Pondering a side hustle? Here's what you need to know
Monday, 4 January 2021
Has 2020 left you thinking you’d rather not rely entirely on your day job?
Many people started the year confident they were on track with their work lives. Then the pandemic turned everything on its head.
For some people, it’s been a reminder that it’s not a good idea to have all your financial eggs in one basket, and it’s sparked a wave of interest in “side hustles” as a way of creating extra income streams.
**READ MORE:
* 'Debt Free Diva' paid her way out of a $94K hole
* Surviving the winds of change
* The tortuous tale of two towns
**
E-commerce entrepreneur Sarah Chrisp has more than 150 videos on YouTube sharing tips on how to set up online businesses.
Chrisp said she was a big advocate of the “side hustle”, especially in a post-Covid world.
“Having a side hustle diversifies your income streams and makes you more financially resilient. We are taught to diversify our investments, so we should apply that same advice to our income sources and diversify them too,” Chrisp said.
She said when picking a side hustle it paid to choose something that did not occupy all your time and energy.
“Some things in life are more important than money, and health and family are two of those things, which is why I only ever recommend using your free, spare time to work on a hustle.”
The three things to understand before starting a side hustle, Chrisp said, were copyright rules, that you did not have to just sell locally, and that with online businesses everything took longer than expected.
Chrisp said running a successful online side hustle did not require intelligence or talent. All it needed was grit.
“It is a trait most people need to purposefully develop, and not having it will be a big barrier when setting up an online e-commerce business because any sort of business requires learning a diverse skill set.”
Here are some creative online side hustles that are increasingly popular.
Selling prints online
There are thousands of videos on YouTube detailing how to create a passive income from selling online prints.
Websites such as Etsy allow people to sell PDF versions of posters and art they create.
Selling printable greeting cards, posters or art could earn sellers cash while they slept as all the buyer had to do was pay the money and download the PDF.
The artwork could either be the seller’s own original work, or images could be bought from artists online to be reproduced.
Influencer marketing
Like it or not, influencer marketing has become an effective way for big and small companies to push product.
Any social media account with high engagement and a few thousand followers on Instagram or TikTok can get started.
According to The Social Club’s earnings calculator, influencers with 1000 followers could earn about $50 for a sponsored post, while those with more than 100,000 followers could earn upwards of $2000 a post.
The Advertising Standards Authority published new guidelines this year ensuring influencers were acting fairly while promoting products online.
Since September, influencers must explicitly label their content as an advertisement, sponsored content or gift as they may risk having the post removed and souring relations with the brands they are promoting.
Reselling domain names
This relies a bit on striking it lucky, but if you identify and snap up website domain names others might want in the future, you can make a quick buck.
Anyone can buy domain names from a domain registrar, for between $30 to $100. Once they're registered to you, you can sell them to other people at whatever price you can agree to.
Trade Me has more than a dozen listings for domain names, with some available for thousands of dollars.
One seller listed two Covid-related domain names, coviddrugs.com and coviddrugstore.com, for $2000 after buying the domain names for a business that never eventuated.
Another domain name, satan.co.nz, was listed for $66,666 on Trade Me.
Online courses
Online tutoring has become the norm after Covid-19 forced universities and schools around the world to teach over Zoom. There are lots of platforms that allow you to sell an online course to participants – the key is to develop content that people value enough to pay for.
Tutoring people or just uploading videos on how to do things could be a passive income stream.
Websites such as Fiverr and even Facebook allow people to utilise the skills from their day job to earn extra cash after hours. There are videos with thousands of views on topics from how to walk a dog to how to ride a bicycle. You’ll just need to develop enough of an engaged following to convert those clicks into cash.