Side hustle ideas from people who actually run them
Real side businesses, described by their owners. Filter by cost, time and how they earn.
- Ideas
- 651 ideas
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- 14 publications and shows
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- 8 categories
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- Files sold online: templates, printables, ebooks, stock photos, fonts, presets, plugins, recorded courses
- A web app, SaaS, mobile app, browser extension, bot or API that people pay for or that earns from ads
- A blog, niche website, newsletter, YouTube channel, podcast or social account that earns from ads, affiliate links or sponsors
- Making, printing or reselling physical goods, online or in person
- Doing work for clients for a fee: freelance, consulting, done-for-you services, repairs, local services
- Earning from something you own: renting property, rooms, equipment, vehicles, parking, vending machines, domains
- A job board, listings site, directory or marketplace that connects buyers and sellers
- Live tutoring, lessons, workshops, coaching or cohort classes
Matching ideas
About the data194 ideas, page 2 of 5
- Digital productsWrites and sells books about programming, currently covering Angular and related tools, with little promotion.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2019
- Services and freelancingBuilt web pages for local wineries and was paid in goods such as wine rather than cash.Under $100Hacker News, 2019
- Digital productsA site selling themes for static site generators that has started making sales.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2019
- Software and appsA few games the owner published that continue to sell a little each year without any input.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2019
- Software and appsBuilt a stock trading model for personal use, then published it on a platform where subscribers pay to follow it. Subscribers take responsibility for any trades.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2018
- Software and appsBuilt a documentation product that earned its first revenue with little maintenance, and is planning a second version.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2018
- Digital productsLists virtual machines on major cloud marketplaces that come set up for Ethereum development, with video tutorials. Revenue comes from VM sales.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2018
- Software and appsPublishes several Android apps on Google Play. One got an editor's pick, which boosted sales for a while.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2018
- Physical productsTurned public patent drawings into wall art images, cleaned up by a hired assistant and batch processed. An online store sends orders to a print and fulfillment service automatically.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilt a web-based synth and drum machine that is free as a demo. Sells a downloadable desktop version without the restrictions.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsSells a cross-platform desktop task manager with a Kanban-style board, through a trial-based license on Gumroad and the Mac App Store.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsRuns a site showing historical average weather by city and month. Income so far is from ad revenue, with plans to add more features.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Content and mediaBuilt a search tool that ranks Amazon products by ratings and review volume, grouped by price range. Money comes from affiliate links.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsA competitor monitoring product that began as a side project and grew into a systemised business with a team, so the owner now acts more like an investor.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilt a simple CMS and CRM for a freelance client and set up automated billing per user. Income grows as the client's user base grows.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsA subscription tool that watches DNS zones for changes and alerts the owner, keeping a revision history. Aimed at people who manage DNS for clients.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilt a document management and review web app for a large company and gets a monthly maintenance fee, needing very little time each month.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilt a tool that takes a keyword, translates it into many languages and shows available .com domains. It has earned some revenue from users.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Content and mediaA website comparing prices for domain extensions across registrars. Earns through registrar affiliate commissions and paid data downloads.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsSoftware for protecting source code with encryption, built to meet the owner's own need when existing products were very expensive. It has produced steady income for years with a small remote team.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Content and mediaA small project built for fun that earns a little from display ads and has grown slowly.Under $100Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsLets a couple of people use a personal instance of an open source program they run, so they do not have to host it themselves, in exchange for a small monthly fee.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsA desktop tool that shrinks images without visible quality loss. Offered as a free version with paid upgrades, plus plugins for design software.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsA lossless screen recording app for macOS sold through the Mac App Store and its own site. Adds features like animated GIF export to keep sales coming in.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Directories and marketplacesSold a few domains at a profit and then launched a site selling high-quality startup names to fund other ventures.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilt an online exam preparation platform for aspiring medical students together with a sibling. Once launched it needed very little upkeep and sold access to students.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsRuns a multiplayer Boggle-style game online. It earns from advertising and paid memberships.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsDevelops watch faces for Android Wear and sells them as paid apps on the Play Store.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsPublishes native apps and games along with HTML5 games, earning from app store sales. Income has declined as the stores have changed.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsRuns a set of small web apps for learning music notes, non-Latin alphabets and languages with flash cards. Income comes from ads and paid premium plans.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Content and mediaA website with a searchable product catalog that earns from Amazon affiliate links.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Directories and marketplacesA community site where hobbyist voice actors connect and find work. It started by accident and now earns a steady monthly income.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Content and mediaPublished a how-to post on single sign-on between two business platforms on an old blog and added AdSense. Earns small ad revenue from search visitors.Under $100Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilt online prep resources for UK medical school entrance exams. Students pay for access, mostly in the months before the exams.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsA service where customers text a photo and a physical postcard is mailed. Built with a web framework and an SMS API, and paid per postcard.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Content and mediaA network of automated accounts that gather tech meetups and conferences for each city and tweet them, plus a weekly mailing list. Money comes from affiliate fees for conferences and workshops and from ad blocks in the newsletter.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilt a service that delivers updates for private WordPress plugins and themes, which developers otherwise find painful to manage. Customers pay for the service.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsSells a watermarking tool, and also runs a multi-week video productivity course that is paid for each time a new class fills.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Services and freelancingDesigns websites for clients and hosts them on cloud infrastructure, collecting monthly web and email hosting fees.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Services and freelancingBuilt an automated system for deploying webshops for a web agency owner, in exchange for a fee on each shop deployed. The income ended when the client retired.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilds small single-purpose mobile apps such as calculators and a flashlight. Some are sold for a fee and others earn from in-app ads.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Content and mediaMaintains a documentation website for a jQuery plugin and earns a small amount from a single ad placed on it.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsA service that generates website thumbnails automatically. The owner bought it from another person, kept developing it, and earns from its customers.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsRuns a website that helps people practice music notation. It has earned steadily for years.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsRuns a free tool that lets people make colored maps of countries and regions. Income comes from display ads and occasional donations.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsSells a game for iPad through the App Store, which sold with almost no ongoing effort until app updates were needed for new platform requirements.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilt a mobile app that tracks commuter rail trains in real time. Downloads spike whenever the transit system has service problems.OnlineHacker News, 2016
- Software and appsBuilds small web tools that solve narrow business problems, often around obscure shipping forms or data formatting chores. Income comes from display ads on the tools that get found.Hands-offOnlineHacker News, 2016