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$500,000 in Hamster Ball Sales? How a College Student Brought a New Product to Life

March 19, 2026

Half a million dollars in hamster balls. What if you spotted a gap in a market that hadn’t changed in 50 years and turned it into a fast-growing product business while still in college?

That’s exactly what Ethan Haber did with Happy Habitats, a small pet products company he started as a sophomore at Wake Forest University.

While watching his hamster Mooksy roll around in a standard hamster ball on campus, Ethan looked over and saw someone walking a dog.

The thought hit him: why can’t I walk my hamster? That simple question launched a product line now heading into 1,500 stores nationwide through a major big-box retail deal.

Ethan’s story covers everything from cold-emailing a design firm and navigating COVID shipping delays, to cracking Amazon and landing a mentorship with the founder of PetSmart — all from a niche that most people overlook.

2026 Side Hustle Statistics and Survey Results: Income Levels, the Most Popular Gigs, and Common Struggles

March 19, 2026March 17, 2026

Ready to dive into some side hustle statistics?

One of the best ways to figure out how to better serve your customers or your audience is to, well, ask them.

I skipped my (previously annual) member survey of Side Hustle Nation email subscribers last year, so I wanted to renew the tradition in 2019.

Finding Your $250/hr Side Hustle: How One Firefighter Unlocked an Extra $40k a Year

March 18, 2026March 12, 2026

What if you could earn $250-$300 an hour solving a problem most people would rather avoid? Jim Lashbaugh did exactly that, and last year, it added about $40,000 in extra income.

Jim is a retired firefighter who spent nearly three decades on the job. On the side, he flipped houses. And as part of that, he had to wrestle with one of the most annoying parts of real estate development: building permits.

He got good at it, but he never planned to do it for anyone else.

Then a friend asked for help. Then a stranger called. And SynergyPermits.com was born.

Jim joined the show to share how he turned a very specific, very unglamorous skill into a flexible side hustle without cold calling, without ads, and without any formal credentials.

User Interviews Review: $100 an Hour for Your Opinion? Yes Please!

May 7, 2026March 9, 2026

My latest side hustle experiment is as a User Interviews survey respondent.

(I’m up $105 so far, in exchange for about an hour and a half.)

The 6-Figure Side Hustle Cleaning Up Parking Lots

March 10, 2026March 9, 2026

This week’s guest started his side hustle with the goal of earning an extra $1,000 a month – fast forward four summers later and it’s now a 6-figure business.

Blademir Hernandez of LitterFreeLots.nyc is a long-time listener of the Side Hustle Show who was inspired by Brian Winch’s story in episode 266 to start his business.

Brian built a $650k a year operation picking up litter and cleaning parking lots, something Blademir told me he knew he could also do.

13 Real Ways to Get Paid for Your Data: Up to $500 a Year

May 5, 2026March 6, 2026

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One of the easiest side hustles to get started with is getting paid to share your data.

Big data is big business, generating an estimated $270 billion by 2026.

And as individuals, we create a lot of data every day. For decades, we’ve freely given that data away to big companies like Google and Facebook. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.

Here are some legit ways to turn that data into dollars in your pocket.

14 Low Risk Businesses to Start: Up to $15k a Month Part-Time

May 5, 2026March 6, 2026

When you’re starting a business, it’s only natural to want to keep your risks as low as possible.

But risk is relative. No one ever talks about the risk of staying at a job you hate. What does that do to your mental health and relationships?

The bad news: no business you start will be immune from these risks.

The good news: there are specific actions you can take to set yourself up for success.

The $300/day Marketing Funnel: From Content to Cash Flow

March 6, 2026March 5, 2026

What if you could turn your social media following into a $300/day marketing machine without relying on ads or platform algorithms to pay you?

That’s exactly what financial educator Brian Feroldi has built at LongTermMindset.co.

He started by sharing investing content on Twitter back in 2019 and gradually built a funnel that now generates consistent daily revenue from digital products without a huge team or a big ad budget.

Brian is the bestselling author of Why Does the Stock Market Go Up? and has grown audiences of over 650k on Twitter/X and 200k+ on LinkedIn. But the real magic isn’t the follower count — it’s what he does with the attention once he has it.

20 Ways to Make Money on Facebook … without Selling Your Soul

May 5, 2026March 5, 2026

Could you turn your Facebook habit into cash?

The average Facebook user spends more than half an hour a day on the site, and the company is certainly making money off you!

With more than 2 billion members, a robust advertising platform, and a popular peer-to-peer marketplace, there are tons of ways to make money on Facebook.

Pallet Flipping: How We Made $25k Flipping Liquidation Pallets

May 5, 2026March 5, 2026

When you return a product to Costco, Amazon, or Walmart, it doesn’t always go back to the shelves. In most cases, that product ends up at a local liquidator that resells it to side hustlers, who then flip it for profit.

Jamie McAuley has been doing just that for the past few years, and he’s earned over $25k in profit in the process.

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