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
- Publications
- 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 data65 ideas, page 1 of 2
- Software and appsA consumer app that teaches languages through music and singing. The founder tested the idea with viral content before building a simple first version and runs it solo.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsAn indie health and fitness app. The founder credits a repeatable marketing playbook built on paid ads, rather than the specific app, for its growth.$1k to $10kOnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsAn iOS fitness app built to solve the founder's own problem at the gym. The founder had never shipped code before and grew it with content and a personal brand.$100 to $1kOnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsA mobile game built by a former big tech employee after leaving a full-time job. It grew with no paid marketing.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsA gym app whose founder treats product development like a science experiment, using A/B tests and feature validation to decide what to build.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Directories and marketplacesA simple job board website in a saturated category. The founder credits distribution and marketing, not the product, for its success.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsAn AI tool that lets architects and designers generate realistic home renders in seconds. Revenue stayed flat for years until a single product pivot changed the business.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsA marketing SaaS for indie developers. The founder shaped the product through a very large number of customer calls with the ideal customer.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsA golf app the founder built as a side project while working full time at a big tech company, before deciding whether to go all in on it.Part-timeOnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsAn AI app for track and field, built by college students who did not know how to code.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsA micro-SaaS that replaces messy spreadsheets for agencies and e-commerce brands trying to make sense of their data. The founder spotted the problem while consulting for these businesses and built the app with Claude.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Software and appsAn analytics SaaS built specifically for agencies as the customer, a niche most builders overlook.OnlineStarter Story, 2026
- Services and freelancingA one-person operator deploys AI agents for executives at small firms and handles their requests through a shared ticket board. The client pays one monthly price that covers every automation, model cost and upkeep.OnlineNick Vasilescu (YouTube), 2026
- Software and appsBuilt an app for creating orders and invoices on the road, syncing with local accounting software. A partner handles sales.OnlineHacker News, 2024
- Software and appsMaintains a UI library for a programming language and gets income through GitHub sponsorships.Under $100OnlineHacker News, 2024
- Software and appsOffers automated recurring security scans of web apps with reports sent to team tools like Slack.OnlineHacker News, 2024
- Software and appsAn app for learning Japanese by reading web articles, tracking known vocabulary and kanji, and syncing with flashcards.OnlineHacker News, 2024
- Software and appsA desktop app for managing several Kubernetes clusters at once, built for the owner's own use and then sold as a subscription.OnlineHacker News, 2024
- Software and appsA privacy-friendly open source analytics tool for apps.OnlineHacker News, 2024
- Services and freelancingA file manager supporting many storage protocols. Earns by building custom plugins such as authentication layers.OnlineHacker News, 2024
- Software and appsRuns an API service that handles web scraping for developers.OnlineHacker News, 2024
- Services and freelancingBuilt an escape room game with colleagues in a rented warehouse after trying local ones.Over $10kIn personHacker News, 2022
- Software and appsBuilt a Mac app for drawing and highlighting on screen during calls and presentations, after needing it personally.OnlineHacker News, 2022
- Software and appsRuns a simulation service that lets traders backtest advanced options strategies, built from a background in processor simulation.Over $10kOnlineHacker News, 2022
- Digital productsFound a popular product category on a code marketplace and built a better JavaScript image cropper and uploader to sell there.Under $100OnlineHacker News, 2022
- Software and appsAn open source tool for detecting website changes, with a paid hosted subscription and custom work for companies.OnlineHacker News, 2022
- Software and appsBuilt an embeddable analytics product that avoids cookies, sold as hosted subscriptions and to customers on invoice.OnlineHacker News, 2022
- Software and appsCreated an open-source email verification tool, then built a paid hosted service on top of it.OnlineHacker News, 2022
- Software and appsA Mac app that creates polished product demo videos from screen recordings using cursor movements and clicks.OnlineHacker News, 2022
- Software and appsBuilt a monitoring tool that began with GraphQL services and expanded to all APIs and web apps, running it with a couple of hours of work each workday.Part-timeOnlineHacker News, 2022
- Software and appsStarted by scraping real estate listings for personal use, then built a scraping API that handles blocking and sold access to paying customers.OnlineHacker News, 2022
- Digital productsWrote helpful articles, collected them into a book sold on Gumroad, and also builds a monitoring SaaS on the side.OnlineHacker News, 2021
- Services and freelancingWrites custom automation runbooks for networks and provides a web platform where customers run them.Part-timeOnlineHacker News, 2021
- Software and appsA web app for sharing audio clips with timestamped comments, such as a music teacher giving feedback to a student.OnlineHacker News, 2021
- Software and appsA tool for recording video explanations on pull requests, to reduce misunderstandings during code review.OnlineHacker News, 2021
- Software and appsBuilt a document editor on a decentralized protocol alongside a day job. Revenue came from grant money from the protocol.OnlineHacker News, 2021
- Software and appsStarted a web hosting company on nights and weekends during grad school, which later became a full-time business.OnlineHacker News, 2021
- Physical productsLaunched hardware security keys with partners, working on it part time at first.Over $10kOnlineHacker News, 2021
- Services and freelancingDoes web work for clients and keeps income steady with annual payments for hosting, maintenance and small fixes.OnlineHacker News, 2020
- Software and appsRuns a web tool that migrates data from files like CSV, JSON and XML into MySQL databases, sold to users who need conversions.OnlineHacker News, 2019
- Software and appsBuilt a platform for scavenger hunts played on phones. Sells it to team-building event companies and also to individuals for birthdays and parties.OnlineHacker News, 2019
- Software and appsTurned an internal debugging and remote logging tool for iOS and Android into a subscription product for customers of all sizes.OnlineHacker News, 2019
- Software and appsA service for WordPress plugin and theme developers covering updates, git deployment, analytics and load testing, paid by subscription.OnlineHacker News, 2019
- Services and freelancingDelivered freshly baked cookies to dorms and homes near a university on rollerblades, paid per order, and built a delivery management site.Part-timeHacker News, 2019
- Software and appsStarted a company offering marketing automation to fitness businesses, with recurring revenue and a partnership with a martial arts actor's affiliates.OnlineHacker News, 2019
- Physical productsSells custom signs to businesses, with an online sign creator for simple designs and help with more complex ones. A supplier makes and ships the signs.Part-timeOnlineHacker News, 2019
- Teaching and coachingMakes screencasts that teach the Elixir language and sells access to them.OnlineHacker News, 2019
- Services and freelancingDoes software consulting for a previous workplace after leaving it, adjusting the rate each year for inflation.Under $100Part-timeOnlineHacker News, 2019