17 (non-obvious) side hustles to diversify income | #08

17 (non-obvious) side hustles to diversify income

No. 08 — read time 8 minutes

Welcome to The Soloist, a weekly newsletter where I share timeless ideas and insights about life, business, and art.

The list of major companies announcing layoffs doesn’t seem to end.

Amazon, Google, Meta, Salesforce, Microsoft and even IBM.

And it’s not just tech.

Goldman Sachs, Capital One.

The list keeps growing.

What breaks my heart is that people, including friends of mine, relied on these jobs as their sole source of income.

Think about that.

In a moment’s notice you are left scrambling trying to figure out how to pay next month’s bills.

Hopefully many of them have emergency funds but the point stands—nobody should ever find themselves in a single-point-of-failure mode. Instead, we want redundancy.

Redundancy, for all my non-tech readers, is a concept in computer science that basically means having backups for the main part. Sort of like a spare tire for a bicycle.

You want to avoid the whole thing crumbling because there was a single-point-of-failure.

Diversifying your income is an insurance policy

Having multiple sources of income is an insurance policy for when things go sideways with your main income source.

The best part is, once you learn that it’s all a game it’s like having a light bulb go off. You can’t stop thinking of ways to make additional income (at least I can’t). So why don't more people do it?

• Too tired after 9-5

• Not sure where to start

• Limiting beliefs about income

• Don't think they need it (until they do)

Fortunately, all of these can be overcome. It's simple, not easy, but you can create additional sources of income in your spare time with the skills you have, and best of all...

Most of these divorce your time from your income. Meaning they will continue to pay you even when you stop working.

Let's dive in:

1. Consulting - Several friends of mine who work in management consulting (think BCG, McKinsey) started offering services on places like Upwork. Everything from building basic financial models to help with cleaning up PowerPoints and even some strategy work. This is definitely time for money but it can be a great extra bit of juice each month.

2. Mentorship / Coaching - Still trading time for money with this one but no deliverables. Just the expertise you have matched with a wide network of people hungry to learn from someone just like you. Sites like GrowthMentor, MentorPass, and Intro do all the work for you of finding leads. All you have to do is open your calendar and set your hourly rate.

3. Passive Real Estate Income - Investing in sites like Landa and Fundrise allow you to put money in and collect dividends every month or every quarter. Truly passive income from real estate for time-poor people who can't stomach the idea of investing in real estate directly. So far I've been making 12% yields on my investments in Landa. It's ridiculous how easy it is.

4. Write an e-book - E-book sounds lame but just think of it as a "guide". Daniel Vassallo wrote a guide to using AWS (he was a developer at Amazon working on AWS) and published on Gumroad. He brought in $40k in sales in his first 16 days. Gumroad makes it really easy to get started. You don't need any design skills. Just start writing.

5. Write an actual book - You don't need to be picked up by Penguin Publishing House or any book publisher for that matter. You can self-publish directly on Amazon in e-book, paperback, and hardback. Boom–now you're a published author. Hassan Osman still collects royalties for books he published 6.5 years ago.

6. Lead an investment - This one is a little more nuanced but if you have access to a hot investment, there are platforms like Allocations.com and AngelList which it make it simple to spin up a Syndicate or SPV (special purpose vehicle) to act as a mini one-time fund to make an investment. Disclosure: financial investments are a highly regulated space so be wise and consult with an attorney before doing this.

7. Create a course - Have knowledge that a book or e-book wouldn't be appropriate for? Create a course on Udemy, Teachable, or Skillshare. You could also host on Gumroad or something like Podia or Mighty Networks but you'll have to bring your own traffic to those. If you want built-in traffic and discoverability, putting your course on Skilshare/Udemy/Teachable is the way to go.

8. Create a cohort-based course - Let's say you like the idea of a course but you want some interactivity, you want to create a community, and you think there's something lost in a pre-recorded course. Sites like Maven make it really easy to start your own cohort-based course. A close friend just started one and said Maven even provided a mini-accelerator to teach new educators how to make slam-dunk courses that get rave reviews.

9. Build a micro-SaaS - What is a micro-SaaS? A subscription based software for a very small niche community. With no-code tools you don't even need to know how to program. Read this guide on how to make your own app in a weekend (it's really good). The thing I love about software-as-a-service is that the costs to build have come down tremendously and you get recurring revenue from customers who are truly in love with what you built. Finding out what to build is the hard part. Building it isn't.

10. Ghostwriting - Here's a little secret you probably didn't know... many of your favorite accounts on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter are using Ghostwriters. The whole industry has exploded and its easier than ever to find status-hungry clout-chasing accounts with money who are too lazy to do their own thinking and writing. I know someone who writes a few tweet threads a month and makes $10k. That's ten thousand dollars every month for writing some tweets.

11. Affiliate Sales - Another friend of mine started a "Reviews" website and YouTube channel when he realized nobody online was offering quality reviews of electric shavers. His beard was too thick for regular ol' Schick or Harry's blades (very jealous) and he needed to make a purchase decision around electric shavers. Nobody was doing it, so he decided to do it himself. Read about it here. Everytime someone purchased a product he reviewed he got paid.

12. Buy an Instagram account - Still blown away this this a thing. Sites like SocialTradia and FameSwap let you buy an account that already has an audience that you can then start selling things to. Think merch, digital products, or affiliate links. Wild times.

13. Buy a cash-flowing business - I'll do a deeper dive on this in the future but there are millions of businesses out there that are producing cash-flow where the owner just wants out. Maybe they want to retire, maybe they have a different business they want to go all-in on, maybe they just feel like they've done all they can with this business and are ready to hand it over to someone else to grow. Whatever the reason, they're looking to sell. You can find digital businesses (SaaS, marketplaces, ecom, apps) on sites like Acquire, QuietLight, or Flippa. Or you can look at sites like BizBuySell for a traditional brick and mortar business. You don't even have to use your own money to buy these. In many cases you can negotiate seller-financing and/or get debt financing to acquire the business.

14. Business Brokering - This one takes a bit of expertise in understanding how business sales work but you can be the one brokering the deals, matching retiring business owners with the would-be acquirers yourself. I have a friend in finance who makes anywhere from $100-300k for every deal he closes. He does this on nights and weekends.

15. Airbnb Arbitrage - This one used to be a bit dicy but with the real estate market at a seeming stand-still, it's much easier to approach landlords and offer them a deal. You rent out a unit of theirs long-term and then furnish it and list it on Airbnb. Let me clear—doing this without the landlord or property management's permission is a big risk and not worth your time and effort. But I know for a fact people do this in markets like Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and Miami and the landlords sign off on letting them do it.

16. Buy an Airbnb - If you like the idea of Airbnb income but want to own the actual real estate you can just start looking for active properties for sale. De-risk the investment by entering "airbnb" in the Zillow filter. The listings will share with you how much money they make on Airbnb so you can run your own numbers. The best part of Airbnbs for W-2 job holders is the incredible tax breaks you get. Read more about that here.

17. Create content - I believe now is one of the best times to start creating content online. My perspective shifted when it dawned on me that there are +5 Billion people on the internet. Someone out there wants to hear what you have to say. Like to write? Start a newsletter or blog. Like to be on camera? Start a YouTube or TikTok channel. Like to take pictures? Start a professional Instagram channel. With ads revenue you can, over time, start to chip away at some of your monthly expenses all from ads that run on the content you already created. The hardest part? Getting over your own insecurity and hitting publish.

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That was 17 ways to make passive or side income. There's probably a ton more I'm forgetting.

The opportunities are endless. You just have to pick one.

Which one are you most excited about trying? Reply back, I really want to know.

Till next time,

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. If you save a lot of bookmarks on Twitter (like me), try dewey. —
   the easiest way to organize Twitter bookmarks (I'm one of the makers).

2. If you're looking for coaching on audience growth book a slot here.

3. I’m putting together a course on how to network online to grow faster. If you’re interested sign up here.

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