Side hustles are the life-savers for someone who needs money, especially for someone who has gone complete broke and in debt. Side hustles are also the life-savers of college students and students, who want to earn at least something, and become independent.
But, there’s one thing that most side hustles don’t have – passive income. Most side hustles require hard work, patience, and at the end of the day the pay is minuscule. Earning that is too less for all the hard work. Does that mean there’s no side hustle you can turn into passive income? NO!
Hence, in this post, I’ll list down the 10 uniquely different side hustles that you can turn into passive income. In fact, I have tried some of these, and have actually made some good moolah.
(1) Printables
Design and sell printables such as planners, worksheets, or artwork on Etsy, Amazon, eBay, and any other e-commerce website out there. Printables are constantly in demand, and proves to be a good passive income hustle.
Today, people are even selling Canva and Notion templates on Etsy and other ecommerce websites. Selling printables and templates have picked up recently, since it’s cheaper and faster for individuals to buy templates than to make them. Funny enough, people are also choosing Tik tok to sell templates and printables….
So, the possibilities are endless, you only have to find one. If you’re someone who has tried selling printables or templates as side hustle, then do let me know… I would love your views on this hustle…
(2) Mystery Box
Since our childhood we have always loved surprises. Especially when the surprises were good, and benefitted us dearly. Unfortunately, we grew up, but we never let go off the child within us. We still love positive surprises, and still try to pursue something that has an element of surprise.
That’s how the business of mystery boxes came into existence. A mystery box is something that a customer buys without knowing its exact contents. Do you see the “surprise” element here? The entire business model stands on the “surprise element.”
The customer who buys a mystery box does not know what’s going to be in there. The customer only choose a niche, pay the money and wallah… The mystery box reaches their home. Like all other side hustles and businesses, you’ll have to spend some time deciding the products and niche you want to target.
Once the design and products are ready, it’s pretty much a rinse-and-repeat business after that. The mystery box business is evergreen, so you don’t have to fret about trends as such. You’ll automatically find someone who cannot hold their patience, and wants some kind of surprise in their lives.
(3) Affiliate Marketing
While earning money from affiliate marketing is the aftermath of intense hard work, money from affiliate sales can continue for years.I suppose you know this already. Affiliate marketing is the sole reason why blogging and content creation has risen to such liking in the past few years. Unfortunately, Google has had enough and took down many website that were ONLY interested in affiliate sales and not providing actual value.
Still, since Google is not against affiliate income, they haven’t yet stopped valuable websites from ranking high. You can take this opportunity and setup and blog, or a YouTube channel. The beauty about affiliate is that you make money even when you’re asleep.
Start blogging or YouTube as a side hustle and turn it into a constant passive income soure through affiliate sales. It has worked dearly for me, and for thousands of people. So, if they can do it, why can’t you?
(4) Narrow Niche Blog
While learning about blogging and, I learned one simple thing: Choosing a niche is absolutely important. In fact, majority of blogs fail because of wrong niche. And, then there’s narrow niche. These niche narrow down to a super-specific topic. Something like “window cleaning business in Omaha.”
I have been blogging for nearly half a decade now, and one thing I have learned is that “more monthly visits does not mean more money.” For example, a blog operating in gaming niche may receive 2 million pageviews a month, but the total monthly earning won’t surpass $25,000. But, narrow niche blogs may get 5k visits a month, but may end-up earning $50,000 every month.
Most of these narrow niche blogs have two major source of income: (1) Affiliate, (2) Product Sales. Both of which are completely passive income sources.
(5) AI Website
While gliding through the internet, I suddely got a strong hunch to start an AI websites based on a narrow niche. I took decision quickly and chose super-narrow niche. Unfortunately, I don’t know programming, and the project got abandoned. Yeah, I could have hired someone, but back then I didn’t have enough money to hire an expensive software developer.
A few months after the hunch, I visited websites like Empire Flippers to look for website listing, and among the many websites listed, I found an AI-based website too… Can you guess at what price was it selling for? $3 million US dollars. That day I was so disheartened that I stopped working right away and went to sleep.
Now, what was the AI website about? A super-simple website about “gift recommendations.” People are way too confused when they want to gift someone something. In the end, they gift something that is not only expensive but also irrelevant. This AI website not only recommended unique ideas, but also posted an Amazon affiliate link. The website had no ads, and made all the money from Amazon affiliate sales alone.
Don’t make the same mistake I did. If you know software development, or you have the money to hire someone to do the hard job, DO IT!! Do it now before it’s too late and the market is oversaturated…
(6) Licensing
Do you remember the most infamous YouTube fight of all time? The T-series vs PewDiePie thing? What do you think T-series does? It’s India’s biggest music licensing and production company. Their power in the Indian music industry is insane… I guess you already know what I’m hinting at?
If you’re an artist, your biggest strength is your knowledge and experience. If you’re a musician, you can sell your services on freelancing sites like Fiverr, or you can license your music and use it in a Lo-Fi YouTube channel. If you’re a professional photographer, you can take unique photos and license them on Shutterstock.
Licensing is a one-time hard work. You work hard once, and rip the benefits repeatedly. Photos never expire, and so will be your passive income source. Similarly, making evergreen videos is also a nice passive income idea that you can start as a side hustle.
(7) AI Voice Cloning
AI is the latest revolution in the technological field. Look at ChatGPT. It’s been only a little more than a year and this AI technology has already found its way into big businesses, and in an average individual’s life. Guess what has happened more? Various AI side hustles have developed.
AI Voice Cloning is one such side hustle. Here’s how you do it:
(1) Record your own voice for at least 30 minutes
(2) Upload the audio file to websites that provide voice cloning service, and create a clone of the voice.
(3) The AI service will now use your voice when people demand for tasks like voiceovers.
(4) The more your voice is used by people, the more you earn money.
Easy isn’t it? And, it’s completely passive income since you don’t have to do anything else once your voice is uploaded. ElevenLabs is one such website. Do let me know about your experience. I would, in fact, love to know how it worked for you…
(8) AI Instagram Model
AI is the new trend right now. Unsurprisingly, everyone is trying to “master” this new technology, and trying to extract as much value as possible within a short period of time. While I have seen pretty much everything about what AI can do, here is one thing that actually surprised me… The idea surprised me even more because the people do did this first reportedly make $10,000 every month.
It’s the idea of AI Instagram Model. No, I’m not talking about software model, but an actual woman supermodel. I watched a YouTube video of how to create a realistic AI supermodel and make money out of her. I will declare one thing though… It’s a little technical than other side hustles I haven mentioned till now.
This video from Fireship will help you make an AI supermodel. It’s a step-by-step video, so you can easily follow every step and make your own project.
(9) Online Course
Selling online courses is pretty common among bloggers and content creators. In fact, most bloggers and content creators earn the real money from online courses and personal coaching. Though I have said this multiple times, but, it’s so fascinating that I never fail to mention it again.
Adam Enfroy, Jon Dykstra, and Anastasia (Anastasia Blogger) are the three best examples of bloggers who have made it BIG as bloggers. And, how did they do it? From online course sales. Ali Abdaal is another such content creator.
And, here’s the best part, if your course provides good value and is priced well, people WILL buy them. Trust me, there is no other better high-paying passive income idea that selling course. Even earnings from affiliate marketing stands nowhere close.
(10) Rental Service
If there’s one side hustle, passive income, or even a business idea that I recommend to people whenever they ask me about any idea, then I always recommend them to go for rental business. See, I never said rental property, but a rental service. Surprising thing is that you can turn anything into a rental business.
You can rental your home (Airbnb), rent your website, rent your machinery, or rent your professional camera, or the most unique one – rent yourself… And, no renting yourself does not mean anything negative, Rental service is a billion-dollar industry. But also one of the hardest one to get into… Why? Because before a side hustle or a business turns passive, you’ll have to actively work hard on it. Day and night…
