A side hustle is a job that is done beyond one’s main occupation. Key reasons for starting a side hustle are for money and experience. Side hustles are becoming increasingly more popular and necessary in today’s economy; “44% of people already have a side hustle—an increase of 13% compared with 2020” (Source 1). Having the ability to generate income independently of an employer is an amazing ability to have, and it is optimal to start developing this as early as possible.
Side hustle ideas that require little start up costs:
Affiliate Marketing.
Product creators who put either a good or service to be sold on the market. Your job, as an affiliate marketer, is to convince consumers to buy the product creator’s goods or service. If the consumer buys the product, then you get a commission from the product creator.
Pros:
Can become a form of passive income
No customer support
Work from home
Works around the affiliate’s schedule
Income is directly influenced by performance
Steps to start:
Decide on a product
Join an affiliate program; Amazon has a popular affiliate program
Advertise
Use social media to showcase your product.
Make a website
Tell people about the product.
Drop Shipping: a way to sell products without holding inventory.
Pros:
Low maintenance costs
Flexible
Variety of products for selling
Easy to experiment with
Easy to scale
Steps to start:
Set up a Shopify account
Optimize your store by creating:
Logo
Product categories
Navigation set up
Contact page
Setup DSers, a tool in Shopify that helps you better integrate products from Aliexpress. Aliexpress is a website that hosts hundreds of manufacturers, most from China, that will ship products directly to customers.
Start advertising your website, through online marketing tools like Google, Facebook, and Instagram ads.
Doordash
This type of side-hustle deals with on-demand deliveries from restaurants, stores, supermarkets, etc. This is great if you want a simple activity, without all the complications and learning curves of more entrepreneurial endeavors like drop-shipping and affiliate marketing.
Pros:
Work hour flexibility
Decent pay ranging from $15 to $25.
Steps to start:
To set up a food delivery account with DoorDash is convenient. Download the app from your app store and follow the instructions provided.
Some things you'll need:
Identification for background check.
Good lighting for pictures.
30 minutes or more to complete registration.
A car and a driver’s license, or a strong bicycle.
The bottom line is that side hustles are beneficial to teens. Regardless of the economic gain teens get from their side hustle, teens learn imperative financial skills. The examples listed in this article give teens an insight into the art of selling, which is becoming more prevalent in our ever-increasing transactive world. However, to truly find the perfect side hustle, you should do thorough research to find what kind of activity fits best with your needs, preferences, and abilities.
