r/sidehustle

I flip vintage and secondhand band t-shirts and boardshorts. Mostly sourcing from wholesalers in Asia then resell them on eBay and Depop. Last month I cleared just over $5K on top of my regular income.

The money didn’t come overnight. I started with a $500 investment and just reinvested every month. Building a Depop following and getting eBay feedback to a point where buyers trust you takes a few months of consistent listing, good photos, and fair pricing. Once you’ve got that foundation though, the sales start coming to you rather than you chasing them.

Buy for $3–15, sell for $40–120 depending on the piece. It’s not complicated. it’s just about developing an eye for what moves and pricing with confidence.

Happy to answer questions if anyone’s getting started or trying to figure out a specific category.

My only useful trait is how stubborn I am is there a way I can get money from throwing myself at a wall over and over until the wall brakes? What is more tedious and time consuming than actually hard? I'm looking for a way to make a few bucks by un-shuffling a deck of cards. Any ideas?

I already have a full time 9-5 job, what’s the quickest thing I can do to pick up an extra $400?

I am using YouTube for tutorials but need to use the laptop for practical. I need this so I can apply for a data analysis job. My current laptop is not working even after I replaced battery.

1 month ago I started my first YouTube Shorts channel with 0 experience and honestly I thought I’d quit after a week 😭

But something weird happened…

First 3 days:
I spent HOURS researching how Shorts channels actually grow and joined creator communities trying to learn everything possible.

Day 4:
Made the channel and literally didn’t touch it for a day because people kept saying new channels need to “rest”.

Day 5-10:
Instead of instantly posting, I started warming up the account naturally:

• watched videos in my niche
• engaged with content
• studied hooks and retention
• researched competitors
• made my first few videos

Then I finally started posting.

Day 11-14:
I uploaded 1 Short daily…

and instantly got stuck in the 30k view jail 💀

Every video stopped around the same range and I genuinely thought the channel was cooked.

But I kept posting anyway while researching swipe rate, hooks and retention.

Then out of nowhere…

Day 15-20:
3 videos crossed 100k+
and ONE randomly exploded past 1 MILLION views 🤯

I still don’t fully understand why that specific video blew up harder than the others.

By day 20 I had around 800 subscribers and finally started getting consistent traffic…

but then reality hit:
views ≠ money.

A creator from one of the communities showed me a method brands use for logo placements/sponsorships inside Shorts.

Day 24-30:
I tested it during a campaign and made around $200 in 6 days.

The campaign already ended unfortunately, but now I’m trying to improve retention even more and scale the channel further.

Biggest thing I learned from all this:

YouTube Shorts is WAY more about psychology than editing skill.

If your hook is weak, people swipe instantly.

If your pacing drops, retention dies.

And consistency matters more than motivation.

If anyone here is struggling with warming up a channel, escaping view jail or understanding Shorts retention, I put together a free PDF guide with everything I learned this month.

It’s linked in my bio.

AI slop is making money... I know this sounds bullshit. But it's literally true.

I spent a while going through a pile of AI video examples and the pattern is pretty clear. The money isn't in making one beautiful video but making tons of cheap ones, then pushing them in front of people, and letting the platform tell you what sticks.

And yeah, people do watch this stuff. Faceless explainers, fake UGC ads, kids' channels, etc.. Some of it is junk. Some is genuinely useful. Most of it is just volume.

Here are the AI video workflows I found worth studying, with actual earning and cost..

1. Faceless YouTube channels

A faceless channel cranking out AI-assisted long-form explainer videos, the kind that grade and compare everyday objects (from X, @ w1nklerr):

The stack is basically Claude for topic and script (free), PixVerse for the full visual/voice scenes and b-roll (under $1 each), CapCut for the final edit ($8/mo). The demand side is the interesting part: they studied formats already working on YouTube, stuff like "Every Truck Type Explained" or "Every Excavator Type Explained." So the play isn't inventing a niche. It's finding a proven format and outputting faster than a normal creator can. Distribution is YouTube long-form, where search and recommendations can keep a video alive for months.

2. AI product video ads for small brands

This one shows AI UGC ads dropping from $50–$800 per creator video down to about $0.95 per AI ad (from X, @ DeRonin_):

Workflow: Claude Opus ($20/mo) for scripts, image generation for product and person visuals, video generation like the first workflow for the final UGC-style clip (well under a dollar each), and hook testing on ad angles. The demand here is from brands that already pay creators, agencies, or studios for UGC ads, but need way more variations than humans can cheaply produce. Especially true for ecommerce, apps, supplements, beauty, and local services, where one winning hook can carry the whole campaign.

This wouldn't have worked a year ago. AI authenticity was rough. Now it's a different game.

3. Short clip distribution systems

An agent clipping stack that automates short-form clipping pages and pulls around $10k/month (from X, @ VadimStrizheus).

Workflow is Hermes Agent + PixVerse + Postiz + Telegram. Hermes is the brain (free), PixVerse spit out short clips at under a dollar each, Postiz handles the scheduling, and Telegram triggers the whole thing. Demand comes from clipping campaigns, creators, and platforms that reward short-form distribution. The number that matters is volume: 5 clips a day, multiple platforms, multiple accounts. Distribution is TikTok, Reels, YouTube Shorts, X, and sometimes clipping platforms like Whop or Clipping.net.

4. Affiliate/content pages

A Japanese operator running 10 automated social media accounts with agents, pulling over $20k/month from affiliate marketing (from X, @ robiartec).

Workflow is Claude Code running multiple social accounts on autopilot (doesn't work on Reddit, btw). Demand starts from offers that already pay out: affiliate tools, Amazon products, TikTok Shop products, SaaS tools, digital products. Then the creator builds content around those offers (similar workflow to the first one). Distribution is high-volume organic posting across TikTok, IG, YouTube Shorts, and X.

5. AI influencers

A AI influencer playbook that scaled from zero to around $39k in 3 months across multiple social platforms, with the broader AI influencer market past $6B (from X, @ 0xKiyoro).

Workflow has more moving parts than the others. Face creation by merging two contrasting Pinterest references in Nano Banana Pro on Wavespeed. Dataset generation in Wan 2.7 following a 70/20/10 ratio of close-ups, full-body, and detail shots. Optional LoRA training on Z-image via Wavespeed (~$3 per training run, which used to need a rented A100). Video via Kling 3.0 for fast turnaround, or custom ComfyUI workflows on a rented RunPod/Vast GPU for tighter results. Finishing pass in CapCut to strip metadata that platforms use to downrank AI content. The demand side is from brands that are paying AI models $1k–$10k per post, and successful single accounts clear $11k/mo. Distribution is high-volume cross-posting to IG Reels, TikTok, Reddit, X, Pinterest, and Threads, funneling to Fanvue (15% cut, more AI-friendly than OnlyFans) once the account passes ~1,000 followers.

Conclusion

AI video is basically a cheap production engine. Find a niche where people already watch low-cost content, build a workflow with something like Claude/ChatGPT (script) + PixVerse (quick and cheap video gen) + CapCut + a scheduler, and crank out enough variations to test what gets attention.

One more thing worth noting: the reason any of this works right now is that models like Grok and Seedance are good enough that most viewers can't easily tell what's real and what's generated. That wasn't really the case a year ago.

That said, video still costs something. You need volume, retries, and patience. Every social platform demands posting volume at the start before an account gets traction. AI doesn't skip that part. It just makes the whole loop much faster and much cheaper than before.

Hope this helps.

Sixty-nine thousand five dollars and seventy-one cents ($69,005.71). That’s how much I’ve earned to date from writing 807 financial analyses at Seeking Alpha under the name Gold Panda. With each one of them taking up around three hours for research and writing, you are looking at around 2,421 hours or 302.625 eight-hour working days. This translates into $228.02 per day and with around 250 working days in a typical year, this is an annualized income of $57,005.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that you can make a decent living from writing and that all you need is an internet connection and a good level of English. Feel free to ask me anything about my experiences.

Is it more worthwhile to get into digital skills like editing, 3d design/modelling, programming, IT work etc. Or physical skills like electrician, plumbing, HVAC, joinery etc?

Which way would you say is the better route to go down?

I am on disability, but it just barely covers rent and utilities. I really need some kind of gig I can do from home that pays a few hundred to a thousand dollars per month. Data entry, tedious nonsense, even customer service if necessary. I have a reliable computer with a headset and mic, and relevant experience. Ideally something not customer facing, like data entry or writing, but I'm not gonna be picky.

Thanks in advance!

if youre cold emailing insurance agents and agencies using the same playbook you use for SaaS founders or marketing directors, youre probably wondering why your reply rates are in the toilet. i see this constantly. we have 19 clients right now and only two are in the insurance space but those two accounts taught me more about vertical-specific outreach than basically everything else combined.

the standard advice is build a big list, write a clever subject line, send 3-4 follow ups, book meetings. and that works fine when youre targeting series B startups or ecommerce brands. but insurance is a completely different animal and the reasons are structural, not just vibes.

first thing you need to understand is that independent agency owners and producers get hammered by vendors constantly. carrier reps, tech vendors, lead gen companies, everyone wants a piece of their book. so the typical "hey {first_name} i noticed your agency" opener gets deleted before they finish reading the preview text. these people have been pitched by every InsurTech startup with a landing page and a dream. the noise level is insane compared to most B2B verticals.

second thing, and this took me about 4 months to figure out, is that the decision making structure at agencies is weird. at a 15-person independent agency the owner might also be the top producer and also handle carrier relationships and also be the one who decides on new tech. theres no neat org chart. so when youre prospecting you cant just filter by title on LinkedIn and call it a day. "agency owner" and "producer" and "VP sales" can literally be the same person at a small shop, or three completely different people at a larger brokerage. the way i had it mapped out initially was all wrong and we burned through like 800 contacts before i realized we were emailing the wrong person at half these places.

the third thing is timing. insurance runs on renewal cycles. if youre selling something that touches quoting, binding, or carrier relationships, you need to understand that agencies are slammed during certain months depending on their book mix. commercial lines agencies are busiest Q4 into Q1. personal lines has its own rhythm. emailing a commercial lines manager in november about switching their rater is like trying to sell someone a new kitchen while their house is on fire.

ok so what actually works.

list building for insurance is annoying because the data is fragmented. ZoomInfo has decent coverage for larger brokerages and MGAs but its thin on the independent agency side, which is where most of the market actually is. we ended up building lists from state department of insurance databases (most states publish licensed agency info), IIABA directories, and LinkedIn filtered by specific carrier appointments. its manual and slow but the quality is way better than buying a list from some data vendor who scraped everything 18 months ago.

for enrichment we run Prospeo to find emails once we have the names and companies, and honestly the email accuracy sits around 82-85% which is solid for this vertical where half the agencies have weird domain setups or use gmail for business. we verify everything through MillionVerifier after that. bounce rate stays under 2% on the Prospeo-enriched lists which matters because insurance people will report spam faster than any other vertical ive worked in (not sure why, maybe theyre just more compliance-minded by nature).

the copy angle that works is completely different from what you see recommended in most cold email advice. forget about "pain points" in the traditional sense. agency owners dont respond to "are you struggling with X" because they see that framing as patronizing. what works is peer-level language that references specific operational realities. mentioning carrier appetite changes, talking about quote turnaround times, referencing the actual workflow of binding a policy. one of our best performing emails for an InsurTech client literally opened with a line about how many clicks it takes to get a BOP quote through their current system. 4.3% reply rate on that campaign across about 1,200 sends. the version that used generic pain language ("tired of slow quoting?") got 0.8%.

someone in a discord group i hang out in made the point that insurance agents respond to specificity because their whole job is about specifics. policy language, coverage limits, exclusions. vague copy signals that you dont understand their world. and thats the kiss of death because these people deal with vendors who dont understand insurance every single day.

sending infrastructure matters here too but not in some exotic way. we use Smartlead for sequencing, 3 inboxes per campaign, warmup for 21 days minimum (i tried cutting it to 14 once and deliverability tanked within the first week of sending). send volume stays at 25-30 per inbox per day. nothing crazy. the key difference for insurance is that you want to send tuesday through thursday, ideally between 7-9am in their local timezone. monday theyre dealing with weekend claims and friday theyre mentally checked out. we tested this over about 11 weeks and the tuesday-thursday window outperformed by roughly 40% on open rates.

for the CRM side we use Close CRM for both insurance clients because the pipeline stages map well to how agency sales actually work. theres a longer consideration period than SaaS and you need to track things like "waiting on carrier approval" or "renewal date in 3 months" which dont fit neatly into standard sales stages.

the last thing ill say is that follow up cadence for insurance should be longer than what most people recommend. the standard "day 1, day 3, day 7" aggressive sequence feels pushy to agency owners. we do day 1, day 5, day 12, day 21. four touches total. the third email is usually the one that converts and its typically a short note referencing something specific about their agency (we have our VA research this manually for the top prospects). Prospeo handles the enrichment step and then our VA does the personalization research, which takes about 2-3 minutes per contact but the difference in reply quality is night and day.

anyway this got longer than i planned. insurance is a weird vertical for cold email but it works if you actually learn how the industry operates instead of just swapping out the company name in your SaaS templates and hoping for the best. the two insurance clients we have are actually our highest retention accounts because nobody else is doing this well for them

Has anyone tried hosting trivia at local bars/restaurants? I hosted in the past, mostly for fun, but didn't make it a real side hustle. Thinking about getting into it again, but not sure what the appetite is given the struggles for bars and restaurants.

I need a side job, it doesnt matter how much I make but I figured the more the better. Im only 18 and I was highkey thinking about selling feet pics cause im so desperate. I only make 400 dollars a month at my current job so id be happy if I could even just match that. Something that doesnt take too much work would be great too but I dont mind if it does ig. I dont have a car or any really reliable mode of transportation so thats why i want something i can just do online. If anyone has ideas please let me know

I started affiliate marketing as a side hustle back in February and honestly the first few weeks were rough. I was promoting random products and making maybe 100 a month if I was lucky. Almost gave up multiple times. Then a buddy who′s been in the space for years told me to look into health offers. Said the commissions are way higher because the products have real value. I found a program called true meds that does 40 to 50 . Week 2 was 220. By week 6 I hit 800 in a month. The daily payouts mean I can reinvest immediately instead of waiting. This is the first side hustle that's actually felt scalable. I work on it maybe 10-15 hours a week now and it's already more than I make from my other side gigs combined. Anyone else making good money from affiliate marketing as a side hustle? What vertical are you in?

https://preview.redd.it/clphxmgs6w1h1.png?width=5760&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8d7596d8b2c339f4cdda3f652fb71b821c19f7a

Anyone been clipping longer than a month? Need a reality check

The past few days, I really needed money. I stayed up all night searching for work online, willing to do whatever I could as long as my time and health allowed.

At first, it was all just desire—thinking about what I wanted—but reality felt so far away. I realized that so many people, probably even some of you here, were in the same situation, putting in the same effort.

I often asked myself: was it a lack of ability, or a lack of effort? But while I was stuck in thought, countless others kept moving forward. And while I hesitated, opportunities quietly slipped away.

Finally, the moment I let action take over thought, I was able to achieve the small goal I had been hoping for. It may have been small, but it became a huge source of strength for me and a chance to prove to myself that I can.

If any of you are feeling stuck or desperate for money, don’t just think about it—take action. Anything you can do counts. You never know where it might lead.

hey everyone,

i need to vent a bit but also seriously need some math/stack advice.

i recently bought three luxury inflatable night-club tents and a bunch of premium party speakers to rent out for backyard events on weekends. it cost me a clean $4k out of pocket.

i'm trying to set up the website now so people can actually book them, but every generic platform i look at feels like a total scam for a rental setup. shopify wants me to pay for a base subscription PLUS like three separate monthly apps just to get a working booking calendar and a security deposit system. then you look at platforms like sharegrid or local marketplaces and they want to eat 15-20% of my booking revenue in transaction fees.

if i charge $300 a weekend and lose 20% to some platform just for hosting a calendar, it’s going to take me over a year just to break even on the gear.

does anyone here run a rental hustle without giving away all their margins? i just want a flat-fee system where customers can pick a weekend, pay a fixed deposit, and sign a quick liability waiver without me paying a micro-transaction tax on every single order.

what’s the shortcut here? or am i forced to just use google forms and cash?

I'm happy for everyones experiences with this. Especially from the UK.

I'm 35, always wanted to work with hardware. Got qualified way back in 09. Never had a job in the sector. I've always been the Tech guy in all my non tech jobs.

I've fixed and built tons of pcs and laptops. And even the odd phone screen. Lately I'm at a cross roads. I'm not passionate about my current job, pays ok, but I'm never home and work shifts. It's affected my family life and I've even took a demotion to be home more.,(50hrs down to 37.5) With this extra time I wanna follow a passion. So I've done my research to start as a local tech repair guy. There's only two competitors in the area. Both store fronts. So I can undercut because no real over heads. Il also be offering micro soldering. (I'm spending time getting more competent before offering) Il do normal solder work though

I've got all I need tool wise. Hot air stations precision tools etc. And my way of offering is to collect and deliver in person. And seems to be a viable market.

Personally il love to focus on pc and laptops. But honestly with the area demographic it's going to be smart phones and the odd games console / laptop

But does anyone have their own stories. How did you get on. Did you get a decent amount of work. Or was it just not profitable. I'm happy for 3-5 jobs a week. £150-£200 would be happy enough. Not expecting that over night. But thats the goal

My main gig is already taking most of my weekends, but I need something I can viably do to get some extra cash. I'm sick of the "Make you work 50 hours a week commission only" doorknocking jobs.

DISCLAIMER: I am not good at english. not my first language so, i did use AI for grammar and structure!

Most people try to sell websites by cold messaging businesses, explaining why their current site is bad, sending a portfolio, trying to book calls, all that stuff.

I used to do the same thing and honestly it barely worked.

What changed everything for me was making the process stupid simple for the business owner.

Now instead of trying to “pitch” them, I show them something real first.

I usually find a local business with an outdated or no website, then I quickly rebuild a cleaner version of their homepage. Better design, mobile friendly, faster loading, clearer CTA, modern look, etc.

Then I send it to them or hop on a quick call (if they want to) and show them side by side.

The difference is immediate because now they are not imagining anything anymore. They can literally see what their business could look like.

That alone gets way more responses than long sales messages.

The second thing that helped was changing pricing.

Most small businesses do not want to hear “this will cost $3,000 upfront”.

Monthly pricing works but also lower Prices..500$ for something thats already build for them seems resonable.

I sometimes charge monthly because it feels easier for them to say yes to. Hosting, updates, edits, support, SEO basics, everything included.

Once the site is live they usually stay because now their leads, bookings, and online presence depend on it.

The problem was speed.

Building demos manually for every business started taking too much time, so I ended up building my own platform called Thyonix to make the whole process faster.

Now I can generate and customize websites way quicker, which lets me contact more businesses without spending days designing everything from scratch.

That is honestly the whole model.

The demo gets attention.
The simplicity gets the sale.
The monthly model keeps the client.

Not saying this is some magical business model, but it has been consistently making me around $2k–$4k/month on the side and it scales way better than I expected.

Happy to answer questions if anyone wants to know how I approach it.

28M, working full time in accounting with professional exams on top. I come from a Big 4 background, so I have decent transferable skills, but I honestly have no idea how to monetise them outside of a 9-5. Salary barely covers rent and bills, so there's almost nothing left at the end of the month. Not a big spender, just genuinely don't earn enough right now and need to change that.

The good news is I do have time. Weekday evenings after work to midnight and full weekends. That's actually a decent chunk if I use it right.

I've thought about tutoring, freelance bookkeeping, content writing, reselling - but I genuinely don't know what's realistic vs what sounds good on paper. I'm based in London, which probably matters for some options.

What would you actually do if you were in my position? Not what sounds good in theory - what has genuinely worked for you or someone you know?