5 realistic side hustles for an extra $500-$1000/month

If you're looking for a realistic video about some side hustle ideas without the purpose of selling you courses on how to get rich, you're in the right place. You see, because most of the videos you see online talk about various side hustle options and then they come to the conclusion that side hustle X is the best option and it's going to make you rich. Therefore, you should buy my course, otherwise you're going to miss out on your last opportunity to get rich.

I'm not going to try to sell you a course; instead, I'm just going to share my honest opinions because I don't want to make money telling other people how to make money online. So, the first one is video editing. Especially, short-form video editing is one of the best side hustles you can look into. The demand is super high, and there are very few good editors. If you want to make a living out of editing, you should be really good; that's a fact.

But if your goal is to make some extra side money, then you don't have to be the best editor in the world. Obviously, some levels of skills are required, but so is every side hustle. The most important thing is your communication skills and whether you know how to pitch yourself to creators. As a creator with 1.3 million subs, I get every single day dozens of emails and DMs for people offering me editing services, but I rarely reply to them. The reason is not because I'm rude, but because many creators, including myself, don't have much time to go through each message we get.

So what you will need to do is prove that your message is worth someone's time to open, read, and reply. One of the biggest mistakes I've seen again and again is talking without any proof. It basically goes like this: "Hey, you're leaving money on the table. You're missing out. Short-form content is super important, and I'm really a good editor; therefore, you should hire me. Here are some of my past works. Let's hop on a call if you're interested."

Okay, pause the video and guess the mistakes these people are making. I'm waiting... please do it. Okay, ready? First of all, you might actually be a good editor; okay, I'm not doubting that, but talk is cheap, so we need to show with our actions. Your past work might not be the best way to measure your skill since everyone has a different style and preference.

What I would do is re-edit a couple of my long-form videos into short-form content with various styles and showcase my skill set and ability to do different styles and creativity. So, you shouldn't be sending the same email copy-pasted to everyone. We need to show some effort. Instead of suggesting, "Let's hop on a call," which might just lead to a back-and-forth email exchange to find a good time, which is quite time-consuming, especially when we are dealing with different time zones, why not send a Calendly link? That way, I could easily book a time that fits both of our schedules, and it saves time for both of us and it's much more productive.

Also, don't leave questions on the table. You know, tell me your delivery time, rate, how you work, and whether you're open for a negotiation in the same email so that it's easier for the other person to book a call. If you have good communication skills and some decent editing skills, you're good to go. And also, don't worry, there are so many free and good resources to learn how to edit, so you got this.

Even though I'm a big advocate of starting your own platform, sometimes you actually don't have the time to start a social media account because it takes a lot of time, investment, and effort, especially in the beginning to figure out your voice and style and what you want to share. So, if you don't have the time freedom to start your own account, one of the best ways to learn the backend is to be a social media manager.

There are tons of benefits to this. First of all, the demand is super high. Second of all, you can do it remotely. And third of all, it gives you the chance to see the backstage of what it looks like to run a social media account, so you can make money while learning how things work. Maybe in the future, if you're interested, you can start your own account.

And let me tell you, there will be such a big difference being a total beginner and having some experience in the social media world. So, what do social media managers usually do? Well, there isn't necessarily a specific definition since every creator might request something different, but some of the common things can be answering emails, reaching out to brands to sign partnerships, managing content calendars, helping with creator schedules, and basically helping the creator out.

Same as a video editor, it's super important to know how to pitch. If I would start over and had no experience and knowledge about social media and how to make money online, I would definitely reach out to my favorite 50 to 100 creators on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, maybe TikTok, to help them out so that I can learn while I make money and build relationships with brands and also other creators.

Whether you're interested in editing short-form content or managing social media as a side hustle, having a professional website to showcase who you are is essential when pitching to potential clients to show how legit you are. Though building a website can be quite daunting in my opinion, you know, coding, technical skills, or even hiring someone to do it for you and spending thousands of dollars is quite difficult.

So, to solve this issue, I recommend Hostinger and its AI website builder who is kindly sponsoring a portion of this video. With Hostinger's AI-powered tools in the website builder, you can create a unique website for you in just a few minutes, and let me show you how easy it is. First, what you need to do is you will go to hostinger.com/sl/dy1, and boom! If you scroll down, you see the plans that Hostinger offers: the premium website builder, and we also have the business website builder.

Now, they are all super affordable compared to other brands, but I recommend you go with the business plan as it includes all of their AI tools. So, with plans starting at just $2.99 per month, you'll get a free domain, email, and the ability to create up to 100 websites under a single account. Okay, now let me show you the onboarding process.

Okay, so for my brand name, I'm going to go with Kaizen by Rudy, and the website store is going to be an online store. Let's go! Okay, if you already have a simple website ready, just in a couple of seconds, and we can also see how that will look on mobile. You can easily edit the website. So, let's say I didn't like the colors and website styles. I can change that easily. Let's say I don't like blue; I want to go with a darker blue. I'll select it, and as you can see, I can change that super easily.

Let's do, for example, white. Yeah, white looks much better! They also have tools like AI Writer, AI Page Generator, AI Blog Generator, AI Heat Map, and AI Logo Maker. So, they also have 24/7 expert support from their in-house customer success team. So, if you're ready to start your side hustle journey, use my special link hostinger.com/dy10 and discount code R10 for an exclusive 10% discount. Thank you, Hostinger, for sponsoring a portion of this video!

Another interesting one is building Notion templates. I actually didn't know it was a thing until I created my own Notion template. Some creators make millions selling Notion templates, and oftentimes the ones that are paid are quite complicated and take time to create from scratch. For example, my Kaizen system. I worked with a software engineer who coded some parts of my Notion template.

So, if you would go on Fiverr, there are a bunch of people building Notion templates as a service, and you don't necessarily need to know how to code, actually! So, I've been working on creating a new Notion template, and I know nothing about coding, so I've been using ChatGPT. I literally ask it each step and what to code and how to do it, and when an error occurs, I just ask it to fix it. So far, so good, and it's actually working. I'm just doing it as a fun project right now, but to be honest, for my future project, I will definitely outsource it because it takes quite a long time.

You know, if I would decide to pick Notion templates, like building Notion templates as a side hustle, the first thing I would do is build some cool templates, make a video explaining how to create on various social media platforms, and give it away for free in exchange for people's emails. Once I got people's emails, I would send them some follow-up emails about my services and about my paid Notion templates and how I can help them.

I would also pick a couple of my favorite creators, create some simple version draft templates that they can potentially sell, and send them a Loom video walking through and ask them to say yes if they want the template for free. Once they like my Notion template, I would offer services to build them more advanced versions. The good thing about picking Notion templates as a niche to talk on social media is because it's a very specific topic.

You don't necessarily need to get tons of views to make decent money. For example, like Thomas Frank, who abandoned his main channel, which had millions of subscribers, for a smaller Notion channel because it makes more money. And also, there are a bunch of people making over six figures under 100K subscribers, so you definitely don't need to have a bunch of subscribers. If you would be patient and put in the work, you can make $1,000 a month. To be honest, it's really a good side hustle.

Okay, so this one is not necessarily something you can do from your home, but I just wanted to include this because in my opinion, this is a genius idea. Business in making money is essentially solving other people's problems, right? We talked about it. What's the biggest issue people have in lectures in college? Actually listening to the professor and taking notes. Boom, problem identified.

So now it's time to solve it. I've seen people online recording the whole lecture with a voice recorder, transcribing it with tools online, then turning it into nice notes and slides using AI-powered tools. Even though I think it will depend on your local laws, the state you're living in, and also the university you go to, if it's allowed and if it's completely legal, I think it's a good way to make money in university. You know, it will motivate you to go to lectures, and also you will be able to make some money.

I think one important note is that while you're taking a voice recording, it's important to listen to the lecture yourself too and take notes so that afterwards you can check whether there were any errors. Also, rather than selling the slides and notes without any edits, I think it's necessary to highlight the important parts and potential questions that can be asked on an exam to provide extra value so that your classmates will keep coming back.

Just a second warning: check the laws before you do it because I'm quite sure in some universities they don't love to record anything. So, don't get in trouble! Okay, and also, if you're my classmate and watching this, please do it and sell it to me because I need the lecture notes.

Let's look up about the last one, which is thumbnail creation as a service. So, on YouTube, everyone knows that title and thumbnail are the most important elements you need to pay attention to if you want to get views. We've already talked about it so many times. And guess what you need to do to create a good thumbnail? First, you need to come up with a good idea.

Then the second step is taking some pictures. The third step is editing the pictures and doing some Photoshop if necessary. And guess what? Most creators want to outsource the step one and step three — the idea generation and the editing part. Personally, I'm not a big fan of hiring someone to come up with ideas because I feel like then the thumbnails won't have my personal touch in them.

But some people outsource it, and it works completely fine for them, so it's not a big issue, in my opinion. I've been outsourcing the editing part of some of my thumbnails recently because it saves so much time. Whenever I want to get creative, my brain is really good at coming up with ideas but not executing them because I don't know how to use Photoshop.

I've been making all of my thumbnails using Canva, so sometimes my skills are not enough, so I hire a thumbnail designer to edit them. The good thing about the side hustle is you work based on a project, and people usually charge between $100 to $150 per thumbnail with unlimited revisions. If you learn how to do Photoshop, depending on the thumbnail style, you can create that in a couple of hours.

So, if you're not looking for a full-time freelancing option, then I think thumbnail design is a pretty good choice. The way I found my thumbnail editor is I was searching on YouTube about thumbnail editing, and he had a tutorial that was quite easy to follow. I think it had only a couple thousand views, to be honest, but I really liked it, so I reached out to him via his email in the description, and we basically started working right away.

It's also the way that I would recommend for people to kind of showcase their work and promote their services. So, if you want to do thumbnail design, recreate some of the creators' thumbnails, post it on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. Even if the actual creator doesn't see that, someone will, and there is a high chance that they will hire you if they like the work you do.

I would also put all the thumbnails that I've created in the past to my website to kind of showcase the range that I do. There are a bunch of free resources on YouTube and also on Skillshare and other platforms to get started with Photoshop, which I highly recommend checking out if you're interested in becoming one.

So, obviously, since I'm a creator, all the side hustle ideas are somewhat related to content creation and the creator economy, but it's a growing industry, and day by day, the valuation is going higher too. It's the future of media. I understand why people dislike social media creators because of some creators and the reputation issue, but I love the creator economy.

Like, it genuinely changed my life, and I like working with freelancers. I like my job. So, if this video inspired you to start your own side hustle, we might have the chance to work together in the future. Like, imagine how cool it would be if you started because of this video, and a year later we work together. I don't know, it sounds cool to me. I promise I'm a good employer; I'm not a bad person. Anyway, enough rumbling, and see you soon!