Call it the sharing economy, call it peer-to-peer commerce, call it collaborative consumption, but no matter what you call it, it’s having a massive impact on how we do business and disrupting established industries at a breakneck pace.
I’m talking about the renaissance of people doing business with people — instead of giant companies — a movement facilitated by an ever-growing array of marketplaces and apps.
If we think back in time 200 years, almost all commerce was peer-to-peer, right? We traded in small town squares and knew our neighbors. Then big corporations came in and took over the world.
The “sharing economy” — with the help of websites and apps — is displacing some of those corporations and getting us back to our roots.
The premise is we have underutilized assets in our lives (our house, car, stuff, expertise, time, money, etc.), and we can sell or rent those to our neighbors in win-win transactions.
These app-powered peer-to-peer transactions are unlocking an estimated $300 billion in economic activity by 2025. Want your piece of the pie?
This post is all about how you can get in on the action.
Note: Because many of these companies are startups, they may only be available in select cities and countries at the moment. Often you can find similar or competing options in your area by searching around, or by reaching out to the platform you like and offering to help them expand.
Ready? What can you share?
Warning: This post is a beast. If you want to download a PDF version to read at your leisure, you can do so here.
Share Your Art
Creative Market – Sell your designs, website themes, fonts, photography, and more on CreativeMarket.com.
Artsicle – Let others discover (and hopefully buy!) your art on this free-to-join marketplace.
TurningArt – TurningArt is a unique art rental marketplace for homeowners and workplaces. Artists earn royalties each time their work is rented, or when prints or originals are sold through the site.
Minted – This specialty store offers wedding invitations, stationery, home decor, and other items from independent artists and photographers like you. Earn cash prizes for one-off contests and commission on ongoing sales of your work.
Redbubble – Join the network of more than 350,000 independent artists selling their creative work on Redbubble. You have 100% control over the price for your work, with most artists earning 10-30% of the retail price as their take-home.
Cafepress / Zazzle / Spreadshirt – These are the 3 largest print-on-demand t-shirt (and other merchandise) sellers. How it works is you upload your designs and create your own storefront. When someone buys, you earn a royalty on the sale, but never have to touch the inventory or ship the product; the company does it all for you.
I actually tried to upload some “hustle” related designs / quotes to a Spreadshirt shop last year, but never made any sales. I found the interface really clunky and confusing but maybe I should give Cafepress and Zazzle a try. (In fact, it probably makes sense to syndicate far and wide since the hardest part was coming up with the designs.)
I think this has the potential to be a really cool passive income stream, especially if your designs can begin ranking on their own in Google.
What do you think of my designs?
Teespring – With Teespring, you create your own unique t-shirt designs and then market them to relevant audiences, earning the spread between your purchase price and the cost to produce. The interesting thing about Teespring is unless your campaign hits a minimum critical mass of orders (that you set), nothing gets printed and nobody gets charged.
My friend Benny earned 6-figures in his first 6 months as a Teespring seller, and stopped by The Side Hustle Show last year to fill us in on how it works.
TeeChip – A Teespring alternative with slightly lower costs.
Threadless – Create your own store and submit your t-shirt designs to Threadless, a fun community of independent artists and fans. Like other print-on-demand clothing sites, you make the spread between the purchase price and the cost, usually around $10 a shirt.
Threadless says they paid out $1.5 million to contributing artists last year!
Share Your Boat
Boatbound – With Boatbound.co you can rent your boat to you landlocked peers. A quick search of boats nearby yielded plenty of results with rates ranging from $230 to $950 per day! How often do you really get out on the water?
GetMyBoat – GetMyBoat.com is another peer-to-peer boat rental platform with listings all around the world.
Tubbber – Peer-to-peer boat rentals, primarily in Europe.
Share Your Car
Uber – Uber is the proverbial 800 pound gorilla of the sharing economy. Their pioneering ridesharing platform offers the opportunity to essentially start your own taxi service and earn money on your own schedule driving your neighbors around.
Drivers report earning anywhere from $12-25 an hour.
New to Uber? Get $20 off your first ride.
Lyft – If your car qualifies for Uber, you might as well join Lyft too. This ridesharing service is branded more as “your friend with a car,” perhaps a little more personable than the Uber behemoth.
New to Lyft? Get $50 in free ride credits.
Turo – Turo is a leader in the peer-to-peer car rental space. If driving people around Uber-style isn’t your jam, you might consider this as an alternative. Your car probably sits idle at least some of the time and the idea behind Turo is to put that idle time to use.
They’ve even got a cool little calculator on their site to estimate how much you might earn.
Naturally nicer, newer cars in popular travel destinations earn the most, and I’ve actually heard of people taken out leases on cars specifically to rent them out on Turo.
GetAround – GetAround is a similar concept to Turo, and has car owners earning up to $10,000 a year and rental periods as short as one hour. There’s no rule that says you can’t list on both markets, but you’ll just have to remember to update the availability calendar if certain dates get booked on one platform and not the other.
FlightCar – FlightCar is a cool service that promises better-than-free airport parking. How? They rent out your car while you’re on your trip, and pass the earnings on to you. My car wasn’t accepted because it was over 95,000 miles, but if you have a younger model this could be an interesting service to try on your next trip.
When I searched for cars at Washington Dulles, the best rate was $54 a day, which was actually more than double the same rental at Hertz. FlightCar pays owners “a minimum” of $0.10 per mile, with newer models earning a higher rate.
DropTrip – This platform matches travelers with people who need stuff shipped. Got extra room in your trunk? Offset the cost of your trip by delivering something that’s heading the same direction.
Wrapify – When you sign up with Wrapify, your car gets covered with a giant advertisement and you earn money based on how far you drive. A typical commuter in a popular area could earn $50-100 a week.
Not bad for making a drive you had to make anyway!
Carvertise – If you have a 2005 model year car or newer and drive 800+ miles a month, you may qualify to earn $300-650 per campaign with Carvertise. The company has been around since 2012 and is one of the more established players in this space.
Share Your Care
Care.com – With more than 19 million members, Care.com is the largest marketplace for child care, senior care, pet care, and house sitting.
UrbanSitter – If you love kids, this could be the perfect side hustle. Set your own babysitting rates, availability, and geographic area you cover. Because UrbanSitter charges parents a monthly membership fee to access the directory, you keep 100% of your earnings.
SitterCity – This is a huge marketplace for child care, with parents posting jobs every 2 minutes. Could be the perfect side hustle to find a fun gig near you.
Talkspace – Talkspace is the platform where you can chat directly with licensed therapists on demand. On the flip side, if you’re a licensed therapist, you can set up your profile and begin earning up to $3000 a month taking your practice online.
DoulaMatch – Like the name would suggest, it’s a marketplace for doulas and those seeking them.
Share Your City
Vayable – Vayable is a cool marketplace of unique travel experiences hosted by local insiders. If you have a passion for your city, love meeting new people, and have always wanted to be a tour guide, here’s your chance.
Options in San Francisco include a $49 “Scout for Street Art” walk with Russell, a $109 “Bike Wine Country” ride with Freida, and a $66 “Historic House Boat” tour with Victoria.
What unique experience can you offer travelers?
GetYourGuide | ToursByLocals – Become a tour provider in more than 2300 locations around the world. Get paid to show off your city to travelers.
WithLocals – Host food and tour experiences in your city. So far, this site has more traction in Europe and Asia.
Govoyagin – Create your own unique local tour experience and get paid when travelers join you. Currently only in Asia.
Share Your Clothes
Style Lend – Rent your designer clothes ($200+ retail) through this new fashion sharing platform. The company will store your clothes for free and pay you each time someone rents an item of yours.
Swap.com – Sell your women’s and children’s clothes through Swap’s online consignment store and earn an average of $150 for each box of clothes you send in.
SwapStyle – Save money by borrowing or buying used designer clothes on Swapstyle. Or sell from your own closet.
ThredUp – ThredUp will send you a free “Clean Out Kit” to send in your unused clothes for consignment sale. You can even use their online payout estimator tool to see what your items are worth.
Poshmark – Sell your designer clothes through the Poshmark app, which makes it easy to photograph and list an item in just 60 seconds.
Share Your Creations
Etsy – Etsy is the largest peer-to-peer marketplace for handcrafted items. You’ll find thoughtful pieces for your home, office, kids, closet, and more.
You can even sell digital items, as Kimberly Palmer does.
If you’ve got an artistic and crafty side, you can tap into Etsy’s wide audience of buyers.
Storenvy – Sell your own unique clothing designs, jewelry, crafts, art and more at this growing peer-to-peer platform for indie artists.
It’s free to open your own Storenvy shop, where you can upload your items, set your own prices, and get discovered by buyers on the platform. Storenvy takes a 10% cut on whatever you sell.
Zibbet – This marketplace features the work of more than 50,000 independent creatives in categories like home, jewelry, handmade, and kids. Create your own online storefront for $4 a month and they even have a tool that lets you syndicate your Etsy listings.
Envato – Envato is broad family of brands that connects creators of digital assets with those who need them. If you can create website templates, WordPress plugins, stock videos, jingles, graphics, and even 3D models, this is the place for you.
Share Your Data
DataWallet – This startup promises to let you “reclaim the profits made with your data,” including what you choose to share on networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Choose what you share and what companies you share it with, and earn up to $50 each time your data is sold.
Share Your Designs
DesignCrowd – DesignCrowd is another crowdsourced graphic design marketplace where you can submit your creative design ideas based on client specs and win money when they choose yours as their favorite.
SHN Exclusive: Get up to $100 off your next design project.
99designs – 99designs is a well-known crowdsourcing marketplace for graphic design. If you’re a talented designer with a competitive streak you can enter design contests here and win cash prizes if your design is chosen.
zilliondesigns – Another site similar to 99designs and DesignCrowd.
Crowdspring – In addition to graphic and web design contests, Crowdspring also supports business naming contests, product naming, taglines, and marketing copy competitions. Creatives keep 100% of their winnings.
Share Your Eagle Eye
Scribendi – Scribendi hires proofreaders and editors to work remotely and correct client documents.
Share Your Expertise
The Expert Institute – The Expert Institute connects subject matter experts (you!) with attorneys and corporations who happily pay for your analysis and opinions.
PopExpert – Create an account on PopExpert to provide live one-on-one coaching and advice on whatever topic(s) you’re qualified to assist with. The platform seems oriented toward health, wellness, and mindfulness, but does have experts in other areas as well.
Set your own rates and conduct virtual sessions from your home or office at your convenience.
Share Your Food
EatWith – “Bringing chefs and foodies together one meal at a time.” Set your own menu, schedule and dining experience and earn up to $700 per event.
Feastly – Put your culinary skills up for sale by hosting group meals on the Feastly platform. During my discussion with Glenn Carter, he shared the story of one New York chef earning $1000 a month part-time on this site.
Bon Appetour – Get paid to cook and host meals for travelers in your home.
Leftover Swap – I’m not sure if Leftover Swap is actually still in business, but yes, someone really built an app to buy and sell leftovers.
CookUnity – Freelance chefs in New York City can join CookUnity for access to their kitchen facility and packaging services to reach a new audience of foodies.
Share Your Friendship
What’s Your Price – Calling all the single ladies! On this unique dating platform, you set your price for a first date and get paid when someone takes you out.
According to their blog, women are charging anywhere from $10 to $300 for a night out — and probably getting a meal out of the deal too.
Rent a Friend – According to Rent A Friend you can earn up to $50 an hour on this strictly platonic match-making site. You might get hired to accompany new “friends” to the movies, dinner, the gym, or whatever you include in your free profile.
Share Your Good Taste
Kit – With Kit you can share your favorite items without ever letting them out of your sight.
You simply create a kit (what essentials you bring on every business trip, for example), and make affiliate links to buy the products on Amazon. Earn money whenever someone buys the products you recommend.
For instance, here are some of Tim Ferriss’ picks.
Share Your Handbags
BagBorroworSteal – Sell your designer handbags and accessories on consignment, or take a lower offer price and get paid right away.
Share Your Healing Touch
Soothe – Soothe operates similarly, sending licensed massage therapists directly to the customers who request them. According to their website, Soothe therapists earn 2-3x more than they would at a traditional spa and have more flexible work hours.
Zeel – Zeel is the Uber for massages. Licensed masseuses can earn fill their unbooked time on Zeel and set their own schedule. Therapists earn 75% of the sticker price (around $99 for a 60-minute massage), plus an automatic 18% gratuity.
Share Your House
Airbnb – Airbnb is one of the most well-known sharing economy platforms and is disrupting the entire hotel industry. One Side Hustle Nation guest rented out his spare room to essentially live rent free, and another rents his entire apartment while traveling the world.
I’m a fan of Airbnb as a user (I’ve stayed in Airbnbs in Philadelphia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, and Japan) and think it’s definitely a great way to monetize an underutilized asset under your own roof. We’ve even seen people buying investment properties solely for the purpose of turning them into Airbnb rentals.
Your rates are going to be dictated by your local competition, which could be anywhere from $40 to $300 a night. And as Jasper pointed out on the podcast, if you have hotels in your city or town, you know there’s at least some demand.
Home Away – A well-established vacation rental site.
VRBO – Vacation Rental By Owner, another marketplace for short-term vacation rentals.
Roomorama – Another site like Airbnb.
Homestay – This platform focuses on booking stays where the homeowner is present, where most of the Airbnb stays I’ve booked have been for the “whole” house or apartment. When I ran a search for an upcoming trip to San Diego, I found rates from $27-65 a night.
Wimdu – Airbnb clone with a heavier presence in Europe.
If you’re going to list on one of these sites, you might as well cast a wide net and list on all of them. Just make sure to update your availability calendar when bookings come through on different platforms.
Share Your Ideas
Namestation – New companies are often looking for help coming up with names for the businesses or product lines. Namestation lets them crowdsource suggestions from creative people like you. They say their top contributors earn up to $300 a month part-time.
Innocentive – Win cash prizes for your game-changing problem-solving ideas. With millions of dollars rewarded since 2008, companies are paying serious bucks. This site has a more science/invention angle.
Share Your Investment Strategy
Motif – Motif Investing lets you create your own mutual funds, buckets of up to 30 stocks, and share them with others. When you join Motif’s Creator Royalty Program, you can earn $1 for everyone else who buys your Motif.
Plus, they’ll give you up to $150 just for signing up and making a few trades.
Instavest – This site makes it easy to replicate the stock picks of pro investors. If you’re an experienced investor, Instavest says you can earn up to $5000 per investment “thesis” by sharing it on their site.
Share Your Knowledge
Udemy – With Udemy you can create a video course in your area of expertise, set your own price (up to $50) and put it up for sale on their platform of more than 10 million students.
Udemy recently made some pricing and promotion changes that have dramatically cut earnings, but I’ve still earned over $10,000 on the platform and was consistently earning $200-600 a month. Here’s a post I wrote about my Udemy course launch.
A few Side Hustle Nation guests have found success on Udemy as well, including Scott Britton, Rob Cubbon, and Phil Ebiner. I like Udemy and platforms like it because you can create the asset once, and sell it again and again.
What could you teach?
Skillshare – I’ve also syndicated my courses to Skillshare, where they don’t earn as much but still bring in some incremental passive income.
Coursmos – A growing online education platform where you can set your own prices for your course without any limits.
RocketLearn | 360Training – Other online course platforms where you can syndicate your lessons.
Share Your Language Skills
Motaword – If you speak multiple languages, you can earn money translating text with this service.
Translate.com – Get paid by the word to translate text.
Unbabel – Earn $8-18 an hour translating one of 28 languages for customer service teams around the world.
Verbaling – With Verbling you can set your own hourly rate for online language lessons. Most tutors appear to be in the $10-25 an hour range, and Verbling says some are earning a full-time living on the platform.
italki – Set your own hourly rate for Skype language lessons and conversation practice on this platform with more than 2,000,000 language learning students. When I was browsing it seemed like hourly rates were mostly around $10 for English practice.
VerbalPlanet – Another peer-to-peer language learning site where you can set your own hours and rates, though the average student payment is $22 for a 45 minute lesson. VerbalPlanet asks you to only apply to their tutoring platform if you have teaching experience.
Share Your Legal Advice
LawTrades – Connect with legal clients in a next-gen way with this unique platform.
UpCounsel – A growing legal marketplace to match lawyers with clients in your area of expertise.
Share Your Love of Animals
Rover.com – Earn $20-$60 a night pet sitting for others in your town. Basically it’s Airbnb for dogs; you set your own rates and availability, and Rover handles the payments and covers insurance and vet assistance.
Hmm, we’re always hosting our friends’ dogs anyway so maybe this could be a viable side hustle!
Dog sitting is a serious business and several people report earning $1000 a month from it. The platform also supports dog walking and doggy day care.
DogVacay.com – A similar peer-to-peer pet sitting marketplace.
Pawshake – UK-based pet lovers can register as a pet sitter on Pawshake and earn money watching their neighbor’s animals.
Share Your Marketing Chops
GrowthGeeks – This unique freelancing platform is specifically built for recurring monthly engagements. You’ll find gigs for Instagram, infographics, SEO, and more ranging from $49 to $500 a month and beyond.
Share Your Money
Prosper – Prosper.com offers peer-to-peer loans for debt consolidation, startups, weddings, and more. I’ve been a Prosper lender for over 5 years earning solid double-digit returns.
Like the other platforms listed below, your cash isn’t as liquid as with other more traditional investments, but my diversified portfolio of notes spins off cash-flow every month.
Check this post to read more about my high-risk high-return strategy for Prosper, the tool I use to automate my investing, and download the exact loan filters I use.
LendingClub – Lending Club is the other big US peer-to-peer lending platform.
Zopa – Earn up to 6.5% returns lending money to your UK peers and business owners.
Lending Crowd – A peer-to-peer lending platform in the UK.
QuidCycle – A peer-to-peer lending platform in the UK specializing in debt consolidation loans. The site promotes a 6.1% return for investors.
Fundrise – Fundrise is a crowdsourced commercial real estate investing platform with a couple “eREITs” to choose from: income and growth. Since it’s open to non-accredited investors and the minimum investment is just $1000, I decided to give it a shot. If you don’t earn 15% on your money, you don’t pay Fundrise a management fee.
GroundFloor – Investors can earn up to 12% lending on short-term real estate rehab projects.
Patch of Land | PeerStreet | Yieldstreet | RealtyShares | RealtyMogul | Money360 | LendingHome – Accredited investors can earn 10-15% returns on these crowdfunding platforms for real estate loans.
FundersClub – This actually looks really cool, because you can invest in pre-vetted startups in sort of a mini-mutual fund way. With FundersClub, you can diversify your startup investing without the pressure of picking one moonshot winner.
They claim their picks earned a 37% unrealized internal rate of return over the last few years. I may have to throw a few dollars into this pot and see what happens.
SHN Bonus: Get $100 to seed your investing account.
Wefunder – Invest in startups with this platform, now open to non-accredited investors. Be prepared to potentially wait a long time to see a return, since it usually takes a public stock offering or acquisition to cash out your shares.
SeedInvest – Invest as little as $100 in pre-screened startups.
AngelList – Accredited investors can back well-known venture capitalists and angel investors in their early stage startup investments on the high risk, high-reward Angel.co platform.
Kickfurther – Kickfurther is pitched as a way for investors to help small local businesses buy inventory, while earning a healthy return. According to their site, they’re averaging a 30% annualized profit for buyers and have paid out more than $2.5 million.
Share Your Muscles
CoachUp – Channel your athletic glory days and help young athletes level up their game. You can set your own rate and CoachUp private coaches report earning an average or $45 an hour.
Wello – Certified personal trainers can complete virtual training sessions on Wello and get paid via direct deposit. Set your own hours and availability, and take your training business from local to global.
Dolly – If you have a truck or van — and a strong back — you can earn money with Dolly’s peer-to-peer moving platform. Help your neighbors pack and move across town.
Share Your Nerdiness
Codementor – Get instant one-on-one help from expert developers, or share your coding expertise and earn money helping newbies.
You can set your own rate, and generally I’m seeing rates around $15-30 for a 15 minute session. Knock a few out back to back and you’re at $60-120 an hour.
Geekatoo – “Tech support to your door.” Are you the go-to guy or girl in your social circle for technical help? If so, you can earn money helping with computer setup, networking installations, TV mounting, and more for homeowners and businesses in your city.
Geekatoo is free for “geeks” to join and you get paid directly to your bank account for each job you complete.
Need a tech hand yourself? Get $20 off your first job with this link.
HelloTech – Earn $25 an hour making tech support, troubleshooting, and device installation house calls near you.
HourlyNerd – MBA students and graduates from select universities can apply to be an Hourly Nerd and take on projects from small business and corporate clients all around the world. Put that degree to use and earn $75-200 an hour on this growing platform.
Share Your Office
LiquidSpace | PivotDesk – Rent out extra office space for 3 hours or 3 years on these platforms that aim to cut out traditional commercial leasing brokers. Naturally, rates vary market to market and could be $200 for a meeting room for a day or several thousand a month for a startup team space with 10 desks.
Breather – If you have a “peaceful, practical space” to share, you can list it on Breather and command rates of $30-60 an hour.
Share Your Opinion
UserTesting – Earn $10 for completing 20 minute online user tests of websites, apps, shopping portals, and more. Special software tracks your mouse movement while your webcam and mic record your eye movement, facial expressions, and words as you complete the questions.
You have to act fast though when new studies are released; in my experience UserTesting tests disappear very quickly.
InboxDollars | Swagbucks – Don’t expect to earn an amazing hourly rate, but you can earn gift cards, cash, and other rewards by answering surveys, watching videos, playing games, and shopping online with both of these sites.
At press time, both companies are offering a $5 bonus just for signing up!
Share Your Pictures
Pond5 – Pond5 is a super cool site with not only photography, but also music, video, sound effects, and illustrations. As an artist, you can set your own price for your work and earn 50% royalties.
SnapWire – Earn 50-70% royalties when companies buy the rights to your beautiful photography on SnapWire.
Foap – Submit photos from your phone to Foap’s unique stock photography website and earn $5 for every image you sell.
PhotoDune – PhotoDune is Envato’s entry into the stock photo world, and photographers can earn 55% royalties for their work, or an even greater percentage for exclusively distributed work.
iStockPhoto | Shutterstock | DepositPhotos | Fotolia | BigStockPhoto | Alamy – There are literally dozens of stock photo sites out there. If each platform doesn’t require exclusivity, it probably makes sense to syndicate your work to all of them for the best chance of discovery and royalties.
Share Your Receipts
Ibotta – The free ibotta app pays you cash for taking pictures of your receipts from more than 80 chains, including Walmart, Safeway, Kroger, Publix, Costco, and Target.
Once you download the app, browse their listings before you go shopping to unlock cash rewards on the products you were going to buy anyway. You have to “unlock” the rebate by answering a quick question or two.
For example, they asked me if I was going to buy Budweiser before I saw that I could get $3 back, and when the last time I drank a Budweiser product. (No, and “within the last 7 days” if you’re curious!)
Once you buy the item, scan the barcode and submit a photo of your receipt. The cash will hit your Ibotta account within 48 hours and you can pull it out with PayPal, Venmo, or exchange for gift cards.
At press time they were even giving $10 sign-up bonuses for new users.
Share Your Airplane Seat
Seateroo – No, you don’t need to have a stranger sit on your lap! But if you’ve got a primo seat on your next flight you can sell it to someone stuck in a middle seat in the back of the plane using this super-niche app.
Share Your Skills (in person)
TaskRabbit – Task Rabbit is one of the largest sharing economy platforms, and you can create a profile specializing in everything from running local errands, assembling furniture, local admin temp help, and even virtual support jobs.
Rates vary widely based on what service you’re providing, but I’ve seen tasks anywhere from $15 an hour all the way up to $100 an hour or more for specialized handyman skills.
SHN Bonus: Get $20 off your first task through this link.
Airtasker – Australia’s version of TaskRabbit.
Bark – UK marketplace for service professionals. Join the network to get found and get jobs around your schedule.
Thumbtack – Thumbtack is a unique marketplace for both virtual and in-person on-demand work. Buyers submit requests for what they need and if it seems like a fit for your skills, you pay a nominal fee to bid on the job. You’re free to set your own price and keep 100% of the proceeds.
One cool aspect of Thumbtack is you’re not competing with dozens of other applicants; jobs are limited to 5 bidders, which also makes the decision process faster and simpler for buyers.
The Thumbtack marketplace is pretty extensive, with services including accounting, house painting, voice lessons, quilting, web design, and even legal work. The company paid out over a $1 billion to their pros last year, and it looks like a great platform to begin making money in the sharing economy.
Zaarly – Use Zaarly to get matched up with customers in need of home cleaning, yard care, and handyman services near you.
Handy – Earn up to $22 an hour as a cleaner or up to $45 as a handyman. Or handyperson? According to their website, their top professionals are taking home more than $1000 a week. If you’re skilled in painting, plumbing, electrical work, or cleaning with a friendly service attitude, this could be an interesting side hustle.
Share Your Skills (online)
Fiverr – For me, Fiverr has been a fun and eye-opening side hustle experiment. Since I started on the site, I’ve earned over $11,000, met some awesome people, and found an alternative distribution platform for some of my work.
How it works is you come up with a base “gig” — something you can offer for an entry-level price of $5, and then add relevant upsells or packages to increase your order value. One of my most popular podcast episodes is with a Fiverr seller who earned enough cash on the platform in his first year to buy a house.
I’ve implemented some of his tactics and learned a few of my own along the way.
Related: How I Earned $7490 in My First 14 Months on Fiverr
Related: How I Got on the Homepage of Fiverr and Earned $920 in 10 Days
Related: Beyond $5: 5 Fiverr Gigs with High Average Order Values
Upwork – Upwork is the lovechild of Elance and Upwork, the two largest freelance marketplaces. With Upwork, you can create a profile and bid on jobs that meet your criteria. There’s a bit of an art and science to it, and while you’ll hear some complaints about cheap clients and stiff competition, I keep hearing success stories of people finding quality work.
For example, Jesse Gernigin recently stopped by The Side Hustle Show to share his tips for making your proposals stand out on the platform.
Freelancer.com | PeoplePerHour | Twago | Guru – Guru.com was the first freelance site I used as a client waaaaay back in 2005. Freelancer isn’t my favorite freelancing platform but there are still plenty of buyers here so you’re welcome to try it. PeoplePerHour is quite popular in the UK. All these sites and similar ones operate in a common way, connecting freelancers with clients and taking a cut of the job.
TopTal – If you’re an expert developer and willing to put your skills to the test, you can earn great money working remotely for clients on the TopTal platform. They’re serious about the “top talent” thing though, only hiring the top 3% of applicants.
FreeeUp – Earn up to $50 an hour depending on your skillset on this new freelance platform that matches you with businesses that need your hel