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What kind of side hustle are you pursuing? In this post I’ll explain to you my 4 types of money making hustles and some of the pros and cons of each.

• Freelancer

• Creator

• Trep

• Investor

 

1. Freelancer/ Sharer

The easiest of all the hustles. You use knowledge, skills and resources already in your possession to make money. You do the work or share your stuff and you get paid- its linear.

Often you can do this without having to create any additional infrastructure and with effectively no cost. In many cases you simply find the marketplace, setup your profile and name your price. For simplicity I put peer-to-peer services like Uber and Lyft into this category too.

Here are some marketplaces for Professional freelancers:

• Clarity – set your price and get paid by the minute to give your advice and insights

• LinkedIn Profinder – LInkedIn’s service that connects professional freelancers with high quality leads

• TopTal – if you think you’re in the top 3% they’ll connect you to companies who want your knowledge

More mainstream freelancer sites where you can search the jobs board and make an offer:

• Upwork

• Fiverr

• Guru

Here are ways to make $$$ from resources you already have:

• Rent your spare room on Airbnb

• Rent out your car on Truro

• Petsit a dog or cat with Rover

• Sell your photos on Shutterstock

Whilst freelancing has the lowest barriers to entry, the major downside is that as a freelancer you will be trading your time for money. However, you can use the skills you learn to start another type of hustle.

 

2. Creator

You sell a product or service. Unlike freelancing you will likely need to invest some money and effort before you begin. Though there is no direct link between effort and income there is potential to scale and leverage technology and other people’s time to generate passive or semi-passive income.

You will need to actively market your creations to attract customers and probably need to setup a website or social media page to engage with your customers. Depending on how big you want to grow you can do this alone or build a small team to help you get things done.

Examples of how you can be a side hustling Creator include:

• Teach a course online with Skillshare

• Write a book and sell it on Amazon

• Sell your artwork on Etsy

• Build an app for your specialty

Empty your brain, bring it to life and take it to market.

 

3. Trep

Trep is short for Entrepreneur. This is where a side hustle becomes a startup or a business and you probably can’t do it alone. There are more moving parts- you may need staff, partners, advisors and outside money.

Maybe you have an idea with huge market potential and you have a vision to change the world. Or maybe you want to build a medispa or buy into a franchise.

There may be regulations and restrictions that put speed bumps on your pathway so you will need a longer time horizon. You may not see profits for a very long time- if ever.

Examples include:

• Designing a new medical device

• Build a new hospital

• Developing a new drug or supplement

If you’re launching a new product no one has ever seen, you’ll need to refine your pitch to convince customers (and investors) the world needs a product they have never heard of. However, if the Trep in you manages to nail it, you could be banking more zeros than you imagined and trading in your stethoscope for a yacht.

 

4. Investor

Your money gets lucky and makes money babies. You take some of your hard earned cash from your day job or side hustle and you stick it somewhere other than under your mattress. The aim is to strike a balance between your risk profile and the expected return.

Everyone knows about the tried and true vehicles of real estate, stocks and bonds. But in recent years we have seen steep growth in angel investing, crowdsourced property investments and cryptocurrency.

As an investor you have minimal ability to modify the returns of each investment but the upside is it takes very little effort once you’re in.

 

So there you have it- my 4 types of money making side hustles.

How do you choose the right one for you?

Well it’s a matter of balancing time, effort and vision. If you’re thinking about starting your side gig make sure you read my blog post 7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting Your Side Hustle.

As always, do you have some ideas to share? Post them in the comments below.