Loading summary
Transcript189 lines
- [00:00]
Nick Loper
Look, adulting can be a challenge, but there is an easy button for at least one item on your to do list. Our partner PolicyGenius makes finding and buying life insurance simple to make sure your loved ones have a financial safety net in case something happens to you. With Policygenius you can find life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for a million dollars in coverage. It's an easy way to protect the people you love and feel good about the future. How it works is policygenius lets you compare quotes from America's top insurers, complete with coverage, amounts, prices and terms all in just a few clicks. No games, no guesswork. And with thousands of five star reviews on Google and trustpilot from customers who found the best policy fit for their needs, policygenius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace. Secure your family's future with Policygenius. Head to Policygenius.com to compare free life insurance quotes free from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com and now onto the show. We've got $10,000 a month writing on medium. A thousand bucks a day washing windows, 50 bucks an hour assembling furniture. In this episode we're running through some of my favorite and some of the most unique side hustles that I've come across on Reddit. And to help me do it is a longtime listener and side hustle expert in her own right, Whitney Bonds. Welcome to the side Hustle show.
- [01:25]
Whitney Bonds
Hey Nick. I'm so happy to be here.
- [01:27]
Nick Loper
You bet. So how this will work is I'm going to bring up a Reddit side hustle. We'll get Whitney's reaction on it. And the first one that I want to share is it says how I make somewhat passive income on YouTube without going viral. So I'll see if I can bring this up on the screen here. But the idea was tutorial based YouTube content how to do fill in the blank. And this is where some of my best performing videos, like some of the videos with the longest shelf life have come from. And I know you've had some experience in this space as well.
- [01:59]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. So when I saw this, I literally thought that the guys stole what I wrote somewhere along the way because this is literally what I do. So I know for a fact that this works a hundred percent. So this is all about just creating tutorial style content for YouTube and it lives on and it really is passive so that you do it once and it can live on for years. Like I Have videos right now you can search this how to make money selling dog treats. And. And you're going to find my video at the very top. And it's. I did that over three years ago. And so. And I'm. I have a course I'm promoting in that video. And so this is really passive income. So when people are searching for how to make money selling dog treats, my video is the first one they see. So they click on it and they watch it. I answer the question, how do you do it? But I also leave them with more information on how this woman made over $4,000 in a month doing it. And so then they want to learn more, they click on her course and they purchase it. And. And I earned a commission. So this is, I would say, a hundred percent a legit passive income that you can do on YouTube.
- [02:59]
Nick Loper
You had another one that was in the LLC space.
- [03:01]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. So one of the things that I do, I never don't know what I'm should talk about on YouTube. So I look at my competitors to say, like, what have they done that has done well that I could do? And so I saw this guy had a video and it was in 2022. So it was an older video. It was about how to start an LLC and it was in 2022 and it got over 700,000 views. So I was like, oh my gosh, this is obviously a topic people are interested in. Let me try and do something like this. And since I did this in 2024, so I just said, his is old. If I just do a similar video, I could probably do well too, just an updated version of it. And so I did it. And I had no idea how that video was gonna do. Cause I. I never did a video like that before. So I posted it and it was crickets. Like nobody watched it, okay? And I'm telling you, nobody. And I wanted to delete it. Cause it's emb.
- [03:52]
Nick Loper
When you post, it's like, this is embarrassing. The view count is dragging me down.
- [03:56]
Whitney Bonds
It just makes me look bad in my own eyes. So I wanted to delete it, but I said, no, I'm going to move on to the next one. And I don't kid you, I have the graph to show you. But after five months, that video started gaining traction in the search results. And it was like the first thing when people were searching for hot start an llc. My video was showing up. And today that video has now over 200,000 views. It's made me over 30,000 in ad revenue. And it's made me over a hundred thousand dollars in affiliate commissions. So you can look it up. Yeah. Whitney Bonds llc. And you'll see, like, I am amazed. Go to Popular. I should be right up there. Set up an LLC that two years ago. And I updated the date.
- [04:39]
Nick Loper
Sure.
- [04:39]
Whitney Bonds
Because it's 2025 now.
- [04:41]
Nick Loper
Yeah. New thumbnail. Sure.
- [04:42]
Whitney Bonds
But you can see was two years ago right there.
- [04:45]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [04:45]
Whitney Bonds
And that was a video that did it for me that made me say, like, this thing really works.
- [04:49]
Nick Loper
That's happy when some of my videos make a thousand bucks. But it's like, man, if you can make $100,000 from one video, it gets really exciting.
- [04:58]
Whitney Bonds
And I do this all the time. Like, if you go to how to become a bookkeeper or how to go high level tutorial, like, I do this intentionally so people can see my videos that are actively searching for these things. And so it works.
- [05:10]
Nick Loper
Okay, so combination strategy. What's working? Well, for other channels, maybe it's a little bit outdated. Could I bring my own taste, my own perspective to that topic and create the video about that? And then almost a double dip in this case with the LLC thing. Yeah. I'm going to make money on YouTube ads, but I'm also going to make money as an affiliate partner for whatever LLC formation service that I have to recommend in there.
- [05:32]
Whitney Bonds
Yep, exactly. It's just a win, win.
- [05:35]
Nick Loper
All right. Very cool. So this is WhitneyBonds on YouTube. Definitely check out her channel over there. The next one that I have on my list is a unique one about flipping apples, say candy apple service that I found. Whereas I bought a bag of apples for five bucks and I made $140 in four hours sitting outside a Ross. Now, there's other material costs involved here. Okay, we got to make the caramel apple dip. And she said, I built a little booth or a sign, but I feel like this could do well at any sort of neighborhood event, vendor fair type of thing. We had some kids who were selling shave ice outside of the pool. We had some kids selling cotton candy in the neighborhood over the summer and talking with one of the moms. They're like, their goal was to save enough for like a Nintendo Switch 2. And they're like, well, they made $100 today. So they're, they're, you know, chipping away at this goal. And I thought it was, it was very cool. And it's cool that the neighborhood was supporting some younger entrepreneurs. But here's kind of a classic example of, you know, raw materials, do a little value add and all Of a sudden, it's worth five times what it. What it originally was.
- [06:38]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, my kids literally did a lemonade stand this weekend for the first time, and they made a little over $150.
- [06:44]
Nick Loper
Oh, dang nice.
- [06:45]
Whitney Bonds
For two hours. Like, people are willing. They got so like maybe four or five people gave them $20. And so they're just, you know, trying to support the young kids. So I'm just like, oh my gosh, guys, if you want to do this again, we can do this again. So this, this stuff, this does really work. And if you got the kid angle, you know, they're going to do better than adults would anyway.
- [07:04]
Nick Loper
Sure. Do they have a price? Now? This is what I'm trying to debate with my kids because we've seen people like, oh, it's, it's a dollar a glass for lemonade or something. And my argument is like, I think you make the lemonade optional tip or like suggested tip or something. It's like, pay what you want kind of price it. Because then it's like, oh, I'm probably going to give you five. You know, if I get a couple, I have, I have a hunch the average, the average cart value might be a little bit higher. If you made the lemonade free and just tapped into people's goodwill.
- [07:32]
Whitney Bonds
I think you should charge because I feel like the people want to you to empower yourself to know that you can put a value on something and get money back for it. So I think you should charge. I wouldn't say free because I see the angle you're going, but I will always say, like, I think you should charge. And people want to. When you see how low it is, they'd be like, oh, I want to give more. That's what I think.
- [07:52]
Nick Loper
Okay, all right, that's fair. My wife's rule, like for Girl Scout cookies, like, if the girl scout asks, yeah, I will always buy. She's like, but they have to ask if they're just standing there outside of the store. No, no. Ask for my business. I will support you.
- [08:07]
Whitney Bonds
I like that. That's good.
- [08:09]
Nick Loper
The next one that I have is this pressure washing business called Semper Fi power washing. At least according to the image here. It says started house washing. That grosses over a hundred thousand dollars working to six months a year. Kind of like that. Hey, could I take the winters off and go skiing? I guess probably not a lot of people doing power washing over the, over the winter, but really, really busy months, especially kind of the spring cleaning time. Interesting. That said, okay. The startup costs were a little bit higher here. He says, I spent $30,000 on equipment because if you wanted just a basic pressure washer for driveways and houses, you can get started for three, four hundred dollars and then maybe kind of level up your equipment as you break even on your first job. And so I've always said, like, if I was to start something new, start from scratch, like this would definitely be on the short list because one, because it's just super, super quick roi and two, it's just a plain old like satisfying business. Like it's very clear before and after. Like you could tell the work that you did.
- [09:07]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, I really do like this a lot. I think that it's a great idea. The only thing I think about sometimes is like, are you going to continuously be able to get clients? You know, do you do a certain area or you just, I guess you just keep moving further out or. I guess my question is how often does a house need to be power washed?
- [09:23]
Nick Loper
Yeah, I could see it being set up as an annual service. Hey, we did it this spring and we can pre reserve you. Hey, we'll give you 10% off for next year if you pre book. I could see it being a recurring service, like a, like any type of cleaning service stuff keeps getting dirty. You know, it's like the dentist, like they don't let you leave the dentist before they even book your next appointment.
- [09:40]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, I like that. And it's like we get Christmas lights in our house every year and the service, they keep coming back, but they hold. They say we have a special discount if we continue to like stay on with them. So that's kind of a reason why like I just stay on with them just to get the discount. So I do think that's the whole angle that you could use for sure with something like this.
- [09:58]
Nick Loper
Yeah, I think there's some built in virality too where if you see your neighbors getting their house washed or the pressure washing, it's kind of like, oh yeah, you know, how long has it been? I should probably do this too, you know, would you mind dropping off a flyer or a pamphlet or a business card or how much would it cost to do mine too? You know, you got anything lined up after this? We've booked jobs that way, people down the street.
- [10:22]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah.
- [10:23]
Nick Loper
Do you do skylights? Yeah, come over here, you know, all that kind of thing.
- [10:25]
Whitney Bonds
No, I like that. Yeah, especially too because this is a thing that people just don't have this handy at their house. So if someone is out there doing it and you know, your house needs this, then you're gonna do it if you have the funds. So I think it's a. This is a cool side hustle right here.
- [10:40]
Nick Loper
Yeah. All right, what's next on our list? This next one is related to writing on Medium. So I made $10,000 in one month, my highest so far. I'm not super familiar with the Medium Partner program and the comments, even the original poster here is like, I know this is an aberration. This is not going to like, I'm not going to bank on this every month, but it was still cool to kind of have this viral moment and get paid for it.
- [11:05]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. And I saw her comment under here, the next one. She said it will never happen again, but she said I won't see same amount for months or even years. But she's happy she made that. So yeah, I think she did bring it down how she was able to do it. But yeah, what I've heard from Medium is just that's not a platform anymore. That's something that you should even work to try to monetize. So. But this is a recent. It was four days ago. So this still could be something that can be untapped. But I have heard that it's just got so saturated that people aren't doing it that much anymore.
- [11:35]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [11:36]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. So how did she do it?
- [11:37]
Nick Loper
Yeah, story earnings. You know, I've been writing here for five years, right. So it took five years to have this $10,000 a month breakthrough. So there's some ele element of putting in the work. But a handful of these articles really, really went viral. Have a hard time with Medium and always have. It's like, well, if I want to create this content, I want to put it on my site first and then maybe I syndicate it over to Medium, which I don't know if that's allowed or if that's kosher.
- [11:59]
Whitney Bonds
Exactly.
- [12:00]
Nick Loper
If they're still going to pay out if it's not original content.
- [12:03]
Whitney Bonds
Right.
- [12:03]
Nick Loper
But in talking with some people, because I thought it was like they're kind of like think pieces. Or in contrast to the YouTube thing where it's like answer a very specific search query. He kind of. And I thought it was like you more like CEOs are begging to hire anyone with this one skill. Like very curiosity driven, like you could see. Oh, people would want to click on that. Well, what's, what's the one skill? The other person we talked to about Medium was like, no, it actually is very much search driven. So if you can Crack the SEO code on a high authority domain like Medium. You don't have to start from scratch and building up your own website, your own SEO practices. Some I don't know if there's anything here.
- [12:40]
Whitney Bonds
I just don't ever see them in search. You know when I think about when I'm searching, do I really see a lot of articles from them? You know that's, that's my kind of question.
- [12:49]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Some negative why OpenAI is doomed. You know some of these different.
- [12:54]
Whitney Bonds
Oh yeah. Yeah. And always subject matter is everything. So what you talk about that's going to determine how much you make and how you can make it too.
- [13:02]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Writing is a challenging side hustle right now just given the state of. Of AI and everything else.
- [13:09]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, that's a field that I don't know. It depends you have to take. I have to have a unique angle if you want to make money with it now.
- [13:15]
Nick Loper
Yeah. You see more people go in the route of I'm gonna have a paid newsletter, I'm gonna even a free newsletter. I'm gonna monetize with ads if you really enjoy the art and craft of writing. But it can be tough.
- [13:26]
Whitney Bonds
Right. I do still believe heavily on newsletters because there are certain people that I still like open all their emails on. Like you're one of them. Like I still open people's emails that create good content. So I feel like that's still a space and you can get monetized your sponsorships too in their newsletters. So I think newsletters are still a good way to make money if you can have a good unique take that someone is actually interested in.
- [13:49]
Nick Loper
Yes. More Reddit side hustles with Whitney in just a moment. Including the Pop up wedding proposal service, a couple local service ideas and more right after this. With our partner Mint Mobile. You can get the wireless coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money. I think that's a win we could all use right about now. And you can keep your same phone number. Plus for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering side hustle show listeners three months of unlimited premium wireless service for just $15 a month. All Mint plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. I've been a customer since 2019 and haven't looked back this year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.comsidehustle that's mintmobile.comsidehustleen upfront payment of $45 required equivalent to $15 per month limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Years ago, this is probably 2009. I'm sitting in this conference in Santa Barbara and the presenter asks this question. Are you working on your business or are you working in your business? I saw myself as this full time entrepreneur, but it was this moment of clarity that no, I was still very much working in the business day to day. So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full time hire. It was the first in a long series and an ongoing series of steps in trying to take control by being okay of letting go of certain tasks. Now when you find yourself in that position of needing to hire like yesterday, you need our sponsor Indeed. Plus Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast. There's no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed side Hustle show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility@inn Indeed.com Sidehustleshow just go to indeed.com Sidehustleshow right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Sidehustleshow terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Okay, what's next? Next one I found was a really cool one. A proposal service complete with neon lights, carpets, flowers, candles, four to eight hundred dollars for a two to three hour setup. And the theory is, well, I can cover off my material costs with just one or two or three gigs. And this is becoming a thing. You know, having that Instagram worthy proposal picture when we just saw Taylor's. So this whole thing, yeah, I love.
- [16:46]
Whitney Bonds
This idea so much. I think it's the only thing that I can think about because I feel like men don't do really well and no offense but at planning. So I think that. So for men who want to do something nice and probably don't have the ideas, they could just hire a service like this. To me, I feel like it's a brilliant idea. The only thing I think about is when you post like the different things you do, you don't want it to be the same thing because if you set it up and they're the per like the fiance I guess is going to see it, they're gonna already know what's about to happen. So I guess you might have to change it up a bit.
- [17:15]
Nick Loper
Sure. You're gonna have a few different packages.
- [17:17]
Whitney Bonds
But I love this idea. I think it's so cool. So for the. I think this is a perfect. For the person who's, like, creative, likes to think outside the box and, like, be a part of these different experiences. And for other people, I think this could make a great side hustle that's, like, fulfilling as well.
- [17:31]
Nick Loper
Yeah. You know, a few years ago when, like, the yard signs for birthdays and graduations were a big thing.
- [17:37]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, yeah.
- [17:38]
Nick Loper
It's similar where it's like, okay, I have this pretty minimal upfront cost and equipment, and then it's just a matter of reusing that same stuff in a creative way and making it really cool for the picture.
- [17:49]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. And sometimes people may not have, like, friends or family that can be there for that moment too.
- [17:54]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [17:54]
Whitney Bonds
So I think that's why it's a good take to do, especially, like, if you're in, like, a popular city, like New York or something, or. But people like to propose or. I'm. I'm just saying it could be anywhere, to be honest. But I think it's a good idea if you're in a fairly busy area that people, like, want to go to. Or it could be local, too.
- [18:09]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Trying to target the proposers. Cause I imagine it's mostly the proposees who are probably seeing these pictures.
- [18:16]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. And you know what I would do? I would partner with, like, the jewelry stores to, like, maybe say, like, if anyone's coming in to get a ring.
- [18:23]
Nick Loper
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [18:24]
Whitney Bonds
You know, some try and give them a kickback or something like that. For anybody that they get to book with them. Just. Just a way to promote their services.
- [18:30]
Nick Loper
Yeah. That's a great strategic partnership here. That's kind of what my wife does for her wedding photography business, is partnering with the venues. But it's like, before they're even looking for wedding venues, they get where they go and they go to the engagement ring store.
- [18:42]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, I love that. So smart.
- [18:43]
Nick Loper
Yeah. And it's like. It was very surprising. So a couple things, right. It was. First, the people who are getting married have bridesmaids who are also in that age who are also going to be getting married soon. And so that's like the word of mouth started spinning way faster than I would have thought. But it was like within the next year or two, and it's like, well, if you did 10 weddings and that was 50 bridesmaids, it's like 50 who shot your wedding? Oh, yeah, she was great. Okay. And so it was like, it really started to accelerate that way.
- [19:08]
Whitney Bonds
Oh yeah, that's so true.
- [19:09]
Nick Loper
And then the talking to different venues that they shot at. Well, what does it take to get on your preferred vendor list? Boom, boom, boom. Here's our portfolio. And so that started to, to go that way too.
- [19:17]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, and I love that question, like, what does it take? You know, you're not asking, just put me on your list. You're just saying what do I need to do? So I love that.
- [19:24]
Nick Loper
All right, that was the proposal pop up service. I think it was kind of a cool one. Next on the list is this window cleaning business, another kind of this low startup cost blue collar side hustle where this poster says they're making a thousand bucks a day doing this after going back to college for the year. So we've done a couple window washing episodes, both with actually college aged entrepreneurs. And they said, I'm going out trying to book one job. The most recent one we had was like, I'm gonna try and book one job through social media ads. And his ads would start out like, hey, Auburn, did you know there's an epidemic of dirty windows going around? Luckily I have the antidote or I have the solution and you jump cut to him with a squeegee or something. Very creative. Got the attention. And then while they were out, you know, set his crew up on that one job, start knocking on doors, you know, within a half a mile perimeter. Hey, we're doing Mr. Mr. And Mrs. Smith's windows over here. We got room in the schedule this afternoon. If you give me 10 seconds, I'll give you an estimator. Just like don't give him a chance to say no. But I'm a fan of these like low startup costs. Go hustle for the business.
- [20:26]
Whitney Bonds
No, I love this right here. Especially if it's like a young college kid. I would do this too. Like this is something that I don't necessarily want to do and if I needed it, I would definitely pay for this. So I like this.
- [20:36]
Nick Loper
Yeah, there's another cleaning business, one that I have on here. It was the trash can cleaning service, where on my surface is like, well, this is what kids are for.
- [20:47]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, I got to tell you about this when I just got this done for me.
- [20:49]
Nick Loper
Did you? Yeah, this guy says 10 bucks a month doing 50 a week. So I don't know if he's doing it weekly. My interpretation was like a once a month service kind of on a rotation where he was doing 50 a week. But how much did your service charge?
- [21:01]
Whitney Bonds
It was $10. And because he was a young kid, I was, I think I paid him like 20, but I wanted to give him more. Oh no, it was $10 a can.
- [21:09]
Nick Loper
Okay.
- [21:09]
Whitney Bonds
And I had two. So I gave him like $28. I was going to give him more because I was just so proud of him being an entrepreneur and like coming and doing a really good job.
- [21:18]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [21:18]
Whitney Bonds
But I didn't have enough cash on me, so I paid him $28. And so he didn't come with the service though. It's just kind of like whenever, you know, he doesn't know the whole thing. Sales pitch yet. But he did a great job. And one thing that I was telling him that he should do is on garbage day, after everybody's taken back their stinky garbage cans, you should put a little sticky note on there and say, say something like, smelly Ben, I can do it for only $10 or something like that and with your number. But I was waiting for someone to do that for me because I was waiting. Cause I, I needed it done. And I'm like, where are the people around here that come around so I could just pay him to do it.
- [21:54]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [21:54]
Whitney Bonds
And so I put in a Facebook group and found the guy.
- [21:57]
Nick Loper
There was where, where I get. And I like this, you know, low overhead. He's talking about like a little handheld, you know, mini kind of water pump to. To clean this out. You could buy a complete $50,000 truck rig. You know, set up to lift it up and spray it. I was like, I don't know if the market really supports that level of, of overhead here, but maybe you could start small. Start with the flyer. You're like the sticky notes on top of the. Tape it to the top of the garbage can. Right after we just had the garbage can pick up. I think that would probably resonate well, especially if it was just like a text service. I'll leave it out on the big. Could you come by this afternoon? I'll leave it out by the driveway.
- [22:34]
Whitney Bonds
Yep. And that's literally what I did. I just left it out. And he came and did it and I went and I filmed him. I'm like, can I film you? This is amazing.
- [22:42]
Nick Loper
This is going to be content for me.
- [22:43]
Whitney Bonds
No, I know exactly. I asked my son. They're out there just watching him and I'm like, you guys want to do this too? What a great side hustle. And my five year old's like, no, it's stinks. And so I'm like, okay, well, but the guy doesn't care. I love work ethic and young entrepreneurs. I love it.
- [22:58]
Nick Loper
Yeah. It's in my head. It's like, well, it's a garbage can. Does it need to be live in this artificial state of cleanliness? It's going to be stinky. Sure.
- [23:06]
Whitney Bonds
Well, I'll say. In our neighborhood, we all have our garbage cans in our garage.
- [23:10]
Nick Loper
Okay.
- [23:11]
Whitney Bonds
So you don't want it to smell.
- [23:13]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [23:13]
Whitney Bonds
So I think it may depend on your area too. But I know for me, I want it to smell good because I don't want it to stink.
- [23:19]
Nick Loper
Yeah.
- [23:19]
Whitney Bonds
For that sake of me in my garage.
- [23:21]
Nick Loper
All right. It might be time to bust the hose out. We have this great picture when our kids were little. They're probably like 2 and 4 at this time. And the little one is in. Is in a diaper. He's doing absolutely nothing. He's holding the hose behind the older brother who's like leaning in and plugging his nose and it's like, this is great, you know, thanks, guys.
- [23:41]
Whitney Bonds
I love it.
- [23:41]
Nick Loper
But yeah, that was. Maybe. Maybe I should have paid him for that. But 10 bucks a month for a garbage can.
- [23:46]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, right. They deserve a paycheck for that one.
- [23:49]
Nick Loper
I will say for sure. The next one was a candle making business. And it sounds like candles with a quote on the jar. And that was something that they ended up making like custom affirmation candles. Here it is. This is another potential little product business.
- [24:09]
Whitney Bonds
I like the way that she kind of put a little unique angle to it. Because I always think about myself. I'm like, I'm not much of a candle girl, but I see that it doesn't matter that I'm not like, this is a real thing that a lot of women and creative businesses out of like selling candles. So this is definitely a business because people are really into like the smells and stuff like that. So I like how she had a unique take to this, like with the affirmations and candles and stuff like that. Because I do think it's a little saturated, though. You can get candles anywhere. So if you have a little. A unique take to it, I do think you could do well with this.
- [24:41]
Nick Loper
Yeah, you almost have to come up with a unique angle. So there was a story that came across my desk of somebody doing print on demand candles, I guess you could do through Printify, where if you come up with endless, you know, creative affirmations, sayings, Bible verses, whatever you want to put on the thing and then sell it through Etsy, Printify, we'll do the fulfillment for you. So there's another potential angle there. This was in an era of like you print on demand T shirts as soon as you throw up that design, like a million copycats come out of the woodwork. And it's like it can work with so much of a volume game. And it's like, I didn't know you could do put on demand candles. Like what? Well, shoot. It's like, well, what else is in this catalog over here?
- [25:22]
Whitney Bonds
The question is too, like, how much are people willing to pay? So I was looking at the numbers here. I think it was like $12 for a candle that this is without you putting your profits to it. So I'm like, how much can you really sell?
- [25:36]
Nick Loper
Yeah, yeah, you'd have to sell it for 18 or 20.
- [25:39]
Whitney Bonds
I don't know if shipping's included. So it's kind of like, you know, you gotta. At what point do people pay for something that they haven't smelled yet? I feel like that's a big selling point too. You know, you want to see how it smells first. So. But I mean, I'm sure candles does well online too.
- [25:54]
Nick Loper
I'm a lot less price sensitive when it's a gift and it's like, you know, especially if it's a unique gift.
- [25:59]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. And that's what she said. She. How she sells it too, I think as gifts. So. That's very true. Like, I don't care how it smells. I shouldn't say I don't care, but you wanted to smell, but you don't care as much maybe.
- [26:08]
Nick Loper
Yeah. So every now and again I'll go through here on like the Printify catalog and be like, oh, what else is in here that is unique? I feel like I saw Crocs or like a croc knockoff the last time I was looking. But like rugs, interesting. Like, I don't know, travel accessories. Like, what do they have? Oh, shoot, you can do luggage.
- [26:29]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, that's so cool. Because that's a business expense. You could put your logo on there and say, that's just me promoting my business.
- [26:35]
Nick Loper
Yeah, I'm on a work trip here.
- [26:37]
Whitney Bonds
I actually like that idea. I might do that for me.
- [26:39]
Nick Loper
Umbrellas. There's some unique print on demand niches beyond just T shirts.
- [26:43]
Whitney Bonds
That's even a good gift idea too, I think. Like you were saying, like, how cool would that be if you get somebody luggage with their business on there or something like that?
- [26:50]
Nick Loper
Yeah, there's some cool ones.
- [26:52]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. Put your Printify link In the description. This is some good, good ideas right here.
- [26:56]
Nick Loper
Yeah, the AirPod cases, I don't know, something where you want to like advertise your, your individuality. It's like the whole Croc charms thing. There was a story of a high schooler I selling 3D printed croc charms. And I keep trying to tell my kid, be like, dude, you can, you could sell some of this stuff if you design it well.
- [27:15]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, that's such a good idea with a 3D printer, obviously. But yeah, because I just did a video about that. The things you can do with 3D printers are amazing. I probably should get one of those. And you know, they're not as expensive as I thought they would be. I thought they were in the thousand dollar range, but I think you can get some that are a couple hundred dollars.
- [27:34]
Nick Loper
Yeah, the low end is, has become really, really a lot more affordable. All right, the next one I'm curious to get your take on. This is almost a question where this person has done really well on Pinterest with 10 million impressions, but I haven't, haven't made any money from it. They're going to Amazon affiliate links. That was literally my entire strategy. She says, or he says, I don't know. I haven't been on Pinterest in a really long time. What's going on here?
- [28:01]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, so I was doing really, really well on Pinterest. I was getting like a hundred thousand page views to my site a month just from Pinterest. I felt like I cracked the code. But they changed their algorithm in 2019 and I have not been able to recover. I even paid this woman, she was a Pinterest expert. I was paying her $500 a month. And I did it for a couple months just to see can I gain traction, can she help me gain traction? And nothing. I mean, it did nothing. So to me, Pinterest is dead in my eyes as far as driving traffic to my website, just because I think that the landscape has changed. One of the things I've I learned or heard anyway is that Pinterest wants you to pay for ads to get visibility. Because if you get all this organic free traffic, how can they make money? And since they changed their model, they're more like pay to play. And so if you want to get seen and get visibility, you have to pay. And I know that's not true for everybody, but I do know that's, that was kind of true for me anyway. And so when I looked at this too, she's trying to monetize Her Pinterest through affiliate links and the Amazon one. So one, sometimes I'm thinking people go to Pinterest for ideas and just to gather ideas. They're not also in the purchasing mode at that at some points. So for Amazon, they could add it to their cart and move on and not buy it yet. And so with Amazon's affiliate commission program, you have to buy within 24 hours for her to get credit for the sale. So that's another thing too. I was thinking about why she may not be making much money is because people don't buy it right away. They might click on her links but. And add it to their cart. But they might not buy it right away.
- [29:37]
Nick Loper
Yeah, with this, I mean, but with that volume, that impression volume, I'm like, it's almost shocking. It's like you get the share of cart on Amazon and anything they buy within that 24 hour window or it's still surprising to be shooting completely blanks.
- [29:53]
Whitney Bonds
I know, but you have to have that urgency to buy now.
- [29:56]
Nick Loper
Yeah, I don't know what's going on there. But Pinterest, our Pinterest account got banned several years ago for some bogus competitor copyright complaint. And then we were going to try and fight it. Like, look, this even going back like 12 or 18 months, like the traffic that we have earned has not converted. It's just not really worth it.
- [30:16]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, it's pretty sad that it doesn't work like it used to because it was like that was one of the gold rush for the people who are bloggers at the time. That was like, if you want to get quick traffic and monetize with mediavine, you need to go on Pinterest and. Oh, that has all changed.
- [30:32]
Nick Loper
Yes. Back in the day, the busy budgeter plan, the Rosa Marie Groener plan.
- [30:37]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, yeah, yeah. You had her on your show, I think about how she was doing it.
- [30:41]
Nick Loper
Yeah, it was crazy. We all followed her guidelines and the group boards and the pin automation and it was a whole thing.
- [30:48]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah.
- [30:49]
Nick Loper
All right, well, Pinterest is dead to us, so we'll go on to the next one. Here we've got options for sports fans and even a way to grow money out of the ground coming up right after this. You know when you're shopping online and you see that little purple shop pay button at checkout? That's a sign that the store you're on is one of the millions of businesses powered by our partner, Shopify. Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. For starters, you don't even have to start from scratch. They've got hundreds of beautiful ready to go proven to convert templates that you can adapt to your brand's style without needing to know how to code. You can tackle all your most important tasks in one place, from managing your inventory to tracking payments to analytics and more. Plus, Shopify helps you make sales with built in marketing and email tools to go out and find new customers and keep the ones you've got. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com Sidehustle Go to shopify.com Sidehustlez shopify.com SidehustLE I'm excited to partner with OpenPhone for this episode. OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communication for both calls and texts all in one easy to use centralized hub. But before OpenPhone was sponsoring podcasts, they took a more guerrilla marketing approach.
- [32:18]
Darina
You probably don't remember this, this is, this is a while back, but when we just started OpenPhone, one of the ways that we got our first customers is through Facebook groups. And I joined a bunch of Facebook groups, including yours. Thank you for not kicking me out, but I posted a couple of times and I actually remember seeing there were some of your listeners and folks in your community interested in solving the problem we solve, which is not using your personal phone number for work. And those posts got us some of our first customers. So thank you. It's a full circle moment.
- [32:51]
Nick Loper
Oh, that's super fun. Very cool. That's Darina, the co founder of Openphone and sure enough, her posts are still there. Openphone is offering side hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com side hustle that's o p e n p h o dash n e openphone.com Sidehustle and if you have existing numbers with another service, Openphone will port them over at no extra charge. This one was a youth referee or youth umpire paying $45 to $55 a piece. Assume they last a couple hours. So you're around 25 bucks an hour here. The funny part here, you know, this guy says it's fun, it's good exercise, pretty solid hourly wage. The first comment, but the parents like yes, you got to deal with people complaining about your judgment calls.
- [33:37]
Whitney Bonds
I know, but I will say like some of the kids, like my son was in flag football and the coaches were some young guys and I'm not knocking young guys, but they're just there to play. Like they were playing around, like they were throwing the football. I'm like, you guys, what are you doing? You're supposed to be repping. But I didn't know that we got paid that much. I think that's really good for being young and making money. I think that's a good. That's really good money right there.
- [34:00]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Our neighbor does this as well. And he's kind of pretty serious at like the high school and community college level and does it enough where he must enjoy doing it and bringing a little side income. When we went over to a couple friends Little league games, I was surprised how young. I don't know if this was like a money saving thing on the part of the league. We don't need to pay. Like we have volunteer umpires before. Or maybe it reduced people yelling at the ump. It's like, well, he's 13. Like we cut him some slack. He's not much older than the kids playing. But I always think this would be kind of fun, especially if you wanted to stay. Stay close to the game and you enjoy it anyways. Because we would see when I was playing softball in, in California, we'd say the same umps across a couple different leagues, you know, week after week, year after year. So I got the impression that it was a kind of a fun after work side hustle for them.
- [34:45]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, I like this a lot and I feel like it's just a. It's like you said, being still part of the game. That's something that they like to do or be a part of. It's a. And then you're making money too.
- [34:53]
Nick Loper
Totally.
- [34:54]
Whitney Bonds
Sign me up.
- [34:55]
Nick Loper
All right, next on the list is a succulent business, a plant propagation business. I am mildly obsessed with this idea of like money that literally grows from the ground. This is super cool. And of course there's effort and care and sunlight and electricity. Whatever needs to go into making that happen. But it's like this came from nothing and it turned into money. Like I think that's really kind of a fun. A fun one. This was specifically in the succulent niche, but we had a guy on who was kind of equated it to selling twigs. Like, you can't kill this thing. You sure? I'll ship it to you wherever. It's like, you know. But you stick it in the dirt and it's going to turn into a plant. It was like, that's so cool. It's just clippings. From stuff that he had in his backyard.
- [35:36]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, wow. The idea that you just really growing money, I love that for this one. I see that location's obviously important here. She said she lives in SoCal, so plenty of sun. But I like this idea a lot. Like, if you can do this and sell this, like, I will buy something like this too.
- [35:52]
Nick Loper
Yeah. There seems to be quite a market on Facebook Marketplace for certain kinds of plants. This is like the hosta one that people have referenced in the past where it's like, if you can get starters of this, this is like, well, this I guess listing is from forever ago.
- [36:06]
Whitney Bonds
Hostas. Aren't they one of those plants that grow every year?
- [36:09]
Nick Loper
It could be. I'm asking the wrong guy.
- [36:12]
Whitney Bonds
I mean, I should know that. But I think they are, though. But that's why I think that's a good investment. You know, you do it, buy it once, and it keeps growing.
- [36:20]
Nick Loper
I love the plant propagation one is really, really interesting, especially if you have a gardening hobby already. If you're already into that stuff, I don't expect it to be a huge money maker because, like, most of these are going to sell, you know, five to $20 probably at the high end, but it's still like if you were going to be doing it anyways and, you know, doing these little starters and I think it's really kind of fun.
- [36:41]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah.
- [36:42]
Nick Loper
I met this guy at fincon whose business was like mushroom growing. And it was the same idea. Like, I mean, I can't imagine what this room in his house smelled like, but it was like I was making four or five hundred bucks a month or maybe it was a week, like selling mushrooms at the farmer's market. And he had deals with local restaurants and it was. How was his thing?
- [37:02]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, wow. Hey, all power to you. I didn't know about that.
- [37:06]
Nick Loper
So plant propagation, kind of a fun one. I'm looking for somebody in the plant prophet propagation feel. I think we could do a little mini, mini episode about that or maybe a video about that.
- [37:16]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, I always feel like too, like I'm always thinking about things that like older people can do because I have some family members that are just like, you know, kind of thing, like, what's my next thing? So I love to think about things that I feel like that's something that they could do.
- [37:28]
Nick Loper
Yeah, totally. All right, next up is pet sitting. And my favorite line from this one. Well, okay, $100 a day. That sounds pretty good. The other part is that I like this was I specialize in rich people who travel Often. What a great client base.
- [37:44]
Whitney Bonds
I love that. Yeah. Who. Cause like, who can spend a hundred dollars a day for their pet? I wonder how much, like, the actual daycares cost. Like the doggie. I guess the thing would be like, maybe charging slightly beneath that. Maybe. But $100 a day is not bad at all. They don't even have to be home all day.
- [37:59]
Nick Loper
Yeah. This sounds like this was kind of a stayover in these luxury houses where it's like, we want to keep the. The dog or dogs or pets, you know, comfortable in their home environment. And you get to go stay at these fancy houses and do the pet sitting thing.
- [38:12]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, wow.
- [38:13]
Nick Loper
So if you have a flexible. Maybe you're in a remote work situation and you can swing that.
- [38:18]
Whitney Bonds
Especially if you love pets. Why not?
- [38:20]
Nick Loper
We had somebody who had kind of described it as, well, I already have a dog or two dogs. So they put their services up on Rover. I was like, it's really not that much different to have one or two more dogs in the house. And that was the way they looked at it. And it was like over the course of a year, it was like 5, 10, $15,000 worth of pet sitting earnings. It could really add up.
- [38:41]
Whitney Bonds
It does. I was talking to this girl the other day and she was just telling me that she dog sits too on the side, and I forgot how much she makes. But I remember at the time I was really shocked. Like, wow. Like, that's how much you make just dog sitting. This is a real thing.
- [38:53]
Nick Loper
Yeah. I mean, it's been probably 10 years ago, but it was like, you know, 50 bucks a night, 60 bucks a night. You know, it's not nothing.
- [39:00]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah. It was $100 a day, though.
- [39:01]
Nick Loper
Definitely. It' comes up on every list of side hustle ideas. Oh, go walk dogs. It's like, well, who's really paying for that? It's like, well, people are.
- [39:10]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah.
- [39:11]
Nick Loper
And Rover is just one of the marketplaces that you could use to connect with those people. Obviously, trusted referrals through your local Facebook community, your local network, your local nextdoor group. But just kind of that once you build that reputation, and especially once you have a recurring customer base, you don't need that many new clients. If this one family is going to go on a couple trips a year and you have five or 10 of those, then you're. You're in good shape.
- [39:37]
Whitney Bonds
That's so true. Yeah. And, you know, people treat dogs like family, so, you know, they want to get somebody. And once you trust somebody and keep them.
- [39:45]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Oh, my. Gosh I have another good pet one. This was really good. It was pet baptisms. This was left without context.
- [39:52]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, my God. That is the most unique one. But people pay for that, though. That's the part that I'm, like, shocked about.
- [39:59]
Nick Loper
Okay. I don't have the thread, but there was no context given in terms of how much this person was earning if they were serious. But if you look this up, there's not a ton of competition, at least near me. So granted, we're in the great Godless Northwest, so there's Maybe that's a factor. Maybe if you're in the Bible belt, you have a different reaction to the pet baptism service, but there's nothing. A lot of competition. So if you are ordained or get yourself ordained. We did an episode on becoming a wedding officiant. Like, hey, maybe there's something to this.
- [40:30]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, my. But the. I'm just thinking to pay for it, though, you know, I'm like, to pay for my dog getting baptized. That's wild. You know, I feel like, you know, maybe I could just do it myself if I wanted to get him baptized.
- [40:43]
Nick Loper
I love that one when I came across that.
- [40:45]
Whitney Bonds
That's hilarious. Yeah, that's definitely. Oh, my gosh. That would even be just a shock factor. That would be like a good post.
- [40:51]
Nick Loper
Totally.
- [40:51]
Whitney Bonds
That is going to get fraction right there. Because, like, what?
- [40:54]
Nick Loper
All right, I think this may be the last one that I've got. It is a furniture assembly service. So this is another one that comes up commonly on side hustle lists. It is, you know, sign up for TaskRabbit and go assemble IKEA furniture.
- [41:10]
Whitney Bonds
Exactly.
- [41:10]
Nick Loper
Which is like, I kind of like it. It's kind of like adult Legos. Like, I could follow these instructions, and my wife really loves doing it. The kids love helping, like, oh, I can tighten this thing. And we'll learn how to use an Allen wrench and stuff. But some people, no how, no way, don't want to touch it, and they hire people to do it. And so, Interestingly, I think TaskRabbit got bought by Ikea because that was like, one of the most common requests on TaskRabbit was, Build this IKEA furniture for me.
- [41:34]
Whitney Bonds
What a great merger. Like, that makes a lot of sense.
- [41:37]
Nick Loper
And now they have Angie Home Services, where you can go and hire somebody to build your wayfair furniture. So this person says, I'm making a thousand bucks a week, averaging $50 an hour building people's furniture and sometimes getting $100 tips along the way. So the way they write the Instructions is like, you don't need to have a lot of home improvement. Know how we're not doing plumbing or electrical. We're tightening screws in a lot of cases.
- [42:03]
Whitney Bonds
Right. You just need to read the instructions.
- [42:05]
Nick Loper
Yeah. So he said the best ones, you know, are recliners, $50 for. For 10 minutes of work. And it's like, well, that's a pretty good hourly rate. You just have to bake in your. Your travel. Like, how far are you willing to travel for this kind of thing?
- [42:17]
Whitney Bonds
Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's. That's one of my favorites.
- [42:20]
Nick Loper
Yeah, you could stack up a few of these. We've had TaskRabbit people out for, like, removing wallpaper. Or we had another guy out for doing, like, rodent proofing. And he was like, Yeah, I got two or three jobs today times $200 a job. It's like, it's a pretty good gig, but you have to work a little while to kind of build up the reputation such that you have a critical mass of reviews and you get recommended in these different marketplace engines and stuff.
- [42:49]
Whitney Bonds
I love that. I guess I'm always thinking, too, like, what people who are retired can do and stuff like that. I'm like, so that would be totally, like, a cool side hustle right there.
- [42:58]
Nick Loper
Yes. So if you have any creative side hustles, if anything stood out to you in this episode, Absolutely, let us know. We'd love to hear about those. Or if you have something that you're doing on your own that would be in that crazy, interesting category, like print on demand candles or pet baptisms or even the assembling furniture. You know, stuff like that. Simple, low overhead, checks the box, makes some extra money. Absolutely. But Whitney, you've got the Whitney Bonds YouTube channel. What else is going on this year and into next?
- [43:27]
Whitney Bonds
Yeah, I'll say the one thing that I feel like I'm, like, kind of pushing really big right now, which I think is one of the best side hustles, is this voice. AI. You can sell that service now to local business owners or, like, plumbers and things. Like, things people. Places where people are missing calls. You can sell that service and make a recurring income because you set it up one time, and then you make money every single month with it, and you don't do anything else with it. So I feel like that, to me, that's one of the best side hustles right now, that you can make a. Literally a passive income because you don't do anything else after you set it up. The one time and people are charging a thousand dollars a month with this because they look at it like this is saving the company money by not having to hire a full time staff member to be at the phone. And this works 24 7. I feel like that's part of the AI gold rush, that this is one.
- [44:13]
Nick Loper
Of those opportunities like building a virtual receptionist. Interesting. Are you, are you working on this yourself?
- [44:20]
Whitney Bonds
I want to do it, but I'm like, I got too much going on. So I'm going to have one of my friends who's like, been looking for another job. I want to have her do it and do a whole series of showing like people how they can do it because like, anybody can do this, I think. Yeah, I just feel like it's one of the best side hustles out there.
- [44:33]
Nick Loper
Interesting. Do you already have the video about this or is that on the to film list?
- [44:39]
Whitney Bonds
I'm working on it now. So I have this amazing script that this guy uses that he was able to get his clients. And it's so smart the way he does it. He calls, I guess to give an example, you can find a friend or family who uses your service and say, I just wanted to know if you could. She said that you would be able to help me answer. Just answer these three questions. Could you help me? Or something like that. So you're basically asking what these type of businesses want this service? And then you ask them, you know, how many missed calls they can have a day. And then you say like, oh, okay, you missed 10 calls a day. Well, how much is a missed opportunity probably? And then say like 200 for if someone were to buy a service. So you're like, oh, that's like $2,000 you're missing out on for missed calls. And then you say, so this type of business, would they be interested in this? And then they say, yes. Then you say, okay, is there any businesses that you wouldn't mind recommending to me that I can reach out to? And so instead of them giving you businesses, they'll be like, well, I will want to try it. So they're kind of asking for the business. You're like selling without selling. So I think smart. Yeah, I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. Like a way to get in without actually selling. You're just asking questions and then they end up asking for the service. So I'm like, I love that.
- [45:45]
Nick Loper
Yeah, we've had OpenPhone. I was going to say OpenAI. We've had OpenPhone as a sponsor. I think they have some of this voice AI capability built in. And so you may not even need to create your own thing. It's like, I wonder if you could just white label this existing tool.
- [45:58]
Whitney Bonds
Oh yeah, it's like all white label. You don't create. Yeah, it's like on go high level for the one that I know of, you go, you create it. You create the prompt in like chatgpt for this. And then now that agent, you create an AI agent and it can now answer all the questions that someone will ask about your company. Or it can make sales calls like it can close deals. It's like, it's crazy. The AI thing. I'm on the bandwagon right now.
- [46:22]
Nick Loper
Yeah, this is the open phone. Yeah. Never miss a call with Sona. So that's something there. Very good. Whitney Bonds on YouTube. Check her out over there. Join the half a million subscribers or something. YouTube celebrity tried and true mom jobs.com, still active.
- [46:38]
Whitney Bonds
Still active.
- [46:39]
Nick Loper
We tossed out a bunch of different side Hustle ideas in this episode. If you want to dive deeper on all of them. We have episodes on a lot of the different ones that we talked about in some way, shape or form, so I'll do my best to link those up in the show notes. If you want to build yourself a personalized side Hustle show playlist of some of our greatest hits episodes based on, well, how much time do you have? What are you into? What are your goals? Go to Hustle Show. Answer those few short multiple choice questions and it'll build you that custom curated playlist of 8 to 10 of those greatest hits episodes. So Hustle show as a potential starting point to dive a little bit deeper or hit up the show notes for this episode to find those specific links. If you want to learn more about window washing or pressure washing or something like that. But big thanks to Whitney for sharing her insight. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Side hustlenation.comdeals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That's it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. So fire off that text message to somebody you love. Brainstorming side Hustles with I know you got that person in your life. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle show Hustle on the.