AI transcript
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0:01:18 There’s a lot of buzz around faceless, YouTube channels, AI-generated content, AI agencies, dropshipping,
0:01:23 vibe coding, print-on-demand, and yes, they’re all viable options. But today I want to share eight
0:01:28 to make money online, even if you’re not an expert, even if you’re not super technical,
0:01:33 and even if you’ve tried some other side hustles and failed in the past. First on my list is hands
0:01:39 down the easiest way I’ve ever made money online, and that’s through the Amazon Influencer Program.
0:01:44 How it works is you request to join. You do need to have some level of social media following to
0:01:50 qualify, but you don’t need millions of followers to get accepted. After that, you create short product
0:01:55 review videos of items that are sold on Amazon. You didn’t have to buy them there, just as long as
0:02:01 they’re sold there. Amazon then puts your videos on the relevant product pages, and when someone buys
0:02:06 the product after watching your video, rewards you with a little bit of commission. Now, I started by
0:02:12 just looking around the office. I’ve got this microphone arm and this standing desk and the standing
0:02:17 desk mat and the ring light and the teleprompter and the podcasting headphones, all sorts of stuff,
0:02:23 right? And I’m over $2,000 in total earnings, including over $300 this year when I haven’t
0:02:28 uploaded a single new video, I don’t think. So imagine what might happen if you took it seriously
0:02:34 and were consistent with creating those videos. Yeah, I think most of what makes you successful
0:02:40 as a product reviewer has remained constant. It’s work. You have to put in the time. You have to be
0:02:45 fairly consistent. There were a lot of people who started around the same time I did who worked really
0:02:53 hard for six months, made 500 videos, made $20,000, $30,000 off that, but then just burnt out. And so
0:03:00 I think the best advice I can give anyone now is set manageable goals. You know, do five videos a week,
0:03:05 but do that consistently over a period of several months, and then it starts to compound it. And if
0:03:10 you’re only making pennies in the beginning, just know it’s a numbers game. And you know,
0:03:15 it might not be my best product review. I did a review in my first year. I was about six months in
0:03:21 and I was starting to figure out what things sold better and what was trending. And I found something
0:03:27 that popped off and it made me $17,000. And I have not had that kind of success since then. However,
0:03:34 that product still makes me a few hundred dollars every single month. And if I had only done my first 400
0:03:39 videos, I never would have had that product. And so it’s just being consistent, looking for different
0:03:44 things and improving over time, as far as your product selection and as well as the style of the
0:03:51 videos, things like that, you just get better at it. And that’s, what’s kind of cool here is the videos
0:03:57 can have a really long shelf life where, like I said, only uploaded eight last year. None of them were
0:04:02 necessarily great sellers, but you know, the stuff from the previous year was still make it sales.
0:04:07 And so if you get something that sticks and hopefully it doesn’t get flooded with a lot of
0:04:12 other videos or for whatever reason, yours is the one that gets shown, like you said, it can drive this
0:04:18 passive income really for months or years. Yeah. And that’s the amazing thing. If I stopped making videos
0:04:24 today, I’d probably still make at least $25,000 this year just because I have that catalog. And that’s
0:04:30 really cool to think, you know, maybe I do need to take some time off. Maybe I’ve never taken more than
0:04:35 two weeks off, but if I took a whole month off, it probably wouldn’t matter at all. I’d still be making
0:04:39 about the same amount of money. So I love that about the program.
0:04:45 I’ve come across some Amazon influencers who are getting paid at least three different ways. First, they built
0:04:50 their reputation to the point where brands now reach out and pay them to create the videos. They send them
0:04:55 the product for free and then pay them a little bit to do the review. I believe Tyler mentioned getting paid
0:05:01 by brands to do that as well. Then you can earn your Amazon influencer commissions when it sells.
0:05:05 And if you’re posting on your own platform, like YouTube, there’s the potential to earn even more
0:05:12 through creator connections. And then earlier this year, I met this guy who every few months would
0:05:17 need to clear out his inventory. He was getting enough products in for free. He needed to resell them to make
0:05:23 room for more. I think Tyler mentioned giving them away to his students. He was like a teacher by day
0:05:28 job. But this other guy was actually reselling them sometimes on Facebook marketplace, sometimes on
0:05:33 eBay, and sometimes through the live shopping app, whatnot. I don’t know if you’ve used that, but
0:05:38 apparently very popular. That is online business. No startup costs. Number one, the Amazon influencer
0:05:46 program. Number two is freelancing and consulting, which is admittedly a really broad bucket, but solving a
0:05:51 problem for another person or another business and getting paid for it. Really low startup costs. In
0:05:56 fact, you can probably just, you know, raise your hand and start calling yourself a freelancer or
0:06:00 consultant today. Now, the premise here is super simple. Like I said, figure out a problem you can
0:06:06 solve and go connect with people who are experiencing that problem. Zero startup costs. But there’s a couple
0:06:12 parts. First, you got to identify the service. Now for that, I recommend some introspection, right? Like
0:06:15 you got to take inventory of your skills. What have you gotten paid to do in the past?
0:06:20 What do other people ask you for help with? What do you never get tired of talking about? For me,
0:06:24 like dissecting different business ideas. Like, how’d you come up with that? Right? It’s like kind of the
0:06:30 origin story of the side hustle show. Another way to reframe it is what do other people irrationally
0:06:34 suck at? Like that’s another way of finding out, well, what comes natural to you? Now, one of my all-time
0:06:41 favorite tactics is to piggyback on the popularity of an existing software tool. So maybe you’re a power user
0:06:47 or you’re an early adopter of a particular program and could help people with that. It is a tried and
0:06:53 true side hustle framework. And we’ve seen people build successful piggybacking businesses on top of
0:06:59 SEMrush, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, Asana, Pipedrive, Salesforce, even like Microsoft Excel,
0:07:04 something super old school, right? For Christy De Silva, she happened to be a fan of ClickUp and
0:07:10 HoneyBook. And even though she started out as a general virtual assistant, she quickly found that
0:07:17 the work she enjoyed the most was helping clients set up systems and processes inside their organization.
0:07:23 And so when she niched down to doing just that stuff, she 10xed her effective hourly rate.
0:07:30 I started my rates a lot lower than other people may have been charging because I’m like, I’m not
0:07:38 not like a top tier expert yet, but I know that I know a lot more about these products than the people
0:07:43 that I’m serving and these softwares than the people that I’m serving. And so I was still able to charge
0:07:51 more technically hourly, except a lot of our stuff is flat rate now. But for example, yeah, making about
0:08:00 30 to 40 bucks an hour as a VA where now I charge $300 an hour for a strategy session, like so crazy
0:08:07 that jump. But now being an expert in this for four years, it’s really cool to see where we’ve been.
0:08:12 Yeah, that’s worth pausing on. Like that’s the power of niching down and becoming an expert on the thing.
0:08:13 Yep.
0:08:17 So that’s the first part, figuring out what service you could potentially offer. The second part is
0:08:23 maybe a little harder. And that is the connecting with clients piece of the puzzle. For that,
0:08:25 Christy turned to YouTube.
0:08:31 We get the majority of our leads from YouTube. And I will say like probably 80% of the time people come
0:08:35 on, they’re like, Oh my gosh, it’s so nice to meet you. I’ve been subscribed to your channels for like
0:08:40 two or three years. And they feel like they already know me, even though I have no idea who they are.
0:08:48 Yet. It’s funny, because it’s a huge thing in sales is that like no like and trust factor. And
0:08:51 you already solved that piece before we even ever get on a sales call.
0:08:57 Yeah, you know, you’re showing your face, your voice. Yeah, you build a lot of trust that way.
0:09:04 Deciding what type of content to make any sort of like keyword research tools or search volume
0:09:10 that goes into it. I’m just looking at like broad Google searches, you know, 400,000 monthly searches
0:09:16 for ClickUp and then 60,000 for HoneyBook. And so there’s some decent, like top level search volume.
0:09:21 But then I imagine it kind of goes into that long tail for like how to run your agency in HoneyBook,
0:09:23 like more specific type of searches.
0:09:30 We actually really love vidIQ. And we’ll look at what performed best on our channels or like
0:09:35 what’s ranking highest. Like for example, our ClickUp dashboards video was ranking highest for
0:09:41 like a long time. Our how to use HoneyBook and ClickUp, like yearly videos, like in 2024,
0:09:45 those always do really well as well. So we’re like, okay, we’ll always do those in the beginning of the
0:09:51 year. But we’ll look back at our previous content, what’s highly ranking, knowing people want more of
0:09:58 that. And then we’ll really just start doing long tail keyword research in vidIQ, you know,
0:10:04 kind of going down a rabbit hole of like, okay, how are these ranking in terms of search volume
0:10:05 and things like that?
0:10:12 Is there a minimum search volume that is interesting to you or worthwhile to make the video about?
0:10:18 It’s more like how it scores in vidIQ. I think we’re looking over like a 60 or 70 ranking.
0:10:22 Which is a combination of volume and competitiveness.
0:10:28 Yeah, exactly. And so we also speaking of competitiveness, we’ll definitely do competitor
0:10:34 research as well, because we have like a few competitors. We’re very niche, but we absolutely
0:10:40 have competitors. And so we’ll look at their channels, what’s ranking high on their channels.
0:10:47 And by no means do we ever just copy their video, but we’ll be like, okay, cool. They did something on
0:10:54 this specific topic. How can we do something similar, but have our own spin? And so we’ll do
0:10:56 that research as well.
0:10:57 Oh, that makes sense.
0:10:57 Yeah.
0:11:02 And then this is, you know, I probably have talked about this before, but I would come
0:11:07 up with this content idea and it would be something super broad, like, you know, ways to make money
0:11:12 on the internet or something. And then of course, Google that. And well, shoot, there’s already
0:11:13 a dozen people have already written this article.
0:11:18 I guess I better go back to the drawing board and come up with another topic. It’s like,
0:11:23 that’s still viable. You can still get traffic and eyeballs and visitors and customers from this.
0:11:26 You just have to put your own unique spin on it. You got to make something that’s different and
0:11:30 better than what’s already out there. And that was a little bit of a shift here. And it sounds like
0:11:36 the same thing. Okay. We can look at the competitor channels. We can see what’s working for them and
0:11:42 say, okay, that, and just trying to reverse engineer that, you know, followed the same people doing
0:11:49 like a software review or tutorial type of videos, like for, you know, fill in the blanks. I was like,
0:11:54 well, I don’t use that tool, so I can’t make that one, but I could do the same thing for this app or
0:11:58 this software. It’s like, here’s a template that clearly worked and kind of fill in the blanks in
0:12:04 that case. Exactly. Exactly. We also will absolutely use AI. So like chat GPT, when we’re content planning,
0:12:11 we’ll be like, we’re working on a series for click up for agencies, help us grab some like
0:12:17 highly SEO ranking topics for these videos. And then it’ll spit out a bunch of things. Then we
0:12:22 know our ideal client more than anyone. So we can guide it in the right direction, but we’ll also
0:12:29 just like use it to ideate and get inspiration from as well as super helpful. Do you feel the need to
0:12:34 publish consistently or is like, look, we got this stuff out there. It’s evergreen. We got a consistent
0:12:40 lead flow or do you have to keep kind of feeding the machine right now? We feel like it’s pertinent
0:12:45 to keep feeding the machine just so we’re like constantly ranking. I mean, we have some videos
0:12:51 that are like upwards of like 40, 50,000 views. So those are still bringing in us like warm leads and
0:13:00 hot traffic. But what we’re seeing now is that we niched into systems and HoneyBook and ClickUp,
0:13:07 but we’re actually niching a little bit further in the recent months into seven to eight figure agencies.
0:13:14 So we have a lot of really good content out there that’s serving the broad audience of people looking
0:13:19 for ClickUp and HoneyBook, how to get started, things like that. But now we really want to start focusing
0:13:27 our content on seven to eight figure agencies and where they’re having their specific troubles and hurdles
0:13:34 in their business and then relating it to, okay, you’re having this issue, then how do we solve that with
0:13:41 HoneyBook, with ClickUp? And so I think that’s where we could still be getting leads from YouTube, even if we
0:13:48 stopped our content right now, our content machine. But I think we want to start tailoring it more to the ideal
0:13:54 client that we want to bring in. So prospective clients watch your videos, they build a trusting
0:13:58 relationship with you. And then when they need additional help, you’re the one who gets the call.
0:14:04 Again, this was attraction marketing or pull marketing, where you’re answering the questions your ideal
0:14:10 customers might have in video form, and then you invite them to take the next step if they need more
0:14:15 help. Now, other ways we’ve seen guests land freelance clients is through one way would be through
0:14:19 strategic partnerships, thinking of who your target customers are already doing business with,
0:14:25 and it might only take one or two before you have enough lead flow to meet your goals. The example
0:14:32 that comes to mind is Carter Osborne, who was doing college admissions essay prep consulting, and his
0:14:39 strategic partner was someone in town who did broader admissions consulting, but didn’t like doing the essay
0:14:46 work. So it was a natural referral partnership for her to send leads his way. Now we’ve got more zero or super
0:14:53 low-cost online business ideas coming up right after this. So far, we’ve covered the Amazon influencer
0:15:01 program and freelancing or consulting as some no-cost online business ideas. Number three on our list is
0:15:06 digital product sales. And what I love about this model is it’s one where you can create something
0:15:14 once. It could be a printable file, a template, a budgeting spreadsheet, a form, a customizable chart.
0:15:20 It could even be an online course, an ebook, or something like that, but some digital product, a meal planner,
0:15:27 a piece of art even. But you can create it once, and you can sell it over and over again. My friend Cody is a pro at this,
0:15:34 and last year he took a brand new Etsy shop from $0 to $1,000 a month in sales in like three or four
0:15:40 months. I was putting up about 20 to 30 products per week. I actually got my first sale on day three.
0:15:46 And so for those who don’t know, I actually documented this whole process like day one to 116. I took a video
0:15:51 almost every single day, kind of just sharing live updates. I was sharing screenshots of my shop. And on day
0:15:57 three, I had my first sale, which was great. I think I probably only had five or six products up at that
0:15:59 point, but I was adding like 20 to 30 a week.
0:16:03 And that’s cool because there’s not a lot of social proof on the channel where it’s like, you know,
0:16:09 it shows zero sales, zero reviews, like reviews. I’m taking a chance on this guy. Yeah.
0:16:13 That’s the beauty of this side hustle though, is you don’t need an audience. You don’t need an email
0:16:19 list. You don’t need really anything. Like if you understand keyword research and SEO, that is the
0:16:23 most important skill. You can be a five out of 10 graphic designer. A lot of people think they have to be
0:16:28 like this graphic design wizard in order to sell this stuff. You can be a five out of 10 graphic designer.
0:16:33 As long as you understand keyword research and SEO, and you go after those, the riches in the niches, and you go
0:16:37 after those kind of longer tail, less targeted keywords, people are going to buy your stuff.
0:16:42 Now the sticklers are going to note that, Hey, wait a minute. It costs 20 cents for every product that
0:16:48 you upload to Etsy. So you’re right. Not completely free, but pretty close to it. Now, Cody mentioned
0:16:54 using tools like eRank, a software tool to get an estimate for search volume and competitiveness
0:17:00 of your specific product ideas, which does have, eRank does have a free plan, at least as of press
0:17:07 time. But here’s how I look at it. Start to stack up these evergreen digital assets that can make sales
0:17:13 month after month. Is there a minimum search volume that’s too low to bother with?
0:17:18 I usually don’t touch anything under 50. And some people think that’s crazy. Some people,
0:17:23 some other Etsy quote unquote gurus don’t touch things that are under like 200. But for me, I’m
0:17:28 like, there’s 50 people searching for this a month and there’s zero competition. And I can scoop up,
0:17:34 say even 20% of them, 10 people buy my $5 thing. I like to think of these each as like a little mini
0:17:38 passive income machine. Like that’s 50 extra dollars per month. And that 50 adds up. Like if you can
0:17:43 get an army of these $50 per month products, even if they don’t have a lot of search volume,
0:17:47 you get 20 of those going, that’s $1,000 per month and mostly passive income.
0:17:51 Goes back to the beginning of, you know, planting these little digital money seeds.
0:17:56 It costs you a little bit of time and 20 cents to create this thing. And now it’s out there
0:18:02 in the world and can earn passive income for you. I think that’s, I think that’s really exciting.
0:18:09 If that’s got you excited, make sure to check out the full interview with Cody episode 665 in your
0:18:15 side hustle show feed or download Cody’s list of some hot selling seasonal products to get your
0:18:19 creative juices flowing, which I will link up in the show notes for this episode. But that
0:18:26 is low cost online business. Number three, the digital product business. Number four is called
0:18:34 rank and rent. In this model, you build out a portfolio of websites targeting local service provider
0:18:40 searches like Dallas carpet cleaning or gravel driveways, Boston. And once those sites have
0:18:46 some exposure in Google, you rent them out to qualified local service providers at anywhere from
0:18:53 500 to $1,500 per month. After all, those rankings in Google can be pretty valuable. They’re sought after
0:18:57 digital real estate. So what makes a good niche here?
0:19:05 I like something that’s service based that you don’t have a storefront, like basically like a plumber,
0:19:13 the concrete guy or roofer, you go to the client side to, to work. So it’s not that people come into your
0:19:22 office. So service based business. The second one is I really like those high ticket type of work,
0:19:30 like concrete driveways, patios, this work demolition, roofing, nothing sexy, nothing sexy,
0:19:34 but those niche work. Yeah. It just, they work.
0:19:42 And that’s because the value of these jobs is worth quite a bit to the service provider. And so they’re just like,
0:19:47 if we can get more, if we get more leads in, if we can book up our calendar, then yeah, it’s worthwhile.
0:19:50 We’ll just, you know, add this to our monthly marketing budget.
0:19:58 Yeah, exactly. Anything above 50K should work the population wise. I’m talking about 400K
0:20:04 population wise seems to be very sweet spot. So it’s not too big city. Your local competition is not
0:20:12 that strong and it’s easy and you have enough volume to the population produce enough leads,
0:20:16 enough search volume that is going to help you to run the site out.
0:20:23 So the research is the first part. Now from there, you got to find a company on the ground that does good work and
0:20:29 is hungry to grow their business and doesn’t really want to bother with the local SEO side of things themselves.
0:20:36 You’re essentially becoming a line item on that company’s marketing budget. They’re outsourcing some of their lead generation to you.
0:20:40 And as long as you deliver, those clients tend to stick around for a long time.
0:20:47 When we recorded Meow, that was Meow Rios in that clip. She had a portfolio of like 20 or 30 of these income generating sites.
0:20:51 So it’s a model that can be pretty scalable once you figure it out.
0:20:56 Now for more on this, I encourage you to check out the full interview with Meow or Luke Vanderveer.
0:21:01 We did an episode, I want to say 448 on his rank and rent business model.
0:21:08 He also runs website rental coaching, website rental coaching.com slash SHN, I believe is my referral link for that.
0:21:12 But I will link up both of those interviews in the show notes for this episode.
0:21:15 And that is online business model number four.
0:21:18 Yes, you have some hosting costs. You probably have some domain registration fees.
0:21:23 But other than that, relatively low overhead, high profit margin type of business.
0:21:28 The fifth online business you can start for $0 is UGC, user-generated content.
0:21:32 In fact, you can start this with just your phone and the stuff you have lying around your house.
0:21:38 This year, I connected with Megan Collier, a UGC creator here in the Seattle area,
0:21:43 who said that she made four videos of products that she liked, that she already had,
0:21:46 and that she used those to seed her portfolio.
0:21:50 The portfolio was the main thing that I sent to brands, though, when I was reaching out.
0:21:53 And I was reaching out to brands two ways.
0:21:55 One is Instagram DM.
0:22:02 I would literally just scroll Instagram, look at the ads that I was seeing on Instagram,
0:22:06 and then go and follow the brand if I wasn’t already following them.
0:22:10 And then I would DM them and say, hey, I’m Megan.
0:22:11 I’m a UGC creator.
0:22:12 I’ve been seeing your ads.
0:22:15 Your product looks like something I could totally use myself.
0:22:19 And I’d love to be connected with the person in charge of handling partnerships.
0:22:22 And I got several responses from that.
0:22:24 That’s how I landed my second UGC deal.
0:22:28 The first one, though, that you mentioned, the $750 deal,
0:22:31 was like 10 days into my UGC journey.
0:22:36 And that was with an app company that I just ended up emailing, cold pitching via email.
0:22:40 And yeah, they ended up hiring me for three videos initially.
0:22:47 And then I wanted to make more money and prove that I could actually do this and make a good chunk of money for my first UGC deal.
0:22:51 And so I ended up, I didn’t tell them, but I made five total videos for them.
0:22:55 And I was like, hey, I ended up having a ton of ideas for you guys.
0:22:59 And I have five videos if you want to buy the other two.
0:23:01 And they were like, oh my gosh, yes, 100%.
0:23:02 We need all the videos that we can get.
0:23:06 So then it ended up being about $750 for those five videos.
0:23:07 Okay.
0:23:09 So step one, create the portfolio.
0:23:12 Step two, start doing the brand outreach.
0:23:17 And it sounds like I’m just going to scroll my feed and show who’s showing up in the ads.
0:23:20 Like I know they’re investing in user acquisition and growth marketing.
0:23:25 So they might be more receptive to this, which is, my approach would have been like,
0:23:31 well, what are the top 25, 50 brands that I already know, like, and trust, and I use?
0:23:34 And I’m going to start there, it sounds like, you know, maybe that comes down the road.
0:23:35 Yeah.
0:23:43 I mean, honestly, I think that what works, the only way to land the deal is literally by connecting
0:23:44 with brands.
0:23:47 So it doesn’t matter if you’re going to DM, if you’re going to email, if you’re just going
0:23:52 to start with the brands that you already like, because that also is super powerful because
0:23:57 you’re coming to the brand saying, hey, I’ve been using this product for X amount of months
0:23:58 or X amount of years.
0:24:03 They’ve already got that, like, it’s a bonus for them because they have a real customer
0:24:06 that’s going to be willing to make some really authentic, genuine content.
0:24:08 So yeah, a hundred percent, you can start with brands.
0:24:12 You already know, you already like, you can quite literally, this is what I tell people
0:24:18 if they’re kind of having a block on who to reach out to is take a pen and piece of paper
0:24:23 or take your notes app on your phone, go walk around your house and look at all the products
0:24:27 that you have that you’ve purchased that you use on a consistent basis.
0:24:34 I can almost guarantee most of those brands are posting consistently on social media.
0:24:38 And probably a lot of them are also working already with UGC creators.
0:24:39 Yeah.
0:24:43 And it’s not just, you know, I’m thinking of like the closet and shoes and clothes, but
0:24:48 also food and snacks and toys and games, like all sorts of stuff.
0:24:49 So much.
0:24:52 And even software, like you said, the first deal was an app company.
0:24:52 Yeah.
0:24:53 Yeah.
0:24:59 I’ve worked with so many apps, software companies that I’ve used for years and just, you know,
0:25:00 they just hired me to do UGC.
0:25:06 So yeah, the, it’s whenever people ask me like what kind of brands are using UGC creators,
0:25:08 it’s truly a mix.
0:25:09 It’s across the board.
0:25:15 I’ve worked with fashion, like clothing companies, software tech companies, like you as a, you doing
0:25:18 podcasts, like I’m looking at your headphones, right?
0:25:23 Your mic, like you, whatever you’re using as a podcaster, so many brands are using, you
0:25:26 know, user generated content in their marketing strategies.
0:25:27 Okay.
0:25:32 So that’s what they’re getting out of the deal is we’re going to hire Megan or a hundred
0:25:36 people like Megan to fill out our own content feed.
0:25:38 Like it’s, there’s always another day coming around.
0:25:40 There’s always going to be need, needing more stuff to post.
0:25:46 And so this is a way to kind of crowdsource that in an authentic looking way or, you know,
0:25:48 from actual users of the thing.
0:25:49 And so that’s their benefit.
0:25:51 Benefit to you is obviously you’re getting paid to do it.
0:25:56 And so it sounds like from your Instagram DMs, it’s like, could you connect me with the,
0:26:03 you said the person handling content partnerships or is like some, is that an official job title
0:26:05 that I want to like be on the lookout for?
0:26:06 Yeah.
0:26:08 It’s going to be different for every brand, right?
0:26:13 So what I like to tell people is, you know, typically when you’re reaching out to medium,
0:26:19 you know, from medium to large sized brands, the person that’s looking at the DMs of the brand,
0:26:23 like on the brand’s Instagram account is not typically a decision maker, right?
0:26:28 It’s going to be a customer service person that just wants to answer questions quickly.
0:26:34 So that’s why I say always ask to be connected with the brand partnerships, or it could be an
0:26:35 influencer manager.
0:26:37 It could be a partnerships director.
0:26:39 It could be a creative director.
0:26:43 So you could ask it in a specific way more.
0:26:47 Can I be connected with the person in charge of handling partnerships?
0:26:51 So you don’t have to say a specific title, but just whoever’s in charge of, you know,
0:26:52 working with content creators.
0:26:54 So here’s what’s wild about this.
0:26:58 And I didn’t do a good job of explaining it at the top of the segment is you don’t need
0:27:00 to be an influencer to make money doing this.
0:27:01 You don’t need a big following of your own.
0:27:04 You don’t even need to post this stuff to your own feed.
0:27:10 The brands that are hiring UGC creators, they’re looking for authentic looking user generated content
0:27:14 for their own organic social media feeds or to use as paid ads.
0:27:19 So be sure to check out that full episode with Megan to learn more about starting a UGC business
0:27:20 of your own.
0:27:24 It is episode 666 in your feed, 666.
0:27:30 And she started out at, you know, $100 to $250 per video and now is over $1,000 per video
0:27:33 for something that might be 45 seconds long.
0:27:35 Really strong hourly rate.
0:27:38 She went on to get, you know, monthly retainers for some of these clients.
0:27:40 Really cool business for the creative types.
0:27:44 If you like consuming video content, if you like creating video content, it could be a
0:27:44 fun one for you.
0:27:49 Now, the other way to make money with UGC does help if you have a bit of a following in that
0:27:55 as an affiliate, you can browse top selling items in TikTok shop and raise your hand to start
0:27:59 creating content about those products and earn a commission whenever they sell.
0:28:01 But that’s number five on my list.
0:28:03 UGC user generated content.
0:28:09 Number six is websites, which used to be fairly straightforward, at least more so than it is today.
0:28:14 You know, you would build up a body of informational content in a given niche, maybe something that
0:28:16 you have some expertise in.
0:28:21 You would rank that site in Google and then you could earn relatively predictable income
0:28:23 from advertising and affiliate relationships.
0:28:27 But those types of informational content sites have been having a hard time lately.
0:28:29 Site isolation included in that.
0:28:35 But websites can still be a recurring revenue, online business asset, low startup costs, checks
0:28:36 all those boxes.
0:28:41 Now, one model that we’ve seen to be a little bit more AI resistant is directory
0:28:43 websites, which might sound kind of old school.
0:28:49 But in our episode this year with Frey Chu, he proves there’s still good money to be made
0:28:50 with directories.
0:28:57 The key is finding underserved niches and then building something genuinely useful with some
0:28:58 value added data.
0:29:03 And Frey was specifically focusing on what we called near me niches.
0:29:06 Like, what can I find, you know, pizza near me?
0:29:07 It was probably too broad.
0:29:10 But, you know, what are the stores or services near me?
0:29:15 And then doing a layer of value added data, because if people can get all the information
0:29:18 they need from Google Maps, there’s not really any reason to come to your directory.
0:29:25 But here’s Frey from episode 692 on that, you know, hitting that money milestone for his
0:29:28 first directory, which was in the thrifting niche.
0:29:36 The major turning moment for that directory was six months in, I randomly just pulled up
0:29:40 the Google Analytics and noticed there were a thousand people coming to that website that
0:29:40 day.
0:29:46 And I just remember staring at it for five minutes and being like, what is going on?
0:29:49 Like, how, where is this traffic coming from?
0:29:49 Yeah, is this real?
0:29:50 Yeah.
0:29:53 At that time, I was like, kind of a noob at SEO too.
0:29:55 I was relearning or just learning all the basics.
0:29:58 So I was thinking, oh, maybe I did something correct.
0:30:04 And I started putting ads that following month and the traffic kind of steadily came in and
0:30:08 I made $1,200 that month without really doing anything.
0:30:09 It was just putting up ads.
0:30:10 Was this just an AdSense?
0:30:13 Yeah, I actually ended up using Ezoic.
0:30:15 That was the media partner that I used.
0:30:20 And now I’m using Mediavine Grow, which is my go-to ad partner now.
0:30:23 Okay, so you built the thing and then kind of sat on it.
0:30:28 Like, I guess, let it age potentially in the search results and establish some domain.
0:30:32 I don’t know, do you do anything proactively to market it during those six months or just
0:30:33 like log in one day?
0:30:35 Hey, it actually is getting traffic.
0:30:37 I did post on Reddit and I talk about that a lot.
0:30:43 Every time I finish an entire directory build, I always find a niche subreddit and I’ll make
0:30:43 a post.
0:30:50 It’ll basically sound like, hey, I made a website to make XYZ easier or to find XYZ locations
0:30:51 easier.
0:30:54 And yeah, that’s kind of the only thing that I did.
0:30:59 It was responsible for maybe like a few hundred people coming to the website because that Reddit
0:31:04 post performed really well and people still commented to it on this day, you know, a couple
0:31:04 years later.
0:31:09 But yeah, really nothing much, nothing too fancy was done.
0:31:11 What attracted you to this business model?
0:31:18 I think every entrepreneur goes through this moment where they either struggle to start something
0:31:21 or start something and realize that’s not the thing that they want.
0:31:23 So in my case, I was running a full-wear business.
0:31:27 I was closing it down, super depressed, very low point of my entrepreneurial life.
0:31:32 And I realized what I really wanted was a business with five things.
0:31:37 And it was something that was scalable, something cheap to start, something remote where I didn’t
0:31:41 have to like go to a warehouse and pack shoes and ship it to customers, something with high
0:31:44 margin and something that could be sold as an asset.
0:31:47 And I scoured the internet for these businesses.
0:31:49 Very difficult to find.
0:31:52 Yeah, this is a little bit of a unicorn, like something that checks all those boxes.
0:31:53 Totally.
0:31:57 So I found, I think I landed on SaaS or websites and I’m not a coder.
0:32:01 So, you know, and this was kind of pre like this early AI.
0:32:04 Yeah, pre AI vibe coding stuff.
0:32:04 Exactly.
0:32:06 Yeah, the vibe coding was not a thing yet.
0:32:10 So I landed on websites and I saw exactly what you mentioned, which is niche informational
0:32:18 blogs were getting absolutely destroyed, especially starting September, 2023 with the helpful content
0:32:18 updates.
0:32:24 So I was like, okay, well, I guess I’ll just look on Ahrefs and see what wasn’t affected.
0:32:26 And I started noticing these directories.
0:32:31 I didn’t really like go into it thinking I’m going to go build a portfolio of directories.
0:32:35 I was just like, okay, well, this, I found this website that was getting over a hundred
0:32:39 thousand monthly visitors and it was rank one page one for my target thrifting keyword.
0:32:41 And I was like, I could do better than this.
0:32:42 This is like pretty ugly.
0:32:45 And I feel like not that helpful.
0:32:46 There could be better information.
0:32:47 It’s also out of date.
0:32:49 They’re missing a lot of locations.
0:32:52 And I was like, okay, I’m going to go and build it.
0:32:58 And yeah, once I started ramping up and that kind of aha moment happened, I was like, okay,
0:33:02 this meets all those five criteria and I can just keep building these out.
0:33:04 That’s what launched the directory side hustle for me.
0:33:08 Again, that’s Frey Chu from episode 692.
0:33:13 Highly recommend checking that one out if you’ve been impacted by the last couple of years of
0:33:18 SEO upheaval as a way to potentially fight back and start making money online again.
0:33:21 And I love the five criteria that he mentioned.
0:33:27 Scalable, global, cheap to start, remote friendly, high margin, and sellable as an asset.
0:33:31 That’s a pretty solid framework for evaluating any business opportunity.
0:33:37 In fact, the episodes featuring side hustles that, check those boxes, tend to perform pretty
0:33:37 well.
0:33:40 So maybe my next side hustle will be a directory.
0:33:46 The idea that I had the other day was the reciprocal membership directory.
0:33:49 Like we have the membership at the Science Center here in Seattle.
0:33:54 But by having that membership, we’ve gotten free access or discounted access to a bunch of
0:33:55 places like wherever we travel.
0:34:02 Most recently, like the Science World in Vancouver, like totally free entry for everybody in the
0:34:02 family.
0:34:06 It’s like, okay, I wonder if there’s a way, because it’s usually buried, you know, somewhere
0:34:08 deep in the terms of terms and conditions or something.
0:34:12 Like, I wonder if there’s a way to like build the directory that says, these are the memberships
0:34:12 that you have.
0:34:13 This is where you’re traveling.
0:34:14 Here’s where you could go.
0:34:16 It probably wouldn’t be that difficult to build out.
0:34:19 So maybe, you know, I don’t know what kind of use and what kind of traffic would there
0:34:20 would be for around that.
0:34:22 But that was my latest directory idea.
0:34:28 But still, you know, the key here is not to sleep on websites as an online business opportunity.
0:34:34 Just be aware that traditional article based Q&A SEO is tough right now.
0:34:38 But certain types of websites are still getting traffic, traction and revenue.
0:34:43 And that’s why directories are low cost online business idea.
0:34:46 Number six, similar to rank and rent, where you’re going to have hosting expense, you’re
0:34:48 going to have domain registration expense.
0:34:51 But other than that, pretty low startup cost.
0:34:57 I’ve got more online businesses that you can start for free or almost free coming up right
0:34:57 after this.
0:35:02 Low cost online business number seven is a email newsletter.
0:35:05 So you can get started for free through platforms like Substack.
0:35:07 And I think even Kit has a free plan.
0:35:13 But newsletters are a great low overhead business, taking ideas from your brain and sharing them
0:35:16 in a way that scales really nicely.
0:35:19 I mean, it’s like, yeah, you’re going to pay more the more subscribers you have.
0:35:24 But the effort that it takes is the same, whether you’re sending it to 10 people or 10,000 people
0:35:25 or 100,000 people.
0:35:32 So the newsletter operators that I talk to monetize with sponsorships, with affiliate partnerships,
0:35:37 with their own products and services, or even with paid subscriptions.
0:35:41 Danielle Desir Corbett went the paid route for her newsletter.
0:35:46 It’s called Grants for Creators, where she sends out grant opportunities for creators, as
0:35:47 the name might imply.
0:35:53 And she was earning over $1,000 a month when we recorded in episode 544, sending it out
0:35:53 every couple of weeks.
0:35:57 And here’s how she described getting her first subscribers.
0:36:00 I’ve used a handful of strategies.
0:36:05 And I’m really happy of the deliverables and what happened as a result of them.
0:36:08 So I’m very big on Twitter.
0:36:12 And like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t have an existing grant-focused audience.
0:36:16 There were just a lot of people who follow me for travel, podcasting, personal finance,
0:36:17 that sort of thing.
0:36:18 But I went on Twitter.
0:36:24 And if you go to my profile at the thought card, the first pinned tweet will show you what
0:36:25 exactly I said.
0:36:30 But pretty much I said something like, oh my gosh, guys, I launched a new project.
0:36:35 I’m super terrified because I was and called Grants for Creators.
0:36:40 And my goal is to just help find U.S. creators’ opportunities and funding opportunities.
0:36:45 And I think that tweet showcased my vulnerability, right?
0:36:48 Everyone knows the feeling of what it feels like to start something new.
0:36:53 So I think that vulnerability really helped to just be like, what is she doing?
0:36:54 She’s being vulnerable.
0:36:56 Let’s support that.
0:37:00 And also because I was filling a gap and filling a need, I think there was a lot of interest
0:37:01 and buzz on Twitter.
0:37:03 It’s been treated tons of times.
0:37:06 So that was my initial, just sharing about it on Twitter.
0:37:11 And like I mentioned, because grants isn’t something that creative people think about at
0:37:19 the onset, I did a lot of quick tweets about the power of grants, my personal experience with
0:37:25 grants, how grants are for also creators who are also small business owners.
0:37:30 So I had to do a lot of just like promoting, not necessarily the newsletter itself, but also
0:37:35 promoting the idea of like, why this is valuable, how this can change your life and why just being
0:37:37 on the, in the know is really important.
0:37:39 So sharing on Twitter was my go-to.
0:37:44 Also from that initial buzz, word of mouth has been really helpful.
0:37:51 So I made sure to text my close friends via like my personal friends who I knew were creators
0:37:55 who would find this interesting and said, Hey, I’m starting this new project.
0:37:56 Can you share this with your friends?
0:38:03 Especially in the beginning, all the newsletters, they all had buttons to follow, to subscribe to
0:38:03 the newsletter.
0:38:10 So I’m always continuously like axing for the subscription, like ax to follow and join.
0:38:15 And the word of mouth is very, I think also creator economy is like interesting where when
0:38:18 people find something that’s interesting and resourceful, everyone is like, Oh my gosh.
0:38:21 So there’s just a lot of excitement when you find something.
0:38:23 So word of mouth has been really helpful.
0:38:26 Newsletter mentions have been huge for me.
0:38:32 Partly some of it was organic, meaning people saw I was launching this new project and they
0:38:34 wanted to just add a link in their newsletter.
0:38:37 Like tons of people did that for me in the beginning.
0:38:42 These were just like personal connections, personal creators who also ran a newsletter targeting
0:38:44 other creators.
0:38:46 Yes, yes, exactly.
0:38:50 So there were just creators who had their own newsletters and who just mentioned.
0:38:52 I never asked them to do it for me.
0:38:55 It was just organic and it was so kind of them.
0:39:00 But sometimes there are newsletters that you may be a part of that acts for submissions.
0:39:02 And I was intentional about that.
0:39:08 So I also made sure to include grants for creators as part of those submissions.
0:39:11 Like, Hey, community members, tell me your updates for the week.
0:39:12 Oh, I launched this thing.
0:39:16 You know, so I made sure to really zero in on what’s working.
0:39:18 Newsletter mentions were great.
0:39:20 So I made sure to go and seek them out afterwards as well.
0:39:21 It makes a lot of sense.
0:39:26 You know, if I’m targeting a newsletter audience, you know, where’s a good place to reach them
0:39:27 in other newsletters.
0:39:32 It’s like John Lee Dumas said a line about, well, podcasters listen to podcasts, like
0:39:33 this big epiphany moment.
0:39:35 Like, if I want to grow my show, I got to get in front of other podcast audiences.
0:39:39 So getting in front of other newsletter audiences makes a lot of sense.
0:39:44 And it sounds like it kind of stems from your existing Twitter presence, which at press time
0:39:49 around 9,000 followers, I don’t know what it looked like 11 or 12 months ago, but a, you
0:39:55 know, an engaged following over there and starting with this pinned tweet announcing the product
0:39:58 and then some of this educational type of content.
0:40:06 Was there any tweet or series of tweets that had any sort of viral growth or viral impact
0:40:07 to the account?
0:40:08 I don’t think so.
0:40:14 I think it was consistently talking about it, making sure at least once a day, at least once
0:40:21 a day, I talked about grants for creators or I shared the link or just shared some fun facts,
0:40:25 you know, or just something where I know it could lead into to that.
0:40:29 So yes, definitely just that consistency of promoting on social.
0:40:33 That’s pretty much the popular newsletter growth tactic today.
0:40:37 It’s social media to lead magnet to email list.
0:40:41 So you meet subscribers where they’re already hanging out, the social media channel of your
0:40:41 choice.
0:40:46 In Daniel’s case, she chose Twitter, but we’ve heard from guests doing it on TikTok, on LinkedIn,
0:40:48 on threads, on Instagram.
0:40:51 Then you create the content that can win the algorithm there.
0:40:57 When you do, you add a subtle pitch or maybe not so subtle pitch for your lead magnet.
0:41:00 The one that I opted in for the other day was from Twitter.
0:41:07 It was for somebody’s AI powered or, you know, a make template for like a niche news summary
0:41:08 agent.
0:41:11 Cool little giveaway, something I’d been meaning to build myself.
0:41:13 So maybe I’ll be able to adapt his template.
0:41:14 It was, yeah, sure.
0:41:15 I’ll opt in for that.
0:41:20 And from there, it is sending a valuable email on whatever cadence makes sense.
0:41:25 But I like the newsletter model, low startup costs, and can have some really strong margins
0:41:29 depending on how you choose to monetize and sellable as well.
0:41:33 There have been some high profile examples of newsletters selling for tens of millions
0:41:37 of dollars if you have the aspirations to really scale it up.
0:41:39 But that’s number seven, the newsletter business model.
0:41:43 Low cost online business number eight is to teach an online class.
0:41:45 And there’s a couple ways you can do it.
0:41:51 The more passive way is to create a pre-recorded class or course and sell it as a one-off digital
0:41:53 product, which can still work.
0:41:59 But there seems to be a shift toward the second type, which is more cohort-based, meaning there’s
0:42:01 like a live component to it.
0:42:04 There’s a more well-defined start and end date.
0:42:15 We’ve seen guests doing online classes in piano lessons, in chess, sourdough bread, growing microgreens, tons of examples in the online course space.
0:42:23 But my absolute favorite has to be Devin Ricks in episode 499, who at that point reported earning
0:42:29 $4,000 a month, part-time, from home, teaching video game classes online.
0:42:36 The secret wasn’t being a famous streamer or a professional gamer, but it was taking advantage
0:42:39 of the OutSchool platform to connect with students.
0:42:46 And this is a platform that is primarily for K-12 students to find online classes in both
0:42:51 academic subjects and extracurricular topics like video games.
0:42:59 What OutSchool does is it has created this space where teachers are background checked and parents feel safe letting their
0:43:05 children log in online, all the sessions are recorded, and then they can play together and it’s a good environment for them.
0:43:09 Yeah, we would call this a buy buttons platform.
0:43:11 You know, go where the cash is already flowing.
0:43:15 And here’s a platform that has a built-in audience where it’s relatively easy.
0:43:17 It’s got to go through this background check process.
0:43:22 You got to come up with an idea of what you’re going to teach, but relatively easy to put your
0:43:26 thing out there for sale and have people come and do business with you.
0:43:32 And actually, it kind of sparked an idea here because like my son and his friend in California,
0:43:37 like they’ve hung out on Zoom doing like Lego builds way more than they’ve ever hung out in person.
0:43:42 And it’s like, oh, I wonder if there’s like a Lego building class where you could do like, okay, different challenges or something.
0:43:47 So people with different pieces could still try and build a, okay, today we’re going to build a bird or something.
0:43:49 Like, I don’t know, that would be really interesting.
0:43:51 Oh, there’s definitely Lego classes.
0:43:55 I have a good friend who teaches Lego classes and yeah, she’ll be like, this is the inspiration.
0:43:57 You create your own version.
0:44:00 And so then everyone’s building their own Legos with what they have.
0:44:02 But yeah, that’s totally a thing.
0:44:07 All right, somebody beat me to it, but so maybe that kind of leads into the next thing.
0:44:11 Were there other teachers already doing the video game thing or was that kind of like, I’m
0:44:14 going to try and carve out this little blue ocean piece of this marketplace?
0:44:17 Oh, I certainly was not the first.
0:44:20 There are lots and lots of video game teachers.
0:44:24 A lot of teachers who teach the exact same video games that I do because I mostly teach Switch games.
0:44:28 But the beauty about school is it’s an international platform, right?
0:44:33 So there are some teachers in Australia who are doing things that I’m doing, but that
0:44:35 I can’t do at the same time, right?
0:44:39 And then there are teachers in the US and things that are overlapping with my timeframes.
0:44:44 But the nice thing is there’s so many students, so many parents that you can market to that
0:44:48 there is plenty of space for educators in any field, not just in video games.
0:44:52 But like if you go on there and you look at English teachers, there’s tons of them, right?
0:44:53 I’m one of them also.
0:44:57 So I teach a little bit of writing, but there’s still room for other people because there’s
0:44:59 no one who teaches like you do.
0:45:04 I bring everything that I have, my own personality, my perspective on games would be totally different
0:45:05 than yours, Nick.
0:45:08 If you were to teach the exact same video game that I’m teaching.
0:45:09 Okay.
0:45:15 Did you do anything to set your listing apart when you first started or gain those first
0:45:18 few students to take a chance and roll the dice with Ms. Devin?
0:45:23 Well, one of the best things that I did was I made a good video for my profile.
0:45:27 So out school gives you the opportunity to have a headshot of video and a description.
0:45:32 And if you have those three things and they are really well done, then you are going to
0:45:35 find those students out school likes to promote new teachers.
0:45:40 There’s also some Facebook groups that you can market your classes, like, you know, $5 off
0:45:43 your first class or a free first class or whatever it is.
0:45:49 And I did a lot of that as a starting out teacher and I had some success there, but out
0:45:53 school just does such a good job marketing for you that you’re able to just kind of create
0:45:58 your classes, tweak your keywords and parents want to try new teachers.
0:46:01 They like to try new teachers, especially if they have a lower price point.
0:46:02 Okay.
0:46:06 And then there is an option for pre-recorded cloud.
0:46:11 Like if you wanted to pre-record your tutorial on how to beat Zelda in two hours, I don’t
0:46:16 know what it would be, but like that is an option too, but you have a more structured as like,
0:46:18 you know, social hour, come hang out and we’ll play together.
0:46:19 Exactly.
0:46:19 Yeah.
0:46:23 And the pre-recorded ones lend themselves more to the academic side.
0:46:25 So I do have a pre-recorded class.
0:46:27 It’s a Zelda creative writing class.
0:46:31 And so it gives learners an opportunity to go at their own pace.
0:46:36 So there’s a lot of pre-recorded math classes and photography things with video games.
0:46:39 It is harder because you want that social aspect, right?
0:46:40 That’s the big draw of it.
0:46:45 But with other subjects, you can totally do pre-recorded, put it there.
0:46:46 Passive income students are enrolling.
0:46:51 All you have to do is post the different assignments for the different days and it’s just making money
0:46:52 while you sleep.
0:46:52 Right.
0:46:53 Yeah.
0:46:54 That’s the dream, right?
0:46:54 It is.
0:47:01 How do you have your pricing set up for like for the group of video game classes?
0:47:05 So out school is a place where you can choose your own prices.
0:47:08 They recommend 10 to $15 per student per hour.
0:47:11 And then out school takes 30%.
0:47:15 Most of my classes are about $13 per hour per student.
0:47:19 And then I get to choose how many students I have in a class.
0:47:24 So a good example is I have a breath of the wild class, which is a Zelda game, and it meets
0:47:28 twice a week and each student pays $13 per day.
0:47:30 So they’re paying 26 per week.
0:47:32 And then out school takes 30%.
0:47:35 And in that class, I have 12 students.
0:47:36 That is my highest grossing class.
0:47:39 12 students, $26 a week.
0:47:43 I bring in a little under 200 for just those two days that I do those two hours.
0:47:45 A hundred bucks an hour playing video games.
0:47:47 Not a bad gig if you can get it.
0:47:48 It’s really not.
0:47:54 I think it just goes to show you that there are a lot of ways to make money online in just
0:47:59 about any niche these days, and that you don’t have to have a ton of startup capital to get
0:47:59 started.
0:48:01 Super inspiring stuff.
0:48:02 A lot of fun.
0:48:06 Again, that was episode 499 with Devin Ricks, MissDevin.com.
0:48:07 Devin with a Y.
0:48:13 The Side Hustle Show is filled with low overhead business ideas, both online and offline.
0:48:19 If you’re wondering what to listen to next, I’ve made a note of all the episodes mentioned
0:48:20 in this episode in the show notes.
0:48:23 The link in the description will get you right over there.
0:48:29 Beyond that, I want to invite you to generate your own personalized Side Hustle Show playlist
0:48:30 at hustle.show.
0:48:33 Just answer a few short, multiple choice questions.
0:48:39 You can do it from your phone, and it’ll build you a custom curated playlist based on your answers
0:48:42 of eight to ten of our greatest hits episodes you can add to your device.
0:48:46 You can learn from our awesome guests, and you can go out and make some more money.
0:48:49 Again, hustle.show for that personalized playlist.
0:48:53 Big thanks to those awesome guests for providing some examples today.
0:48:57 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:49:03 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:49:05 That is it for me.
0:49:06 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:49:10 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share with a friend,
0:49:13 so fire off that text message and let them know to check it out.
0:49:16 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen,
0:49:19 and I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
0:49:20 Hustle on.
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0:01:18 There’s a lot of buzz around faceless, YouTube channels, AI-generated content, AI agencies, dropshipping,
0:01:23 vibe coding, print-on-demand, and yes, they’re all viable options. But today I want to share eight
0:01:28 to make money online, even if you’re not an expert, even if you’re not super technical,
0:01:33 and even if you’ve tried some other side hustles and failed in the past. First on my list is hands
0:01:39 down the easiest way I’ve ever made money online, and that’s through the Amazon Influencer Program.
0:01:44 How it works is you request to join. You do need to have some level of social media following to
0:01:50 qualify, but you don’t need millions of followers to get accepted. After that, you create short product
0:01:55 review videos of items that are sold on Amazon. You didn’t have to buy them there, just as long as
0:02:01 they’re sold there. Amazon then puts your videos on the relevant product pages, and when someone buys
0:02:06 the product after watching your video, rewards you with a little bit of commission. Now, I started by
0:02:12 just looking around the office. I’ve got this microphone arm and this standing desk and the standing
0:02:17 desk mat and the ring light and the teleprompter and the podcasting headphones, all sorts of stuff,
0:02:23 right? And I’m over $2,000 in total earnings, including over $300 this year when I haven’t
0:02:28 uploaded a single new video, I don’t think. So imagine what might happen if you took it seriously
0:02:34 and were consistent with creating those videos. Yeah, I think most of what makes you successful
0:02:40 as a product reviewer has remained constant. It’s work. You have to put in the time. You have to be
0:02:45 fairly consistent. There were a lot of people who started around the same time I did who worked really
0:02:53 hard for six months, made 500 videos, made $20,000, $30,000 off that, but then just burnt out. And so
0:03:00 I think the best advice I can give anyone now is set manageable goals. You know, do five videos a week,
0:03:05 but do that consistently over a period of several months, and then it starts to compound it. And if
0:03:10 you’re only making pennies in the beginning, just know it’s a numbers game. And you know,
0:03:15 it might not be my best product review. I did a review in my first year. I was about six months in
0:03:21 and I was starting to figure out what things sold better and what was trending. And I found something
0:03:27 that popped off and it made me $17,000. And I have not had that kind of success since then. However,
0:03:34 that product still makes me a few hundred dollars every single month. And if I had only done my first 400
0:03:39 videos, I never would have had that product. And so it’s just being consistent, looking for different
0:03:44 things and improving over time, as far as your product selection and as well as the style of the
0:03:51 videos, things like that, you just get better at it. And that’s, what’s kind of cool here is the videos
0:03:57 can have a really long shelf life where, like I said, only uploaded eight last year. None of them were
0:04:02 necessarily great sellers, but you know, the stuff from the previous year was still make it sales.
0:04:07 And so if you get something that sticks and hopefully it doesn’t get flooded with a lot of
0:04:12 other videos or for whatever reason, yours is the one that gets shown, like you said, it can drive this
0:04:18 passive income really for months or years. Yeah. And that’s the amazing thing. If I stopped making videos
0:04:24 today, I’d probably still make at least $25,000 this year just because I have that catalog. And that’s
0:04:30 really cool to think, you know, maybe I do need to take some time off. Maybe I’ve never taken more than
0:04:35 two weeks off, but if I took a whole month off, it probably wouldn’t matter at all. I’d still be making
0:04:39 about the same amount of money. So I love that about the program.
0:04:45 I’ve come across some Amazon influencers who are getting paid at least three different ways. First, they built
0:04:50 their reputation to the point where brands now reach out and pay them to create the videos. They send them
0:04:55 the product for free and then pay them a little bit to do the review. I believe Tyler mentioned getting paid
0:05:01 by brands to do that as well. Then you can earn your Amazon influencer commissions when it sells.
0:05:05 And if you’re posting on your own platform, like YouTube, there’s the potential to earn even more
0:05:12 through creator connections. And then earlier this year, I met this guy who every few months would
0:05:17 need to clear out his inventory. He was getting enough products in for free. He needed to resell them to make
0:05:23 room for more. I think Tyler mentioned giving them away to his students. He was like a teacher by day
0:05:28 job. But this other guy was actually reselling them sometimes on Facebook marketplace, sometimes on
0:05:33 eBay, and sometimes through the live shopping app, whatnot. I don’t know if you’ve used that, but
0:05:38 apparently very popular. That is online business. No startup costs. Number one, the Amazon influencer
0:05:46 program. Number two is freelancing and consulting, which is admittedly a really broad bucket, but solving a
0:05:51 problem for another person or another business and getting paid for it. Really low startup costs. In
0:05:56 fact, you can probably just, you know, raise your hand and start calling yourself a freelancer or
0:06:00 consultant today. Now, the premise here is super simple. Like I said, figure out a problem you can
0:06:06 solve and go connect with people who are experiencing that problem. Zero startup costs. But there’s a couple
0:06:12 parts. First, you got to identify the service. Now for that, I recommend some introspection, right? Like
0:06:15 you got to take inventory of your skills. What have you gotten paid to do in the past?
0:06:20 What do other people ask you for help with? What do you never get tired of talking about? For me,
0:06:24 like dissecting different business ideas. Like, how’d you come up with that? Right? It’s like kind of the
0:06:30 origin story of the side hustle show. Another way to reframe it is what do other people irrationally
0:06:34 suck at? Like that’s another way of finding out, well, what comes natural to you? Now, one of my all-time
0:06:41 favorite tactics is to piggyback on the popularity of an existing software tool. So maybe you’re a power user
0:06:47 or you’re an early adopter of a particular program and could help people with that. It is a tried and
0:06:53 true side hustle framework. And we’ve seen people build successful piggybacking businesses on top of
0:06:59 SEMrush, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, Asana, Pipedrive, Salesforce, even like Microsoft Excel,
0:07:04 something super old school, right? For Christy De Silva, she happened to be a fan of ClickUp and
0:07:10 HoneyBook. And even though she started out as a general virtual assistant, she quickly found that
0:07:17 the work she enjoyed the most was helping clients set up systems and processes inside their organization.
0:07:23 And so when she niched down to doing just that stuff, she 10xed her effective hourly rate.
0:07:30 I started my rates a lot lower than other people may have been charging because I’m like, I’m not
0:07:38 not like a top tier expert yet, but I know that I know a lot more about these products than the people
0:07:43 that I’m serving and these softwares than the people that I’m serving. And so I was still able to charge
0:07:51 more technically hourly, except a lot of our stuff is flat rate now. But for example, yeah, making about
0:08:00 30 to 40 bucks an hour as a VA where now I charge $300 an hour for a strategy session, like so crazy
0:08:07 that jump. But now being an expert in this for four years, it’s really cool to see where we’ve been.
0:08:12 Yeah, that’s worth pausing on. Like that’s the power of niching down and becoming an expert on the thing.
0:08:13 Yep.
0:08:17 So that’s the first part, figuring out what service you could potentially offer. The second part is
0:08:23 maybe a little harder. And that is the connecting with clients piece of the puzzle. For that,
0:08:25 Christy turned to YouTube.
0:08:31 We get the majority of our leads from YouTube. And I will say like probably 80% of the time people come
0:08:35 on, they’re like, Oh my gosh, it’s so nice to meet you. I’ve been subscribed to your channels for like
0:08:40 two or three years. And they feel like they already know me, even though I have no idea who they are.
0:08:48 Yet. It’s funny, because it’s a huge thing in sales is that like no like and trust factor. And
0:08:51 you already solved that piece before we even ever get on a sales call.
0:08:57 Yeah, you know, you’re showing your face, your voice. Yeah, you build a lot of trust that way.
0:09:04 Deciding what type of content to make any sort of like keyword research tools or search volume
0:09:10 that goes into it. I’m just looking at like broad Google searches, you know, 400,000 monthly searches
0:09:16 for ClickUp and then 60,000 for HoneyBook. And so there’s some decent, like top level search volume.
0:09:21 But then I imagine it kind of goes into that long tail for like how to run your agency in HoneyBook,
0:09:23 like more specific type of searches.
0:09:30 We actually really love vidIQ. And we’ll look at what performed best on our channels or like
0:09:35 what’s ranking highest. Like for example, our ClickUp dashboards video was ranking highest for
0:09:41 like a long time. Our how to use HoneyBook and ClickUp, like yearly videos, like in 2024,
0:09:45 those always do really well as well. So we’re like, okay, we’ll always do those in the beginning of the
0:09:51 year. But we’ll look back at our previous content, what’s highly ranking, knowing people want more of
0:09:58 that. And then we’ll really just start doing long tail keyword research in vidIQ, you know,
0:10:04 kind of going down a rabbit hole of like, okay, how are these ranking in terms of search volume
0:10:05 and things like that?
0:10:12 Is there a minimum search volume that is interesting to you or worthwhile to make the video about?
0:10:18 It’s more like how it scores in vidIQ. I think we’re looking over like a 60 or 70 ranking.
0:10:22 Which is a combination of volume and competitiveness.
0:10:28 Yeah, exactly. And so we also speaking of competitiveness, we’ll definitely do competitor
0:10:34 research as well, because we have like a few competitors. We’re very niche, but we absolutely
0:10:40 have competitors. And so we’ll look at their channels, what’s ranking high on their channels.
0:10:47 And by no means do we ever just copy their video, but we’ll be like, okay, cool. They did something on
0:10:54 this specific topic. How can we do something similar, but have our own spin? And so we’ll do
0:10:56 that research as well.
0:10:57 Oh, that makes sense.
0:10:57 Yeah.
0:11:02 And then this is, you know, I probably have talked about this before, but I would come
0:11:07 up with this content idea and it would be something super broad, like, you know, ways to make money
0:11:12 on the internet or something. And then of course, Google that. And well, shoot, there’s already
0:11:13 a dozen people have already written this article.
0:11:18 I guess I better go back to the drawing board and come up with another topic. It’s like,
0:11:23 that’s still viable. You can still get traffic and eyeballs and visitors and customers from this.
0:11:26 You just have to put your own unique spin on it. You got to make something that’s different and
0:11:30 better than what’s already out there. And that was a little bit of a shift here. And it sounds like
0:11:36 the same thing. Okay. We can look at the competitor channels. We can see what’s working for them and
0:11:42 say, okay, that, and just trying to reverse engineer that, you know, followed the same people doing
0:11:49 like a software review or tutorial type of videos, like for, you know, fill in the blanks. I was like,
0:11:54 well, I don’t use that tool, so I can’t make that one, but I could do the same thing for this app or
0:11:58 this software. It’s like, here’s a template that clearly worked and kind of fill in the blanks in
0:12:04 that case. Exactly. Exactly. We also will absolutely use AI. So like chat GPT, when we’re content planning,
0:12:11 we’ll be like, we’re working on a series for click up for agencies, help us grab some like
0:12:17 highly SEO ranking topics for these videos. And then it’ll spit out a bunch of things. Then we
0:12:22 know our ideal client more than anyone. So we can guide it in the right direction, but we’ll also
0:12:29 just like use it to ideate and get inspiration from as well as super helpful. Do you feel the need to
0:12:34 publish consistently or is like, look, we got this stuff out there. It’s evergreen. We got a consistent
0:12:40 lead flow or do you have to keep kind of feeding the machine right now? We feel like it’s pertinent
0:12:45 to keep feeding the machine just so we’re like constantly ranking. I mean, we have some videos
0:12:51 that are like upwards of like 40, 50,000 views. So those are still bringing in us like warm leads and
0:13:00 hot traffic. But what we’re seeing now is that we niched into systems and HoneyBook and ClickUp,
0:13:07 but we’re actually niching a little bit further in the recent months into seven to eight figure agencies.
0:13:14 So we have a lot of really good content out there that’s serving the broad audience of people looking
0:13:19 for ClickUp and HoneyBook, how to get started, things like that. But now we really want to start focusing
0:13:27 our content on seven to eight figure agencies and where they’re having their specific troubles and hurdles
0:13:34 in their business and then relating it to, okay, you’re having this issue, then how do we solve that with
0:13:41 HoneyBook, with ClickUp? And so I think that’s where we could still be getting leads from YouTube, even if we
0:13:48 stopped our content right now, our content machine. But I think we want to start tailoring it more to the ideal
0:13:54 client that we want to bring in. So prospective clients watch your videos, they build a trusting
0:13:58 relationship with you. And then when they need additional help, you’re the one who gets the call.
0:14:04 Again, this was attraction marketing or pull marketing, where you’re answering the questions your ideal
0:14:10 customers might have in video form, and then you invite them to take the next step if they need more
0:14:15 help. Now, other ways we’ve seen guests land freelance clients is through one way would be through
0:14:19 strategic partnerships, thinking of who your target customers are already doing business with,
0:14:25 and it might only take one or two before you have enough lead flow to meet your goals. The example
0:14:32 that comes to mind is Carter Osborne, who was doing college admissions essay prep consulting, and his
0:14:39 strategic partner was someone in town who did broader admissions consulting, but didn’t like doing the essay
0:14:46 work. So it was a natural referral partnership for her to send leads his way. Now we’ve got more zero or super
0:14:53 low-cost online business ideas coming up right after this. So far, we’ve covered the Amazon influencer
0:15:01 program and freelancing or consulting as some no-cost online business ideas. Number three on our list is
0:15:06 digital product sales. And what I love about this model is it’s one where you can create something
0:15:14 once. It could be a printable file, a template, a budgeting spreadsheet, a form, a customizable chart.
0:15:20 It could even be an online course, an ebook, or something like that, but some digital product, a meal planner,
0:15:27 a piece of art even. But you can create it once, and you can sell it over and over again. My friend Cody is a pro at this,
0:15:34 and last year he took a brand new Etsy shop from $0 to $1,000 a month in sales in like three or four
0:15:40 months. I was putting up about 20 to 30 products per week. I actually got my first sale on day three.
0:15:46 And so for those who don’t know, I actually documented this whole process like day one to 116. I took a video
0:15:51 almost every single day, kind of just sharing live updates. I was sharing screenshots of my shop. And on day
0:15:57 three, I had my first sale, which was great. I think I probably only had five or six products up at that
0:15:59 point, but I was adding like 20 to 30 a week.
0:16:03 And that’s cool because there’s not a lot of social proof on the channel where it’s like, you know,
0:16:09 it shows zero sales, zero reviews, like reviews. I’m taking a chance on this guy. Yeah.
0:16:13 That’s the beauty of this side hustle though, is you don’t need an audience. You don’t need an email
0:16:19 list. You don’t need really anything. Like if you understand keyword research and SEO, that is the
0:16:23 most important skill. You can be a five out of 10 graphic designer. A lot of people think they have to be
0:16:28 like this graphic design wizard in order to sell this stuff. You can be a five out of 10 graphic designer.
0:16:33 As long as you understand keyword research and SEO, and you go after those, the riches in the niches, and you go
0:16:37 after those kind of longer tail, less targeted keywords, people are going to buy your stuff.
0:16:42 Now the sticklers are going to note that, Hey, wait a minute. It costs 20 cents for every product that
0:16:48 you upload to Etsy. So you’re right. Not completely free, but pretty close to it. Now, Cody mentioned
0:16:54 using tools like eRank, a software tool to get an estimate for search volume and competitiveness
0:17:00 of your specific product ideas, which does have, eRank does have a free plan, at least as of press
0:17:07 time. But here’s how I look at it. Start to stack up these evergreen digital assets that can make sales
0:17:13 month after month. Is there a minimum search volume that’s too low to bother with?
0:17:18 I usually don’t touch anything under 50. And some people think that’s crazy. Some people,
0:17:23 some other Etsy quote unquote gurus don’t touch things that are under like 200. But for me, I’m
0:17:28 like, there’s 50 people searching for this a month and there’s zero competition. And I can scoop up,
0:17:34 say even 20% of them, 10 people buy my $5 thing. I like to think of these each as like a little mini
0:17:38 passive income machine. Like that’s 50 extra dollars per month. And that 50 adds up. Like if you can
0:17:43 get an army of these $50 per month products, even if they don’t have a lot of search volume,
0:17:47 you get 20 of those going, that’s $1,000 per month and mostly passive income.
0:17:51 Goes back to the beginning of, you know, planting these little digital money seeds.
0:17:56 It costs you a little bit of time and 20 cents to create this thing. And now it’s out there
0:18:02 in the world and can earn passive income for you. I think that’s, I think that’s really exciting.
0:18:09 If that’s got you excited, make sure to check out the full interview with Cody episode 665 in your
0:18:15 side hustle show feed or download Cody’s list of some hot selling seasonal products to get your
0:18:19 creative juices flowing, which I will link up in the show notes for this episode. But that
0:18:26 is low cost online business. Number three, the digital product business. Number four is called
0:18:34 rank and rent. In this model, you build out a portfolio of websites targeting local service provider
0:18:40 searches like Dallas carpet cleaning or gravel driveways, Boston. And once those sites have
0:18:46 some exposure in Google, you rent them out to qualified local service providers at anywhere from
0:18:53 500 to $1,500 per month. After all, those rankings in Google can be pretty valuable. They’re sought after
0:18:57 digital real estate. So what makes a good niche here?
0:19:05 I like something that’s service based that you don’t have a storefront, like basically like a plumber,
0:19:13 the concrete guy or roofer, you go to the client side to, to work. So it’s not that people come into your
0:19:22 office. So service based business. The second one is I really like those high ticket type of work,
0:19:30 like concrete driveways, patios, this work demolition, roofing, nothing sexy, nothing sexy,
0:19:34 but those niche work. Yeah. It just, they work.
0:19:42 And that’s because the value of these jobs is worth quite a bit to the service provider. And so they’re just like,
0:19:47 if we can get more, if we get more leads in, if we can book up our calendar, then yeah, it’s worthwhile.
0:19:50 We’ll just, you know, add this to our monthly marketing budget.
0:19:58 Yeah, exactly. Anything above 50K should work the population wise. I’m talking about 400K
0:20:04 population wise seems to be very sweet spot. So it’s not too big city. Your local competition is not
0:20:12 that strong and it’s easy and you have enough volume to the population produce enough leads,
0:20:16 enough search volume that is going to help you to run the site out.
0:20:23 So the research is the first part. Now from there, you got to find a company on the ground that does good work and
0:20:29 is hungry to grow their business and doesn’t really want to bother with the local SEO side of things themselves.
0:20:36 You’re essentially becoming a line item on that company’s marketing budget. They’re outsourcing some of their lead generation to you.
0:20:40 And as long as you deliver, those clients tend to stick around for a long time.
0:20:47 When we recorded Meow, that was Meow Rios in that clip. She had a portfolio of like 20 or 30 of these income generating sites.
0:20:51 So it’s a model that can be pretty scalable once you figure it out.
0:20:56 Now for more on this, I encourage you to check out the full interview with Meow or Luke Vanderveer.
0:21:01 We did an episode, I want to say 448 on his rank and rent business model.
0:21:08 He also runs website rental coaching, website rental coaching.com slash SHN, I believe is my referral link for that.
0:21:12 But I will link up both of those interviews in the show notes for this episode.
0:21:15 And that is online business model number four.
0:21:18 Yes, you have some hosting costs. You probably have some domain registration fees.
0:21:23 But other than that, relatively low overhead, high profit margin type of business.
0:21:28 The fifth online business you can start for $0 is UGC, user-generated content.
0:21:32 In fact, you can start this with just your phone and the stuff you have lying around your house.
0:21:38 This year, I connected with Megan Collier, a UGC creator here in the Seattle area,
0:21:43 who said that she made four videos of products that she liked, that she already had,
0:21:46 and that she used those to seed her portfolio.
0:21:50 The portfolio was the main thing that I sent to brands, though, when I was reaching out.
0:21:53 And I was reaching out to brands two ways.
0:21:55 One is Instagram DM.
0:22:02 I would literally just scroll Instagram, look at the ads that I was seeing on Instagram,
0:22:06 and then go and follow the brand if I wasn’t already following them.
0:22:10 And then I would DM them and say, hey, I’m Megan.
0:22:11 I’m a UGC creator.
0:22:12 I’ve been seeing your ads.
0:22:15 Your product looks like something I could totally use myself.
0:22:19 And I’d love to be connected with the person in charge of handling partnerships.
0:22:22 And I got several responses from that.
0:22:24 That’s how I landed my second UGC deal.
0:22:28 The first one, though, that you mentioned, the $750 deal,
0:22:31 was like 10 days into my UGC journey.
0:22:36 And that was with an app company that I just ended up emailing, cold pitching via email.
0:22:40 And yeah, they ended up hiring me for three videos initially.
0:22:47 And then I wanted to make more money and prove that I could actually do this and make a good chunk of money for my first UGC deal.
0:22:51 And so I ended up, I didn’t tell them, but I made five total videos for them.
0:22:55 And I was like, hey, I ended up having a ton of ideas for you guys.
0:22:59 And I have five videos if you want to buy the other two.
0:23:01 And they were like, oh my gosh, yes, 100%.
0:23:02 We need all the videos that we can get.
0:23:06 So then it ended up being about $750 for those five videos.
0:23:07 Okay.
0:23:09 So step one, create the portfolio.
0:23:12 Step two, start doing the brand outreach.
0:23:17 And it sounds like I’m just going to scroll my feed and show who’s showing up in the ads.
0:23:20 Like I know they’re investing in user acquisition and growth marketing.
0:23:25 So they might be more receptive to this, which is, my approach would have been like,
0:23:31 well, what are the top 25, 50 brands that I already know, like, and trust, and I use?
0:23:34 And I’m going to start there, it sounds like, you know, maybe that comes down the road.
0:23:35 Yeah.
0:23:43 I mean, honestly, I think that what works, the only way to land the deal is literally by connecting
0:23:44 with brands.
0:23:47 So it doesn’t matter if you’re going to DM, if you’re going to email, if you’re just going
0:23:52 to start with the brands that you already like, because that also is super powerful because
0:23:57 you’re coming to the brand saying, hey, I’ve been using this product for X amount of months
0:23:58 or X amount of years.
0:24:03 They’ve already got that, like, it’s a bonus for them because they have a real customer
0:24:06 that’s going to be willing to make some really authentic, genuine content.
0:24:08 So yeah, a hundred percent, you can start with brands.
0:24:12 You already know, you already like, you can quite literally, this is what I tell people
0:24:18 if they’re kind of having a block on who to reach out to is take a pen and piece of paper
0:24:23 or take your notes app on your phone, go walk around your house and look at all the products
0:24:27 that you have that you’ve purchased that you use on a consistent basis.
0:24:34 I can almost guarantee most of those brands are posting consistently on social media.
0:24:38 And probably a lot of them are also working already with UGC creators.
0:24:39 Yeah.
0:24:43 And it’s not just, you know, I’m thinking of like the closet and shoes and clothes, but
0:24:48 also food and snacks and toys and games, like all sorts of stuff.
0:24:49 So much.
0:24:52 And even software, like you said, the first deal was an app company.
0:24:52 Yeah.
0:24:53 Yeah.
0:24:59 I’ve worked with so many apps, software companies that I’ve used for years and just, you know,
0:25:00 they just hired me to do UGC.
0:25:06 So yeah, the, it’s whenever people ask me like what kind of brands are using UGC creators,
0:25:08 it’s truly a mix.
0:25:09 It’s across the board.
0:25:15 I’ve worked with fashion, like clothing companies, software tech companies, like you as a, you doing
0:25:18 podcasts, like I’m looking at your headphones, right?
0:25:23 Your mic, like you, whatever you’re using as a podcaster, so many brands are using, you
0:25:26 know, user generated content in their marketing strategies.
0:25:27 Okay.
0:25:32 So that’s what they’re getting out of the deal is we’re going to hire Megan or a hundred
0:25:36 people like Megan to fill out our own content feed.
0:25:38 Like it’s, there’s always another day coming around.
0:25:40 There’s always going to be need, needing more stuff to post.
0:25:46 And so this is a way to kind of crowdsource that in an authentic looking way or, you know,
0:25:48 from actual users of the thing.
0:25:49 And so that’s their benefit.
0:25:51 Benefit to you is obviously you’re getting paid to do it.
0:25:56 And so it sounds like from your Instagram DMs, it’s like, could you connect me with the,
0:26:03 you said the person handling content partnerships or is like some, is that an official job title
0:26:05 that I want to like be on the lookout for?
0:26:06 Yeah.
0:26:08 It’s going to be different for every brand, right?
0:26:13 So what I like to tell people is, you know, typically when you’re reaching out to medium,
0:26:19 you know, from medium to large sized brands, the person that’s looking at the DMs of the brand,
0:26:23 like on the brand’s Instagram account is not typically a decision maker, right?
0:26:28 It’s going to be a customer service person that just wants to answer questions quickly.
0:26:34 So that’s why I say always ask to be connected with the brand partnerships, or it could be an
0:26:35 influencer manager.
0:26:37 It could be a partnerships director.
0:26:39 It could be a creative director.
0:26:43 So you could ask it in a specific way more.
0:26:47 Can I be connected with the person in charge of handling partnerships?
0:26:51 So you don’t have to say a specific title, but just whoever’s in charge of, you know,
0:26:52 working with content creators.
0:26:54 So here’s what’s wild about this.
0:26:58 And I didn’t do a good job of explaining it at the top of the segment is you don’t need
0:27:00 to be an influencer to make money doing this.
0:27:01 You don’t need a big following of your own.
0:27:04 You don’t even need to post this stuff to your own feed.
0:27:10 The brands that are hiring UGC creators, they’re looking for authentic looking user generated content
0:27:14 for their own organic social media feeds or to use as paid ads.
0:27:19 So be sure to check out that full episode with Megan to learn more about starting a UGC business
0:27:20 of your own.
0:27:24 It is episode 666 in your feed, 666.
0:27:30 And she started out at, you know, $100 to $250 per video and now is over $1,000 per video
0:27:33 for something that might be 45 seconds long.
0:27:35 Really strong hourly rate.
0:27:38 She went on to get, you know, monthly retainers for some of these clients.
0:27:40 Really cool business for the creative types.
0:27:44 If you like consuming video content, if you like creating video content, it could be a
0:27:44 fun one for you.
0:27:49 Now, the other way to make money with UGC does help if you have a bit of a following in that
0:27:55 as an affiliate, you can browse top selling items in TikTok shop and raise your hand to start
0:27:59 creating content about those products and earn a commission whenever they sell.
0:28:01 But that’s number five on my list.
0:28:03 UGC user generated content.
0:28:09 Number six is websites, which used to be fairly straightforward, at least more so than it is today.
0:28:14 You know, you would build up a body of informational content in a given niche, maybe something that
0:28:16 you have some expertise in.
0:28:21 You would rank that site in Google and then you could earn relatively predictable income
0:28:23 from advertising and affiliate relationships.
0:28:27 But those types of informational content sites have been having a hard time lately.
0:28:29 Site isolation included in that.
0:28:35 But websites can still be a recurring revenue, online business asset, low startup costs, checks
0:28:36 all those boxes.
0:28:41 Now, one model that we’ve seen to be a little bit more AI resistant is directory
0:28:43 websites, which might sound kind of old school.
0:28:49 But in our episode this year with Frey Chu, he proves there’s still good money to be made
0:28:50 with directories.
0:28:57 The key is finding underserved niches and then building something genuinely useful with some
0:28:58 value added data.
0:29:03 And Frey was specifically focusing on what we called near me niches.
0:29:06 Like, what can I find, you know, pizza near me?
0:29:07 It was probably too broad.
0:29:10 But, you know, what are the stores or services near me?
0:29:15 And then doing a layer of value added data, because if people can get all the information
0:29:18 they need from Google Maps, there’s not really any reason to come to your directory.
0:29:25 But here’s Frey from episode 692 on that, you know, hitting that money milestone for his
0:29:28 first directory, which was in the thrifting niche.
0:29:36 The major turning moment for that directory was six months in, I randomly just pulled up
0:29:40 the Google Analytics and noticed there were a thousand people coming to that website that
0:29:40 day.
0:29:46 And I just remember staring at it for five minutes and being like, what is going on?
0:29:49 Like, how, where is this traffic coming from?
0:29:49 Yeah, is this real?
0:29:50 Yeah.
0:29:53 At that time, I was like, kind of a noob at SEO too.
0:29:55 I was relearning or just learning all the basics.
0:29:58 So I was thinking, oh, maybe I did something correct.
0:30:04 And I started putting ads that following month and the traffic kind of steadily came in and
0:30:08 I made $1,200 that month without really doing anything.
0:30:09 It was just putting up ads.
0:30:10 Was this just an AdSense?
0:30:13 Yeah, I actually ended up using Ezoic.
0:30:15 That was the media partner that I used.
0:30:20 And now I’m using Mediavine Grow, which is my go-to ad partner now.
0:30:23 Okay, so you built the thing and then kind of sat on it.
0:30:28 Like, I guess, let it age potentially in the search results and establish some domain.
0:30:32 I don’t know, do you do anything proactively to market it during those six months or just
0:30:33 like log in one day?
0:30:35 Hey, it actually is getting traffic.
0:30:37 I did post on Reddit and I talk about that a lot.
0:30:43 Every time I finish an entire directory build, I always find a niche subreddit and I’ll make
0:30:43 a post.
0:30:50 It’ll basically sound like, hey, I made a website to make XYZ easier or to find XYZ locations
0:30:51 easier.
0:30:54 And yeah, that’s kind of the only thing that I did.
0:30:59 It was responsible for maybe like a few hundred people coming to the website because that Reddit
0:31:04 post performed really well and people still commented to it on this day, you know, a couple
0:31:04 years later.
0:31:09 But yeah, really nothing much, nothing too fancy was done.
0:31:11 What attracted you to this business model?
0:31:18 I think every entrepreneur goes through this moment where they either struggle to start something
0:31:21 or start something and realize that’s not the thing that they want.
0:31:23 So in my case, I was running a full-wear business.
0:31:27 I was closing it down, super depressed, very low point of my entrepreneurial life.
0:31:32 And I realized what I really wanted was a business with five things.
0:31:37 And it was something that was scalable, something cheap to start, something remote where I didn’t
0:31:41 have to like go to a warehouse and pack shoes and ship it to customers, something with high
0:31:44 margin and something that could be sold as an asset.
0:31:47 And I scoured the internet for these businesses.
0:31:49 Very difficult to find.
0:31:52 Yeah, this is a little bit of a unicorn, like something that checks all those boxes.
0:31:53 Totally.
0:31:57 So I found, I think I landed on SaaS or websites and I’m not a coder.
0:32:01 So, you know, and this was kind of pre like this early AI.
0:32:04 Yeah, pre AI vibe coding stuff.
0:32:04 Exactly.
0:32:06 Yeah, the vibe coding was not a thing yet.
0:32:10 So I landed on websites and I saw exactly what you mentioned, which is niche informational
0:32:18 blogs were getting absolutely destroyed, especially starting September, 2023 with the helpful content
0:32:18 updates.
0:32:24 So I was like, okay, well, I guess I’ll just look on Ahrefs and see what wasn’t affected.
0:32:26 And I started noticing these directories.
0:32:31 I didn’t really like go into it thinking I’m going to go build a portfolio of directories.
0:32:35 I was just like, okay, well, this, I found this website that was getting over a hundred
0:32:39 thousand monthly visitors and it was rank one page one for my target thrifting keyword.
0:32:41 And I was like, I could do better than this.
0:32:42 This is like pretty ugly.
0:32:45 And I feel like not that helpful.
0:32:46 There could be better information.
0:32:47 It’s also out of date.
0:32:49 They’re missing a lot of locations.
0:32:52 And I was like, okay, I’m going to go and build it.
0:32:58 And yeah, once I started ramping up and that kind of aha moment happened, I was like, okay,
0:33:02 this meets all those five criteria and I can just keep building these out.
0:33:04 That’s what launched the directory side hustle for me.
0:33:08 Again, that’s Frey Chu from episode 692.
0:33:13 Highly recommend checking that one out if you’ve been impacted by the last couple of years of
0:33:18 SEO upheaval as a way to potentially fight back and start making money online again.
0:33:21 And I love the five criteria that he mentioned.
0:33:27 Scalable, global, cheap to start, remote friendly, high margin, and sellable as an asset.
0:33:31 That’s a pretty solid framework for evaluating any business opportunity.
0:33:37 In fact, the episodes featuring side hustles that, check those boxes, tend to perform pretty
0:33:37 well.
0:33:40 So maybe my next side hustle will be a directory.
0:33:46 The idea that I had the other day was the reciprocal membership directory.
0:33:49 Like we have the membership at the Science Center here in Seattle.
0:33:54 But by having that membership, we’ve gotten free access or discounted access to a bunch of
0:33:55 places like wherever we travel.
0:34:02 Most recently, like the Science World in Vancouver, like totally free entry for everybody in the
0:34:02 family.
0:34:06 It’s like, okay, I wonder if there’s a way, because it’s usually buried, you know, somewhere
0:34:08 deep in the terms of terms and conditions or something.
0:34:12 Like, I wonder if there’s a way to like build the directory that says, these are the memberships
0:34:12 that you have.
0:34:13 This is where you’re traveling.
0:34:14 Here’s where you could go.
0:34:16 It probably wouldn’t be that difficult to build out.
0:34:19 So maybe, you know, I don’t know what kind of use and what kind of traffic would there
0:34:20 would be for around that.
0:34:22 But that was my latest directory idea.
0:34:28 But still, you know, the key here is not to sleep on websites as an online business opportunity.
0:34:34 Just be aware that traditional article based Q&A SEO is tough right now.
0:34:38 But certain types of websites are still getting traffic, traction and revenue.
0:34:43 And that’s why directories are low cost online business idea.
0:34:46 Number six, similar to rank and rent, where you’re going to have hosting expense, you’re
0:34:48 going to have domain registration expense.
0:34:51 But other than that, pretty low startup cost.
0:34:57 I’ve got more online businesses that you can start for free or almost free coming up right
0:34:57 after this.
0:35:02 Low cost online business number seven is a email newsletter.
0:35:05 So you can get started for free through platforms like Substack.
0:35:07 And I think even Kit has a free plan.
0:35:13 But newsletters are a great low overhead business, taking ideas from your brain and sharing them
0:35:16 in a way that scales really nicely.
0:35:19 I mean, it’s like, yeah, you’re going to pay more the more subscribers you have.
0:35:24 But the effort that it takes is the same, whether you’re sending it to 10 people or 10,000 people
0:35:25 or 100,000 people.
0:35:32 So the newsletter operators that I talk to monetize with sponsorships, with affiliate partnerships,
0:35:37 with their own products and services, or even with paid subscriptions.
0:35:41 Danielle Desir Corbett went the paid route for her newsletter.
0:35:46 It’s called Grants for Creators, where she sends out grant opportunities for creators, as
0:35:47 the name might imply.
0:35:53 And she was earning over $1,000 a month when we recorded in episode 544, sending it out
0:35:53 every couple of weeks.
0:35:57 And here’s how she described getting her first subscribers.
0:36:00 I’ve used a handful of strategies.
0:36:05 And I’m really happy of the deliverables and what happened as a result of them.
0:36:08 So I’m very big on Twitter.
0:36:12 And like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t have an existing grant-focused audience.
0:36:16 There were just a lot of people who follow me for travel, podcasting, personal finance,
0:36:17 that sort of thing.
0:36:18 But I went on Twitter.
0:36:24 And if you go to my profile at the thought card, the first pinned tweet will show you what
0:36:25 exactly I said.
0:36:30 But pretty much I said something like, oh my gosh, guys, I launched a new project.
0:36:35 I’m super terrified because I was and called Grants for Creators.
0:36:40 And my goal is to just help find U.S. creators’ opportunities and funding opportunities.
0:36:45 And I think that tweet showcased my vulnerability, right?
0:36:48 Everyone knows the feeling of what it feels like to start something new.
0:36:53 So I think that vulnerability really helped to just be like, what is she doing?
0:36:54 She’s being vulnerable.
0:36:56 Let’s support that.
0:37:00 And also because I was filling a gap and filling a need, I think there was a lot of interest
0:37:01 and buzz on Twitter.
0:37:03 It’s been treated tons of times.
0:37:06 So that was my initial, just sharing about it on Twitter.
0:37:11 And like I mentioned, because grants isn’t something that creative people think about at
0:37:19 the onset, I did a lot of quick tweets about the power of grants, my personal experience with
0:37:25 grants, how grants are for also creators who are also small business owners.
0:37:30 So I had to do a lot of just like promoting, not necessarily the newsletter itself, but also
0:37:35 promoting the idea of like, why this is valuable, how this can change your life and why just being
0:37:37 on the, in the know is really important.
0:37:39 So sharing on Twitter was my go-to.
0:37:44 Also from that initial buzz, word of mouth has been really helpful.
0:37:51 So I made sure to text my close friends via like my personal friends who I knew were creators
0:37:55 who would find this interesting and said, Hey, I’m starting this new project.
0:37:56 Can you share this with your friends?
0:38:03 Especially in the beginning, all the newsletters, they all had buttons to follow, to subscribe to
0:38:03 the newsletter.
0:38:10 So I’m always continuously like axing for the subscription, like ax to follow and join.
0:38:15 And the word of mouth is very, I think also creator economy is like interesting where when
0:38:18 people find something that’s interesting and resourceful, everyone is like, Oh my gosh.
0:38:21 So there’s just a lot of excitement when you find something.
0:38:23 So word of mouth has been really helpful.
0:38:26 Newsletter mentions have been huge for me.
0:38:32 Partly some of it was organic, meaning people saw I was launching this new project and they
0:38:34 wanted to just add a link in their newsletter.
0:38:37 Like tons of people did that for me in the beginning.
0:38:42 These were just like personal connections, personal creators who also ran a newsletter targeting
0:38:44 other creators.
0:38:46 Yes, yes, exactly.
0:38:50 So there were just creators who had their own newsletters and who just mentioned.
0:38:52 I never asked them to do it for me.
0:38:55 It was just organic and it was so kind of them.
0:39:00 But sometimes there are newsletters that you may be a part of that acts for submissions.
0:39:02 And I was intentional about that.
0:39:08 So I also made sure to include grants for creators as part of those submissions.
0:39:11 Like, Hey, community members, tell me your updates for the week.
0:39:12 Oh, I launched this thing.
0:39:16 You know, so I made sure to really zero in on what’s working.
0:39:18 Newsletter mentions were great.
0:39:20 So I made sure to go and seek them out afterwards as well.
0:39:21 It makes a lot of sense.
0:39:26 You know, if I’m targeting a newsletter audience, you know, where’s a good place to reach them
0:39:27 in other newsletters.
0:39:32 It’s like John Lee Dumas said a line about, well, podcasters listen to podcasts, like
0:39:33 this big epiphany moment.
0:39:35 Like, if I want to grow my show, I got to get in front of other podcast audiences.
0:39:39 So getting in front of other newsletter audiences makes a lot of sense.
0:39:44 And it sounds like it kind of stems from your existing Twitter presence, which at press time
0:39:49 around 9,000 followers, I don’t know what it looked like 11 or 12 months ago, but a, you
0:39:55 know, an engaged following over there and starting with this pinned tweet announcing the product
0:39:58 and then some of this educational type of content.
0:40:06 Was there any tweet or series of tweets that had any sort of viral growth or viral impact
0:40:07 to the account?
0:40:08 I don’t think so.
0:40:14 I think it was consistently talking about it, making sure at least once a day, at least once
0:40:21 a day, I talked about grants for creators or I shared the link or just shared some fun facts,
0:40:25 you know, or just something where I know it could lead into to that.
0:40:29 So yes, definitely just that consistency of promoting on social.
0:40:33 That’s pretty much the popular newsletter growth tactic today.
0:40:37 It’s social media to lead magnet to email list.
0:40:41 So you meet subscribers where they’re already hanging out, the social media channel of your
0:40:41 choice.
0:40:46 In Daniel’s case, she chose Twitter, but we’ve heard from guests doing it on TikTok, on LinkedIn,
0:40:48 on threads, on Instagram.
0:40:51 Then you create the content that can win the algorithm there.
0:40:57 When you do, you add a subtle pitch or maybe not so subtle pitch for your lead magnet.
0:41:00 The one that I opted in for the other day was from Twitter.
0:41:07 It was for somebody’s AI powered or, you know, a make template for like a niche news summary
0:41:08 agent.
0:41:11 Cool little giveaway, something I’d been meaning to build myself.
0:41:13 So maybe I’ll be able to adapt his template.
0:41:14 It was, yeah, sure.
0:41:15 I’ll opt in for that.
0:41:20 And from there, it is sending a valuable email on whatever cadence makes sense.
0:41:25 But I like the newsletter model, low startup costs, and can have some really strong margins
0:41:29 depending on how you choose to monetize and sellable as well.
0:41:33 There have been some high profile examples of newsletters selling for tens of millions
0:41:37 of dollars if you have the aspirations to really scale it up.
0:41:39 But that’s number seven, the newsletter business model.
0:41:43 Low cost online business number eight is to teach an online class.
0:41:45 And there’s a couple ways you can do it.
0:41:51 The more passive way is to create a pre-recorded class or course and sell it as a one-off digital
0:41:53 product, which can still work.
0:41:59 But there seems to be a shift toward the second type, which is more cohort-based, meaning there’s
0:42:01 like a live component to it.
0:42:04 There’s a more well-defined start and end date.
0:42:15 We’ve seen guests doing online classes in piano lessons, in chess, sourdough bread, growing microgreens, tons of examples in the online course space.
0:42:23 But my absolute favorite has to be Devin Ricks in episode 499, who at that point reported earning
0:42:29 $4,000 a month, part-time, from home, teaching video game classes online.
0:42:36 The secret wasn’t being a famous streamer or a professional gamer, but it was taking advantage
0:42:39 of the OutSchool platform to connect with students.
0:42:46 And this is a platform that is primarily for K-12 students to find online classes in both
0:42:51 academic subjects and extracurricular topics like video games.
0:42:59 What OutSchool does is it has created this space where teachers are background checked and parents feel safe letting their
0:43:05 children log in online, all the sessions are recorded, and then they can play together and it’s a good environment for them.
0:43:09 Yeah, we would call this a buy buttons platform.
0:43:11 You know, go where the cash is already flowing.
0:43:15 And here’s a platform that has a built-in audience where it’s relatively easy.
0:43:17 It’s got to go through this background check process.
0:43:22 You got to come up with an idea of what you’re going to teach, but relatively easy to put your
0:43:26 thing out there for sale and have people come and do business with you.
0:43:32 And actually, it kind of sparked an idea here because like my son and his friend in California,
0:43:37 like they’ve hung out on Zoom doing like Lego builds way more than they’ve ever hung out in person.
0:43:42 And it’s like, oh, I wonder if there’s like a Lego building class where you could do like, okay, different challenges or something.
0:43:47 So people with different pieces could still try and build a, okay, today we’re going to build a bird or something.
0:43:49 Like, I don’t know, that would be really interesting.
0:43:51 Oh, there’s definitely Lego classes.
0:43:55 I have a good friend who teaches Lego classes and yeah, she’ll be like, this is the inspiration.
0:43:57 You create your own version.
0:44:00 And so then everyone’s building their own Legos with what they have.
0:44:02 But yeah, that’s totally a thing.
0:44:07 All right, somebody beat me to it, but so maybe that kind of leads into the next thing.
0:44:11 Were there other teachers already doing the video game thing or was that kind of like, I’m
0:44:14 going to try and carve out this little blue ocean piece of this marketplace?
0:44:17 Oh, I certainly was not the first.
0:44:20 There are lots and lots of video game teachers.
0:44:24 A lot of teachers who teach the exact same video games that I do because I mostly teach Switch games.
0:44:28 But the beauty about school is it’s an international platform, right?
0:44:33 So there are some teachers in Australia who are doing things that I’m doing, but that
0:44:35 I can’t do at the same time, right?
0:44:39 And then there are teachers in the US and things that are overlapping with my timeframes.
0:44:44 But the nice thing is there’s so many students, so many parents that you can market to that
0:44:48 there is plenty of space for educators in any field, not just in video games.
0:44:52 But like if you go on there and you look at English teachers, there’s tons of them, right?
0:44:53 I’m one of them also.
0:44:57 So I teach a little bit of writing, but there’s still room for other people because there’s
0:44:59 no one who teaches like you do.
0:45:04 I bring everything that I have, my own personality, my perspective on games would be totally different
0:45:05 than yours, Nick.
0:45:08 If you were to teach the exact same video game that I’m teaching.
0:45:09 Okay.
0:45:15 Did you do anything to set your listing apart when you first started or gain those first
0:45:18 few students to take a chance and roll the dice with Ms. Devin?
0:45:23 Well, one of the best things that I did was I made a good video for my profile.
0:45:27 So out school gives you the opportunity to have a headshot of video and a description.
0:45:32 And if you have those three things and they are really well done, then you are going to
0:45:35 find those students out school likes to promote new teachers.
0:45:40 There’s also some Facebook groups that you can market your classes, like, you know, $5 off
0:45:43 your first class or a free first class or whatever it is.
0:45:49 And I did a lot of that as a starting out teacher and I had some success there, but out
0:45:53 school just does such a good job marketing for you that you’re able to just kind of create
0:45:58 your classes, tweak your keywords and parents want to try new teachers.
0:46:01 They like to try new teachers, especially if they have a lower price point.
0:46:02 Okay.
0:46:06 And then there is an option for pre-recorded cloud.
0:46:11 Like if you wanted to pre-record your tutorial on how to beat Zelda in two hours, I don’t
0:46:16 know what it would be, but like that is an option too, but you have a more structured as like,
0:46:18 you know, social hour, come hang out and we’ll play together.
0:46:19 Exactly.
0:46:19 Yeah.
0:46:23 And the pre-recorded ones lend themselves more to the academic side.
0:46:25 So I do have a pre-recorded class.
0:46:27 It’s a Zelda creative writing class.
0:46:31 And so it gives learners an opportunity to go at their own pace.
0:46:36 So there’s a lot of pre-recorded math classes and photography things with video games.
0:46:39 It is harder because you want that social aspect, right?
0:46:40 That’s the big draw of it.
0:46:45 But with other subjects, you can totally do pre-recorded, put it there.
0:46:46 Passive income students are enrolling.
0:46:51 All you have to do is post the different assignments for the different days and it’s just making money
0:46:52 while you sleep.
0:46:52 Right.
0:46:53 Yeah.
0:46:54 That’s the dream, right?
0:46:54 It is.
0:47:01 How do you have your pricing set up for like for the group of video game classes?
0:47:05 So out school is a place where you can choose your own prices.
0:47:08 They recommend 10 to $15 per student per hour.
0:47:11 And then out school takes 30%.
0:47:15 Most of my classes are about $13 per hour per student.
0:47:19 And then I get to choose how many students I have in a class.
0:47:24 So a good example is I have a breath of the wild class, which is a Zelda game, and it meets
0:47:28 twice a week and each student pays $13 per day.
0:47:30 So they’re paying 26 per week.
0:47:32 And then out school takes 30%.
0:47:35 And in that class, I have 12 students.
0:47:36 That is my highest grossing class.
0:47:39 12 students, $26 a week.
0:47:43 I bring in a little under 200 for just those two days that I do those two hours.
0:47:45 A hundred bucks an hour playing video games.
0:47:47 Not a bad gig if you can get it.
0:47:48 It’s really not.
0:47:54 I think it just goes to show you that there are a lot of ways to make money online in just
0:47:59 about any niche these days, and that you don’t have to have a ton of startup capital to get
0:47:59 started.
0:48:01 Super inspiring stuff.
0:48:02 A lot of fun.
0:48:06 Again, that was episode 499 with Devin Ricks, MissDevin.com.
0:48:07 Devin with a Y.
0:48:13 The Side Hustle Show is filled with low overhead business ideas, both online and offline.
0:48:19 If you’re wondering what to listen to next, I’ve made a note of all the episodes mentioned
0:48:20 in this episode in the show notes.
0:48:23 The link in the description will get you right over there.
0:48:29 Beyond that, I want to invite you to generate your own personalized Side Hustle Show playlist
0:48:30 at hustle.show.
0:48:33 Just answer a few short, multiple choice questions.
0:48:39 You can do it from your phone, and it’ll build you a custom curated playlist based on your answers
0:48:42 of eight to ten of our greatest hits episodes you can add to your device.
0:48:46 You can learn from our awesome guests, and you can go out and make some more money.
0:48:49 Again, hustle.show for that personalized playlist.
0:48:53 Big thanks to those awesome guests for providing some examples today.
0:48:57 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:49:03 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:49:05 That is it for me.
0:49:06 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:49:10 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share with a friend,
0:49:13 so fire off that text message and let them know to check it out.
0:49:16 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen,
0:49:19 and I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
0:49:20 Hustle on.
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