AI transcript
(dramatic music)
10 creative side hustles that make real money.
Oh, what’s up?
What’s up, Nick?
Oh, welcome here.
Welcome to The Side Hustle Show
because your nine to five may make you a living,
but your five to nine makes you alive.
It’s that time of year again.
It’s time for our Thanksgiving tradition
of showcasing some of the most interesting
and creative side hustles that have come across
my desk this year,
starting with number one, mobile gift wrapping.
Is this something you could do in your area?
Michelle Hensley is a longtime side hustle show listener
and she’s grown her business Nifty Package.co
to a $300,000 a year business.
I truly started Nifty Package out of a necessity.
I was a pastor’s wife, homeschooling children
and running a nonprofit.
I was in a position to give things away,
not to have to make an income.
What do you do with a pastor’s wife
after her husband passes away when she’s 50 years old?
Now I was on a journey to create an income for myself
at age 51.
After I got home from an interview,
one of my sons said, “Mom, you had a gift basket business.
Why don’t you start that again?”
So ultimately I made an art out of gift giving
in order to bring joy to both the recipient and the giver.
My gift basket and mobile gift wrapping services
is niftypackage.co.
In 2018, while praying, I was looking out my window
and I noticed and realized my van was sitting there empty.
I thought, gosh, I already make gifts.
I wonder if anybody wraps gifts.
And does anyone go around and even do that?
Is there such a thing as a mobile wrapping?
Can I put all my gift wrapping paper in my van
and drive around and serve people?
I put up a webpage that day
and I got a call from a current client within a week
asking if I’d come out and wrap all those gifts.
I was so excited.
I piled everything into the van to take care of that job,
brushing my hands when I was done
and then I realized I forgot to label every gift.
I had to go back and rewrap every gift.
I learned a huge lesson, which blossomed into a business.
In March of 2019, I got a call from Two-Face Cosmetics
asking if I could do a large scale gift design and gift wrap.
I was so excited, this was right up my alley.
Their brand is very similar to mine,
which is a little edgy but still very beautiful.
We got a million hits on that Instagram feed on their site.
And then in August of 2019,
I got a call from the Kardashian estate manager
asking if I’d consider creating a design for Kim and Kanye.
I was not sure who they were
because I didn’t watch TV at all.
This is where I transitioned from pastor’s wife,
grandmother, mom to business owner.
I piled all my paper in the van
and headed out to their home.
My own team was there with me
and everyone was watching me from her team.
She didn’t like any of the five or six ideas
I presented to her.
I walked outside and I’m like, Lord, you brought me here
and I’m not going home without a sale.
So I walked in and I suggested a fear-shoky gift wrap
and created that out of fabric and she loved it.
And that’s what started the celebrity gift wrapping.
We continued to get referrals and the brand
continued to expand across the nation.
I started training on how to gift wrap many women
and teams all over.
So we have several Nifty corporate gift wrap teams everywhere.
Eventually becoming the number one mobile gift wrapping
business in the nation.
So although we do luxury gift baskets,
the mobile gift wrapping is 70% of our business.
I’ve had many reach out to me and ask me
how I ran my program.
So now currently I’m starting to franchise
and license across the nation
because this is absolutely a new opportunity.
It’s a perfect hustle, especially for the holidays.
You can do it with one person.
You can do it with a team.
So typical sales could be well over $200,000 for the season.
In reality, for one person, it could be 30 to 50,000.
So what’s next for Nifty and myself?
Well, I wrote a book so you can go to my personal brand website,
which is MichelleMHensley.com.
And you can read it, put your information in there,
and all that it would be is the cost for shipping
or you can buy it on Amazon.
I’m working to raise funds to start the franchise,
which is already in place,
but it just costs a lot of money
in the state of California to do this.
Also, I license and I teach others how to run
their own profitable mobile gift wrapping business.
You can join my Unwrapping Your Mobile Gift Wrapping
Business Masterclass, and I teach my gift framework there.
Thank you again, Nick, for this opportunity.
I look forward to talking to anybody who has an interest.
They can totally email me, Michelle@niftypackage.co,
or call 714-863-6058.
Happy wrapping.
– Happy wrapping, indeed.
Now, we’ll link up all of Michelle’s resources,
including her book, Master,
The Business of Mobile Gift Wrapping,
where creativity meets convenience.
She sent me a copy, which of course was very nicely wrapped,
in it, she says the average price
for a nicely wrapped gift is $25.
So you can start to see how the revenue
in this business can start to add up,
especially if you land a few corporate customers
who are sending gifts out to their clients
or partners, employees.
And you may not need even a celebrity client like Michelle did
to start to get some pretty serious business there.
Now, next up on this list of creative side hustles
is Print On Demand Candles.
Oh, sure, we’ve covered Print On Demand on the show before.
We’ve even made some money doing it ourselves.
My wife and I.
It’s always been T-shirts, stickers, mugs.
Never knew there was such a thing as Print On Demand Candles.
Francisco Rivera started his candle-focused Etsy shop
in early 2023, and according to CNBC,
sold over $450,000 worth of product last year
at an estimated 30 to 50% profit margin,
which is actually a really strong margin
for a physical product business
where he doesn’t have any inventory risk.
That was enough for him to leave his tutoring job
and pursue the business full-time.
Full-time in air quotes because the CNBC article
also has him saying he only spends around 20 minutes a day
on his shop.
And that’s one of the advantages of a model like this
in that you can make sales even when you’re not working,
but there obviously is work involved in product research
and creating and uploading new designs.
Francisco uses Printify as his fulfillment partner
and mentioned that neutral-colored organic candles
performed well with his witty and eye-catching labels
and that he uses Canva to create those.
Now, this made me super curious.
What other random products could you do print on demand with?
In Printify’s catalog,
I found some interesting options,
including pickleball sets that can make a good gift, right?
Baby onesies, kids’ shoes that look like crocs,
but aren’t officially crocs, of course,
and some Christmas ornaments.
Then you figure out what niche you wanna play in
and what kind of clever design that might make a good gift.
And it’s a pretty low-risk business.
All it costs is 20 cents to create an Etsy listing,
and you can see if anybody wants to buy your thing.
The Etsy sales system integrates directly with Printify,
which handles the production
and the shipping to the end customer.
Now, one downside to this and to other print-on-demand businesses
is the issue of copycats.
Pretty much as soon as you find something that sells,
other sellers and research tools can see that
and are often going to blatantly rip off or copy your work,
which can dilute the listings
and push your products down in the search results.
And still, Francisco says it’s best to focus
on creating new candle ideas rather than spending
too much time trying to fight with copycats.
Now, what’s the next big thing for Print-on-Demand?
If t-shirts are too saturated,
maybe there’s an up-and-coming product category
that could be a blue ocean for you.
Creative side hustle number three
is pay what you want poetry.
– Hi, my name is John McCollum.
I’m 22 years old.
I live in Nashville, Tennessee,
where I am currently a full-time poet.
My business is JM Street Poetry,
and my website is jmstreetpoetry.com.
My business basically consists of me
sitting at a table with a vintage typewriter.
Strangers come up to me,
tell me what they want a poem about.
I write it, they pay however much they want for it,
and that’s it.
I first was inspired to do this when I was an English teacher
and I was talking to one of my friends
and they saw a guy doing something similar in New York.
And I had an old typewriter
that someone had given me when they moved away.
And I was so inspired by the story of a man
sitting outside writing poems for strangers all day.
I thought it was beautiful and creative
and sounded like a great way to spend a Saturday.
So I bought a folding table,
went to a busy street in Nashville,
where there’s a lot of shopping,
and I wrote a sign on the back of a Manila envelope
that said poems for sale, your topic, your price.
I was expecting to maybe write a handful,
but the entire day I had a line,
people were paying anywhere from one to $100 for a poem.
I was writing about everything
and just having these wonderful interactions with strangers.
It was the most creative day that I had had thus far
and it was incredible.
So I started going out every weekend I could.
And if school ever wrapped up earlier,
I would be out there writing poems for people.
I bought a nicer chair and a tablecloth
and it was incredible.
Saturdays I’d make anywhere from $400 to $800.
Weekdays were quite a bit slower, but still fun.
And so when my school year ended
and I had a summer to figure out
what I was gonna do next,
I decided to try and take it full time.
So I’d go out during all of the busy hours
and figure out the scheduling,
figure out when people were out, when they weren’t out.
And all of a sudden, people started trying to book me
for events.
So we made business cards, designed a website,
made an Instagram and started trying to book
more corporate events and weddings
where I would just sit there with a typewriter
and people could come up to me.
It’s been an incredible journey of now
being a full-time poet.
I just can’t explain the joy of working for myself
and doing this thing that I care about so much.
My average week, I make anywhere from $9 to $1,200,
working 15 to 18 hours a week, which is incredible
’cause it gives me time to work on my personal writing
and my personal poetry.
As far as next steps go for the business,
I really want to build more of an online presence.
And I hope to be able to publish
a poetry collection eventually.
You can follow along, find out more on Instagram
and JM Street Poetry or by checking out my website.
Thank you so much for having me on.
Huge fan, love what you do here.
– JM Street Poetry, give John a follow over there.
How cool is that?
What a fun and random business.
I’ve got more creative side hustles
coming right up right after this.
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All right, three down, seven creative side hustles to go,
including a couple honorable mentions we’ll sneak in.
Number four on this list is virtual mechanic.
In fact, the six-figure virtual mechanic.
And when I think about jobs that can be done remotely
versus jobs that really need to be done in person,
car mechanic is one that fits pretty squarely
in the gotta be there hands-on category, right?
Well, Chris Pyle is provenly wrong,
earning an average of $14,000 a month
as a virtual mechanic through the Q&A site, justanswer.com.
Now, the site’s been around for a long time
and Chris has been on it for a long time too, since 2006.
It is a place where you can connect with experts
and those experts get paid for their advice.
On the customer side,
just answer charges a monthly membership fee
ranging from around $30 to $125 per month,
depending on what kind of experts you’d like help from.
It’s interesting to me that it’s packaged as a membership
when I imagine most people coming to the site
for the first time just have one specific problem
that they want solved.
And the complaints about just answer online
seem to mirror that apparent disconnect
with customers saying,
“Hey, I didn’t expect to get charged for the next month.”
But on the expert side,
you can earn 20 to 50% of what the customer paid
to answer their question.
And there are over 100 different categories
in which you can join as an expert.
Compared to other marketplaces,
that fee is actually really steep.
Normally you would see the platform taking 20 to 30%
as a fulfillment or matchmaking fee for new members,
not 80%, but each question individually
might only be worth $2 to $20
depending on the category and complexity.
But still, if you enjoy answering questions,
you can knock them out quickly,
you can make good money
as Chris’s virtual mechanic example proves.
Chris originally trained as a transmission tech with Ford
and stumbled upon this online side hustle,
turned full-time income,
while he was researching how to fix a transmission
he was working on.
It didn’t take long before he signed himself up
as an expert on just answer
and started answering questions after work.
He told CNBC that he liked the challenge
of diagnosing a motor that he couldn’t see, touch, or smell
and realized he had a knack
for virtually helping people solve their mechanical problems.
Chris made $500 in his first month
and $1,000 in his second
and eventually eclipsed his day job salary
and now far exceeding what he used to make
at that old day job.
And one drawback here is that Chris
is really putting in the hours in this CNBC article.
He says he managed to take this side hustle full-time
in 2012 and that it fits really well with his lifestyle
and pays better than his old job,
but that he still works every single day
and an average of 40 to 60 hours a week.
It looks like there’s a pretty extensive vetting process
to get accepted as a just answer expert.
And there are all the career categories
that you might expect like law and medicine
and finance and technology and home repair.
But there are also some expert slots
in academic tutoring and homework help
in veterinary care, in antiques, in dream interpretation
and even in etiquette.
So maybe there’s some less competitive categories
on there too.
So that’s just answer a wide ranging pay for advice site
that might make sense to test out
as a potential new source of side hustle income
even in industries that are traditionally
pretty hands-on like car repair.
I was surprised when I saw that headline
about the six figure virtual mechanic.
Creative side hustle number five
is the high-end dorm room designer.
This year I came across Shelly Gates,
a fourth grade teacher in Mississippi
who turned her eye for design
into a really lucrative side hustle
designing college dorm rooms.
Constraint breeds creativity, right here.
You got a small space to work with
and kind of a tight window in which to do the work.
Now Shelly’s rates vary based on a number
of different factors,
but can go as high as 20 to $30,000.
How crazy is that?
And you’ll hear her explain in the upcoming clip.
She’s got a wait list of clients
and has already surpassed her teaching salary.
Here’s Shelly explaining how the business got
its super fast start.
– Hey guys, my name is Shelly Gates
and I own a company called Mary Margaret Designs
where I focus on custom dorm room design.
My website is marymargaretdesigns.com.
However, TikTok has become quite the platform
for seeing my rooms and getting updated
on dorm trends for 2025.
My TikTok is also Mary Margaret Designs.
The idea for my dorm design business
really started by accident.
I’ve always loved design and beautiful surroundings
and of course shopping.
So when my daughter was a freshman
at Mississippi State University,
I had the most fun creating her room.
I put the pictures of her room on social media
for friends and family to see
and it gained a ton of attention.
The following year, her sophomore dorm
was featured on TikTok by an influencer
and it really took off.
Here in the South, especially SEC schools,
beautiful dorms are the norm
and people love to see all the rooms.
So this gave me the idea for my business.
Also, since I’m a fourth grade teacher
with my summers free,
I thought this was perfect for a little summer side hustle.
Little did I know that this side hustle
would turn into 12 to 18 hour days in the summer
to get everything done.
The TikTok exposure was really great
because it helped me book clients for my first year
and because I was advertising exclusively on social media,
that free advertisement made my startup cost nonexistent.
But that first year was rough and I learned a lot.
I took on far too many clients
and I realized that I was stretched a mile wide
and an inch deep.
So I realized I had to limit my clients
for the following year.
I’m so proud to say that my business
has become quite lucrative
and I’ve already exceeded my current salary.
Even though I love my fourth graders,
I eventually plan to stop teaching
and focus on this full-time.
I have such exciting plans for 2025.
I’m hiring additional designers to expand the business,
especially since I have such a long wait list.
I really want each room to be unique.
So I spend months interpreting the girl’s vision
into the perfect dorm room.
I really wanna provide a turnkey room.
So I order absolutely everything
from the custom pieces to the practical items,
like organization, even down to the light bulbs
and cleaning supplies.
But surprisingly, a big part of my service
is coordinating move-in day.
People always find it funny
because I hire movers for the room.
But once you’ve carried heavy furniture
up 15 flights of stairs in the 100 degree heat,
you quickly realize that is money well spent.
I also do a lot of consulting for rooms across the country.
So I’m planning to expand that part of my business as well.
After three years in business though,
I can really just tell everybody
that my favorite part is the relationship that I form,
especially with the moms.
Sending your child off to college is so hard.
I think how hard it is
to send your child to kindergarten.
Now multiply that, it times a million.
I can really empathize with the moms too
because I’ve sent two girls off to college
and my son will be starting college next fall.
It is a huge life change.
Letting your little baby bird leave the nest.
So with that in mind,
I really limit my clients
because I want to invest in my families
and encourage love and offer support during this time.
I am so proud of what Mary Margaret Designs has become
and all the exciting opportunities
that await in the future.
– And of course, when I look at some of Shelley’s designs,
you can check them out at Mary Margaret Designs underscore
on Instagram, Mary Margaret Designs on TikTok.
I can’t help but think back to my own dorm room experience
where we just thought we were geniuses
when we figured out how to loft my bed
and stack up some cinder blocks at old newspapers
to support a couch underneath it.
What a wild business and just a fun example
of doing something she was gonna do anyway,
sharing about it and getting such a positive reaction.
Do you ever have those moments
when you do something that is second nature to you
but other people are like, “Whoa, whoa, wait,
how did you do that?”
Or they ask, “Can I hire you to do that for me?”
That’s a good sign.
Pay attention to that.
Pay attention to what wants to happen.
That’s creative side hustle number five,
the dorm room design side hustle.
Number six is somewhat similar.
This is the virtual home studio design service.
I wanna introduce you to Kevin Shen
who has found a unique niche side hustle helping people,
I assume full-time business at this time,
helping people set up professional home studios.
And unlike Shelley, his work has done 100% virtual,
100% online.
So this is one that taps into the rise of remote work
and virtual content creation.
Kevin recognized there’s this growing need
for people to have high quality home offices,
podcast studios, video setups.
I mean, if you wanna impress people on Zoom calls
or step up your YouTube game,
his is the service you need.
And he now charges $8,000 per client
to do this studio design consulting.
And if you go through his testimonials,
it’s like a who’s who of online business.
He’s got Sam and Sean from My First Million.
He’s got Steph Smith, Jay Klaus, Ryan Dice,
Justin Jackson, Neville Madora, lots more.
And looking at all their setups,
they all look kind of similar.
Like there’s a consistent vibe going on,
but you can’t argue they look good
and kind of makes me wanna step up my own studio game.
So how it works, Kevin offers these consultations over Zoom
where he walks clients through everything they’re gonna need
to create this polished professional look
that they’re going for.
And then he provides this detailed list
of the recommended gear and equipment and supplies
based on the client’s goals and budget.
Obviously paying attention to lighting, decor, sound quality
and even we’ll help you troubleshoot any issues
as you go along.
And since it’s all remote,
he can serve clients all over the world.
Now Kevin’s customer base includes YouTubers and podcasters
and course creators like you might expect,
but also remote employees and even executives
who need or want more polished setups for virtual meetings.
Now he also sells his design expertise as an online course.
There’s like the high end consulting price, right?
The $8,000, you know, done with you type of service.
But there’s also the more DIY version
at dreamstudiocourse.com where for $500,
you can get the self-serve on demand version.
We’ll teach you how to do this.
And it looks like YouTube and Twitter
are his primary traffic drivers
and they appear to be working quite well.
Now Kevin’s business is an example of a niche business
that taps into a few common themes on the show.
First, it piggybacks on the broader trend
of remote work and video creation
and even video podcasting now.
And it’s got some level of built-in virality
because when other creators see you’ve upgraded your space,
they’re naturally gonna ask how you did it.
And I think it illustrates the power of niching down.
It’s not a virtual interior design service.
That’ll be too broad.
It’s specific for video studio spaces
and that apparently was a wide open blue ocean
to stake a claim to.
It’s kind of like Shelly.
It’s tough to compete as a generic interior designer,
but when you niche down to interior design for dorm rooms,
all of a sudden you’re the only game in town.
So the question is, is there a similar niche within a niche
where you could become the undisputed market leader in?
Remember, if you can’t be first, be different.
Where can you play?
Where you can be a market of one.
You can check out Kevin on all the socials
at the Kevin Shen S-H-E-N.
The one honorable mention to throw in here on the list
is a listener sent me this story
of basically being a professional tattletale,
which maybe makes it sound a little bit negative.
I guess there’s a law in New York against idling vehicles.
Hey, this burns unnecessary gas.
It creates unnecessary pollution.
So the city says, we’re gonna find you
if we catch you idling for too long.
And where the side hustle comes in
is you as the do good citizen
catch the idling vehicle in the act
and you record the video evidence,
New York will pay you 25% of the fine
that they eventually collect,
which could end up being several hundred dollars
or even more if it’s a repeat offender.
Like it goes up the more and more times you get caught.
And so naturally this has sprung up a little micro economy
of people going out to do this intentionally,
spending a few hours a day, in some cases,
walking or biking the city.
And at least in one case, hiring virtual assistants
to support with some of the administrative paperwork
required to file the cases.
Like it’s turned into like a legitimate business
for some people.
Now, because it is the city and bureaucracy and all that,
it can take several months to get paid
from the time you find your offender.
But I thought it was a super interesting example
of taking advantage of a local rule
and turning it into an extra income stream.
I’ll be right back with more creative side hustles
right after this.
Creative side hustle number seven
is a furniture repair service.
So here’s a cool example of taking a skill you already have
and putting a slight pivot on it
to turn it into a viable business.
In this case, the pivot was making it mobile.
As in, all come to you.
You don’t have to carry your bulky couch.
You can figure out how to transport it to our store.
And it reminds me of a bike mechanic
that I hired recently.
Like I called up the local bike shop in town
and they were booking appointments three weeks out.
I wanted it done faster.
I remembered seeing this mobile bike repair van around town.
So I went to their website, booked an online appointment.
Didn’t even have to call.
And instead of three weeks out, it was like,
hey, next day or next couple of days,
we can come and pick up your bike
and didn’t have to put the rack on the car.
Didn’t have to drive to the shop.
Much more convenient customer experience.
So here’s side hustle show listener Nathan Velz
on how he got his freelance furniture repair business
off the ground and turned it into a full-time income.
– My name is Nathan Velz
and my business is fresh furniture in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The website is fresh furniture MKE
if you’d like to take a look.
What I do is in-home furniture repair,
which can go in lots of different directions
from repairing a small dent in the table
to tearing a sofa apart to fix a frame issue.
What I found is that there are some furniture finishing
and reupholstery shops that offer the same service,
but they always want the customer to bring in
their heavy and bulky pieces to their shop.
Number one, I don’t wanna pay for a workspace
and most of my repairs can be done
in the customer’s living room in under an hour.
Many of my customers are really surprised
I even offered to do this with them.
I’ve been working in furniture repair for quite a while now,
but always working for a large retailer
or a national repair company.
What I’ve seen over and over is that if parts are needed,
the large companies would always source them
directly for the manufacturer, which is typically overseas.
This involves wait times for customers
for weeks and sometimes even months.
Telling this to a customer with a broken lift chair
that they use to help to get to a standing position
was heartbreaking and quite frustrating.
What I realized is that a lot of these parts
could be sourced locally or purchased online
and received in days, not weeks.
I established a relationship with a small family-owned
local foam company for all the seat cushion replacements.
Not only the great people,
but now they go other ways to get my foam cut quickly
since I’m ordering from them usually multiple times a week.
This company also allows me to pick up from them
so I occur no shipping costs.
That became the start of fresh furniture,
knowing that I could complete a repair
for a customer quickly and usually at a lower cost
than a national extended warranty company.
Start-up costs were low for me
as I had most of the tools and supplies.
I did purchase a van for transporting pieces
that were bigger projects and couldn’t be repaired at home.
I did spend money on making sure my logo
was on all my work shirts.
You definitely want to look professional
when you’re going into a customer’s home.
Having a great looking embroidered shirt makes you stand out.
I also took Nick’s advice,
spent money on getting high quality business cards.
This I found gives you an edge
and makes you seem way more credible.
My friend and I created the website.
I’ll be honest, mostly my friend.
This worked for about the first year
until I did hire a local firm to update it and unify
the website to my logo on business colors.
The designer used the same hosting platform
and that definitely cut down the costs
instead of creating a new one from scratch.
I know it’s been said on the show multiple times before,
but getting the Google business page
has been my biggest source of customers.
Having the business page up to date
and responding to customer reviews has been key.
I will say as well that nice jobs
for a review service has been fantastic.
The fact that they blast our reviews
to multiple social sites and your own website
is a great time saver.
And if you are a small business like me,
they charge me a lower than advertised fee
since I don’t have hundreds of reviews a month.
In price to my repairs,
I have standard pricing on certain pieces
and adjust it traveling further
than my normal service area.
I’ve already had to increase my pricing due to demand.
Just recently, I’ve taken the side house the full time
and it’s been completely overwhelming.
My first year I plan on making my old salary
and hoping for more.
What I’m hoping to do in the future
is to approach companies to offer a touch up service
to keep their lobbies looking great year round.
Also, I’m looking to send out a mailing to all the senior
facilities in the area to become their go-to contact
for any lift chair repairs for the residents.
I find this job extremely rewarding
since most of my repairs are short term
and fixing something that people thought irreparable,
especially family heirlooms, just feels great.
– Thanks Nathan for sharing that.
That is Creative Side Hustle number seven,
furniture repair, freshfurnituremke.com.
If you wanna go check Nathan out over there.
– Creative Side Hustle number eight is a trailer rental
business and so earlier in the year,
Justin Martin of Jacksonville, Florida reported earning
between $2,000 and $3,000 per month,
renting out this kind of flatbed trailer.
It could be used for hauling furniture, vehicles,
heavy equipment, pallets, that kind of thing.
Now since then, he’s added several more products
to his inventory, all in that same broad category
of equipment hauling trailers.
Like big picture like the wooden slats on top,
you’re towing behind a truck with rates ranging
from $300 to $750 per week.
You can check out his site at rcrjacks.com,
like rippercityrentalsjaxenville.com, rcrjacks.com.
I’m finding these trails tend to cost
between $2,000 and $5,000 a piece,
maybe a little bit less if you can find them used.
So you’re looking at seven to 10 rentals perhaps
to break even and then everything after that is profit.
I wasn’t able to get a voicemail for this one
but Justin said he normally spends or otherwise budgets
around $100 a month per trailer for maintenance.
You know, there’s tires on them.
You gotta replace straps and things get damaged.
Now as far as marketing, it looks like
Justin has focused on SEO and Google reviews.
He’s got over 205 star reviews at this point.
So he does a good job of marketing the service
on the trailers themselves as well
with his phone number and a sign that says,
you know, rent me or rent this trailer.
And even though it’s a lot of one-off customers,
okay, I just need to move something from point A to point B
Justin also generates quite a bit of repeat business
by providing a good service
and positive customer interactions.
The other considerations for this type of business
are obviously a place to store your inventory
when it’s not in use.
It looks like Justin has a good sized property
where he can park these things
and then insurance to protect yourself
if something goes wrong.
And whenever you’re dealing with physical products,
especially big, heavy things,
driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour,
things can go wrong.
In fact, Justin sent me a picture of one of his trailers
with a tire blown out on the side of the road
as the business owner, he’s got to deal with that.
So it’s not all rainbows and unicorns
and passive income all the time,
but as far as a rental asset,
it’s not a ton of moving parts
on these relatively simple, low maintenance products
and ones that probably have a pretty long, useful life
if they’re well taken care of.
You can follow along with what Justin is doing
at trailerhustle on the TikTok trailerhustle.com
where he’s starting to help other people
get involved in this business,
one that I’ll be paying attention to.
Hopefully you can follow along with his journey as well.
So naturally the next question is,
well, what else could you rent out for a profit?
We’ve done episodes on party inflatables
like bouncy houses for kids parties.
We’ve done mobility scooters, photo booths,
portable hot tubs, a favorite of mine.
Even most recently, we did moving boxes in episode 635.
Like here, here’s a low, relatively low overhead type
of product, it’s just a plastic bin.
Now, you might not even have to own the thing
you’re renting out because we talked to Gar Russell
from Fireside RV about renting out other people’s RVs.
Basically acting as a property manager
and splitting the income from those rentals.
So that is number eight on this list,
the trailer rental business and maybe as an illustration
of a broader equipment rental type of side hustle.
Creative side hustle number nine is TV mounting.
Now, I’m blown away by this story
because I never imagined that you could make $30,000
a month mounting TVs for people.
I mean, how many TVs are out there that need mounting?
But that’s exactly what Sina Omosawan has done
with his TV mounting business operating mostly
in the Washington, DC area under the brand Shine.
Back in 2019, Sina is, he’s working on his PhD
when a friend introduces him to his side hustle,
his world of TV mounting.
So he shadows the friend for a few jobs, learns the basics
and consumes what he called hours of YouTube tutorials
to really master the skills.
And starting out, he priced pretty low
to build trust and attract his first clients.
Sina then started using thumbtack
and built his own client base using the platform
to showcase reviews and pictures of the job
that he completed and client feedback.
And that approach definitely worked
and it continues to work almost as a virtuous cycle
because now he’s got over 1,005 star reviews
and that reputation makes it easier
and easier to book more work, right?
He told entrepreneur that he would initially book
two or three jobs in a day.
Each one would take way longer than he wanted them to
as he kind of worked through this learning curve
of how to do the job.
But as his confidence and efficiency grew,
now he’s able to serve more customers every day.
He can mount the TV in just 15 minutes.
Like he’s done hundreds and hundreds of these things.
It becomes really quick, lather, rinse and repeat.
And he also learned the importance
of being really responsive to inquiries
because thumbtack, like a lot of these other platforms
is one where speed really counts.
So keeping his phone on hand, answer customer questions,
schedule those appointments right away.
It is a business with relatively low startup costs,
really just a handful of tools,
some of which you might already own,
but fast forward a few months
and now Sina’s got a decision to make.
So he finishes up his PhD.
He’s got offer letters in his chosen field
of plant evolution and food crop production.
This is what he spent years studying, going to school to do.
But over here, he’s got this side hustle
that’s working really well.
So he makes the hard decision to go all in on the business
instead of this traditional career
that he’s been going to school for.
And he says, you know what?
I’m gonna go be my own boss instead.
Today the business earns around $30,000 each month
and appears to have expanded geographically
sort of customers in Chicago and Indiana as well.
Sina told entrepreneur that he loves
the control and flexibility the business gives him.
He schedules jobs around family commitments
and loves putting a smile on customers’ faces
with a job well done.
He highlighted the importance of prioritizing customer
satisfaction over profits in the beginning.
Remember he said, I got a price low
to attract clients to start to build a portfolio
and build some momentum of positive reviews.
He said that was really the key to growth early on.
I think this is another really interesting example
of owning a niche.
Of course a general handy person service
could handle mounting your TV
but as a customer given the choice between the generalist
and the specialist who’s done it a thousand times
who are you gonna pick?
Is there a similar niche that you could own?
Maybe it’s a piece of what you’re already doing.
You could carve out and really choose to focus on just that.
That’s number nine, 30 grand a month mounting TVs.
Number 10 is guinea pig cages.
This is 17 year old Bella Lynn of California
who is running a not so little side business
called guinea loft which specializes in these
see-through customizable pet enclosures for guinea pigs,
chinchillas, rabbits, hamsters, ferrets, hedgehogs.
She told CNBC she spends around 20 hours a week
on the business on the side from her responsibilities
as a high school student.
Oh yeah, we still gotta go to school.
Last year she averaged $34,000 a month in sales
at roughly a 25% profit margin.
Now as is often the case in e-commerce
she’s heavily reinvesting those profits
into marketing, audience research, developing new products.
This is common where you’re not able to really
take a ton of cash off the table.
You wanna continue to reinvest in inventory
and grow the thing.
Now guinea loft launched on Amazon two years ago
with a startup cost of around $2,000 in prototypes.
Bella sold out of her first production run
of a hundred units in a couple weeks
with quote unquote no marketing
which I assume that meant just relying
on Amazon’s internal search and discovery features
like not paying for additional exposure.
And that’s interesting to me in itself
because I would have assumed that Amazon
to be probably pretty crowded in the pet product space
at that time but goes to show you.
If you can come at a problem from a unique angle
or perspective you can still carve out some market share.
Bella had had guinea pigs as pets for years
and didn’t love the traditional cage options
so she set out to create something better.
I love that.
Is there a hobby niche that you’re really into
but frustrated with what’s available on the market?
I mean this was Chris and Julia Tunstall
from A Bar Above.
They had this content business in the craft cocktail space
but had a hard time recommending
any really high quality bar equipment on Amazon
so they ended up creating their own
which turned into a multi-million dollar business.
One possible example from our own house.
The kids got a Nintendo Switch a couple years ago.
The controllers that come with it
are painfully small for adult hands
and since I like to play too
I order these larger controllers from Amazon.
They’re definitely better
but if there wasn’t even bigger version
I would probably go for that.
It’s the kind of product ideas you come up with
as a hobbyist or a user in a certain field
and that gives you an advantage
over people approaching product research
purely from a software driven or analytical point of view.
Well this one has a higher percentage of three star reviews
so there must be some opportunity
to improve upon the product
and you should absolutely do that level
of competitive research too
but you gotta know the niche.
I don’t think, I don’t know if this is just coming
into something completely blind and agnostic
as to what product is is really gonna work.
You gotta have a story behind it
and maybe what’s even more impressive about Bella
is that Guinea Loft wasn’t even her first e-commerce business.
She started a leggings brand in 2019
that brought in around $300,000 in revenue in 2020.
This girl knows how to move some inventory
but despite that revenue,
the leggings business had a hard time generating profit
so she decided to pivot her attention
to the guinea pig market.
She told CNBC I had a weird epiphany
where I kind of realized there were a lot
of other companies trying to make leggings.
There was no innovation there
whereas with Guinea Loft,
I could feel a really big gap in the market.
So one pain point or an area of innovation for her
was in the floor area of the enclosures
which not to get too nerdy on guinea pig cages
but these I guess apparently were traditionally made
with plastic bottoms and she said,
“Hey, they smell really bad, they’re really hard to clean.”
So ultimately Guinea Loft created a replaceable bottom
for the enclosures with biodegradable wax coated paper
which actually led to repeat business.
‘Cause I’m like, well, okay, you sell a guinea pig cage
and then that’s it, you never see that customer again
but because of this replaceable bottom,
now they’ve got repeat customers,
customers come back in order refills of those.
Pretty savvy, pretty inspiring stuff.
Couple other honorable mentions before we wrap.
The first one here is turning a regular bedtime activity
into a side hustle.
This is Sam Ramsden of Australia
who began making up and telling silly stories
to his eldest daughter and eventually turned those stories
into a podcast called Silly Stories for Kids.
There’s a marketing lesson there.
Sometimes you don’t need a clever name,
you can just call it exactly what it is.
Sam told kidspot.com.au.
I’ve always loved storytelling.
When my eldest daughter was two,
I would lay on her bedroom floor
and make up a bedtime story.
He says one day my father-in-law pulled me aside
and said, “Hey, you ought to turn these stories
“into a podcast.”
It wasn’t something that Sam had ever considered
but with that level of support and encouragement,
he figured out how to make it happen.
The first episodes of Silly Stories for Kids
were only released a year ago
and the show has already generated over 700,000 downloads.
For the sake of reference,
the side hustle show took years to reach 700,000 downloads.
So he’s off to the races.
I didn’t hear any ads on the episode that I listened to
but Sam did make a plug to join his listener membership
ranging from $20 to $50 per year
and powered by Buy Me a Coffee
on the SillyStoriesForKids.com website.
There’s also a store with some merch for sale.
Here’s an example of selling your sawdust, right?
Hey, I’m already telling these stories.
I enjoy making them up.
Why not record them?
Why not put them out to the world?
Pretty cool idea.
Another one I thought was interesting
was Lina Pettigrew’s houseplant business.
I’d never heard of this site before
but it’s called Palm Street,
the number one live shopping app for plants,
crafts and crystals.
Did not know this was a thing
but Lina sold almost $150,000 worth of plants
in her first year.
It seems kind of like Twitch but for plants
like a live streaming marketplace
where you can follow your favorite growers,
gardeners and support them by buying their stuff.
Lina said she can sell 1,000 plants in a single session
and ships them out to customers all across the country.
Now I’m not sure how often you can do that.
Volume of sales because these are living things.
They take some time to grow
but I’ve also got to imagine the cost of goods sold
is pretty low especially if you can start to propagate them
from clippings from plants you’ve already got
even if you’re sourcing them from your local nursery
but now all of a sudden people want to buy from you
because of the brand you’ve created.
Maybe you can command premium pricing because of that.
It’s an example of riding that houseplant wave
looking for those trends to piggyback on,
filling demand instead of creating demand.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.
Hope you take a pause for gratitude today
and really every day to start to build that muscle
to be a little more grateful and a little less hateful
and you’re gonna start to notice these little moments
of happiness and bring awareness to those.
I think it’s a really powerful and positive habit.
If you like this type of roundup style show
we’ve been doing it every Thanksgiving
for the last several years.
There’s a Spotify playlist for you
called Creative Sign Hustles
where you can find all the episodes in this series.
I think this is our seventh.
I have a blast putting them together
and I wanna invite you to send me ideas for the next edition.
Maybe we don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving to do it
if we get enough that come in.
But if you do come across an interesting,
surprising, creative, inspiring way to make extra money
I would love to hear about it.
That is it for me.
Thank you so much for tuning in
with gratitude each and every week.
Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen
and I’ll catch you in the next edition
of The Side Hustle Show.
Hustle on.
10 creative side hustles that make real money.
Oh, what’s up?
What’s up, Nick?
Oh, welcome here.
Welcome to The Side Hustle Show
because your nine to five may make you a living,
but your five to nine makes you alive.
It’s that time of year again.
It’s time for our Thanksgiving tradition
of showcasing some of the most interesting
and creative side hustles that have come across
my desk this year,
starting with number one, mobile gift wrapping.
Is this something you could do in your area?
Michelle Hensley is a longtime side hustle show listener
and she’s grown her business Nifty Package.co
to a $300,000 a year business.
I truly started Nifty Package out of a necessity.
I was a pastor’s wife, homeschooling children
and running a nonprofit.
I was in a position to give things away,
not to have to make an income.
What do you do with a pastor’s wife
after her husband passes away when she’s 50 years old?
Now I was on a journey to create an income for myself
at age 51.
After I got home from an interview,
one of my sons said, “Mom, you had a gift basket business.
Why don’t you start that again?”
So ultimately I made an art out of gift giving
in order to bring joy to both the recipient and the giver.
My gift basket and mobile gift wrapping services
is niftypackage.co.
In 2018, while praying, I was looking out my window
and I noticed and realized my van was sitting there empty.
I thought, gosh, I already make gifts.
I wonder if anybody wraps gifts.
And does anyone go around and even do that?
Is there such a thing as a mobile wrapping?
Can I put all my gift wrapping paper in my van
and drive around and serve people?
I put up a webpage that day
and I got a call from a current client within a week
asking if I’d come out and wrap all those gifts.
I was so excited.
I piled everything into the van to take care of that job,
brushing my hands when I was done
and then I realized I forgot to label every gift.
I had to go back and rewrap every gift.
I learned a huge lesson, which blossomed into a business.
In March of 2019, I got a call from Two-Face Cosmetics
asking if I could do a large scale gift design and gift wrap.
I was so excited, this was right up my alley.
Their brand is very similar to mine,
which is a little edgy but still very beautiful.
We got a million hits on that Instagram feed on their site.
And then in August of 2019,
I got a call from the Kardashian estate manager
asking if I’d consider creating a design for Kim and Kanye.
I was not sure who they were
because I didn’t watch TV at all.
This is where I transitioned from pastor’s wife,
grandmother, mom to business owner.
I piled all my paper in the van
and headed out to their home.
My own team was there with me
and everyone was watching me from her team.
She didn’t like any of the five or six ideas
I presented to her.
I walked outside and I’m like, Lord, you brought me here
and I’m not going home without a sale.
So I walked in and I suggested a fear-shoky gift wrap
and created that out of fabric and she loved it.
And that’s what started the celebrity gift wrapping.
We continued to get referrals and the brand
continued to expand across the nation.
I started training on how to gift wrap many women
and teams all over.
So we have several Nifty corporate gift wrap teams everywhere.
Eventually becoming the number one mobile gift wrapping
business in the nation.
So although we do luxury gift baskets,
the mobile gift wrapping is 70% of our business.
I’ve had many reach out to me and ask me
how I ran my program.
So now currently I’m starting to franchise
and license across the nation
because this is absolutely a new opportunity.
It’s a perfect hustle, especially for the holidays.
You can do it with one person.
You can do it with a team.
So typical sales could be well over $200,000 for the season.
In reality, for one person, it could be 30 to 50,000.
So what’s next for Nifty and myself?
Well, I wrote a book so you can go to my personal brand website,
which is MichelleMHensley.com.
And you can read it, put your information in there,
and all that it would be is the cost for shipping
or you can buy it on Amazon.
I’m working to raise funds to start the franchise,
which is already in place,
but it just costs a lot of money
in the state of California to do this.
Also, I license and I teach others how to run
their own profitable mobile gift wrapping business.
You can join my Unwrapping Your Mobile Gift Wrapping
Business Masterclass, and I teach my gift framework there.
Thank you again, Nick, for this opportunity.
I look forward to talking to anybody who has an interest.
They can totally email me, Michelle@niftypackage.co,
or call 714-863-6058.
Happy wrapping.
– Happy wrapping, indeed.
Now, we’ll link up all of Michelle’s resources,
including her book, Master,
The Business of Mobile Gift Wrapping,
where creativity meets convenience.
She sent me a copy, which of course was very nicely wrapped,
in it, she says the average price
for a nicely wrapped gift is $25.
So you can start to see how the revenue
in this business can start to add up,
especially if you land a few corporate customers
who are sending gifts out to their clients
or partners, employees.
And you may not need even a celebrity client like Michelle did
to start to get some pretty serious business there.
Now, next up on this list of creative side hustles
is Print On Demand Candles.
Oh, sure, we’ve covered Print On Demand on the show before.
We’ve even made some money doing it ourselves.
My wife and I.
It’s always been T-shirts, stickers, mugs.
Never knew there was such a thing as Print On Demand Candles.
Francisco Rivera started his candle-focused Etsy shop
in early 2023, and according to CNBC,
sold over $450,000 worth of product last year
at an estimated 30 to 50% profit margin,
which is actually a really strong margin
for a physical product business
where he doesn’t have any inventory risk.
That was enough for him to leave his tutoring job
and pursue the business full-time.
Full-time in air quotes because the CNBC article
also has him saying he only spends around 20 minutes a day
on his shop.
And that’s one of the advantages of a model like this
in that you can make sales even when you’re not working,
but there obviously is work involved in product research
and creating and uploading new designs.
Francisco uses Printify as his fulfillment partner
and mentioned that neutral-colored organic candles
performed well with his witty and eye-catching labels
and that he uses Canva to create those.
Now, this made me super curious.
What other random products could you do print on demand with?
In Printify’s catalog,
I found some interesting options,
including pickleball sets that can make a good gift, right?
Baby onesies, kids’ shoes that look like crocs,
but aren’t officially crocs, of course,
and some Christmas ornaments.
Then you figure out what niche you wanna play in
and what kind of clever design that might make a good gift.
And it’s a pretty low-risk business.
All it costs is 20 cents to create an Etsy listing,
and you can see if anybody wants to buy your thing.
The Etsy sales system integrates directly with Printify,
which handles the production
and the shipping to the end customer.
Now, one downside to this and to other print-on-demand businesses
is the issue of copycats.
Pretty much as soon as you find something that sells,
other sellers and research tools can see that
and are often going to blatantly rip off or copy your work,
which can dilute the listings
and push your products down in the search results.
And still, Francisco says it’s best to focus
on creating new candle ideas rather than spending
too much time trying to fight with copycats.
Now, what’s the next big thing for Print-on-Demand?
If t-shirts are too saturated,
maybe there’s an up-and-coming product category
that could be a blue ocean for you.
Creative side hustle number three
is pay what you want poetry.
– Hi, my name is John McCollum.
I’m 22 years old.
I live in Nashville, Tennessee,
where I am currently a full-time poet.
My business is JM Street Poetry,
and my website is jmstreetpoetry.com.
My business basically consists of me
sitting at a table with a vintage typewriter.
Strangers come up to me,
tell me what they want a poem about.
I write it, they pay however much they want for it,
and that’s it.
I first was inspired to do this when I was an English teacher
and I was talking to one of my friends
and they saw a guy doing something similar in New York.
And I had an old typewriter
that someone had given me when they moved away.
And I was so inspired by the story of a man
sitting outside writing poems for strangers all day.
I thought it was beautiful and creative
and sounded like a great way to spend a Saturday.
So I bought a folding table,
went to a busy street in Nashville,
where there’s a lot of shopping,
and I wrote a sign on the back of a Manila envelope
that said poems for sale, your topic, your price.
I was expecting to maybe write a handful,
but the entire day I had a line,
people were paying anywhere from one to $100 for a poem.
I was writing about everything
and just having these wonderful interactions with strangers.
It was the most creative day that I had had thus far
and it was incredible.
So I started going out every weekend I could.
And if school ever wrapped up earlier,
I would be out there writing poems for people.
I bought a nicer chair and a tablecloth
and it was incredible.
Saturdays I’d make anywhere from $400 to $800.
Weekdays were quite a bit slower, but still fun.
And so when my school year ended
and I had a summer to figure out
what I was gonna do next,
I decided to try and take it full time.
So I’d go out during all of the busy hours
and figure out the scheduling,
figure out when people were out, when they weren’t out.
And all of a sudden, people started trying to book me
for events.
So we made business cards, designed a website,
made an Instagram and started trying to book
more corporate events and weddings
where I would just sit there with a typewriter
and people could come up to me.
It’s been an incredible journey of now
being a full-time poet.
I just can’t explain the joy of working for myself
and doing this thing that I care about so much.
My average week, I make anywhere from $9 to $1,200,
working 15 to 18 hours a week, which is incredible
’cause it gives me time to work on my personal writing
and my personal poetry.
As far as next steps go for the business,
I really want to build more of an online presence.
And I hope to be able to publish
a poetry collection eventually.
You can follow along, find out more on Instagram
and JM Street Poetry or by checking out my website.
Thank you so much for having me on.
Huge fan, love what you do here.
– JM Street Poetry, give John a follow over there.
How cool is that?
What a fun and random business.
I’ve got more creative side hustles
coming right up right after this.
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Here’s a quick side hustle you can do today.
It’s called the substitution game,
and it’s an easy way to score
what I call reverse passive income in your life.
That’s money you’re no longer spending every month
that goes straight to your bottom line.
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All right, three down, seven creative side hustles to go,
including a couple honorable mentions we’ll sneak in.
Number four on this list is virtual mechanic.
In fact, the six-figure virtual mechanic.
And when I think about jobs that can be done remotely
versus jobs that really need to be done in person,
car mechanic is one that fits pretty squarely
in the gotta be there hands-on category, right?
Well, Chris Pyle is provenly wrong,
earning an average of $14,000 a month
as a virtual mechanic through the Q&A site, justanswer.com.
Now, the site’s been around for a long time
and Chris has been on it for a long time too, since 2006.
It is a place where you can connect with experts
and those experts get paid for their advice.
On the customer side,
just answer charges a monthly membership fee
ranging from around $30 to $125 per month,
depending on what kind of experts you’d like help from.
It’s interesting to me that it’s packaged as a membership
when I imagine most people coming to the site
for the first time just have one specific problem
that they want solved.
And the complaints about just answer online
seem to mirror that apparent disconnect
with customers saying,
“Hey, I didn’t expect to get charged for the next month.”
But on the expert side,
you can earn 20 to 50% of what the customer paid
to answer their question.
And there are over 100 different categories
in which you can join as an expert.
Compared to other marketplaces,
that fee is actually really steep.
Normally you would see the platform taking 20 to 30%
as a fulfillment or matchmaking fee for new members,
not 80%, but each question individually
might only be worth $2 to $20
depending on the category and complexity.
But still, if you enjoy answering questions,
you can knock them out quickly,
you can make good money
as Chris’s virtual mechanic example proves.
Chris originally trained as a transmission tech with Ford
and stumbled upon this online side hustle,
turned full-time income,
while he was researching how to fix a transmission
he was working on.
It didn’t take long before he signed himself up
as an expert on just answer
and started answering questions after work.
He told CNBC that he liked the challenge
of diagnosing a motor that he couldn’t see, touch, or smell
and realized he had a knack
for virtually helping people solve their mechanical problems.
Chris made $500 in his first month
and $1,000 in his second
and eventually eclipsed his day job salary
and now far exceeding what he used to make
at that old day job.
And one drawback here is that Chris
is really putting in the hours in this CNBC article.
He says he managed to take this side hustle full-time
in 2012 and that it fits really well with his lifestyle
and pays better than his old job,
but that he still works every single day
and an average of 40 to 60 hours a week.
It looks like there’s a pretty extensive vetting process
to get accepted as a just answer expert.
And there are all the career categories
that you might expect like law and medicine
and finance and technology and home repair.
But there are also some expert slots
in academic tutoring and homework help
in veterinary care, in antiques, in dream interpretation
and even in etiquette.
So maybe there’s some less competitive categories
on there too.
So that’s just answer a wide ranging pay for advice site
that might make sense to test out
as a potential new source of side hustle income
even in industries that are traditionally
pretty hands-on like car repair.
I was surprised when I saw that headline
about the six figure virtual mechanic.
Creative side hustle number five
is the high-end dorm room designer.
This year I came across Shelly Gates,
a fourth grade teacher in Mississippi
who turned her eye for design
into a really lucrative side hustle
designing college dorm rooms.
Constraint breeds creativity, right here.
You got a small space to work with
and kind of a tight window in which to do the work.
Now Shelly’s rates vary based on a number
of different factors,
but can go as high as 20 to $30,000.
How crazy is that?
And you’ll hear her explain in the upcoming clip.
She’s got a wait list of clients
and has already surpassed her teaching salary.
Here’s Shelly explaining how the business got
its super fast start.
– Hey guys, my name is Shelly Gates
and I own a company called Mary Margaret Designs
where I focus on custom dorm room design.
My website is marymargaretdesigns.com.
However, TikTok has become quite the platform
for seeing my rooms and getting updated
on dorm trends for 2025.
My TikTok is also Mary Margaret Designs.
The idea for my dorm design business
really started by accident.
I’ve always loved design and beautiful surroundings
and of course shopping.
So when my daughter was a freshman
at Mississippi State University,
I had the most fun creating her room.
I put the pictures of her room on social media
for friends and family to see
and it gained a ton of attention.
The following year, her sophomore dorm
was featured on TikTok by an influencer
and it really took off.
Here in the South, especially SEC schools,
beautiful dorms are the norm
and people love to see all the rooms.
So this gave me the idea for my business.
Also, since I’m a fourth grade teacher
with my summers free,
I thought this was perfect for a little summer side hustle.
Little did I know that this side hustle
would turn into 12 to 18 hour days in the summer
to get everything done.
The TikTok exposure was really great
because it helped me book clients for my first year
and because I was advertising exclusively on social media,
that free advertisement made my startup cost nonexistent.
But that first year was rough and I learned a lot.
I took on far too many clients
and I realized that I was stretched a mile wide
and an inch deep.
So I realized I had to limit my clients
for the following year.
I’m so proud to say that my business
has become quite lucrative
and I’ve already exceeded my current salary.
Even though I love my fourth graders,
I eventually plan to stop teaching
and focus on this full-time.
I have such exciting plans for 2025.
I’m hiring additional designers to expand the business,
especially since I have such a long wait list.
I really want each room to be unique.
So I spend months interpreting the girl’s vision
into the perfect dorm room.
I really wanna provide a turnkey room.
So I order absolutely everything
from the custom pieces to the practical items,
like organization, even down to the light bulbs
and cleaning supplies.
But surprisingly, a big part of my service
is coordinating move-in day.
People always find it funny
because I hire movers for the room.
But once you’ve carried heavy furniture
up 15 flights of stairs in the 100 degree heat,
you quickly realize that is money well spent.
I also do a lot of consulting for rooms across the country.
So I’m planning to expand that part of my business as well.
After three years in business though,
I can really just tell everybody
that my favorite part is the relationship that I form,
especially with the moms.
Sending your child off to college is so hard.
I think how hard it is
to send your child to kindergarten.
Now multiply that, it times a million.
I can really empathize with the moms too
because I’ve sent two girls off to college
and my son will be starting college next fall.
It is a huge life change.
Letting your little baby bird leave the nest.
So with that in mind,
I really limit my clients
because I want to invest in my families
and encourage love and offer support during this time.
I am so proud of what Mary Margaret Designs has become
and all the exciting opportunities
that await in the future.
– And of course, when I look at some of Shelley’s designs,
you can check them out at Mary Margaret Designs underscore
on Instagram, Mary Margaret Designs on TikTok.
I can’t help but think back to my own dorm room experience
where we just thought we were geniuses
when we figured out how to loft my bed
and stack up some cinder blocks at old newspapers
to support a couch underneath it.
What a wild business and just a fun example
of doing something she was gonna do anyway,
sharing about it and getting such a positive reaction.
Do you ever have those moments
when you do something that is second nature to you
but other people are like, “Whoa, whoa, wait,
how did you do that?”
Or they ask, “Can I hire you to do that for me?”
That’s a good sign.
Pay attention to that.
Pay attention to what wants to happen.
That’s creative side hustle number five,
the dorm room design side hustle.
Number six is somewhat similar.
This is the virtual home studio design service.
I wanna introduce you to Kevin Shen
who has found a unique niche side hustle helping people,
I assume full-time business at this time,
helping people set up professional home studios.
And unlike Shelley, his work has done 100% virtual,
100% online.
So this is one that taps into the rise of remote work
and virtual content creation.
Kevin recognized there’s this growing need
for people to have high quality home offices,
podcast studios, video setups.
I mean, if you wanna impress people on Zoom calls
or step up your YouTube game,
his is the service you need.
And he now charges $8,000 per client
to do this studio design consulting.
And if you go through his testimonials,
it’s like a who’s who of online business.
He’s got Sam and Sean from My First Million.
He’s got Steph Smith, Jay Klaus, Ryan Dice,
Justin Jackson, Neville Madora, lots more.
And looking at all their setups,
they all look kind of similar.
Like there’s a consistent vibe going on,
but you can’t argue they look good
and kind of makes me wanna step up my own studio game.
So how it works, Kevin offers these consultations over Zoom
where he walks clients through everything they’re gonna need
to create this polished professional look
that they’re going for.
And then he provides this detailed list
of the recommended gear and equipment and supplies
based on the client’s goals and budget.
Obviously paying attention to lighting, decor, sound quality
and even we’ll help you troubleshoot any issues
as you go along.
And since it’s all remote,
he can serve clients all over the world.
Now Kevin’s customer base includes YouTubers and podcasters
and course creators like you might expect,
but also remote employees and even executives
who need or want more polished setups for virtual meetings.
Now he also sells his design expertise as an online course.
There’s like the high end consulting price, right?
The $8,000, you know, done with you type of service.
But there’s also the more DIY version
at dreamstudiocourse.com where for $500,
you can get the self-serve on demand version.
We’ll teach you how to do this.
And it looks like YouTube and Twitter
are his primary traffic drivers
and they appear to be working quite well.
Now Kevin’s business is an example of a niche business
that taps into a few common themes on the show.
First, it piggybacks on the broader trend
of remote work and video creation
and even video podcasting now.
And it’s got some level of built-in virality
because when other creators see you’ve upgraded your space,
they’re naturally gonna ask how you did it.
And I think it illustrates the power of niching down.
It’s not a virtual interior design service.
That’ll be too broad.
It’s specific for video studio spaces
and that apparently was a wide open blue ocean
to stake a claim to.
It’s kind of like Shelly.
It’s tough to compete as a generic interior designer,
but when you niche down to interior design for dorm rooms,
all of a sudden you’re the only game in town.
So the question is, is there a similar niche within a niche
where you could become the undisputed market leader in?
Remember, if you can’t be first, be different.
Where can you play?
Where you can be a market of one.
You can check out Kevin on all the socials
at the Kevin Shen S-H-E-N.
The one honorable mention to throw in here on the list
is a listener sent me this story
of basically being a professional tattletale,
which maybe makes it sound a little bit negative.
I guess there’s a law in New York against idling vehicles.
Hey, this burns unnecessary gas.
It creates unnecessary pollution.
So the city says, we’re gonna find you
if we catch you idling for too long.
And where the side hustle comes in
is you as the do good citizen
catch the idling vehicle in the act
and you record the video evidence,
New York will pay you 25% of the fine
that they eventually collect,
which could end up being several hundred dollars
or even more if it’s a repeat offender.
Like it goes up the more and more times you get caught.
And so naturally this has sprung up a little micro economy
of people going out to do this intentionally,
spending a few hours a day, in some cases,
walking or biking the city.
And at least in one case, hiring virtual assistants
to support with some of the administrative paperwork
required to file the cases.
Like it’s turned into like a legitimate business
for some people.
Now, because it is the city and bureaucracy and all that,
it can take several months to get paid
from the time you find your offender.
But I thought it was a super interesting example
of taking advantage of a local rule
and turning it into an extra income stream.
I’ll be right back with more creative side hustles
right after this.
Creative side hustle number seven
is a furniture repair service.
So here’s a cool example of taking a skill you already have
and putting a slight pivot on it
to turn it into a viable business.
In this case, the pivot was making it mobile.
As in, all come to you.
You don’t have to carry your bulky couch.
You can figure out how to transport it to our store.
And it reminds me of a bike mechanic
that I hired recently.
Like I called up the local bike shop in town
and they were booking appointments three weeks out.
I wanted it done faster.
I remembered seeing this mobile bike repair van around town.
So I went to their website, booked an online appointment.
Didn’t even have to call.
And instead of three weeks out, it was like,
hey, next day or next couple of days,
we can come and pick up your bike
and didn’t have to put the rack on the car.
Didn’t have to drive to the shop.
Much more convenient customer experience.
So here’s side hustle show listener Nathan Velz
on how he got his freelance furniture repair business
off the ground and turned it into a full-time income.
– My name is Nathan Velz
and my business is fresh furniture in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The website is fresh furniture MKE
if you’d like to take a look.
What I do is in-home furniture repair,
which can go in lots of different directions
from repairing a small dent in the table
to tearing a sofa apart to fix a frame issue.
What I found is that there are some furniture finishing
and reupholstery shops that offer the same service,
but they always want the customer to bring in
their heavy and bulky pieces to their shop.
Number one, I don’t wanna pay for a workspace
and most of my repairs can be done
in the customer’s living room in under an hour.
Many of my customers are really surprised
I even offered to do this with them.
I’ve been working in furniture repair for quite a while now,
but always working for a large retailer
or a national repair company.
What I’ve seen over and over is that if parts are needed,
the large companies would always source them
directly for the manufacturer, which is typically overseas.
This involves wait times for customers
for weeks and sometimes even months.
Telling this to a customer with a broken lift chair
that they use to help to get to a standing position
was heartbreaking and quite frustrating.
What I realized is that a lot of these parts
could be sourced locally or purchased online
and received in days, not weeks.
I established a relationship with a small family-owned
local foam company for all the seat cushion replacements.
Not only the great people,
but now they go other ways to get my foam cut quickly
since I’m ordering from them usually multiple times a week.
This company also allows me to pick up from them
so I occur no shipping costs.
That became the start of fresh furniture,
knowing that I could complete a repair
for a customer quickly and usually at a lower cost
than a national extended warranty company.
Start-up costs were low for me
as I had most of the tools and supplies.
I did purchase a van for transporting pieces
that were bigger projects and couldn’t be repaired at home.
I did spend money on making sure my logo
was on all my work shirts.
You definitely want to look professional
when you’re going into a customer’s home.
Having a great looking embroidered shirt makes you stand out.
I also took Nick’s advice,
spent money on getting high quality business cards.
This I found gives you an edge
and makes you seem way more credible.
My friend and I created the website.
I’ll be honest, mostly my friend.
This worked for about the first year
until I did hire a local firm to update it and unify
the website to my logo on business colors.
The designer used the same hosting platform
and that definitely cut down the costs
instead of creating a new one from scratch.
I know it’s been said on the show multiple times before,
but getting the Google business page
has been my biggest source of customers.
Having the business page up to date
and responding to customer reviews has been key.
I will say as well that nice jobs
for a review service has been fantastic.
The fact that they blast our reviews
to multiple social sites and your own website
is a great time saver.
And if you are a small business like me,
they charge me a lower than advertised fee
since I don’t have hundreds of reviews a month.
In price to my repairs,
I have standard pricing on certain pieces
and adjust it traveling further
than my normal service area.
I’ve already had to increase my pricing due to demand.
Just recently, I’ve taken the side house the full time
and it’s been completely overwhelming.
My first year I plan on making my old salary
and hoping for more.
What I’m hoping to do in the future
is to approach companies to offer a touch up service
to keep their lobbies looking great year round.
Also, I’m looking to send out a mailing to all the senior
facilities in the area to become their go-to contact
for any lift chair repairs for the residents.
I find this job extremely rewarding
since most of my repairs are short term
and fixing something that people thought irreparable,
especially family heirlooms, just feels great.
– Thanks Nathan for sharing that.
That is Creative Side Hustle number seven,
furniture repair, freshfurnituremke.com.
If you wanna go check Nathan out over there.
– Creative Side Hustle number eight is a trailer rental
business and so earlier in the year,
Justin Martin of Jacksonville, Florida reported earning
between $2,000 and $3,000 per month,
renting out this kind of flatbed trailer.
It could be used for hauling furniture, vehicles,
heavy equipment, pallets, that kind of thing.
Now since then, he’s added several more products
to his inventory, all in that same broad category
of equipment hauling trailers.
Like big picture like the wooden slats on top,
you’re towing behind a truck with rates ranging
from $300 to $750 per week.
You can check out his site at rcrjacks.com,
like rippercityrentalsjaxenville.com, rcrjacks.com.
I’m finding these trails tend to cost
between $2,000 and $5,000 a piece,
maybe a little bit less if you can find them used.
So you’re looking at seven to 10 rentals perhaps
to break even and then everything after that is profit.
I wasn’t able to get a voicemail for this one
but Justin said he normally spends or otherwise budgets
around $100 a month per trailer for maintenance.
You know, there’s tires on them.
You gotta replace straps and things get damaged.
Now as far as marketing, it looks like
Justin has focused on SEO and Google reviews.
He’s got over 205 star reviews at this point.
So he does a good job of marketing the service
on the trailers themselves as well
with his phone number and a sign that says,
you know, rent me or rent this trailer.
And even though it’s a lot of one-off customers,
okay, I just need to move something from point A to point B
Justin also generates quite a bit of repeat business
by providing a good service
and positive customer interactions.
The other considerations for this type of business
are obviously a place to store your inventory
when it’s not in use.
It looks like Justin has a good sized property
where he can park these things
and then insurance to protect yourself
if something goes wrong.
And whenever you’re dealing with physical products,
especially big, heavy things,
driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour,
things can go wrong.
In fact, Justin sent me a picture of one of his trailers
with a tire blown out on the side of the road
as the business owner, he’s got to deal with that.
So it’s not all rainbows and unicorns
and passive income all the time,
but as far as a rental asset,
it’s not a ton of moving parts
on these relatively simple, low maintenance products
and ones that probably have a pretty long, useful life
if they’re well taken care of.
You can follow along with what Justin is doing
at trailerhustle on the TikTok trailerhustle.com
where he’s starting to help other people
get involved in this business,
one that I’ll be paying attention to.
Hopefully you can follow along with his journey as well.
So naturally the next question is,
well, what else could you rent out for a profit?
We’ve done episodes on party inflatables
like bouncy houses for kids parties.
We’ve done mobility scooters, photo booths,
portable hot tubs, a favorite of mine.
Even most recently, we did moving boxes in episode 635.
Like here, here’s a low, relatively low overhead type
of product, it’s just a plastic bin.
Now, you might not even have to own the thing
you’re renting out because we talked to Gar Russell
from Fireside RV about renting out other people’s RVs.
Basically acting as a property manager
and splitting the income from those rentals.
So that is number eight on this list,
the trailer rental business and maybe as an illustration
of a broader equipment rental type of side hustle.
Creative side hustle number nine is TV mounting.
Now, I’m blown away by this story
because I never imagined that you could make $30,000
a month mounting TVs for people.
I mean, how many TVs are out there that need mounting?
But that’s exactly what Sina Omosawan has done
with his TV mounting business operating mostly
in the Washington, DC area under the brand Shine.
Back in 2019, Sina is, he’s working on his PhD
when a friend introduces him to his side hustle,
his world of TV mounting.
So he shadows the friend for a few jobs, learns the basics
and consumes what he called hours of YouTube tutorials
to really master the skills.
And starting out, he priced pretty low
to build trust and attract his first clients.
Sina then started using thumbtack
and built his own client base using the platform
to showcase reviews and pictures of the job
that he completed and client feedback.
And that approach definitely worked
and it continues to work almost as a virtuous cycle
because now he’s got over 1,005 star reviews
and that reputation makes it easier
and easier to book more work, right?
He told entrepreneur that he would initially book
two or three jobs in a day.
Each one would take way longer than he wanted them to
as he kind of worked through this learning curve
of how to do the job.
But as his confidence and efficiency grew,
now he’s able to serve more customers every day.
He can mount the TV in just 15 minutes.
Like he’s done hundreds and hundreds of these things.
It becomes really quick, lather, rinse and repeat.
And he also learned the importance
of being really responsive to inquiries
because thumbtack, like a lot of these other platforms
is one where speed really counts.
So keeping his phone on hand, answer customer questions,
schedule those appointments right away.
It is a business with relatively low startup costs,
really just a handful of tools,
some of which you might already own,
but fast forward a few months
and now Sina’s got a decision to make.
So he finishes up his PhD.
He’s got offer letters in his chosen field
of plant evolution and food crop production.
This is what he spent years studying, going to school to do.
But over here, he’s got this side hustle
that’s working really well.
So he makes the hard decision to go all in on the business
instead of this traditional career
that he’s been going to school for.
And he says, you know what?
I’m gonna go be my own boss instead.
Today the business earns around $30,000 each month
and appears to have expanded geographically
sort of customers in Chicago and Indiana as well.
Sina told entrepreneur that he loves
the control and flexibility the business gives him.
He schedules jobs around family commitments
and loves putting a smile on customers’ faces
with a job well done.
He highlighted the importance of prioritizing customer
satisfaction over profits in the beginning.
Remember he said, I got a price low
to attract clients to start to build a portfolio
and build some momentum of positive reviews.
He said that was really the key to growth early on.
I think this is another really interesting example
of owning a niche.
Of course a general handy person service
could handle mounting your TV
but as a customer given the choice between the generalist
and the specialist who’s done it a thousand times
who are you gonna pick?
Is there a similar niche that you could own?
Maybe it’s a piece of what you’re already doing.
You could carve out and really choose to focus on just that.
That’s number nine, 30 grand a month mounting TVs.
Number 10 is guinea pig cages.
This is 17 year old Bella Lynn of California
who is running a not so little side business
called guinea loft which specializes in these
see-through customizable pet enclosures for guinea pigs,
chinchillas, rabbits, hamsters, ferrets, hedgehogs.
She told CNBC she spends around 20 hours a week
on the business on the side from her responsibilities
as a high school student.
Oh yeah, we still gotta go to school.
Last year she averaged $34,000 a month in sales
at roughly a 25% profit margin.
Now as is often the case in e-commerce
she’s heavily reinvesting those profits
into marketing, audience research, developing new products.
This is common where you’re not able to really
take a ton of cash off the table.
You wanna continue to reinvest in inventory
and grow the thing.
Now guinea loft launched on Amazon two years ago
with a startup cost of around $2,000 in prototypes.
Bella sold out of her first production run
of a hundred units in a couple weeks
with quote unquote no marketing
which I assume that meant just relying
on Amazon’s internal search and discovery features
like not paying for additional exposure.
And that’s interesting to me in itself
because I would have assumed that Amazon
to be probably pretty crowded in the pet product space
at that time but goes to show you.
If you can come at a problem from a unique angle
or perspective you can still carve out some market share.
Bella had had guinea pigs as pets for years
and didn’t love the traditional cage options
so she set out to create something better.
I love that.
Is there a hobby niche that you’re really into
but frustrated with what’s available on the market?
I mean this was Chris and Julia Tunstall
from A Bar Above.
They had this content business in the craft cocktail space
but had a hard time recommending
any really high quality bar equipment on Amazon
so they ended up creating their own
which turned into a multi-million dollar business.
One possible example from our own house.
The kids got a Nintendo Switch a couple years ago.
The controllers that come with it
are painfully small for adult hands
and since I like to play too
I order these larger controllers from Amazon.
They’re definitely better
but if there wasn’t even bigger version
I would probably go for that.
It’s the kind of product ideas you come up with
as a hobbyist or a user in a certain field
and that gives you an advantage
over people approaching product research
purely from a software driven or analytical point of view.
Well this one has a higher percentage of three star reviews
so there must be some opportunity
to improve upon the product
and you should absolutely do that level
of competitive research too
but you gotta know the niche.
I don’t think, I don’t know if this is just coming
into something completely blind and agnostic
as to what product is is really gonna work.
You gotta have a story behind it
and maybe what’s even more impressive about Bella
is that Guinea Loft wasn’t even her first e-commerce business.
She started a leggings brand in 2019
that brought in around $300,000 in revenue in 2020.
This girl knows how to move some inventory
but despite that revenue,
the leggings business had a hard time generating profit
so she decided to pivot her attention
to the guinea pig market.
She told CNBC I had a weird epiphany
where I kind of realized there were a lot
of other companies trying to make leggings.
There was no innovation there
whereas with Guinea Loft,
I could feel a really big gap in the market.
So one pain point or an area of innovation for her
was in the floor area of the enclosures
which not to get too nerdy on guinea pig cages
but these I guess apparently were traditionally made
with plastic bottoms and she said,
“Hey, they smell really bad, they’re really hard to clean.”
So ultimately Guinea Loft created a replaceable bottom
for the enclosures with biodegradable wax coated paper
which actually led to repeat business.
‘Cause I’m like, well, okay, you sell a guinea pig cage
and then that’s it, you never see that customer again
but because of this replaceable bottom,
now they’ve got repeat customers,
customers come back in order refills of those.
Pretty savvy, pretty inspiring stuff.
Couple other honorable mentions before we wrap.
The first one here is turning a regular bedtime activity
into a side hustle.
This is Sam Ramsden of Australia
who began making up and telling silly stories
to his eldest daughter and eventually turned those stories
into a podcast called Silly Stories for Kids.
There’s a marketing lesson there.
Sometimes you don’t need a clever name,
you can just call it exactly what it is.
Sam told kidspot.com.au.
I’ve always loved storytelling.
When my eldest daughter was two,
I would lay on her bedroom floor
and make up a bedtime story.
He says one day my father-in-law pulled me aside
and said, “Hey, you ought to turn these stories
“into a podcast.”
It wasn’t something that Sam had ever considered
but with that level of support and encouragement,
he figured out how to make it happen.
The first episodes of Silly Stories for Kids
were only released a year ago
and the show has already generated over 700,000 downloads.
For the sake of reference,
the side hustle show took years to reach 700,000 downloads.
So he’s off to the races.
I didn’t hear any ads on the episode that I listened to
but Sam did make a plug to join his listener membership
ranging from $20 to $50 per year
and powered by Buy Me a Coffee
on the SillyStoriesForKids.com website.
There’s also a store with some merch for sale.
Here’s an example of selling your sawdust, right?
Hey, I’m already telling these stories.
I enjoy making them up.
Why not record them?
Why not put them out to the world?
Pretty cool idea.
Another one I thought was interesting
was Lina Pettigrew’s houseplant business.
I’d never heard of this site before
but it’s called Palm Street,
the number one live shopping app for plants,
crafts and crystals.
Did not know this was a thing
but Lina sold almost $150,000 worth of plants
in her first year.
It seems kind of like Twitch but for plants
like a live streaming marketplace
where you can follow your favorite growers,
gardeners and support them by buying their stuff.
Lina said she can sell 1,000 plants in a single session
and ships them out to customers all across the country.
Now I’m not sure how often you can do that.
Volume of sales because these are living things.
They take some time to grow
but I’ve also got to imagine the cost of goods sold
is pretty low especially if you can start to propagate them
from clippings from plants you’ve already got
even if you’re sourcing them from your local nursery
but now all of a sudden people want to buy from you
because of the brand you’ve created.
Maybe you can command premium pricing because of that.
It’s an example of riding that houseplant wave
looking for those trends to piggyback on,
filling demand instead of creating demand.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.
Hope you take a pause for gratitude today
and really every day to start to build that muscle
to be a little more grateful and a little less hateful
and you’re gonna start to notice these little moments
of happiness and bring awareness to those.
I think it’s a really powerful and positive habit.
If you like this type of roundup style show
we’ve been doing it every Thanksgiving
for the last several years.
There’s a Spotify playlist for you
called Creative Sign Hustles
where you can find all the episodes in this series.
I think this is our seventh.
I have a blast putting them together
and I wanna invite you to send me ideas for the next edition.
Maybe we don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving to do it
if we get enough that come in.
But if you do come across an interesting,
surprising, creative, inspiring way to make extra money
I would love to hear about it.
That is it for me.
Thank you so much for tuning in
with gratitude each and every week.
Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen
and I’ll catch you in the next edition
of The Side Hustle Show.
Hustle on.
It’s that time of year again—Thanksgiving!
What’s particularly fascinating about this year’s collection is the blend of traditional services reimagined for the digital age alongside completely novel business ideas.
This is the 7th installment of the series, so I encourage you to check out the previous episodes if you like this format, make sure to grab the full playlist here.
Here are the past editions if you want to see them individually:
- 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 1 – 2018
- 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 2 – 2019
- 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 3 – 2020
- 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 4 – 2021
- 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 5 – 2022
- 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 6 – 2023
Let’s talk about this year’s most innovative money-making ideas!
Full Show Notes: 10 Creative Side Hustles That Make Real Money
New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here!
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