Side hustle ideas from people who actually run them

332 ideas, page 1 of 7

• Practice website for learning Excel

  A simple website that helps people learn Excel through exercises. The founder built it with very little effort and grew it as a dead-simple, boring niche site.

  Content and mediaHands-off

  Starter Story, 2026
• Ad-supported specials boards for restaurants

  Free chalkboards and whiteboards placed in restaurants and busy venues, which use them for daily specials. Income comes from selling small ad spots along the bottom to local businesses.

  Side Hustle Nation, 2026
• Modern laundromat with commercial laundry

  A large laundromat with a commercial laundry operation and remote management technology, now offered as a franchise.

  Services and freelancingOver $10k

  The Koerner Office, 2026
• Searchable database product sites

  The operator runs a few near-identical sites that each sell access to a niche database, such as investors, angels or journalists. The revenue model is not stated in the source and is likely paid access.

  Starter Story, 2026
• Custom AI assistant built on a client's own documents

  The operator gathers one client's documents, structures them, and loads them into a custom GPT or Claude project so a specific audience can ask it questions instead of the owner. The example was a business broker whose buyers queried the assistant about a listing.

  Services and freelancingUnder $100Hands-off

  Corey Ganim (YouTube), 2026
• Fixed-price workflow automation builds for small firms

  The operator replaces a repeated manual process with an automation built on off-the-shelf tools such as Zapier, Make or Asana, usually after a short diagnostic. It is charged as a one-off project, with a walkthrough video and a how-to-fix document handed over.

  Services and freelancing

  Corey Ganim (YouTube), 2026
• ATM placement business

  Buying ATMs and placing them in local businesses, earning income from transaction fees with about an hour of work a week. The hardest step is finding and pitching good locations.

  Rentals and assetsHands-off

  Side Hustle Nation, 2026
• Directory tool with a lead generation focus

  After leaving an agency, the operator built a directory-related software tool that earns recurring revenue and is adding a lead-gen angle.

  Niche Pursuits Podcast, 2026
• Road trip visualization tool

  A website for visualizing road trips, earning sales through organic traffic with peaks around holidays.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Browser extensions named for popular searches

  Builds browser extensions that fix common site annoyances. Revenue comes from them, helped by search-friendly names and store reviews.

  Software and appsUnder $100Hands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Co-authored tech e-book and online course

  Co-wrote a Spring Boot and AWS e-book with a companion online course, sharing the income among authors.

  Digital productsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Custom AI image model training commissions

  Trains custom image generation models for customers on request using an automated pipeline, charging per commission.

  Services and freelancing

  Hacker News, 2024
• Excel and Google Sheets video course

  Made a course on spreadsheet functions and formulas hosted on a small course platform, earning a commission share.

  Digital productsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Minimal Android launcher with pro version

  A minimalist Android launcher distributed free, with a paid pro version.

  Software and apps

  Hacker News, 2024
• Obsidian template with guide and course

  A template for a note-taking app with a user guide and video course based on the owner's personal system, sold to customers.

  Digital productsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Online text case converter tool

  A free web tool for converting text case, built up over years.

  Software and apps

  Hacker News, 2024
• Checklist web app for repeated routines

  A checklist app built for the owner's own routines that now earns recurring income.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Chrome extension collecting casino login bonuses

  A browser extension that automatically claims daily login bonuses at online casinos for a monthly subscription.

  Software and apps

  Hacker News, 2024
• Cloud true random number generator

  A random number service sold through a website and a cloud marketplace listing, left running with little attention.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• DevOps online course for small teams

  Created an online course teaching DevOps to small companies and self-hosters, which keeps selling even against bigger instructors.

  Digital productsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Free sudoku sites supported by ads

  A group of free sudoku websites that earn steady income from minimal ads.

  Content and mediaHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• GIF meme maker with watermark removal sales

  A GIF meme site that earns from one-off sales of watermark removal.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Grounded charger adapters for MacBooks

  Worked with a factory to make grounded power adapters that stop case buzzing, sold on Amazon.

  Physical productsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2024
• Nonfiction book notes site

  Publishes personal notes from nonfiction books on a site and earns some money from it.

  Content and media

  Hacker News, 2024
• Shipping data model for options trading

  Built an algorithm using maritime trade data to trade options on shipping firms, also selling subscriptions to friends.

  Software and apps

  Hacker News, 2024
• Online multiplayer domino game with donations

  Built an online multiplayer version of a domino-based game, funded by donations after ads did poorly.

  Software and apps

  Hacker News, 2022
• Chess variant mobile game funded by donations

  Built a single-player chess variant app without ads or in-app purchases, supported mostly by donations.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• Game server and compute hosting

  Began hosting game servers for friends, grew into renting servers including scientific computing to universities.

  Over $10kHands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• License data compression to software publishers

  Built a compression tool that was slow to compress but fast to decompress and licensed it to big software vendors who shipped floppy disks.

  Hands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• Meme maker with animated text tracking

  Created a web tool for making GIF memes with text that follows motion, after finding it hard to do elsewhere.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• Niche credit card processing business

  Started a niche credit card processor that has made money for many years.

  Hacker News, 2022
• PDF bank statement data extraction web app

  A web app that pulls transaction data out of PDF bank statements, built after the owner needed it for personal spending analysis.

  Software and apps

  Hacker News, 2022
• Royalties from embedded device software

  Wrote embedded software and earned a royalty on every device shipped for many years.

  Hands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• Self-published book on deploying applications

  Wrote and sells a technical book on deployment that shows the steps without higher-level tools.

  Digital productsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• Simple apps and games monetized later

  Builds small apps and games for niche audiences and earns by adding paid features and selling ad space.

  Software and apps

  Hacker News, 2022
• Software error-message T-shirt designs

  Put cartoon T-shirt designs about software error messages on craft sites.

  Physical productsUnder $100Hands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• Sports film review software

  Software that ties game stats to video footage for coaches, sold to schools in many states.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• Weekly email of saved Twitter bookmarks

  Built a small tool that emails a weekly digest of newly saved Twitter bookmarks, with paid subscribers.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2022
• Network of niche job boards and content sites

  Built job listing sites and blogs that run mostly automatically and cover expenses with ads and sponsorships.

  Hands-off

  Hacker News, 2021
• Datasets of promotion resources sold on Gumroad

  Sells a curated list of places to promote side projects, for makers wanting traffic, directly through Gumroad.

  Digital productsUnder $100Hands-off

  Hacker News, 2021
• Eyewear comparison affiliate site

  Built a site comparing glasses retailers that earns affiliate commissions.

  Content and mediaUnder $100Hands-off

  Hacker News, 2021
• Art commissions, licensing and print-on-demand

  Sells commissioned art, licenses existing work from a large catalog, and puts designs on print-on-demand sites for low-effort extra income.

  Services and freelancing

  Hacker News, 2021
• Coupon site and tiny developer tools

  A coupon site for developers plus a set of single-purpose web tools such as encoders and HTML cleaners.

  Hands-off

  Hacker News, 2021
• Online courses sold on Udemy

  Creates and sells courses on Udemy.

  Digital productsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2021
• Niche menswear online business

  Started a niche menswear business alongside a full-time job. It now runs mostly on its own at small scale.

  Physical productsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2021
• Safari tab refresh extension for Mac

  A paid Mac App Store app that grew out of a personal need for a Safari extension that refreshes tabs automatically.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2021
• Niche Mac App Store app

  Wrote a Mac app years ago that still makes steady daily sales through the app store without marketing.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2020
• White-label stock analysis tool with revenue share

  Built a web tool for stock technical analysis and offered it white-labeled to companies with distribution, splitting profits with them.

  Software and appsHands-off

  Hacker News, 2019