Best Side Gigs for Entrepreneurs
As an entrepreneur, you often have to do a lot of work for little or no pay in order to get your idea up and running. Unfortunately, the bills don’t stop coming.
That’s why it’s important for entrepreneurs to have side jobs. Whether you are freelancing your professional skills for temporary projects or getting a part-time job in a low-skilled profession, finding a good side gig can be one of the best things you do as an entrepreneur.
7 Good Side Gigs for Entrepreneurs
Here is a list of the top 7 best side gigs for entrepreneurs.
1. Driving for Uber & Lyft
Ridesharing has become popular in the United States and around the world. It is so popular that taxi cab companies can hardly do business anymore. Riders prefer the lower cost of Uber and Lyft, and many riders insist that ridesharing standards ensure that the cars they ride in are clean and safe.
If you live in a city with heavy traffic, and you own a newer car in good condition, you could be making anywhere from $10-$50/hour driving with Uber and Lyft.
While vehicle qualifications vary from city to city, most require you to have a vehicle under 10 years old. Signing up is easy. You must have your vehicle registered, and it will need to pass an inspection.
While some drivers only drive with one company, many choose to drive for both Uber and Lyft as a way to stay busy. Since you are an independent contractor, this is perfectly legal and a great option for your side job.
2. Freelance Your Skills
Like most entrepreneurs, you probably have a few highly specialized skills. You prefer to work for yourself rather than someone else, but at the same time, you have bills to pay.
While you work to make your startup profitable, you can find a happy medium by working as an independently contracted freelancer. If you possess technical skills, such as programming and technical writing, you could be one of the 20% in the United States making six figures on the side.
Many entrepreneurs achieve so much success in the “gig economy” that they turn it into a second business. Whether a temporary source of income generation or a serious, full-time endeavor that you may want to expand later on, freelancing could be one of the smartest decisions you make. Here are some of the best sites you can use to find freelance gigs.
3. Amazon Flex
If you like the idea of driving for pay, but your vehicle won’t qualify for ridesharing, you might consider delivering packages for Amazon. Being able to guarantee 2-day shipping is a key benefit Amazon offers its customers.
And to make this work, Amazon needs an army of delivery drivers. Word on the street is that they may soon be upgrading their basic guaranteed shipping to 1-day, and the demand for Flex drivers is going to significantly increase.
All you need to do is download the Amazon Flex app and follow the directions to see if your city is in need of delivery drivers. Once you pass a background check, you can start delivering for up to $25/hour.
4. Online Teaching/Tutoring
Because full-time teachers often aren’t paid a livable wage, they can be in the same boat as entrepreneurs, needing to earn money on the side.
If you are a native English speaker with a college degree, you are already qualified for a large volume of online teaching and tutoring jobs. It is best that you work through an online service at first: one that will allow you to learn on the job with their online interface. Here is a well-curated list of sites that can help you find online teaching and tutoring work.
If you’re fluent in two languages, also consider a translation gig as an option to supplement your income. Here are some of the best websites to use to find translation jobs.
If you like what you are doing and want to make more money, you can eventually brand yourself by building your own website and setting your own rates. Either way, this is a great way to earn money on the side.
5. Web Search Evaluating
Do you know how to run searches on Google? Then you are probably a good candidate for web search evaluation.
Search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing) are passionate about matching web surfers with the content they are looking for. Since artificial intelligence is limited to the emotional intelligence of its engineers, web search evaluators are needed to improve search algorithms.
While no formal or technical training is required to get started, completing a couple of free tutorials to help you know how the job works is ideal. Afterward, you could get hired part-time by a search engine evaluating firms.
6. Website Testing
Web developers frequently launch new sites, new content, or new online services from their websites. Before they can launch, however, they need to make sure that all the bugs have been identified and eliminated.
That’s where you come in.
These webmasters will hire you to go through all the nooks and crannies of the website, looking for bugs or poor content. Sometimes, they simply want you to report on how easily you were able to navigate the website. Other times, they want you to try a number of online forms to see that they function properly.
Most agree that this is an easy job that pays well with experience. And while computer coding skills are not required, testers with coding skills are paid significantly more. Here’s a list of companies that hire web usability testers.
7. Build Online Courses
Also known as MOOCs, online courses are courses that you create yourself and then sell online. Due to the ballooning costs of college, many are turning to low-cost online courses to help them take their careers to the next level. While many universities are making a little extra money by selling courses online, most instructors are simply freelancers with skills that they are willing to share with the world.
How do you build a MOOC? For one, there are a number of online courses that will show you how! Learning from online courses can help you get the feel for how they work.
Once you build your course (usually a combination of online tools, including video, audio, and PowerPoint), you can post it on a site like Udemy or Coursera and then let people buy your course. After you’ve put in the work on the front-end, a well-crafted online course can become a great source of passive income, freeing you up to build the business you are most passionate about.
More Options to Consider
Here are some more job options to supplement your income while you’re getting your new venture up and running:
- How to Get a Side Gig as a Notary
- 14 Real Work at Home Jobs
- Easy Work From Home Computer Jobs
- Ways to Make Money Online Fast
Work Smarter Not Harder
No one said that becoming an entrepreneur was easy. You have to work hard and not be afraid to make mistakes. But there is such a thing as “working smarter, not harder.” Many entrepreneurs attribute their success to managing multiple things at once, such as building their businesses while working other jobs on the side.
Don’t sacrifice your dream of building your own startup just because you need to make money. Set aside a little time to curate one or more of these side gigs, and then invest your prime energies into your business.