Top Side Hustles of 2023

Side Hustles in 2023

The evolving landscape of work has given rise to various side hustles that individuals can engage in alongside their primary occupations. These additional sources of income have become increasingly popular, offering opportunities for creativity and flexibility.

We'll be highlighting the lucrative options available to individuals seeking to supplement their earnings. By delving into the unique details and benefits of each side hustle, readers can gain valuable insights into potential avenues for generating additional income.

A pro tip for those considering a side hustle is to identify their passions and skills, aligning them with the opportunities presented in this article. This will not only increase the chances of success but also add a sense of fulfillment and enjoyment to the venture.

Ultimately, side hustles offer individuals the chance to explore their entrepreneurial spirit and diversify their income streams, making them an appealing option for those looking to maximize their earning potential.

What is a Side Hustle?

In short, a side hustle is your primary job plus a side gig. This could be anything you do to generate additional revenue for you, your household and your family.

Why get a Side Hustle?

I will highlight 7 reason individuals engage in side hustles:

1. Additional Income/Revenue
2. Flexible Schedule
3. Develop Entrepreneurial Skills
4. Pursue Passion and Purpose
5. Discover the Entrepreneurial Experience
6. Networking and Connections
7. Increased Security of Job and Income

The Top 5 Side Hustles of 2023

The top side hustles of 2023 are both diverse and lucrative - and you can start them with almost no money. This indicates that individuals have numerous opportunities to earn additional income outside of their main occupation. Moreover, this trend is likely to continue in the future as the job market evolves.

Furthermore, these side hustles provide individuals with the flexibility to pursue their passions and interests while boosting their financial well-being. It is important to carefully assess the feasibility and potential risks associated with each side hustle before diving in. Therefore, individuals should thoroughly research and evaluate the market demands, competition, and potential returns on investment.

Additionally, it is advisable to start small and gradually scale up as one gains experience and confidence. Side hustles are a popular way to increase income and achieve financial independence. (Source: Team Research)

1. Drop Shipping: If you look at the various opportunities to start a clothing and fashion accessories, coffee and tea, baby products, home goods, office supplies, personal care and beauty products, electronics, pet supplies and the list goes on and on. In some instances, you're able to private label your drop shipping products to enable you to start your own brand and earn a commission on each sale simply by marketing another company's products.
2. Print-on-Demand: This one seems a bit silly because everyone can print on demand quite literally any product they wish. However, there are a lot of clothing brands starting from scratch without any capital, simply by going the Print-on-Demand route. Native American artists are creating their art, and putting the artwork on a shirt, coffee mug, blanket, mouse pad, etc., and earning healthy commissions on each product they design. Some start up clothing brands are doing Print-on-Demand to generate proof of concept before they take it to a textile company for private label manufacturing.
3. Affiliate Marketing: Yes, this has been around for like ever, but the good news is that Affiliate Marketing is going nowhere. Affiliate Niche sites have become increasingly popular simply by blogging about various products, doing product comparisons, doing live demonstrations, or sharing stories of them using these products themselves and writing great pillar blog posts about them. They rank really well, and the clicks they generate from the product earn them a commission when a consumer makes a purchase. These sites do exceptionally well because they satify Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines E-A-T acronym. This stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These blogs are now going the way of AI to write their posts, and Google is penalizing them, but there is still room for authentic and high quality blog posts written by a human to review products and share insightful information.
4. Selling Info Products: Again, another side hustle that has been around for years are info products. This can include ebooks, paperback books or hard cover books. This also includes online courses created in Udemy, Coursera, or other online course marketplaces. Info products are also included in Kindle Direct Publishing, whereas anyone with an account can upload Word Docs into KDP and publish the as ebooks, paperback or hard cover books. I have personally written, published and sold 6 books on KDP from marketing, sales, to basketball training programs - to name a few.
5. Freelancing: This one isn't really a secret, actually, none of the aforementioned side hustles are secrets. They're simply untapped markets for growing your personal income in your free time.

My Personal Side Hustles

1. Boozhoo Coffee Company: I drop ship coffee all over the world under the brand, "Boozhoo Coffee Company" and sell upwards of 300 lbs per month directly to my customer's doorsteps.
2. Superior Marketing: Superior Marketing is a national award-winning marketing company engaging in Local Marketing or Local SEO for tourism based industries. This is completely freelancing under a corporate entity but I get clients from all over the United States and have won over a dozen awards from various sources including the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, Wisconsin Department of Tourism, Native Business Magazine, Alignable, Clutch.co, Goodfirms, and many others.
3. Three Bears Lawn Care: This is a project I started with my children (9 and 11 at the time) during Covid. The schools were closed, and there was nothing to do but play on their phones or game all day long. I made a decision that we were going to do something productive, learn a skill, and learn about money. What started as a pet project turned into a budding business with over 60+ clients and getting featured in ABC, NBC, Fox, Digital Journal, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Twin Cities Pioneer Press, to name a few. We manage full family resorts, condo associations, million dollar lake homes and cabins in addition to commercial properties.
4. Big Bang Fireworks: This is a basic fireworks stand whereas we sell Class B fireworks to consumers. We purchase fireworks in bulk wholesale prices and set up shop for two weeks to sell to area cabin owners, condo associations, and resorts. My children run customer check out and inventory while I handle the sales and customer service. It's a great learning opportunity and highly profitable for two weeks of work.
5. Merchant Services: I don't have a specific business name for this, nor do I even market this directly. I simply mention this to my marketing clients or other business associates
6. Rising Stars Basketball: This is a local non-profit basketball club, but also a side hustle dedicated to helping local athletes get an opportunity to play high-level top-tier basketball. There is no money made from this, as all of my time is volunteers, and all of the funds are spent on the youth. Any excess from fundraising efforts or donations go to put athletes into Prospect, Elite, or Showcase Camps in the summer months.
7. Tribal Business League: I also founded the tribal business league, a 501(c)6 non-profit business league for Native American tribes to engage in group purchasing, and monthly meetings to discuss common business challenges and bring in experts to help us mediate those issues. I do not get paid for this side hustle, but I do make a ton of connections, build trust and credibility within these circles.
8. Gitchi Movin': This is another non-profit organization I founded to help create fun and sober recreational events for the Lac Courte Oreilles and Hayward communities. There are plenty of softball, volleyball, bowling or dart leagues where alcohol is flowing and everything is revolving around selling alcohol. Whereas, our focus is to hold events that are competitive and fun, but also sober/dry events.

The Magic of $500 Per Month

Did you know, 57% of Americans do not have the cash on hand to cover an unexpected $500 expense? The first question that comes to mind when choosing a side hustle is, "how can I make an extra $XXXX per month?" So, the first goal I like to establish with new Side Hustlers is to create a plan to earn their first $500 per month. If we can establish a plan to help you earn an extra $500 per month, then we can build upon that success to work on $750 per month, $1,000 per month, and so on.

When I first started Superior Marketing in 2008, I went 6-months without a sale. That means, 6-months without any income, revenue or savings/storage. I quit my paycheck-to-paycheck job, I sold my kitchen table, dishwasher, washer, dryer, chesser and mirro, dresser and bed frame, I sold one of my cars just to keep the dream alive for 6-months. However, the first sale was a $500 profit. $500 in 6-months isn't exactly living any form of a dream. However, that $500 sale was the first pop of my sales pipeline. I saw 2 more the following week, another 6 the week after, and another 7 the week after. Now in month 9, I had 16 total sales for a total of $8,000 and things were starting to happen. However, nothing happens overnight, and I'm here to share with you some of the minefields you should look to avoid when starting a side hustle.

3 Biggest Mistakes When Considering Side Hustles

1. Quitting Your Job:?Please keep your day job.?Side hustles are meant to be something you build on the side in your free time to enhance your personal income levels.?So, the initial goal should be to supplement your current level of income.?If that's $500/mo, $1000/mo or more - then your goals should align with supplementation to start.?
2. Leveraging Time:?One of the biggest mistakes people make when starting their side hustle is that they dedicate a lot of their time, energy and resources to building a business.?Leverage your time and tap into free resources.?You can access free resources with the SBA (Small Business Administration), SCORE (Service Corp of Retired Executives), the Get Customers Gazette for marketing tips, information and resources, and your local small business development center.??
3. Share Your Opportunity:?Sharing the opportunity with others is a great start.?Hop onto your social media account(s) and share that you are starting a side hustle, detail the side hustle and how it will benefit your prospective buyers.?In some instances you can get your local newspaper or local media to run a story on your new venture, or you can start blogging about your business and share the opportunity with others.?This is not an MLM, so don't follow the MLM playbook to sharing opportunities or recruiting others.??

7 Steps to Starting Your Side Hustle

1. Analyize Your Business Idea:?First and foremost, assess your talents.?Find a good way to highlight your best attributes and what you can deliver to your prospective buyers.?This may include your woodworking skills, your abilty to organize community events, wash windows, mow lawns, or design beautiful landscapes.?Whatever your gift, seek to identify that gift and how you can deliver it to the marketplace where a need currently exists.??
2. Conduct Market Research:?This is the biggest short fall when starting any business, full-time or side hustle.?You'll want to assess your pricing in comparison to your competitors and determine where you would sit, high-priced, lower-priced or right in the middle.?Research the product and services you wish to deliver to determine if they'll fulfill an unmet need in the marketplace??Lastly, look to highlight your specialty and your talents.?
3. Test your Idea:?One of the easiest methods of testing your idea is to go out to your friends, neighbors and relatives and provide a product or service demonstration.?Some may call this an MVP or Minimum Viable Product, which has the essential elements to delivery an outcome.?Then, once the delivery is completed, you have feedback on what makes the product, service or solution better you'll have primary research on how to improve your positioning within the marketplace.??
4. Develop a Plan:?This doesn't necessarily require a comprehensive business plan one would develop for seeking funding, pitching potential investors or business partners.?A one-page business plan is a simple way to keep your thoughts organized and in front of you as you start to grow, develop and expand into the marketplace.??
5. Set up Payment Options:?For a lot of smaller businesses and hobbyist, you can look to PayPal, Squarre or Stripe to accept payments.?As you grow, you'll want to look at getting your own merchant account.?Expect to pay closer to 5%-7% with Paypal, Square or Stripe on your transactions, and with your own merchant account Superior Marketing can get you closer to 2% - 2.2% or help you leverage our Dual Pricing Model to wipe out all of your fees with a compliant zero fee processing solution.?This allows you to send out invoices, or utilize a payment device to accept credit or debit cards, and organize your sales reports and inventory.??
6. Start with Local Marketing:?In your local community, there are hundreds and thousands of buyers that are seeking what you're offering.?Local Marketing is a great way to generate a lot of clients and fast.?Leverage your Google Business Profile to ensure that you're showing up in Google searches, throw up a simple website and get yourself into all of the free online directories you can.?Another strategy is to establish social media profiles to display your work, share your story and start engaging prospective buyers.??
7. Share Your Succes:?I know there are a lot of people that do not like to toot their own horn, but this is not the time to be quiet about your successes.?This is the time to share your success stories with clients and local business.?Get into local press, partner with local non-profit organizations to business organizations to start networking and sharing your story, your successes and plans for building your side hustle to replace your full time income.??

For more information on side-hustles, small business resources, tips, and promotions - consider joining the Get Customers Gazette weekly newsletter.?It is loaded with blog posts, resources, templates, news, events, and promotions should you need assistance with your small business marketing.??