A (3:47)

That's what's kind of cool here, is the videos can have a really long shelf life where, like I said, only uploaded eight last year. None of them were necessarily great sellers, but, you know, the stuff from the previous year was still making sales. And so if you get something that, that sticks and hopefully doesn't get flooded with a lot of other videos or for whatever reason, yours is the one that gets shown. Like you said, it can drive this passive income, really, for months or years.

B (4:15)

Yeah, and that's the amazing thing. If I stopped making videos today, I'd probably still make at least $25,000 this year just because I have that catalog. And that's really cool to think, you know, maybe I do need to take some time off. Maybe I've never taken more than two weeks off, but if I took a whole month off, it probably wouldn't matter at all. I'd still be making about the same amount of money. So I love that about the program.

A (4:39)

I've come across some Amazon influencers who are getting paid at least three different Ways first they built their reputation to the point where brands now reach out and pay them to create the videos. They send them the product for free and then pay them a little bit to do the review. I believe Tyler mentioned getting paid by brands to do that as well. Then you can earn your Amazon Influencer commissions when it sells. And if you're posting on your own platform like YouTube, there's the potential to earn even more through creator connections. And then earlier this year I met this guy who every few months would need to clear out his inventory. He was getting enough products in for free, he needed to resell them to to make room for more. I think Tyler mentioned giving them away to his students. He was like a teacher by day job, but this other guy was actually reselling them. Sometimes on Facebook Marketplace, sometimes on ebay, and sometimes through the live shopping app whatnot. I don't know if you've used that, but apparently very popular. But that is online business. No startup cost number one, the Amazon Influencer program number two is free freelancing and consulting, which is admittedly a really broad bucket. But solving a problem for another person or another business and getting paid for it, really low startup costs. In fact, you can probably just, you know, raise your hand and start calling yourself a freelancer or consultant today. Now the premise here is super simple. Like I said, figure out a problem you can solve and go connect with people who are experiencing that problem. Zero startup costs. But there's a couple parts. First, you gotta identify the service. Now for that I recommend some introspection, right? Like you gotta take inventory of your skills. What have you gotten paid to do in the past? What do other people ask you for help with? What do you never get tired of talking about? For me, like dissecting different business ideas. How'd you come up with that? Right? It's like kind of the origin story of the side hustle show. Another way to reframe it is what do other people irrationally suck at? Like, that's another way of finding out, well, what comes natural to you. Now, one of my all time favorite tactics is to piggyback on the popularity of an existing software tool. So maybe you're a power user or you're an early adopter of a particular program and could help people with that. It is a tried and true side hustle framework. And we've seen people build successful piggybacking businesses on Top of SEMrush, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, Asana, Pipedrive, Salesforce, even like Microsoft Excel. Something super old school, right? For Christy Da Silva. She happened to be a fan of ClickUp and Honeybook. And even though she started out as a general virtual assistant, she quickly found that the work she enjoyed the most was helping clients set up systems and processes inside their organization. And so when she niched down to doing just that stuff, she 10xed her effective hourly rate.

C (7:23)

I started my rates a lot lower than other people may have been charging because I'm like, I'm not like a top tier expert yet, but I know that I know a lot more about these products than the people that I'm serving and these softwares than the people that I'm serving. And so I was still able to charge more technically hourly. Except a lot of our stuff is flat right now. But for example. Yeah. Making about 30 to 40 bucks an hour as a VA where now I charge 300 an hour for a strategy session. Like so crazy that jump. But now being an expert in this for four years, it's really cool to see where we've been.

A (8:07)

Yeah, that's worth pausing on. Like, that's the power of niching down and becoming an expert on the thing.

C (8:12)

Yep.

A (8:13)

So that's the first part, figuring out what service you could potentially offer. The second part is maybe a little harder. And that is the connecting with clients piece of the puzzle. For that, Cristy turned to YouTube.

C (8:25)

We get the majority of our leads from YouTube and I will say, like probably 80% of the time, people come on, they're like, oh my gosh, it's so nice to meet you. I've been subscribed to your channels for like two or three years and they feel like they already know me, even though I have no idea who they are yet. It's funny because it's a huge thing in sales is that like, know, like and trust factor. And we already solved that piece before we even ever get on a sales call.

A (8:52)

Yeah. You know, you're showing your face, your voice, it. Yeah, you build a lot of trust that way. Deciding what type of content to make. Any sort of like keyword research tools or search volume that goes into it. I'm just looking at like broad Google searches, you know, 400,000 monthly searches for ClickUp and then 60,000 for Honeybook. And so there's some decent, like top level search volume. But then I imagine it kind of goes into that long tail for like how to run your agency in Honeybook, like more specific type of searches.

C (9:23)

We actually really love Vidiq and we'll look at what performed best on our channels or like what's ranking highest. Like for example, our ClickUp Dashboards video was ranking highest for like a long time. Our how to use Honeybook and ClickUp, like yearly videos, like in 2024, those always do really well as well. So we're like, okay, we'll always do those in the beginning of the. But we'll look back at our previous content, what's highly ranking, knowing people want more of that. And then we'll really just start doing long tail keyword research in vidiq, you know, kind of going down a rabbit hole of like, okay, how are these ranking in terms of search volume and things like that and getting a minimum.

A (10:08)

Search volume that is interesting to you or worthwhile to make the video about.

C (10:12)

It's more of like how it scores in Vidiq. I think we're looking over like a 60 or 70 ranking, which is a.

A (10:20)

Combination of volume and competitiveness.

C (10:23)

Yeah, exactly. And so we also, speaking of competitiveness, will definitely do competitor research as well because we have like a few competitors. We're very niche, but we absolutely have competitors. And so we'll look at their channels, what's ranking high on their channels. And by no means do we ever just copy their video. But we'll be like, okay, cool, they did something on this specific topic. How can we do something similar but have our own spin? And so we'll do that research as well.

A (10:56)

Oh, that makes sense.

C (10:57)

Yeah.

A (10:57)

See what's working out there. And this is, you know, I probably have talked about this before, but I would come up with this content idea and it would be something super broad like, you know, ways to make money on the Internet or something. And then of course, Google that and, and well, shoot, there's already a dozen people have already written this article.

D (11:13)

Yep.

A (11:14)

I guess I better go back to the drawing board to come up with another topic. It's like, that's still viable. You could still get traffic and eyeballs and visitors and customers from this. You just have to put your own unique spin on. You got to make something that's different and better than what's already out there. And that was a little bit of a shift here. And it sounds like the same thing. Okay, we can look at the competitor channels. We can see what's working for them. And we say, okay, that and just trying to reverse engineer that, you know, followed the same people doing like a software review or tutorial type of videos, like for, you know, fill in the blanks. I was like, well, I don't use that tool, so I can't make that One. But I could do the same thing for this app or this software. It's like, here's a template that clearly worked and kind of fill in the blanks in that case.

C (11:59)

Exactly, exactly. We also will absolutely use AI. So like ChatGPT, when we're content planning, we'll be like, we're working on a series for ClickUp for agencies. Help us grab some like highly SEO ranking topics for these videos and then it'll spit out a bunch of things. Then we know our ideal client more than anyone, so we can guide it in the right direction. But we'll also just like use it to ideate and get inspiration from as well. Is super helpful.

A (12:28)

Do you feel the need to publish consistently or is like, look, we got this stuff out there, it's evergreen, we got a consistent lead flow. Or do you have to keep kind of feeding the machine?

C (12:38)

Right now we feel like it's pertinent to keep feeding the machine just so we're like constantly ranking. I mean, we have some videos that are like upwards of like 40 50,000 views. So those are still bringing in us like warm leads and like hot traffic.

A (12:53)

Yeah.

C (12:53)

But what we're seeing now is that we niched into systems and Honeybook and ClickUp, but we're actually niching a little bit further in the recent months into seven to eight figure agencies. So we have a lot of really good content out there that's serving the broad, you know, audience of people looking for ClickUp and Honey buck, how to get started, things like that. But now we really want to start focusing our content on seven to eight figure agencies and where they're having their specific troubles and hurdles in their business and then relating it to, okay, you're having this issue, then how do we solve that with Honeybook, with ClickUp, and so I think that's where we could still be getting leads from YouTube even if we stopped our content right now, our content machine. But I think we want to start tailoring it more to the ideal client that we want to bring in.

A (13:50)

So prospective clients watch your videos, they build a trusting relationship with you, and then when they need additional help, you're the one who gets the call. Again, this was attraction marketing or pull marketing, where you're answering the questions your ideal customers might have in video form and then you invite them to take the next step if they need more help. Now, other ways we've seen guests land freelance clients is through one way would be through strategic partnerships, thinking of who your target customers are already doing business with. And it might only Take one or two before you have enough lead flow to meet your goals. The example that comes to mind is Carter Osborne, who was doing college admissions essay prep consulting. And his strategic partner was someone in town who did broader admissions consulting but didn't like doing the essay work. So it was a natural referral partnership for her to send leads his way. Now I've got more zero or super low cost online business ideas coming up right after this. So far we've covered the Amazon Influencer program and freelancing or consulting as some no cost online business ideas. Number three on our list is digital product sales. And what I love about this model is it's one where you can create something once. It could be a printable file, a template, a budgeting spreadsheet, a form, a customizable chart. It could even be an online course, an ebook or something like that. But some digital product, a meal planner, a piece of art even. But you can create it once and you can sell it over and over again. My friend Cody is a pro at this and last year he took a brand new Etsy shop from zero to a thousand dollars a month in sales in like three or four months.

E (15:35)

I was putting up about 20 to 30 products per week. I actually got my first sale on day three. And so for those who don't know, I actually documented this whole process like day one to 116. I took a video almost every single day, kind of just sharing live updates. I was sharing screenshots, my shop, and on day three I had my first sale, which was great. I think I probably only had five or six products up at that point, but I was adding like 20.

A (15:58)

That's cool because there's not a lot of social proof on the channel where it's like, you know, it shows zero sales, zero reviews. I'm taking a chance on this guy.

E (16:09)

Yeah, that's the beauty of this side hustle though is you don't need an audience, you don't need an email list, you don't need really anything. Like if you understand keyword research and SEO, that is the most important skill, you can be a 5 out of 10 graphic designer. A lot of people think they have to be like this graphic design wizard in order to sell this stuff. You can be a 5 out of 10 graphic designer as long as you understand keyword research and SEO. And you go after those, the riches and the niches, and you go after those kind of longer tail, less targeted keywords. People are gonna buy your stuff now.

A (16:38)

The sticklers are gonna note that, hey, wait a minute. It costs 20 cents for every product that you upload to Etsy. So you're right, not completely free, but pretty close to it. Now, Cody mentioned using tools like Erank, a software tool, to get an estimate for search volume and competitiveness of your specific product ideas, which does have. Erank does have a free plan at least as of press time. But here's how I look at it. Start to stack up these evergreen digital assets that can make sales month after month. Is there a minimum search volume that's too low to bother with?

E (17:13)

I usually don't touch anything under 50 and some people think that's crazy. Some people, some other Etsy quote unquote gurus don't touch things that are under like 200. But for me I'm like, there's 50 people searching for this a month and there's zero competition and I can scoop up say even 20% of them. 10 people buy my five dollar thing. I like to think of these each as like a little mini passive income machine. Like that's 50 extra dollars per month and that 50 adds up. Like if you can get an army of these $50 per month products, even if they don't have a lot of search volume, you get 20 of those going, that's $1,000 per month.

A (17:46)

And mostly passive income goes back to the beginning of, you know, planting these little digital money seeds. It cost you a little bit of time and 20 cents to create this thing and now it's out there in the world and can earn passive income for you. I think that's, I think that's really exciting. If that's got you excited, make sure to check out the full interview with Cody, episode 665 in your side hust feed or download Cody's list of some hot selling seasonal products to get your creative juices flowing, which I will link up in the show notes for this episode. But that is low cost. Online business number three. The digital product business number four is called rank and rent. In this model, you build out a portfolio of websites targeting local service provider searches like Dallas Carpet Cleaning or Gravel Driveways Boston. And once those sites have some exposure in Google, you rent them out to qualified local service providers at anywhere from 500 to $1,500 per month. After all, those rankings in Google can be pretty valuable. They're sought after digital real estate. So what makes a good niche here? I like something that's service based, that you don't have a storefront like basically like a plumber, the concrete guy or roofer. You Go to the client side to, to work. So it's not that people come into your office. So service based business. The second one is I really like those high ticket type of work like concrete driveways, patios, earthwork, demolition, roofing. Nothing sexy. Nothing sexy. But those niche work. Yeah, it just, they work and that's because the value of these jobs is worth quite a bit to the service provider. And so they're just like if we can get more, if we get more leads in, if we can book up our calendar, then yeah, it's worthwhile. We'll just, you know, add this to our monthly marketing budget. Yeah, Exactly. Anything above 50k should work. The population wise, I'm talking about 400k. Population wise seems to be very sweet spot. So it's not too big city. Your local competition is not that strong and is easy and you have enough volume to the population produce enough leads, enough search volume that is going to help you to rent the site out. So the research is the first part. Now from there you got to find a company on the ground that does good work and is hungry to grow their business and doesn't really want to bother with the local SEO side of things themselves. You're essentially becoming a line item on that company's marketing budget. They're outsourcing some of their lead generation to you and as long as you deliver those clients tend to stick around for a long time. When we recorded Meow, that was Meow Rios in that clip. She had a portfolio of like 20 or 30 of these income generating sites. So it's a model that can be pretty scalable once you figure it out. Now for more on this, I encourage you to check out the full interview with Meow or Luke Vander Veer. We did an episode, I want to say 448 on his rank and rent business model. He also runs website rental coaching websiterentalcoaching.com SHN I believe is my referral link for that. But I will link up both of those interviews in the show notes for this episode. And that is online business model number four is yes, you have some hosting costs, you probably have some domain registration fees, but other than that relatively low overhead, high profit margin type of business. The fifth online business you can start for $0 is UGC user generated content. In fact, you can start this with just your phone and the stuff you have lying around your house. This year I connected with Megan Collier, a UGC creator here in the Seattle area who said that she made four videos of products that she liked that she already had, and then she used those to seed her portfolio.

F (21:46)

The portfolio was the main thing that I sent to brands though, when I was reaching out and I was reaching out to brands two ways. One is Instagram dm. I would like literally just scroll Instagram, look at the ads that I was seeing on Instagram, and then go and follow the brand if I wasn't already following them. And then I would DM them and say, hey, I'm Megan, I'm a UGC creator. I've been seeing your ads. Your product looks like something I could totally use myself. And, and I'd love to be connected with the person in charge of handling partnerships. And I got several responses from that. That's how I landed my second UGC deal. The first one, though, that you mentioned, the $750 deal was like 10 days into my UGC journey and that was with an app company that I just ended up emailing. Cold pitching via email. And yeah, they ended up hiring me for three videos initially. And then I wanted to make more money and prove that I could actually do this and make a, you know, good chunk of money for my first ugc. And so I ended up, I didn't tell them, but I made five total videos for them. And I was like, hey, I ended up having a ton of like, ideas for you guys and I have five videos if you want to buy the other two. And they were like, oh my gosh, yes, 100%, we need all the videos.

A (23:02)

That we can get.

F (23:03)

So then it ended up being about $750 for those five videos.

A (23:07)

Okay, so step one, create the portfolio. Step two, start doing the brand outreach. And it sounds like I'm just going to scroll my feed and show who's showing up in the ads. Like, I know they're investing in user acquis and growth marketing, so they might be more receptive to this. Which is my approach would have been like, well, what are the, you know, top 25, 50 brands that I already know like and trust and I use and I'm going to start there. It sounds like, you know, maybe that comes down the road.

F (23:35)

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think that what works, the only way to land the deal is literally by connecting with brands. So it doesn't matter if you're going to dm, if you're going to email, if you're just going to start with the brands that you already like, because that also is super powerful because you're coming to the brand saying, hey, I've been using this product for X amount of months or X amount of years. They've already got that, like it's a bonus for them because they have a real customer that's gonna be willing to make some really authentic, genuine content. So yeah, 100%. You can start with brands you already know. You already like, you can quite literally. This is what I tell people if they're kind of having a block on who to reach out to is take a pen and piece of paper or take your notes app on your phone, go walk around your house and look at all the products that you have that you've purchased that you use on a consistent basis. I can almost guarantee most of those brands are posting consistently on social media and probably a lot of them are also working already with UGC creators.

A (24:38)

Yeah, and it's not just, you know, I'm thinking of like the closet and shoes and clothes, but also food and snacks and toys and games, like all sorts of stuff.

F (24:48)

So much.

A (24:49)

And even software, like you said, the first deal was an app company.

F (24:52)

Yeah, yeah. I've worked with so many apps, software companies that I've used for years and just, you know, they just hired me to do ugc. So yeah, the it's whenever people ask me like what kind of brands are using UGC creators, it's truly a mix. It's across the board. I've worked with fashion, like clothing companies, software tech companies like you as a. You doing podcasts, like I'm looking at your headphones, right. Your mic, like you what, whatever you're using as a podcaster. So many brands are using, you know, user generated content in their marketing strategies.

A (25:26)

Okay. So that's what they're getting out of the deal is we're going to hire Megan or a hundred people like Megan to fill out our own content feed. Like there's always another day coming around. There's always going to be need needing more stuff to post. And so this is a way to kind of crowdsource that in an authentic looking way or you know, from actual users of the thing. And so that's their benefit. Benefit to you is obviously you're getting paid to do it. And so it sounds like from your Instagram dms, it's like, could you connect me with the. You said the person handling content partnerships or is like some. Is that an official job title that I want to like be on the lookout for?

F (26:05)

Yeah, it's going to be different for every brand. Right. So what I like to tell people is, you know, typically when you're reaching out to Medium, you know, from Medium to large sized brands. The person that's looking at the DMS of the brand, like on the brand's Instagram account, is not typically a decision maker. Right? It's going to be a customer service person that just wants to answer questions quickly. So that's why I say always ask to be connected with the brand partnerships. Or it could be an influencer manager, it could be a partnerships director, it could be a creative director, so you could ask it in a specific way. More could I be connected with the person in charge of handling partnerships? So you don't have to say a specific title but just whoever's in charge of, you know, working with content creators.

A (26:53)

So here's what's wild about this, and I didn't do a good job of explaining it at the top of the segment is you don't need to be an influencer to make money doing this. You don't need a big following of your own. You don't even need to post this stuff to your own feed. The brands that are hiring UGC creators, they're looking for authentic looking user generated content for their own organic social media feeds or to use as paid ads. So be sure to check out that full episode with Megan to learn more about starting a UGC business of your own. It is episode 666 in your feed 666 and she started out at, you know, 100 to $250 per video and now is over a thousand dollars per video for something that might be 45 seconds long. Really strong hourly rate. She went on to get, you know, monthly retainers for some of these clients. Really cool business for the creative types. If you like consuming video content, if you like creating video content could be a fun one for you. Now the other way to make money with UGC does help if you have a bit of a following and that's as an affiliate. You can browse top selling items in TikTok Shop and raise your hand to start creating content about those products and earn a commission whenever they sell. But that's number five on my list, UGC user generated content. Number six is websites, which used to be fairly straightforward, at least more so than it is today. You know, you would build up a body of informational content in a given niche, maybe something that you have some expertise in. You would rank that site in Google and then you could earn relatively predictable income from advertising and affiliate relationships. But those types of informational content sites have been having a hard time lately. Site oscillation included in that. But websites can see still be a Recurring revenue, online business asset, low startup costs, checks all those boxes. Now, one model that we've seen to be a little bit more AI resistant is directory websites, which might sound kind of old school, but in our episode this year with Frey Chu, he proves there's still good money to be made with directories. The key is finding underserved niches and then building something genuinely useful with some value added data. And Frey was specifically focusing on what we called near me niches. Like, what can I find, you know, pizza near me? It was probably too broad, but you know, what are the stores or services near me? And then doing a layer of value added data. Because if people can get all the information they need from Google Maps, there's not really any reason to come to your directory. But here's FREY from episode 692 on that, you know, hitting that money milestone for his first directory, which was in the thrifting niche.

G (29:28)

The major turning moment for that directory was six months in. I randomly just pulled up the Google Analytics and noticed there were a thousand people coming to that website that day. And I just remember staring at it for five minutes and being like, what is going on? Like, how. Where is this traffic coming from?

A (29:49)

Yeah. Is this real? Yeah.

G (29:50)

At that time I was like kind of a noob at SEO too. I was relearning or just learning all the basics. So I was thinking, oh, maybe I did something correct. And I started putting ads that following month and the traffic kind of steadily came in. And I made $1,200 that month without really doing anything. It was just putting up ads.

A (30:09)

Was this just AdSense? Yeah.

G (30:11)

I actually end up using Ezoic. That was the media partner that I used. And now I'm using mediavine Grow, which is my go to ad partner now.

A (30:20)

Okay, so you built the thing and then kind of sat on it, I guess. Let it age potentially in the search results and establish some domain. I don't do anything proactively to market it during those six months or just like log in one day. Hey, it actually is getting traffic.

G (30:35)

I did post on Reddit and I talk about that a lot. Every time I finish an entire directory build, I always find a niche subreddit and I'll make a post. It'll basically sound like, hey, I made a website to make XYZ easier or to find X, Y and Z locations easier. And yeah, that's kind of the only thing that I did. It was responsible for maybe like a few hundred people coming to the website. Because that Reddit post performed really well, and people still commented to it on this day, you know, a couple years later, but, yeah, really nothing much, nothing too fancy was done.

A (31:09)

All right. What attracted you to this business model?

G (31:12)

I think every entrepreneur goes through this moment where they either struggle to start something or start something and realize that's not the thing that they want. So in my case, I was running a footwear business. I was closing it down, super depressed, very low point of my entrepreneurial life. And I realized what I really wanted was a business with five things, and it was something that was scalable, something cheap to start, something remote where I didn't have to, like, go to a warehouse and pack shoes and ship it to customers. Something with high margin and something that could be sold as an asset. And I scoured the Internet for these businesses. Very difficult to find.

A (31:49)

Yeah, this is a little bit of a unicorn. Like something that checks all those boxes.

G (31:52)

Totally. So I found. I think I landed on SaaS or websites, and I'm not a coder, so, you know, and this was kind of pre. Like, this is early AI chatgpt was around.

A (32:02)

Yeah, pre AI vibe coding stuff.

G (32:04)

Exactly.

B (32:04)

Yeah.

G (32:04)

The vibe coding was not a thing yet. So I landed on websites, and I saw exactly what you mentioned, which is niche. Informational blogs were getting absolutely destroyed, especially starting September 2023 with the helpful content updates. I was like, okay, well, I guess I'll just look on AHREFS and see what wasn't affected. And I start noticing these directories. I didn't really, like, go into it thinking, I'm gonna go build a portfolio of directories. I was just like, okay, well, this. I found this website that was getting over 100,000 monthly visitors, and it was rank one page one for my target thrifting keyword. And I was like, I could do better than this. This is, like, pretty ugly. And I feel like, not that helpful. There could be better information. It's also out of date. They're missing a lot of locations. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna go and build it. And yeah, once I started ramping up and that kind of aha moment happened, I was like, okay, yeah, this meets all those five criteria, and I can just keep building these out. That's what launched the directory side hustle for me again.

A (33:05)

That's Frey chew from episode 692. Highly recommend checking that one out if you've been impacted by the last couple years of se upheaval as a way to potentially fight back and start making money online again. And I love the five criteria that he mentioned scalable, global, cheap to start, remote, friendly, high margin and sellable as an asset. That's a pretty solid framework for evaluating any business opportunity. In fact, the episodes featuring side hustles that check those boxes tend to perform pretty well. So maybe my next side hustle will be a directory. The idea that I had the other day was the reciprocal membership directory. Like we have the membership at the Science center here in Seattle, but by having that membership we've gotten free access or discounted access to a bunch of places like wherever we travel most recently like the Science World in Vancouver, like totally free entry for, for everybody in the family. And so like, okay, I wonder if there's a way because it's usually buried, you know, somewhere deep in the terms of terms and conditions or something. I wonder if there's a way to like build the directory that says these are the memberships that you have, this is where you're traveling, here's where you could go. It probably wouldn't be that difficult to build out, so maybe, who knows, I don't know what kind of use, what kind of traffic would there would be for around that. But that was my latest directory idea. But still, you know, the key here is not to sleep on websites as an online business opportunity. Just be aware that traditional article based Q and A SEO is tough right now, but certain types of websites are still getting traffic traction and revenue. And that's why directories are low cost. Online business idea number six, similar to Rank and rent, where yeah, you're going to have hosting expense, you're going to have domain registration expense, but other than that, pretty low startup cost. I've got more online businesses that you can start for free or almost free coming up right after this. Low cost online business number seven is a email newsletter. So you can get started for free through platforms like Substack and I think even Kit has a free plan. But newsletters are a great low overhead business. Taking ideas from your brain and sharing them in a way that scales really nicely. I mean, it's like, yeah, you're going to pay more the more subscribers you have, but the effort that it takes is the same whether you're sending it to 10 people or 10,000 people or 100,000 people. So the newsletter operators that I talk to monetize with sponsorships, with affiliate partnerships, with their own products and services, or even with paid subscriptions. Danielle Desier Corbett went the paid route for her newsletter. It was called Grants for Creators, where she sends out grant opportunities for creators, as the name might imply. And she was earning over $1,000 a month when we recorded in episode 5:44, sending it out every couple weeks. And here's how she described getting her first subscribers.

H (35:57)

I've used a handful of strategies and I'm really happy of the deliverables and like, what happened as a result of so I'm very big on Twitter and like I mentioned earlier, I didn't have an existing grant focus audience. There were just a lot of people who follow me for travel, podcasting, personal finance, that sort of thing. But I went on Twitter and if you go to my profile at the ThoughtCard, the first pinned tweet will show you what exactly said. But pretty much I said something like, oh my gosh, guys, I launched a new project. I'm super terrified because I was and it's called Grants for Creators. And my goal is to just help find us creators opportunities and funding opportunities. And I think that tweet showcased my vulnerability, right? Everyone knows the feeling of what it feels like to start something new. So I think that vulnerability really helped to just be like, what is she doing? She's being vulnerable. Let's support that. And also because I was filling a gap and filling a need, I think there was a lot of interest and buzz on Twitter. It's been tweeted tons of times. So that was my initial just sharing about it on Twitter. And like I mentioned, because Grants isn't something that creative people think about at the onset, I did a lot of quick tweets about the power of grants. My personal experience with grants, how grants are for also creators who are also small business owners. So I had to do a lot of just like promoting, not necessarily the newsletter itself, but also promoting the idea of like, why this is valuable, how this can change your life, and why just being on the in the know is really important. So sharing on Twitter was my go to. Also from that initial buzz, word of mouth has been really helpful. So I made sure to text my close friends via like my personal friends who I knew were creators who would find this interesting and said, hey, I'm starting this new project. Can you share this with your friends? Especially in the beginning, all the newsletters, they all had buttons to follow to subscribe to the newsletter. So I'm always continuously like axing for the subscription, like ax to follow and join. And the word of mouth is very, I think also Creator Economy is like interesting where when people find something that's interesting and resourceful, everyone is like, oh my gosh. So there's just a lot of excitement when you find something. So word of mouth has been really helpful. Newsletter mentions have been huge for me. Partly some of it was organic, meaning people saw I was launching this new project and they wanted to just add a link in their newsletter. Like tons of people did that for me in the beginning.

A (38:38)

Just like personal connections, personal creators who also ran a newsletter targeting other creators. Like.

H (38:44)

Yes, yes, exactly. So there were just creators who had their own newsletters and who just mentioned, I never asked them to do it for me. It was just organic and it was so kind of them. But sometimes there are newsletters that you may be a part of that ask for submissions, and I was intentional about that. So I also made sure to include grants for creators as part of those submissions. Like, hey, community members, tell me your updates for the week. Oh, I launched this thing, you know, so I made sure to really zero in on what's working. Newsletter mentions were great, so I made sure to go and seek them out afterwards as well.

A (39:21)

That makes a lot of sense. You know, if I'm targeting a newsletter audience, you know, where's a good place to reach them. In other newsletters, it's like John Lee Dumas had a line about, well, podcasters listen to podcasts. Like this big epiphany moment. If I want to grow my show, I got to get in front of other podcast audiences. So getting in front of other newsletter audiences makes a lot of sense. And it sounds like it kind of stems from your existing Twitter presence, which at press time, around 9,000 followers. I don't know what it looked like 11 or 12 months ago, but an engaged following over there. And starting with this pinned tweet announcing the product and then some of this educational type of content. Was there any tweet or series of tweets that had any sort of viral growth or viral impact to the account?

H (40:07)

I don't think so. I think it was consistently talking about it, making sure at least once a day. At least once a day I talked about grants for creators or I shared the link or just shared some fun facts, you know, or just something where I know it could lead into to that. So, yes, definitely. Just that consistency of promoting on social media.

A (40:30)

That's pretty much the popular newsletter growth tactic today. It's social media to lead magnet to email list. So you meet subscribers where they're already hanging out the social media channel of your choice. In Daniel's case, she chose Twitter, but we've heard from guests doing it on TikTok, on LinkedIn, on Threads, on Instagram. Then you create the content that can win the algorithm there. When you do, you add a subtle pitch or maybe not so subtle pitch for your lead magnet. The one that I opted in for the other day was from Twitter. It was for somebody's AI powered or you know, a make template for like a niche news summary agent. Cool little giveaway, something I'd been meaning to build myself. So maybe I'll be able to adapt his template. It was yeah, sure, I'll opt in for that. And from there it is sending a valuable email on whatever cadence makes sense. But I like the newsletter model. Low startup costs and can have some really strong margins depending on how you choose to monetize and sellable as well. There have been some high profile examples of newsletters selling for tens of millions of dollars if you have the aspirations to really scale it up. But that's number seven, the newsletter business model, low cost online business. Number eight is to teach an online class and there's a couple ways you can do it. The more passive way is to create a pre recorded class or course and sell it as a one off digital product which can still work, but there seems to be a shift toward the second type which is more cohort based, meaning there's like a live component to it. There's a more well defined start and end date. And we've seen guests doing online classes in piano lessons, in chess, sourdough bread, growing microgreens. Tons of examples in the online course space. But my my absolute favorite has to be Devin ricks in episode 499 who at that point reported earning $4,000 a month part time from home teaching video game classes online. The secret wasn't being a famous streamer or a professional gamer, but it was taking advantage of the Outschool platform to connect with students. And this is a platform that is primarily for K12 students to find online classes in both academic subjects and extracurricular topics like video games.

D (42:51)

What Outschool does is it has created this space where teachers are background checked and parents feel safe letting their children log in online. All the sessions are recorded and then they can play together and it's a good environment for them.

A (43:06)

Yeah, we would call this a buy buttons platform. You know, go where the cash is already flowing. And here's a platform that has a built in audience where it's relatively easy. It's got to go through this background check process. You got to come up with an idea of what you're going to teach, but relatively easy to put your thing out there for sale and have people Come and do business with you. And actually, you kind of sparked an idea here because, like, my son and his friend in California, like, they've hung out on Zoom doing, like, LEGO builds way more than they've ever hung out in person. And it's like, oh, I wonder if there's, like, a LEGO building class, or you could do, like, okay, different challenges or something, so people with different pieces could still try and build a. Okay, today we're going to build a bird or something. I don't know. That would be really interesting.

D (43:49)

Oh, there's definitely LEGO classes. I have a good friend who teaches LEGO classes, and, yeah, she'll be like, this is the inspiration. You create your own version. And so then everyone's building their own legos with what they have. But, yeah, that's totally a thing.

A (44:02)

All right, simple. Somebody beat me to it. But so maybe that. That kind of leads into the next thing. Were there other teachers already doing the video game thing, or was that kind of like, I'm going to try and carve out this little blue ocean piece of this marketplace?

D (44:15)

Oh, I certainly was not the first. There are lots and lots of video game teachers, a lot of teachers who teach the exact same video games that I do because I mostly teach Switch games. But the beauty of Outschool is it's an international platform. Right. So there are some teachers in Australia who are doing things that I'm doing, but that I can't do at the same time. Right. And then there are teachers in the US and things that are overlapping with my timeframes. But the nice thing is there's so many students, so many parents that you can market to that there is plenty of space for educators in any field, not just in video games. But, like, if you go on there and you look at English teachers, there's tons of them.

H (44:51)

Right.

D (44:52)

I'm one of them. Also, I teach a little bit of writing, but there's still room for other people because there's no one who teaches like you do. I bring everything that I have my own personality. My perspective on games would be totally different than yours, Nick, if you were to teach the exact same video game that I'm teaching.

A (45:08)

Okay. Did you do anything to set your listing apart when you first started or gain those first few students to take a chance and roll the dice with Ms. Devin?

D (45:19)

Well, one of the best things that I did was I made a good video for my profile. So Outschool gives you the opportunity to have a headshot, a video, and a description. And if you have those three Things and they are really well done, then you are going to find those students. Outschool likes to promote new teachers. There's also some Facebook groups that you can market your classes, like, you know, $5 off your first class or a free first class or whatever it is. And I did a lot of that as a starting out teacher and I had some success there. But Outschool just does such a good job marketing for you that you're able to just kind of create your classes, tweak your keywords. And parents want to try new teachers. They like to try new teachers, especially if they have a lower price point.

A (46:01)

Okay. And then there is an option for prerecorded cloud. Like if you wanted to prerecord your tutorial on how to beat Zelda in two hours, I don't know what it would be. But like that is an option too. But you have a more structured as like, you know, social hour. Come hang out and we'll play together.

D (46:19)

Exactly. Yeah. And the prerecorded ones lend themselves more to the academic side. So I do have a prerecorded class. It's a Zelda creative writing class and so it gives learners an opportunity to go at their own pace. So there's a lot of pre recorded math classes and photography things. With video games it is harder because you want that social aspect. Right. That's the big draw of it. But with other subjects, you can totally do prerecorded. Put it there. Passive income students are enrolling. All you have to do is post the different assignments for the different days. And it's just making money while you sleep, right?

A (46:53)

Yeah, that's the dream, right?

D (46:54)

It is.

A (46:55)

How do you have your pricing set up for like, for the group video game classes?

D (47:01)

So Outschool is a place where you can choose your own prices. They recommend $10 to $15 per student per hour. And then Outschool takes 30%. Most of my classes are about $13 per hour per student. And then I get to choose how many students I have in a class. So a good example is I have a breath of the wild class, which is a zel and it meets twice a week. And each student pays $13 per day. So they're paying 26 per week. And then Outschool takes 30%. And in that class I have 12 students. That is my highest grossing class. 12 students, $26 a week. I bring in a little under 200 for just those two days that I do those two hours.

A (47:43)

100 bucks an hour playing video games. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

D (47:47)

It's really not.

A (47:49)

I think it just goes to show you that there are a lot of ways to make money online in just about any niche these days and that you don't have to have a ton of startup capital to get started. Super inspiring stuff. A lot of fun. And that was episode 499 with Devin Ricks, missdevin.com, devin with a Y the side hustle show is filled with low overhead business ideas both online and offline. If you're wondering what to listen to next, I've made made a note of all the episodes mentioned in this episode in the show Notes. The link in the description will get you right over there. Beyond that, I want to invite you to generate your own personalized side Hustle show playlist at Hustle Show. Just answer a few short multiple choice questions. You can do it from your phone and it'll build you a custom curated playlist based on your answers of 8 to 10 of our greatest hits episodes. You can add to your device, you can learn from our awesome guests and you can go out and make some more money again. Hustle show for that personalized playlist. Big thanks to those awesome guests for providing some examples today. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. You can hit upsidehustlenation.comdeals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share with a friend. So fire off that text message and let them know to check it out. 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.