To make money online, you generally need 3 things:
There will always be exceptions to this rule, like the YouTube celebrities who don’t have their own site, but most of the successful entrepreneurs online (myself included) have figured out those 3 things.
An online business is a great asset; you can work from anywhere and serve people worldwide. Depending on how you have it set up, you can even earn money while you sleep. Ahh that elusive “passive income!”
The location-independent business models you’ll find here include blogging, podcasting, self-publishing, teaching online courses, and more.
If you’re not sure where to start, let me recommend this “Greatest Hits” collection:
Changing the world with chess and making $100,000 per year on the side.
That’s the story of today’s guest, Jeff DiOrio from EliteChess.net.
Jeff went from working in summer camp chess programs teaching kids how to play chess, to running his own summer camps and earning five times as much.
Back in the day, you needed someone technical (or paid someone technical) if you wanted to build any kind of software.
Today, with the popularity of AI tools, not so much.
Pete McPherson from doyouevenblog.com is earning $100k by using AI tools to help build a series of small-ish web apps, usually built to solve a very specific problem for a very specific customer.
And he’s here to share with you how he built all of this… without being a developer himself.
Ryan “Heff” Gerlach started The Keeper League Podcast and keeperleaguepod.com.au on the side from his teaching job.
It’s not about football, not just about fantasy football, but about a very specific flavor of fantasy football for Australian Rules Football.
That’s a niche within a niche within a niche — where fans don’t just draft players, they build teams that last for years.
And now it serves as the hub for player data, draft tools, and expert analysis for football keeper leagues.
Last month, I did an episode on the 17 different income streams I was working on.
One of the smallest on that list generated the largest response, and that was the Amazon Influencer Program.
I’m over 10 years into hosting The Side Hustle Show, and what started as a little side-project experiment has turned into a life-changing adventure.
I’ve had the unique opportunity to meet some amazing entrepreneurs, share their stories, and build a worldwide audience of listeners. Oh, and build a really rewarding business as well.
One question I’ve been asked a few times is how much it costs to start a podcast, so I thought I’d put together a quick list of the expenses in case you’re thinking of starting a show of your own.
Why go through the trouble of building your own cash flow when, with a little determination and a little hustle, you can insert yourself into some income streams that are already happening?
That’s what Link Moser from linkmoser.com and his web design agency windhill.com have done, not once, not twice, but 5 different times, generating $200k a year in semi-passive income.
He was on the show in 2022, where he explained how he makes money with a real estate lead generation site, NHFineHomes.com, where a single referral can be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
But today, we’re diving into a different strategy: business acquisitions.
How do podcasts make money?
Producing a show takes real work, and if you want to keep your show running, you’ve got to find a way to make it work for you too.
The truth is most shows don’t make any money at all — and it took years before my podcast, The Side Hustle Show, could reasonably be considered a business on its own.
In this post, I’ll walk through my complete podcast production process for The Side Hustle Show.
If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s a top-rated and award winning business podcast with more than 8 million lifetime downloads.
I’ve been producing the podcast weekly since 2013, and though I know this process will continue to evolve, here’s what it looks like today.
Why should your first online business be a directory? This is one of the most overlooked yet potentially lucrative side hustles out there.
I’ve got a little bit of experience in this space (I actually built a virtual assistant directory years before), so this is something close to me.
But John Rush is a master at quickly building and marketing these little side projects.
He has launched 30 directories in just the past year, managed to monetize 10 of them, and even sold one (AllGPTs.co) for a sweet five-figure exit.
Would you believe there’s a marketplace of millions of buyers eager for digital products for teachers — and it’s not Etsy?
Rob is a high school math and personal finance teacher at fieducator.com. He’s built an impressive side hustle selling lesson plans and resources online at fieducator.store.
Through the popular platform Teachers Pay Teachers, Rob has turned his passion for financial education into a growing business that regularly brings in $2,000 a month — and it’s been growing 40% a year.
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