Cody Berman has been experimenting with side hustles for years.
The 27-year-old picked up his first side gig his freshman year of college when he founded a disc golf manufacturing company. After that “I started getting some freelance writing gigs during college,” he says. “Also did some tutoring, podcast editing, video editing, running affiliate marketing campaigns.” He says he made between $1,500 and $1,800 per month on his various hustles.
Even today, Berman juggles a series of moneymaking ventures including selling an online course about how to start an Etsy business and renting out spaces on Airbnb. “I am a dabbler by trade,” he says. In 2022, his various streams of income brought in nearly $700,000 altogether.
Having tried so many hustles, Berman’s gleaned a few insights about which might be easiest to pick up. Here’s his advice for anyone looking to dive in immediately.
‘Look at the skills that you have’
Given people’s different skill sets and even assets, the easiest side hustle is “going to be different for every single person,” says Berman.
For him, the easiest hustles to dive into were those in content creation, like podcast editing and video editing. That’s because he’d learned how to use editing tools for both out of personal interest and didn’t have to learn anything new to dive in. “I actually started my own podcast in July of 2018,” he says. And he realized they were skillsets he could monetize.
“Look at the skills that you have,” he says. Are you a solid writer? Good at graphic design? Adept at customer service? Consider what you’re good at and make a mental note of which of those skills you could lean into. Take inventory of your assets as well. Do you have a car? An apartment you could be renting out? A bike you could make deliveries on? Any of these can help you make money.
The idea is to use what you already have at your disposal as opposed to accruing new skills or buying something new. Leaning into what’s there means you’ll be able to dive in right away and with ease.
‘There’s always someone who’s willing to pay’
In terms of where to find outlets for your hustle, start perusing sites like Fiverr, Upwork, GigSalad, Lessonface, Thumbtack and TaskRabbit to see what people are doing in a similar field. An aerialist in Los Angeles is currently charging $600 and up on GigSalad. An interior photographer in the Catskills is currently charging $150 to $195 per project on Fiverr.
“There’s an unlimited number of opportunities now with the internet and all these different apps,” says Berman.
Berman also recommends looking to your immediate network or local businesses for side hustle opportunities. Say you’ve got a knack for social media. “There’s landscaping companies, there’s plumbing companies, there’s electricians that have no idea what they’re doing on social media,” he says, adding that, “if you come to them with a decent proposal, you can run social media for them.”
Ultimately, “there’s always someone who’s willing to pay for something,” says Berman, “you’ve just got to figure out what that something is” and whether or not it falls in line with what you have to offer.
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