9 Ideas to Make a Side Income While Growing Your Business

Being an entrepreneur is synonymous with being
financially unstable at times. While you’re growing your
company, it’s important to be focused. But what if you
could get a side hustle that would help bring in a healthy
secondary income to alleviate some of that financial
stress? And, best case, what if this side hustle could
also help you grow your core business?
The good news is that there are a lot of companies that
create opportunities for entrepreneurs that don’t require
full-time work and can become a great companion to the
work you’re doing. Better yet, they take out the hassle of
having to create a second company to supplement your
income because they do the legwork and allow you to
plug in your skills and time.
Here are nine examples of opportunities that might be
the perfect side hustle for you as you continue to grow
your company!
1. Invest in real estate.
There are a lot of methods for making money in real
estate, many of which don’t require your full time effort.
Josh Dorkin, CEO and founder of BiggerPockets says
you should consider land lording, flipping houses or
wholesaling. His company’s website will help you
manage and understand all of the different state laws
and regulations, as well as leverage the largest
worldwide network of real estate investors who come to
his site to ask questions and help one another.
Related: Create Side-Hustle Income by Teaching What
You Already Know
He also recommends finding people in your area with
skill sets and expertise that you don’t have, and to
partner with them or use them as a place to park your
investment cash. You can join BiggerPockets for free
and he recommends reading its Ultimate Beginner’s Guide ,
a free eight-chapter book on real estate investing for
novices.
2. Drive a taxi.
Most of us are familiar with Uber and Lyft , the
companies that took limo and town car services and
gave them riders in their down time, and then expanded
into recruiting regular citizens to utilize their free time to
become taxi drivers. Have you considered being one of
them?
I’ll never forget one of my UberX rides where the driver
told me that he uses his spare time to make money
driving as well as to leverage the networking he can do
with each of his passengers as he grows his new
business -- genius!
"One of the greatest things about the Uber platform is
that it offers economic opportunity for a variety of
drivers -- full time, part time, teachers in summer, full-
time students, military spouses, etc. -- in more than 260
cities around the world,” says Molly Spaeth, an Uber
spokesperson.
So if you’re in one of the 260 cities, you could be
making your car into a money-generating experience and
a networking opportunity on wheels!
3. Host the next-gen of tupperware parties.
There are many companies that do at-home parties and
trunk shows where you can utilize the company’s
products, marketing and operations infrastructure to
build a side income by plugging in your network.
One that has proven to be very successful is Stella and
Dot, where you become a jewelry consultant and host
parties at friend's homes, local boutiques or events.
Other popular brands include Rodan + Fields and Pure
Romance .
4. Outsource your skills.
Can you do graphic design, data mining, website
development, video editing, software development or
customer service? Then you can parlay those skills by
signing up on sites such as TaskRabbit or ODesk and
get hired by their members to do jobs in any of these
areas. You can pick and choose how often you want to
work and what jobs you take!
5. Be a temp.
Long gone are the days of temp agencies and scouring
the Internet for part-time or short-term work. Enter
Wonolo, which helps people “work now locally.”
“Wonolo is a company that allows anyone to work for a
few hours or a day at real companies doing real work,"
says AJ Brustein, the company's co-founder. "Want to
help an ecommerce company fulfilling orders when they
are busy, help out at a conference taking tickets, or
assist in data entry at a wealth management firm? You
can get numerous career experiences around the
flexibility of your own schedule.”
You can get alerted of jobs available in your area
immediately via Wonolo's app. Sounds perfect for a
busy entrepreneur!
Related: Do the Side Hustle: 5 Better Ways to Earn
Extra Cash
6. Rent out your pad.
Are you traveling for a business meeting and leaving
your home empty? Do you have a spare room or guest
house? It’s time to put them to work and list them on
Airbnb or VRBO and make money on your property when
you’re not using it!
7. Rent out your car.
If you can get on board with renting out your home,
you’ll certainly understand the model created by
companies such as RelayRides and FlightCar , which
allow you to rent out your personal vehicle to their users.
I recently used RelayRides during a trip in San Francisco
and had a great experience that didn’t require me to find
a rental car center, and the cost was right. I even was
able to get acquainted with the car’s owner, to whom I
offered to help find a job.
It's another way to make money and network when
you’re not using your car (like when you're parked at the
airport thanks to FlightCar)!
8. Don’t just buy on eBay, sell there.
You can simply sell your own items, or you can make it
into a side business.
“I run an eBay franchise in which I teach people how to
run a re-sale business on eBay," says Garrett Brustein. "I
do one-on-one training to show them where to get their
inventory and how to list and ship items the same way I
do so they can emulate the process and take all of the
guess work out of the business. They are then able to do
this as a part-time job in their free time."
Just think -- you can unload the stuff you don't want and
go shopping to resell items all in the name of making
money!
9. Get paid to network.
I know this one from personal experience! After founding
my first company, a credit card processing brokerage, I
began to organize networking events in my city to help
young professionals interact in an environment where
they wouldn’t fear getting sold to or hit on. I quickly
realized the events were not only helping those in
attendance to make valuable connections, but that there
was real money to be made, as well.
Over time, I packaged the operations of Network Under
40 to enable entrepreneurs in other markets to bring the
events to their cities. By becoming the epicenter of the
network, it naturally parlays into building their full-time
businesses as well as creates a healthy side income.
If you’re looking to make some money on the side and/
or find channels through which you can build your
primary business, it’s time to look into some of these
options.