In a time when getting a well-paying job is hard, it’s important to find ways to make extra cash from home or online.
If you are an employee, your job takes the most of your time. And you are one of the lucky few if your job pays well enough to cover your monthly expenses.
So what do you do?
- Find a better job
- Start a side project that can supplement your salary.
If you are in for number one, you should check the LinkedIn Job board.
If you are in for number two, come along, and check the 15 business ideas in the post.
What to Expect on This List
Online surveys and working data entry aren’t my things. They’re tiring and impossible to increase your rate. If you’re in the same shoes, this list is for you.
This article will talk about things you can start doing to improve your financial income. You start from home, and with time, the business expands.
These are the things to expect:
- The list contains business ideas that can scale
- If I don’t explain the process in detail, I will link to credible and real-life stories of people who have had success in that venture.
- We will use credible sources and examples of people and lessons you can learn from them.
What People Don’t Want to Hear
I hate telling people how much money they can make from an online venture. You need knowledge, and when you start, you’ll realize it isn’t all that.
New challenges will arise, and you have to learn to overcome them.
Another issue is people who can’t do their own research. You have to do your research. The internet is a big place. You can learn about anything FOR FREE.
If you will pay for a course because it’s faster and saves time, do EXTENSIVE research before paying for it.
Apologies for all the front load of information. Now, let’s get to business.
15 real ways to make extra cash from home or online
Find the ideas that are worth trying and commit to making your mark from them.
#1. Organize a show/event
Organizing shows really comes down to a lot of things.
Many people want to have fun and be happy, and if you can offer that, you will get paid.
The risk in this idea is high. On the other hand, the profit can be remarkable. The number of people that turn out might not cover the cost of organizing the event. If lucky, the result might surpass your imagination.
You can organize the event towards the end of the year when people usually are in the mood for it.
Of course, you need a team and expect a lot of unpredictable outcomes and obstacles as you go about it.
#2. Set up an agency/consultancy firm and hire people to do the job
I’ve seen people who are good at scouting and hiring. They have a large network of people who are looking for jobs. Then they set up shops online, get the job and pay people who do the work.
You need to have a network of skilled people and some amount of money. You should be good at getting leads or getting clients.
You can use job boards like Upwork, Weworkremotely, or Fiverr to get leads.
Are you an experienced developer? And people keep sending you more offers than you can handle. You can start hiring people to do the job, and you will be the face of the project. It is your responsibility to supervise and ensure the quality of jobs done.
It is your responsibility to supervise and ensure the quality of jobs done.
#3. Sell solutions/products in any of these 3 niches
- Relationship
- Making money
- Health
These are the three things people can’t stop striving to get right.
If you disagree, let me ask you this: why are you here?
You want ideas so you can make money. Right?
After money, everyone wants to be healthy and build quality relationships with people they care about.
And if you are a guy, let’s pretend that you haven’t subscribed or try to buy a book on how to woo women. It’s okay. You can pretend.
The point is that money, relationships, and health are hot niches. If you can create something original in those areas of life, you earn extra cash from home.
What type of content can you sell?
- Courses
- eBooks
- Templates
- Consultation
(By the way, if you are writing an ebook in the health niche, please don’t write another one on keto diet. We’ve had enough of those. Thank you very much.
#4. Sell a product based on your achievements
What have you achieved so far? Do you have proof you really did that?
Great, this method is an effective way to make extra cash from home.
One of the essentials to selling things online is trust. If people like you and trust you, they will buy from you.
So if you have achieved something people are striving for, you can position yourself as an authority on that topic and successful sell a product. This can be considered how to make money online for free, but it isn’t really free because you have worked for the knowledge and expertise.
Examples
Someone who has earned a lot on Upwork starts selling courses to other people who want to achieve the same progress. Many people on Tech Twitter are helping others build their careers in tech. Some charge for it, but the majority are free. You can do that too. Offer free advice, build an audience and use your following to market when you finally have one.
Another example:
Someone in another country who knows his or her way around can assist people in other people to travel, secure accommodation, and land their first job. This person can also work part-time with an agency that offers such services.
Another example:
Someone who is one of the top in his career offers assistance to other people for a fee.
How to get paid:
- Consultation either one on one or zoom meetings for a batch of 10 people
- Write a book and sell. Too busy to write a book? Develop the table of content and hire a ghostwriter to do it.
- Create other forms of content such as videos and put them in places like Udemy, Coursera, or Thinkthrive.
- Build a brand and a large audience following. Then use that fame to sell other people’s products. This method is slow. It involves creating value for a specific audience for years, but that will be worth it when you develop many audiences who could trust your referrals. Some of the channels you can use include:
- Social media
- Email subscribers
#5. Freelancing
Freelancing is one of the best ways to make extra cash online.
Will it be easy? Not really.
To succeed at freelancing, you should
- Make people trust you.
- Create an effective portfolio that solves your buyer’s pain points.
- Build authority through social media, website, or a YouTube channel
- Use some recommendations from a place of authority, such as a big brand or a respected person in the industry.
- Know your stuff.
- Learn to market yourself consistently.
This post explains in detail how to start freelancing.
#6. Gated content or community
A common example is OnlyFan, but there are other examples. The idea is to give people access to something valuable for a duration. Their payment can be monthly, 6 months, or yearly.
Examples of gated content
- If you have the authority, you can create a weekly webinar that people have to pay for
- A community that delivers specific value. For instance, there are communities of freelance writers that you have to pay to join.
- People also pay for courses that are hidden behind a paywall.
- Patreon, Twitter, Substack
#7. Become the middleman for people looking for something
Do you live in a big city? Can you serve as a tour guide on weekends or help people get accommodation?
Usually, you need to step out of the house, so this option doesn’t really fit into real ways to make extra cash from home.
You can become a seller for a product you know people will buy in your locality, but there is no vendor.
I have seen examples such as vendors who aren’t necessarily creating the products. They just market it. Another example is people who organize and present gifts at surprise parties.
#7. Tutoring
Is there something trending you can teach others?
Lately, it’s been all about web 3 and tech (web development, cloud engineering, data science). So if you are a developer, you have something people might care about. Many people want to learn how to code.
You can do online courses, but start small with one-on-one tutoring. Trust me: many newcomers prefer this physical and one-on-one training over these video courses.
There are other things you can teach, and this point all circles back to point number #3 — teaching something you already achieved or understood. If you are at the top of your career or successful, people want to learn what you have achieved. Find them.
Some platforms you can sign up as a tutor:
- Udemy
- Coursera
- Thinkific
#8. Domain flipping
You need some cash to start flipping domains. The idea is to buy a domain and sell it to a business that needs it. For instance, if an entrepreneur starts a business and needs a website, the person will need a domain. The entrepreneur will have to contact the domain’s current owner, who will sell it for a higher price.
Want to learn how to make money online flipping websites. You can read more about the process on Godaddy.
#9. Flip websites
Website flipping is a little different from domain flipping. It is serious work. It involves buying a website that isn’t performing from places like expireddomain.com, building it up for about 6 months or one year of consistent work, and selling it for thousands of dollars.
Building it up? How?
Redesign the website. Check where there’s a problem with the pages and optimize it for speed, mobile, and search engines. Create content and improve the traffic for a consistent period.
You can learn how to flip websites with this YouTube Video.
#10. Start a blog
It is a long road, but you can make thousands of dollars down the road with the right niche and commitment.
However, it is a saturated market. There are likely a million other blogs in your niche already. If it is related to technology, health, dating, or making money, you are in for a tough competition.
The truth, however, is you can’t blog for five years, do the right things and fail at it.
So what are the right things? I’m glad you ask because many people fail to ask:
- Choose a niche where you can play long-term. I am a writer, a ghostwriter, and an SEO person, so I started this blog to help small businesses learn how to grow.
- Learn SEO and its best practices. You need the knowledge to appear on the top search result pages and to build the kind of authority that pays you.
- Stay consistent. Blogging is like a job where you must show up regularly for years. It can later become a passive income.
#11. Start a review/niche website
Many people want to buy a product for the first time and don’t know what the experience will look like.
That’s where you come in.
Start a blog and review products. Choose a niche you’re confident in and review products honestly. Take note of the tips that apply to blogging. For example, you can monetize the blog through ads, or marketers will pay you to review products.
Reviews do not have to be about tech products. It could be tourist attractions, restaurants, delicacies, songs, restaurants, or your city.
Jenny Aboubaa explains making money from niche sites on Ahrefs blog.
#13. Start a YouTube Channel
Starting a YouTube channel is long-term, just like blogging. You need to invest in some tools for a start, and they don’t have to be fancy. Then, you can invest in better tools as you grow.
#14. Sell ebooks
Ebook publishing is one of the real ways to make extra cash from home.
How do I know this?
Well, I used to write ebooks for people called Kindle Entrepreneurs. They are publishers who consistently write, publish and advertise books on Amazon Kindle.
Every year, Amazon Kindle records millions of sales of ebooks. Moreover, there are agencies dedicated to this process of writing ebooks for people.
The term is called ghostwriting: the process of writing on behalf of someone else. In other words, someone owns the idea and pays a professional writer to develop it. Once payment is settled, the book becomes the property of the person who paid for it.
It also means you don’t have to write the books yourself.
All these signals that there is real money here.
Will you make money writing ebooks?
Probably not.
I said authors bring millions of dollars to Amazon every year, but that does not mean everyone makes money from the process.
It is a game or a business.
How do you win?
You learn how the game works and find ways to hack it or you follow the hard path and follow the rules.
Let me explain.
The following the rules:
- Find an idea that people will pay you for. You can do keyword research to verify if people care about the topic. (When using tools like Ahref, switch to Amazon search.)
- Write something epic
- Publish it
- Wait for a miracle
Or do something a little different
- After publishing, find ways to market the book yourself. These are links to see some of these ways to market your book on Amazon.
Or start by creating interest in your book before writing it:
- Start building an audience.
- The most effective is building an email list or building a social media following. Then, people get to know, like, and trust you over time.
- Once you are confident of having 1000 true fans, write a book and publish it.
- Your fans will buy
You will find this post helpful in your journey: How to market a product.
Or game the process:
- Use a pen name.
- Write a book or hire someone to write it.
- Publish the book
- Pay people to buy and leave amazing reviews on Amazon
- Keep publishing as much as you can.
The last part can get you banned forever if you are caught, but some people are as tricky as the system gets tough. You can read about them below:
- Confession from the scammy, underground worl of kindle rustlers
- Amazon plagiarism problem
- Making money from writing fiction — is my experience. It’s written for fiction writers looking for ways to earn from writing fiction.
Image credit: Jenny Ueberberg, Unsplash
#15. Become a content creator on a platform that pays creators
This method is similar to building an audience on social media. The difference is using platforms with effective systems that creators can use to make extra cash.
Is there something you are really good at? What’s that?
This is one of my favorite answers when people ask me how to make extra income while working full time. Grow an audience from something you love doing.
Look at the list below and see what platforms you can subscribe to, and start creating content. Check the link to each of them and understand what is at stake BY DOING YOUR OWN RESEARCH.
Use multiple platforms or build an email list to prevent losing your followers when the centralized channels decide to hurt your business. You can start a website before or once you start getting tractions.
Below are some of the examples of platforms where you can earn as a content creator:
Writers:
- Medium.com
- Radish.com
- Wattpad.com
- Substack.com
- Quora.com (now asks readers to subscribe)
- Twitter (now asks people to become super followers of their favorite creators).
Comic writer/designers
Video content creators:
- Twitch
- Daily motions
- OnlyFan
General Platforms:
- Patreons
- Kofi
- Gumroads
- Buymeacoffee
You can find a list of 42 platforms that offer opportunities to earn as a content creator.
Tips on how to pick a business idea
- There is a difference between making extra cash or building a business. The other prepares you with the mindset of scaling.
- Listen to other people’s success stories. This act teach you how to pick ideas. Listen to founders speak on podcasts or watch YouTube channels.
- There is no perfect idea. The closest to perfect is the business idea you are happy to work on, even if the money isn’t coming yet.
- Read 5 elements you need to include in a business plan to start quickly
- If you find an idea in a public space like this one, it is already saturated (if you are reading it online or in a blog post like this). However, you can carve a niche out of it or offer something superior.
- Keep paying attention to business ideas. You can find one when you least expect it.
Start with an idea and keep going.
If you have questions about the real ways to make extra cash from home or online, you can do your research or use the contact form.
Good luck as you embark on a journey that can take you closer to your financial dreams.