- come up with an amazing idea that will add value to peoples’ lives
- when people are prepared to pay you for the unique solution or added value you’ve come up with
Interestingly, people who develop a successful solution are the ones who have personally faced a problem related to a particular business.
We all have skill sets and ideas that we can use to establish successful business models. But not all of us can persist or even make the first move. Once you get some clarity on your side hustle business ideas, you’ll likely face several excuses that will hold you back, such as I’m not good enough, there are lots of competitors, or it’s too risky.
Remember that you are on the verge of significant change when considering a side hustle. Now that you know that side hustle can only make your life more flourishing let’s see how you can turn your passion into a profitable business.
How to Discover Your Passion and Turn It Into a Business?
It’s not easy to identify your true passion, but sometimes the best thing you can do is push yourself.
Take some time to sit down and brainstorm using the following questions:
- What do people you care about tell you you’re good at?
- What do you wish you could get paid to do?
- What is an authentic passion of yours?
- Who is your ideal customer? How would you add value or solve a customer’s problem?
Once you have your answers and business idea, try to answer these questions:
Would working on this side-hustle idea bring more meaning to your lifestyle? Can you describe the feeling of this idea coming into your life? What would it feel like to see people loving what you do?
When you look at any successful business story, you’ll want to dig deep and discover how it was built from scratch. Maybe you will start your journey as an event planner, but then you will end up with an event planning company. Who knows!
So, here are some tips on how to start your side hustle and what to consider!
Best Tips to Consider Before Starting Your Side Hustle
Starting something brand-new and building it from scratch means taking a risk and venturing into the unknown. But the good news is that some of the tips for business success can make a big difference and help you overcome your fear.
Let’s get started!
Question Yourself
Building your side hustle will be one of the most rewarding challenges you’ll ever come across. You’ll need to prepare for this journey by asking yourself some deep, fundamental questions about what you want to achieve.
Reason
When we desire to make a significant change, there’s always a little voice in our head that makes us doubt ourselves. Many experts call these undermining thoughts, such as ‘I’m not smart enough’ or ‘I cannot afford it’, as our ‘limited beliefs’.
The first step to overcoming these negative beliefs is to recognize them and try to redefine them positively — and place them in reality, not in your (negative) imagination.
So, what is your reason for starting this side hustle is a big question.
Before you answer this question, here are some of the benefits of kickstarting your business:
- You will discover your new skills
- You will build new habits and lifestyle
- You will become more resilient
- You will overcome self-doubt
Take a quiet moment to sit and imagine the perfect outcome for your side hustle. This will help you answer the question of why you want to start your business.
Time
Deciding on which time is best for starting a side hustle will allow you to take ownership of what it is that you truly want to achieve.
For the next six months, mark out times on your calendar for when you will prioritize working on your side hustle.
Be realistic about the energy and time you can put into it. Also, be disciplined when this appointed side-hustle time comes up.
Do Market Research
Now that you have a business idea, you need to do extensive research to understand your target market. You need to know the best way to serve them.
The first thing you need to take into account is that your business isn’t really about you. It’s about your customer and how you make a real impact on their lives. Gone are the days when branding strategy is just about selling. By looking at your future competitors, your biggest task is to figure out how you will be different.
Market research is, therefore, a must; it will help you articulate your point of difference.
- Declare your reason why you want to start your side hustle
- Decide on which time is best for starting a side hustle
- Do market research
- Analyze your competition
- Define your brand’s core values
- Shift your positive money mindset
Analyze Your Competition
Competitor analysis is essential when looking for your ideal target market. Firstly, make a list of three to five individuals, brands or businesses who are currently good at the business you strive for. Recognize their strengths and weaknesses in order to define your point of difference.
This will help you to understand who exactly will be buying your solution. Remember that the most successful businesses deeply understand who they’re selling their story to. By capturing the attention of their ideal target audience, they are able to tailor their business offering to what they need.
To know how your audience deals with problems they experience and how they can trust your brand, ask yourself this essential question:
- What does an average day in their life look like?
Then help yourself answer by filling in the template:
- While working, they like to…
- Throughout the day they engage on these platforms…
- They frequently make a purchase by visiting these platforms…
- The frequent problem they experience daily is…
- They are looking for a business/entrepreneur to help them with…
- When they seek a long-lasting solution, they look for…
If you can alleviate their pain, solve their problem, or add value to their life, you can better serve them and keep them as customers. And you can finally start planning your brand strategy.
Define Your Brand’s Core Values
Brand execution is so much more than a pretty website and a logo. Most people in the business environment think that successful branding includes a pretty logo, nice fonts and catchy colors. Putting all that together on a website doesn’t represent a brand.
It’s also about delivering your services, presenting your website, developing policies, taking care of your employees and maintaining collaborations. Your branding needs to communicate important information to your customer about your achievable business needs. To understand the stages through which your user should go and for your branding to be effective, you need to define your core values, and your brand should reflect them.
Here are some questions to help you define your brand’s core values:
- What aspects of your brand will your customers spread the word about?
- What values of your brand will deeply resonate with your target audience?
- What will make your customers return to you?
- What target words would your customers use in an online search to find you?
Remember that in a business environment of endless choices, consumers seek brands they can align themselves with.
Next, take some time to consider some of the best brands you admire. Figure out how each brand shares its messages and what feelings evoke in you.
It’s thus essential to consider the following aspects of your business, so you can incorporate each of them within the story of your brand. Those can be:
- The tone of voice,
- Colors, Images, Social media
- Price point and returns policy
- Customer service
- Customer expectations
- Communication: phone, email, online
- Giveaways, rewards, promotions
- Locations, environment
- Delivery of product/service
So, displaying your brand in everything your business requires from you, including social media platforms, your tone of voice, website and packaging.
Now that you know how to refine your company’s values, it’s time to articulate what you want to achieve in your business with the help of your positive money mindset.
Learn to Shift Your Positive Money Mindset
So far, you have worked through these key takeaways:
- A clear side hustle idea – the problem you’re solving or value you’re bringing
- A target market – those who can benefit from your product or service
- A clear point of difference – the way you express your core values
The next biggest question is: ‘What should you charge?’
Most people often get stuck on it since they are prompted to undervalue themselves. They still do not expect a fair exchange for their work. Without a solid ROI, they soon juggle a handful of other jobs to pay the bills. They soon get tired and uninspired and need help managing their time.
If you’ve been in the same or similar situation and are serious about your side hustle idea, it’s time to get honest with money talk. To start off, pay attention to the following:
- Don’t neglect some of the hidden expenses essential for launching a profitable business
- Turn money topic into a comfortable one, not an uncomfortable
- Think beyond an average hourly rate to better understand the money side of a business
- Forget about phrases like ‘I can’t afford it’ or ‘I’m not worth it’
The more comfortable you are with loving what you do and knowing that people need what you offer, the more likely you will get paid well. So, if you can get comfortable with the money topic, you will feel more confident when pricing your offering.
Here are some side gigs to make money!
Best Side Hustle Ideas
Become a Transcriptionist (If You Know How to Listen Carefully)
Definition: A transcriptionist converts audio or video files into a written form (document). To be a transcriptionist, you must possess excellent listening skills and master the English language. This also includes deciphering audio with background noises, multiple speakers and accents.
Pros:
- Flexible work-from-home job (+no stress)
- Requires little to no prior experience
- Freedom to set your own working hours
- You don’t need a college degree
Cons:
- Beginners may only earn about $10 an hour or less
- You might have to pay for your healthcare costs (in case you are not covered by your employer)
- You might need a piece of better tech equipment for your work-from-home office, so pay attention to these extra expenses
Helpful tips:
- Improve your listening skills by listening to a podcast
- Practice typing fast
- Invest in noise-canceling headphones and a mechanical keyboard
- Decide on the number of hours you plan to spend on transcriptional work
- Search for transcription jobs (good luck!)
Become an Event Planner (If You Have Organizational Skills)
Definition: An event planner coordinates different types of events. Those range from corporate, private or charity events. Corporate event types include trade shows, seminars, conferences, company meetings, product and service launches, company parties and meetings and team-building events. Non-corporate event types, on the other hand, include festivals, weddings, charity events, exhibitions, fashion shows and sports.
Pros
- You don’t need a degree to get started in event planning
- Event planning ranks among the best side hustle jobs because of the salary and work-life balance
Cons
- There is a possibility of the frequent weekend and night work
Helpful tips:
- You should get hands-on experience planning events (for example, by participating in an internship)
- You can choose from many different types of event planning certificates and courses available through professional organizations and career schools
- Create a portfolio (include event brochures, photos and testimonials of the events you organized through community involvement)
- Specialize in a certain type of event planning (conferences, cultural events, weddings, business meetings, fundraisers, etc)
Become a Virtual Assistant (If You Like Multitasking)
Definition: A virtual assistant offers administrative services to scale business growth. For example, a virtual assistant can take on marketing tasks such as digital marketing support, email management, or content marketing, enabling a business owner to focus on other operations and improve them.
Standard virtual assistance can range from administrative, accounting and finance, marketing, project management, customer support, design, multilingual and sales services.
Pros:
- You don’t need to have an advanced degree
Cons:
- VAs often assist with processing payments and creating regular budget statements, so for those who are not good with numbers, this position is not recommendable
Helpful tips:
- Define what kinds of start-ups, businesses or entrepreneurs you want to help
- Improve your virtual assistant skills by taking online courses
- Declare your pricing point
- Create a portfolio and start applying for virtual assistant jobs
Become an SEO Writer (If You Like Researching and Writing)
Definition: SEO content writer creates content to be placed in the top positions of the search results. SEO copywriting is challenging because the degree of creativity can depend on the concerns of the organization writers work for. To deliver best SEO practices, SEO content writers must clearly understand the core message that is to be communicated.
Pros:
- It’s a lovely way to earn a living
- You can work in a comfortable home office
- You can constantly expand your knowledge in a particular topic
Cons:
- It can be exhausting to focus on the creative aspects of writing all day long
- it’s hard to stand out in the competitive market
Helpful tips:
- Learn and read a lot about SEO and how it works
- Exercise and remember: never repeat words because your reader will not tolerate a lack of structure and fluff
- Learn how to use SEO tools (watch online courses on YouTube or Skillshare)
- Work on your communication skills since you will need to discuss SEO with your clients
- Browse open SEO jobs and find your first gig (good luck)!
Launch an Online Course (If You Like Spreading Knowledge)
Definition: Online courses are a great way to share your level or expertise in a particular field with other people and earn extra income. Some of the most popular online courses range from marketing, technology, personal development, health and other south-after subjects.
Pros:
- supporting other people to get the best value from your online course
- online courses are cost-effective
Cons:
- It may be necessary to hire staff to assist with the course development
- It requires a variety of online tools related to digital marketing, which can increase the business’s marketing costs
Helpful tips:
- Choose a subject you are passionate about
- Start building an email list and invite those interested in your subject
- Choose a managed hosting solution to launch your site and promote your course without having to worry about slow loading times
- Decide on your course pricing
- Create a marketing strategy and start promoting your course online
Become a Blogger (If You Like Creative Work)
Definition: A blogger writes content and publishes it online with the goal of increasing traffic, attracting a new audience and making money. One of the most profitable blog niches includes fitness, food, finance and blogging.
Pros:
- Blogging gives you creative energy and drives curiosity
- It gives you a chance to educate yourself constantly, keeping you open to new opportunities
Cons:
- You must have a lot of patience to start a blog
- It requires constant fighting with Google algorithm updates
- You must always fire up your creative juices, even when you feel uninspiring
Helpful tips:
- Decide on your blog’s niche (health, sport, digital marketing, food, financing etc.)
- Choose a reliable hosting service to get your blog online
- Hire a good designer and make your blog shine bright
- Publish your first blog post (and celebrate)
- Invest in SEO tools (Ahrefs, SemRush etc.)
Start a Podcast (If You Like Sharing Stories)
Definition: People run podcasts to express their passion through storytelling (their ideas are heard through podcast series). Sharing original content has become the most desirable way to earn extra income. To create a successful podcast, you must resonate with your audience and have a team of people you can trust.
Pros:
- Sharing knowledge with the rest of the world will make you feel proud
- Building a personal connection with your audience
Cons:
- Requires a significant time commitment to research
- Investing in audio equipment and software is a must
Helpful tips:
- Choose a podcast topic that excites you
- Decide on a catchy podcast name
- Pick a hosting solution
- Make a list of the guest you want to invite
- Decide on how long your podcast episodes should last
- Find a quality audio editor
- Publish your video content frequently and promote it across social media
Bottom Line
We hope this article gave you a better insight into side hustles that actually work.
Your career can sometimes be riddled with unpredictability and setbacks. But with the right mindset, you can create the lifestyle and business of your dreams.
Let’s revise all the steps before starting a side hustle:
- Declare your reason why you want to start your side hustle
- Decide on which time is best for starting a side hustle
- Do market research
- Analyze your competition
- Define your brand’s core values
- Shift your positive money mindset
…and you are ready to turn your best side hustle ideas into reality!
We wish you good luck!