It’s too soon to call 2022 the year of the side hustle: Research shows that more Americans are likely to start their own businesses in 2023.
According to him, two out of five Americans created or maintained at least one additional source of income in 2022. scan from Harris Poll and Zapier workflow integration. That’s a 6% increase from December 2020, a charge mostly led by millennials and Gen Zers, the same survey added.
Millennials and Gen Zers may need the money. Nearly half of them “direct paycheck to salary and fear they won’t be able to make ends meet,” Deloitte survey 2022 pointed out.
A side business can sometimes be just as draining as a full-time job — but it doesn’t have to be. Last year, CNBC Make It spoke with several individuals who bring in up to millions of dollars a year on the side. Eight of them worked less than 20 hours a week to do so.
When analyzed, some themes emerge. Here are four of the most lucrative and least time-consuming side businesses that have gained traction in the past year:
Online education
You may have skills that others would like to learn. Social media has proven to be an effective way to educate them and earn cash while doing so.
in 2020, Kat Norton She was living with her parents when she launched Miss Excel, a TikTok account meant to teach followers spreadsheet tips and tricks. Two weeks later, it hit 100,000, and then started selling more Excel courses from its website.
She left her job in January 2021 after starting to earn more through her side job than from her full-time management consultant role. Now, Miss Excel earns about $2 million a year, and Norton only works four hours a day.
Graham Cochran Similar story: He lost his job as an audio engineer in 2009 at the age of 26. He and his wife relied on savings and food stamps as he tried to launch his own production company.
Later that year, he started a music blog called The Recording Revolution that taught followers the ins and outs of the music industry. He has increased his access to YouTube videos and online courses.
These courses continue to be successful, but his second business, which “teaches people how to monetize their knowledge and passion as I did,” is how he earns most of his income. He now earns $160,000 a month for five hours of work a week.
Real estate
Rental properties usually come with a high upfront cost – buying and building properties can be expensive – but can provide a steady stream of income for just a few hours of work each week.
wedding photographers Adriana Krause and Stefan Alvin They spent about $487,000 buying and renovating homes near their family: Alvins in California and Cruz in Rio de Janeiro. Krauss and Alvin, a married couple, spend about six months of the year in each house while renting out the other.
Within just five weeks of listing their cabin in Oakhurst, California, they brought in $13,000. The couple now spends only about an hour a week managing reservations, they say.
Even small properties can be effective investments in the right locations: Native Hawaii Kehau Hall She spent $8,000 setting up an Airbnb tent near a local volcano that now earns her $28,000 a year, for example. She works 10-15 hours per week managing, cleaning and taking reservations.
vending machines
You might be surprised to learn how profitable vending machines are for their owners. Some of these owners too.
before covid hit, Quinn Miller He was earning $240,000 a year working for an ad tech startup in California. Then his customers disappeared and he struggled to meet his sales quota. After reading on Twitter that office vending machines can provide passive income, he bought two of them for a total of $5,000.
It took him months to make the business profitable. Now, he spends six hours a week managing 57 vending machines, which brings in an average of $30,000 a month, as a full-time job.
Marcus Gram He has a similar story: He wanted to generate passive income, and after his friend watched a woman take wads of cash from a vending machine, he knew where to start.
In 2018, he moved from Rochester, New York to Philadelphia and bought two vending machines. He only made $5,000 in his first year, but he continued to invest in the business. Three years later, he quit his $17-an-hour management job, and his 21 vending machines now bring in more than $300,000 a year.
Designing jewelry, T-shirts and other apparel
Your creativity itself can be profitable, if you are able to attract the right audience.
in 2016, Nicole Tucci, who owns a tanning salon in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, has begun removing buttons from Chanel clothes and turning them into necklaces. She launched a website for her side business in late 2020 and now makes up to $41,000 per month from it.
Tucci knew the necklaces would be a huge hit for people like her salon clients, who were already gravitating toward designer clothes. It only takes 15-20 hours per week to source, make and list jewelry online, from November 2022.
These types of side businesses don’t have to have luxury brands. in 2014, Ryan Hough He was making $85,000 a year as a full-time web developer when he began looking for a second source of income. He decided to design and sell print-on-demand T-shirts—a service that required relatively low effort, he envisioned, because outside vendors would handle the printing, packaging, and shipping.
He designed and sold T-shirts on sites like All Sunsets, Creative Fabrica, and Vexels before moving to Amazon. Work started after he found out To keep track of trends on the catwalk, and help him design T-shirts that can sell quickly based on demand.
By 2020, he was earning enough to quit his full-time job. Now, he makes $14,600 a month by working just one hour a day.
“I want people to know they don’t need a graphic design degree to succeed in the print-on-demand business,” Hogue wrote for CNBC Make It in November. “They just need a little creativity and a lot of motivation.”
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