Make $1k to $90k/Month from These 6 Real Side Hustle Ideas (Actually Works!)

[00:01] All right, Cody. Check out this business. It is a sleep mask for babies and I want you to guess what this business is doing in terms of revenue. >> Okay. So, I'm not a father. I don't know the market.

[00:15] Looks like a little hat with a Okay. A sleep mask for babies. >> have one product. It's a $29 or $28 product. colors. >> [sighs]

[00:27] decent. I'm going to say it's doing 10,000 a month in sales. >> Yeah, I think it is doing quite a bit more than that according to this this article where it says this was invented

[00:42] by a new mom, Julia Holden, and it is doing up to $90,000 in >> Wow. >> And $90,000 in December. Okay, so >> And $90,000 in December. Okay, so holiday season. But still $69,000 after

[00:56] the holidays. So, even if you rounded low and you know, call it 50 grand, and who knows what the profit margins are like. But say 20% margins after you know, ad costs and product costs and

[01:10] everything else. Like you're still doing 10 grand a month worth of sleep masks for baby on a year and a half old e-commerce product with only one with only one SKU here. I guess she's got two or four different sizes, but really

[01:22] interesting space because you're not in the parenting chapter of life yet. But when you get there, you'll know help your kid sleep better and get some sleep yourself. And so, it's like, okay,

[01:36] you're selling me for $28. That's a gamble I am willing to take to help my my kid sleep better. So, really interesting business on this one. Tank. There was like some kind of a I remember watching an episode. It was

[01:49] think it was called. And they ended up signing with one of million-dollar valuation. I think I seen another one like a something to make the to alleviate your back pain when you're carrying your baby

[02:03] as well. So, it seems like baby comfort is a pretty big market. market. The marketing channels are Amazon, TikTok. More in startup costs than a lot of side hustles cuz it's a physical product

[02:17] business. It says it costs $16,000 to get it off the ground. And I imagine some regulations around what it can contain. "Don't put anything in the crib." Like the baby's going to flip over and

[02:32] And so, especially something that intentionally covers their face, I regulations around that. It's probably a product moat for uh the entrepreneur in this case. But, what I love about this is like, "Look, I

[02:46] was working full-time in advertising. Um I built this business in 20-minute bursts in between feedings without outside funding, without a team, and uh regular family help." And so, it's like,

[02:59] might be able to do with kind of a relatively simple low-tech product idea. >> And this seems like something that you can pretty easily DIY prototypes if you have any kind of sewing skills. I mean, it's literally like a beanie with an eye

[03:15] and down, right? I mean, it's not like you need to go and get like an injection mold shipped over from China and all these production costs. Like, it seems make a couple prototypes at home pretty easily.

[03:28] >> Yeah, I think so. Um maybe there's a space for Like, that's obviously a really big space. Everybody complains about not getting enough sleep. We saw the weighted blanket craze. Even like we

[03:42] can't travel without it anymore. It's like and it was only $10 or whatever, but it was there's there's a, you know, selling shovels into the gold rush, right? And you know, some awareness

[03:54] around improving sleep seems to be a gold rush ripe for selling shovels into even pivoting into you know, pet space at one time we had this like something for our dog that was supposed to help like you know, make him feel

[04:10] there's a there's something to be said here. >> Have you seen speaking of eye masks and airplanes, have you seen the things that like strap onto the seat behind you so that your head doesn't like bob side to

[04:23] of that stuff too where it's like there's one where you lean forward and there's like almost a cushion on your chin. There's one that like affixes to doesn't sway side to There's all these different variations, but I think you're

[04:36] right. I think with the rise of like when Matthew Walker wrote Why We Sleep, craze about people like wanting to get their 8 hours, making sure they're Aura rings and all these fitness trackers making sure they get quality

[04:49] sleep scores on their Whoops. It's like yeah, it's become this whole thing and when trends happen, there's plenty of opportunity for business ideas. >> Yeah, absolutely. We did an episode with Jane Havens on starting a sleep

[05:02] consulting business. And so she didn't go the physical product route, she went the service route, but she found that parents like we talked about were your price almost like you're going to help my kid sleep. I am at my wits end.

[05:15] gladly pay you if you can help make this problem go away, make this pain go away.

[05:39] $72,000 a year mobile detailing business where the entrepreneur here on Reddit it I am actually embarrassed to talk about this because I have kind of this prestigious job working in finance and

[05:52] climbing the corporate ladder, but meanwhile working nights and weekends, think he's working eight or nine months out of the year on this car detailing business. This almost replaced my day job salary.

[06:05] What's your take on this one? >> I actually love that it's funny that that it's something that's so grassroots. Like you don't really need a ton of skills to make this one happen. Honestly, the last one we just talked

[06:18] entrepreneurship and side hustles in general is right? It's like you have to make a new brand new product. But a lot of times the things that are the most profitable are just like right in front of you.

[06:31] It's like a car detailing business. It's you know, a landscaping business. It's like you're creating the next big thing, like this guy's absolutely killing it and he's embarrassed because you know,

[06:44] want his co-workers to find out that from his car detailing, but I think it's the coolest thing in the world. >> Yeah, at what point does it stop being something you need to be embarrassed

[06:57] about, ashamed about and it can become a point of pride. I don't know. It's hard to say. Like am I making this post you know, for some sake of validation cuz awesome." Um but see yeah, very few friends and

[07:12] even family members know what I do. So I try to keep it a secret as possible. I'm making around 85 grand a year at my day job at 26 years old. Um but this business did 72 grand. Something that'll be up your alley is like I also own two

[07:25] duplex rental properties. So really accelerating the uh wealth creation process here by plowing it sounds like some of the by buying a Ford Transit Connect mobile detailing

[07:38] van, but also investing into some unrelated assets into some rental I'm inspired by this guy. >> Yeah, and I kind of love how he said he's only doing it nights and weekends. I know in your like intro, it's like

[07:51] your 9-5 is kind of, you know, pays the bills, but your 5-9 is what keeps you alive. And this guy's doing that. I mean, this guy's crushing it just like he's spending 40 plus hours a week on this business. He's doing it

[08:03] literally in his spare time, and he made $72,000 last year. So, just just to show have to invent the next big thing. You could just have some kind of a service business that's in demand in your area and be making almost as much as your day

[08:16] job. >> Yeah, I feel like this guy is on track a case study in version two of your book, which I failed to introduce at the top of the show. But Cody is here. He's the co-host of the FI Show. He's the

[08:28] 30. You can find it at retireby30book.com. Very excited to help with the help support the launch of that cuz I think important. Take matters into your own hands and try to accelerate that wealth

[08:43] creation process. So, excited to have you here. Appreciate you joining me again on the show. We've got a previous episode we can link up as well in the you know, digital product space. But here we're spitballing on a cool side

[08:56] hustle headlines and stories today. So, inspired by the mobile detailing business, we've got a full episode on mobile detailing as well. So, really has some cash flow money. He's done an

[09:10] interesting job of like booking kind of a baseline. He says $5,000 in like recurring maintenance contracts. So, not necessarily going out and having to hunt for new business every month, but I it's relatively predictable at least at a

[09:23] baseline. But then also going out above and beyond to find clients above that. My question is surrounding building a building a team or kind of removing yourself if you're the solo operator of this business. And it's like maybe that

[09:36] would appeal to your finance you know, career, prestige and I, you know, did the work, did the labor myself for the first few years, but then I, you know, graduated myself to be the CEO, to be the operator, and

[09:51] go out and do my thing." And that'll probably make it more sellable down the >> Yeah, I actually had this guy on my than me and he had scaled up his dad's landscaping business from I think

[10:04] they're making $12,000 a month when they took it over to over $250,000 a month. >> same playbook we're talking about here, where it's like it's not rocket science. He was hiring high schoolers and other folks who were just looking for jobs,

[10:18] know, the delta between what he was charging customers and what he was pretty decent money. He had pretty good profit margins. And I feel like there's this business idea into other businesses. And like you said,

[10:33] eventually scale yourself out of it where you're just paying someone 20, 25 pressure wash the house, to cut the lawn, to put up Christmas lights. And then, you know, eventually you have this six plus figure business that you're

[10:48] build the right SOPs and build the right team. >> Yeah, those are perfect examples of stuff that is going to continue to get dirty and is ripe for recurring revenue. Oh, I'll come back next week or I'll

[11:00] in 6 months. It's the same thing for these car detailing customers. Do you want to set up an annual basis? We'll give you 10% off or, you know, I'll come back in 6 months and we'll we'll do it again. In the detailing episode that we

[11:14] did, one of the most telling sound bite for me was the guy said, "Well, like 70% ever getting their car detailed." And I was like, "Ding ding ding ding ding." This That To me that signaled a growing market. Whereas like this was a service

[11:29] that people didn't used to pay for, then now they're paying for. And it was like conquest market share from other service providers. I thought that was really >> Yeah, it's actually I feel like it this is market to market, but in my area

[11:43] specifically like I have a boat. We live on a lake during the summer, and there's businesses. Now if I wasn't so busy with all the other things I had going on, I'm like should I open a mobile boat detailing business? Like usually folks

[11:56] people have $90,000 pontoon boats. Ours isn't that nice, but can come out and just have their boat and you charge them like a thousand bucks or something, and it takes you or

[12:10] your crew a couple hours, like it's a huge profit. It's a huge return on time. Um it's just a that's that's an example from my local area that like there should be a boat detailing business in Spencer, Mass, and there's just not.

[12:23] hustle. >> There you go. >> All right, next one on my list is half a million dollars in candle sales on Etsy, but not just any candles. These are print on demand candles. So you have no

[12:37] upfront inventory cost. You've uploaded a creative design, and I think one of the examples in here is you know, graduation gift from nursing school or something something super super super specific. And I know you'll

[12:50] have a lot since you live in this Etsy space. >> Yeah, I don't know if you chose this one specifically, Nick. You must know me. So Emily, who this article is about, is on our team. Yeah, we actually hired her

[13:02] so cool to see what she's done. So she sold, just to give people some crazy of these print on demand candles. So basically think of like any event. So like Mother's Day, Father's Day, like you might give a candle to that person

[13:17] funky phrase on it. The candle does not exist until that order is placed onto a platform like Etsy or on Shopify. So like, you know, Nick is shopping for a candle for her Father's Day, for his dad. And he puts

[13:31] the order in. The second that order is placed, there is a factory somewhere whatever the words say, onto that candle, they ship it to the customer. candle. Emily has sold 22,000 of these candles

[13:45] and made over $500,000 in revenue. >> This is my favorite type of income. >> Uh I think it here it says somewhere it's 30% margins on that. So, $150,000 in profit over the last 3-4 years of

[13:58] doing it uh on a part-time basis. That's incredible. Here's a couple of examples. Yeah, handle with care. Like, that's a great uh special occasion type of gift as a I yeah, I would like you to be my bridesmaid, but do it in a kind of a

[14:12] funny way. These are all fulfilled through Printify, I believe. >> And so, when I was bringing this up, and you can look at the catalog uh here, it's kind of interesting. Um so, I sorted by new arrivals, cuz like

[14:27] t-shirts. It's like, well, t-shirts are probably pretty saturated. So, Emily found an underserved niche in candles. But, after a while, candles probably get print-on-demand catalog and say, "Well, what else do they have? What's

[14:40] interesting?" Oh, you could do luxe leggings. You could do this um print-on-demand hat. And this is a trucker hat for dogs here. There's all sorts of random stuff. One of the interesting categories

[14:54] that um I wanted to look at was Cuz I think this is like a good housewarming type of gift if you can add some kind of customization to it. You know, $25, so it commands kind of a

[15:08] higher price point. Maybe sell it for 50 or something, depending on what the competition is out there. But, there's these this print-on-demand world is so much deeper than it was even just a few years ago. Like, you can print-on-demand

[15:21] almost any product imaginable, which is really, really interesting. on demand, I pretty much exclusively thought like, "Oh, t-shirts, maybe a >> Yeah. >> But, the reason why Emily is so

[15:38] one's sending back a candle because it doesn't fit right. Whereas in apparel, and it's just like a nightmare to deal with sometimes with the warehouse, with the factories. Like this I think people should just go check out Printify. Like

[15:52] There's thousands of different products that you can just put some kind of design or put some words on that you create in a program like Canva. Candles Maybe then you're putting stuff on tumbler glasses. Maybe next you're

[16:05] putting stuff on bathroom rugs. Like the supply is limitless. >> Shower curtains. That's a fun one, yeah. >> Shower curtains, little you know, cute towel for kids. I mean, or maybe more in depth these I guess are

[16:19] just basic rectangles, but you know, some of the stuff might be more other stuff. Slippers. Oh, there was one of these had you know, imitation Crocs at one point. Like you put on demand Crocs shoes.

[16:33] cool." So, there's tons of different stuff that you can do there. team. Like what you what kind of time is she

[16:48] putting in? It's like Yeah, it's passive once I create that product, but it has a a lot of them are going to be seasonal, but like, okay, if I cast a wide enough net with, you know, thousands of products uploaded,

[17:01] seasonality. What's your take here on how much can you ride the coattails of your existing portfolio versus you have to constantly be uploading new stuff? >> You can ride the coattails for a pretty

[17:14] Emily pretty regularly, like where she spends most of her time especially during the holidays when her sales just go bonkers. I mean, you got to imagine with 22,000 candle sales, like people are going to be asking questions. People

[17:26] in?" Most of her time is dealing with constantly putting out new products. She's an experimenter like me and just likes to get her stuff out there. But, she's told us she's still making sales

[17:39] ago. So, like the shelf life on some of these might be several years, you know, five plus years. Um now, obviously you're going to have a higher chance of hitting the new trends, hitting the new seasons. Like, you know, some certain

[17:54] style might be in style this year in 2026. you can con- continue to create new the coattails of old products assuming that they're still in in style and cool.

[18:08] >> And is she relying in the that Making Sense of Cents article, it says she's relying on just Etsy organic search, not paying for ads at this point? >> Yeah, she's pretty much exclusively Etsy organic search. I know she's done some

[18:21] stuff with Pinterest in the past, but I think a lion's share of her traffic is talked about this on the show before, but like that's why for someone who's a new side hustler who's selling stuff online, like yes, you can sell on your

[18:34] you get on one of these bigger marketplaces like an Etsy or like an Amazon, they already have the existing buyer pool waiting there for you. All understand like the keyword research,

[18:46] are correct, your descriptions are correct, your tags are correct, you have that stuff, like they're going to deliver buyers to your doorstep. They will take a cut, but I'm like, "I'll gladly give Etsy 6.5% of this sale if

[19:01] heard of me before and who's probably never going to hear about me. >> When you're running your business, you're going going to this crossroads. either you don't know how to do yourself

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[21:19] sitting as a side hustle, but have you heard of chicken sitting? I can't say I have. This is one of my favorite finds from this month. The title's my favorite. This is a business called Chicken

[21:32] Tenders, which is by far the best business name that I've come across. chicken sitting. They also do chicken coop clean outs and actually have a chicken coop kind of startup consulting service where it's 350 to 600 something

[21:47] dollars for kind of a an onboarding. Like, "Look, you want to have backyard doing. Everybody does at the beginning. Like, we're here to help you out kind of in that first 4 to 8 weeks of getting your chicks and setting them

[22:01] happy and healthy and all that stuff." And the chicken sitting service on this And the chicken sitting service on this page is, I think they say $35. "We'll actually seems cheap for that level of service, but we'll let them out, we'll

[22:15] You got to be within 10 miles." So, it's hyper localized. And so, it depends how popular are backyard chickens in your area, right? It's kind of one of these other rising trends where people want to be closer to their food supply and

[22:29] everybody loves farm fresh eggs that you might be able to sell shovels into, which is exactly what Chicken Tenders is doing in the Austin area. And then beyond that, I saw similar services kind of coming in and charging, you know, 150

[22:44] bucks for this coop clean out service where it's like we've had pooper scooper like, this is essentially what that is except for chickens. And it's kind of a dirty job, but homeowners may not want to do it themselves, and so that's where

[22:58] you come in. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if these guys chicken tenders based on the branding maybe not do other animals, but my mind is spinning. I mean, there's so many different kind of odd animals that you

[23:10] this for horses, you could do this for other types of livestock. I'm I'm sure there's people there's farmers who also want to go away go on vacation. So if where there's a lot of farms, where there's a lot of people that need

[23:23] I feel like you could just take over that market. >> Yeah, what's the next up and coming thing? Like I've heard kind of having like micro goat herds, you know, kind of in their backyard or like rabbits or you

[23:36] know, something beyond just dogs and cats. Like having your own backyard don't know if that still is where it's like you know, high perceived barrier to entry and like you can't just find some random pet sitter to come over and do

[23:50] it. It's like they you want to have some like, you know, animal care expertise in >> Yeah, in my research for this episode, I was just looking at like weird unusual side hustles. There was one woman who was breeding and selling worms to local

[24:05] And she was selling like thousands of worms some days and this became a she was literally growing these worms originally in her bathtub and then she started like kind of a bigger worm breeding operation. I feel

[24:19] niche pets are maybe an underserved market that people I mean, there's just businesses on top of these unusual creatures. >> Yeah, we come across a cricket breeding and sales service where it's similar

[24:34] owners that need to feed their pets crickets. I think it was, you know, thing where it's like I had a hard time finding these for my pets and so I was dealing with the same issue. So I'll go out and solve that problem.

[24:53] remember the exact revenue numbers that he shared on that episode with you, but like that have kind of nationalized. Like there's there's pooper scooper businesses doing multiple like

[25:06] seems crazy. Like they're just showing up, scooping poop for 10 minutes, and that you know people don't want to do the work, and so they'll pay someone to come in real quick and scoop it up and some of these people running these

[25:20] bandits. >> Yeah, if you can start with that mentality too of you you have a labor layer and scooper people it's like I I never went out and did it myself. It was always the

[25:35] intention to build it into kind of this repeatable process where we could plug people into the system so we could scale geographically and build think you could probably do the same thing cuz it's so fragmented, right? If

[25:48] I asked you to say, "Well, who is the go-to chicken coop cleaning person?" it probably doesn't exist, but so that signals kind of an opportunity to build that bigger regional or or maybe even national brand in that space.

[26:02] that guy reached three plus million in revenue from the pet waste removal. >> Inspiring. >> His lifetime value when he said it was like, "Our LTV is like $3,000 in some markets."

[26:17] Dude, cuz as long as as long as that dog is around making a mess in the backyard, Um >> It's like, what are we doing messing around with all this digital stuff, Nick? We should just be scooping poop.

[26:30] >> There is something said to be said for looking up from the laptop every now and again and just going out, getting your hands dirty, solving a real problem.

[26:49] service, and this is an appliance rental business that I came across that actually got some uh press from uh from Chris Corner cuz this is a 23-year-old kid doing 10 grand a month renting out washers and dryers,

[27:05] which is crazy on its own, but what's even more interesting is most of the stuff is acquired for free or for very little, like $150 or less. And so he's breaking even uh uh on his

[27:21] upfront equipment costs almost immediately. And he says he has churn of immediately. And he says he has churn of like 1 and 1/2% per month. So out of his roughly 200 monthly clients, uh uh

[27:34] I guess that's two to four of them turnover, and he's got to go like pick up those machines and go find some place else to put them. But really, really add is like, "Look, you're spending money at the laundromat. It's a pain.

[27:47] It would be much better to just do it at your own apartment or at your own place. appliance sometimes could cost hundreds of dollars. Uh and so he kind of sits in that middle ground of like, "Well, just rent it for

[28:00] the laundromat." >> What I really found interesting about this business was it's so sticky, right? Like I feel like most people like even if your tenant leaves, let's say you rent a some tenant, they rent the washer

[28:12] dryer for a year. Well, that next tenant comes in, and you're like, "Hey, you can either buy your own set or you can rent these for $50 a month or whatever it >> It's a no-brainer for them. Who wants to like, you know, go through the work of

[28:24] finding their washer dryer and bringing it in? It's It just seems so easy. So it He's not really fighting for the recurring revenue at all. And he's 23 years old, which is even more inspiring. >> Yeah, he's another candidate for the

[28:36] retire by 30 plan. >> Absolutely. And he said he's working 5 hours per week, has zero employees. Like you mentioned. is a slap in the face to the people with that finance degree and the

[28:50] >> everything else. It's like, "Well, here's a simple way. 5 hours a week, no a lot of boxes here. >> I think what's really cool about the current environment is just the sharing economy as a side hustle in general has

[29:03] blown up in the past 10 years. Like, it used to be, you know, just Airbnb. And this is even like 2012. Like, I think when you first started being an online influencer, if you will, Nick, like the sharing economy didn't really exist.

[29:15] with Airbnb. And then people are renting their cars out on Turo. Now, people are backyard. They're renting out out their trampolines. They're renting out inflatable bouncy houses. Like, this

[29:27] sharing economy has just blown up so much. And I think so many people are sitting on assets that could be making them so much money if they were to just explore some of these opportunities out there.

[29:39] >> Yeah, this is an interesting one. And especially kind of like the low-risk way to test it. So, it says he's creating Facebook Marketplace listings priced at his target rental rate of $50 to $60 a month, waiting to get a bite, waiting to

[29:54] get a lead, and then going out and trying to source that thing. The question mark for me is like it's Facebook Marketplace. And also Facebook Marketplace for the supply side. And so, it's like, "Why

[30:06] aren't the renters also looking at Facebook Marketplace to go find themselves a cheap appliance and just rather than committing themselves to and do the same thing that this guy is doing and get it for free or getting get

[30:19] >> I mean, it might just be the simple fact that people don't want to shell out whatever it costs to buy a washer dryer, even if it is cheap. I don't know. Maybe these price alerts set up on Facebook Marketplace and people aren't seeing

[30:33] go and buy a new set, you're looking at like over $1,000 for a really nice washer dryer set. >> Yeah, the risk here would be well manual and physical labor. You got to be able to move these things. You got to be

[30:49] able to store them. Um you got to have maybe some level of basic repair knowledge. Sounds like he's targeting relatively simple machines without a ton of bells and whistles. Um it mentions making relationships with

[31:01] going to tack on a warranty uh afterwards to reduce some of your repair risk. I think it said somewhere in here that roughly 3% of the inventory in any of attention whether that's remote troubleshooting or whether that means

[31:16] your hands dirty and trying to fix it yourself. Oh, here it is. I recommend Whirlpool direct drive washers.

[31:29] and to be making 10 grand a month relatively uh not necessarily passively but like hugely time leveraged at 23 years old is >> Oh, absolutely. Yeah. >> This guy is uh well on his way to

[31:41] financial freedom. 5 hours a week making 12 grand a month.

[31:58] cuz we had a guy doing mobility scooters. We had a guy doing um you know, reusable moving uh totes like giant you know, Tupperware type boxes. >> We had you know,

[32:12] hot tub guy. Like I love this type of business where it's like you buy and over and over again. I think that's really cool. There's probably a space in um like generators for you know, special

[32:26] events. The how came one across one it was like the porta potty rental service but like elevated it was like the you know, luxury bathroom trailer rental type of thing. We had another guy doing um actual pull

[32:38] behind trailer like kind of flatbed trailers for trucks and he had I think he had some land we had some space where he was storing those but you know he was storing those but you know relatively inexpensive to acquire and

[32:50] it's kind of targeting that equipment that for the the user of it it's like I you only need it one off and it's like so makes sense makes more sense to rent go out and buy it maybe you could do air conditioners

[33:03] it'll be probably be pretty seasonal but like portable AC unit for the summer or like even exercise equipment it's like the peloton before you commit to buying it or you want to like

[33:18] buy kind of a thing. >> Yeah I mean I think at this point in literally endless like anything that people want for a short the daily I guess they could be using on the daily you're just one buying it.

[33:34] >> for you to make money and it's a lot less capital than like a real estate for example you're not putting a down payment on a house like you're buying a Facebook Marketplace. Just the risk is way lower.

[33:49] >> I'd be curious how he deals with the inevitable evictions that come along the inevitable evictions that come along with you know people who stop paying or conversation of like well now I got to come and get this and find a new home

[34:03] for it and either bring it to my garage in the meantime that's probably the the downside here it's like relatively low churn but payments fail or some of the recurring billing you know eventually falls apart

[34:17] on some of these so that's one thing to be aware of but if all those extra hours in the week to solve those problems you're still doing >> And if you're sourcing the things you're renting for free then And just cut your

[34:30] losses when the tenant gets evicted and you can't get into the house. >> Yeah, there you go. >> [laughter]

[34:48] >> I did hear about her a little bit. I don't know a lot about her, but I don't think she's a real person. Is that correct? >> That is the punchline. Zanya Monae is

[35:01] She has 650,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, including 14 million plays on her top song. And 14 million plays on her top song. And what's interesting about Zanya is she's

[35:14] actually signed a record deal, a $3 million record deal on the back of her Which is just a fascinating brave new world in

[35:26] the world of AI art, essentially creating music without being a musician. Um and so the tool that people are using for this is called suno.com. And um my kids have actually played around with

[35:40] this. They're like, "We want high energy upbeat song for uh a trick shot video that we made." And it comes back with kind of this, you know, poppy punchy ping pong ball in the red solo cup type of music. And it's like, "That's

[35:54] actually pretty good." So, kind of surprised by by this one. The question mark for me is uh surrounding the marketing. Is it like, if anybody could do this and Suno costs like, you

[36:06] know, 10 or 20 bucks a month, like it's super super And so what do you do to stand out from everybody else doing this? Either finding an underserved niche or finding a creative marketing channel that other

[36:19] artists aren't uh aren't doing. But definitely uh definitely an interesting definitely uh definitely an interesting one. AI music royalties from Spotify. >> Yeah, I think that Zania, I'm going to call her a girl, Zania, the AI robot

[36:34] person, she got sued because there was some similar artist that said her she So, there's definitely a a lot of gray area in this space. There was this mega song that blew up on SoundCloud and it was like

[36:48] Weeknd, but neither of them were actually in the song or ever said the of money off of it. So, like there's a a lot of gray area and I think we're going to see this a lot more as AI voice, as AI video gets better and better as

[37:03] people impersonating others and making a lot of money off of it. So, I think it do this the right way, like there's definitely a market to be had with this AI music. >> Yeah, and this is something to be aware

[37:16] of where like, you know, the opportunity is here today, but it may not be tomorrow because Suno is yeah, I'm seeing some legal challenges inspired by, you know, this famous artist. Well,

[37:30] you know, who's to say that that is that cuts a little too close. Um It sounded like Zania, or the person behind Zania, um Tali Show Jones, was uploading her own poetry. So, the the prompts that she was given were more

[37:43] than just the generic. So, she she was actually feeding it a little bit of herself. But, it is kind of a question mark. It's a volume game where you're going to need a quarter million plays to a thousand bucks on Spotify and I think

[37:58] it's at 87% of all tracks on Spotify fall below the 1,000 stream minimum threshold to earn any royalties at all. So, one of these again where you throw a lot of virtual spaghetti at the wall and and hopefully some of it sticks, but

[38:13] really a really an interesting one. >> Where I've seen some people make this into a whole thing though is there's like, you you there's songs, but it's Instagram. So, like they're opening up a

[38:25] They're doing affiliate marketing. They have their own products and stuff, but making music. So, people are like creating just fake people who do it all. So, it unlocks multiple revenue streams. I've seen some crazy articles and people

[38:38] stuff. >> Yeah, as you were uploading now, you know, you got to check the box to say if this was AI generated and Spotify has removed millions and millions of tracks in an effort to kind of clean up their

[38:53] their song base, their database, but um I'm I'm curious what it looks like on the front end cuz I don't I didn't think we saw any flag that said, "Oh, this was Like you start to see on Instagram now like, "Oh, this some of this image may

[39:05] be AI generated." Some kind of disclaimer like that. So, we will see what what the future holds in that. But, wanted to put that out there cuz I think that's a really interesting low startup cost business

[39:17] with the potential to scale. Obviously, through million dollar record deal is an outlier, but there there's some other case studies where it's like, "Oh, I'm making $3,000 a month. I'm making $5,000 a month." Um so, may be worth playing

[39:30] around with. I'll see if I can play one of the kids' tracks um after the outro for this episode or or maybe I maybe should have him make up like a side hustle um theme song or something, but it's it's pretty impressive what it can

[39:42] it's it's pretty impressive what it can come up with. Cody from Gold City Ventures in the $5 show including his business idea donation for Side Hustle Show listeners coming up right after this.

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[42:00] first 6 months when you go to kwo.com/sidehustle. kwo.com/sidehustle. That's kwo.com/sidehustle. author of the new book Retire by 30. Make sure to grab a copy today at

[42:15] retireby30book.com. Cody, this is the business idea donation round. We've been spitballing a ton of creative side hustles, but curious what you might start if you had more time yourself or an opportunity you think

[42:28] >> I'm going to give you two, Nick. I'm cheating because I'm scratching my own cheating because I'm scratching my own itch here. So, the first one is I have not seen like one good company have virtual listing images for homes.

[42:43] Like there's all these staging companies that are charging like some houses to stage cost like 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 dollars. We've done some flipping, we've done some real estate in our past. It boggles my mind that there's not just

[42:55] like a Goliath company that's just like the company for virtual staging. It's looking for it. There was like some You could just kind of tell it was AI and it were to pull this off and have like the

[43:09] for flippers, for people selling their And uh I I looked and there's just not wasn't a great option for us. >> Yeah, so the 10 to 15,000 dollar option,

[43:22] moving stuff and furniture and they're setting it all up and taking the They're moving in like real beds and like real chairs and real carpets. It's crazy. But I'm like this could so easily be AI generated and look real and I

[43:37] Right now there's just not Maybe there is a couple smaller tools There's just not like one major player that's crushing it. would you do first in that space? It It seems That seems like that should exist.

[43:50] >> this conversation. >> That's the whole point of this itch here because I'm like how does this not How is the How is there not a great version of this? It just All the ones we got back like look fake. It's like I

[44:02] like Upwork or Fiverr to get this done. Like it should just be like a the photos of your home and you have some like designer guru or some AI agent who's like really smart at this stuff just like spit out stuff for you.

[44:16] But, it doesn't exist. As as as far as I know. somebody could build that. That would be cool. All right, what else you got? >> Um the other one, so I'm an online guy. I'm always looking for like cutting edge

[44:30] There's like the HeyGens of the world where like, you know, I can kind of create AI videos and it works okay. But, I wish there was like some kind of a a service where they could like suggest making AI videos. Like, for different

[44:43] creating like stuff for Facebook ads and things like that. Hey Cody, here's a brick wall. Hey Cody, here's a video of you jumping out of a helicopter. Like, a pre-packaged ideas for you. Like,

[44:56] I'm not actually jumping out of a helicopter running through a brick wall, I haven't found anything like that. It's like kind of it's a lot of DIYing. It's like, oh, you know, you can upload your avatar on HeyGen and record your video

[45:09] stuff. And you can make like somewhat convincing videos. done for you a la carte. Here's Here's 10. You want You want the action movie Cody? You want a rodeo cowboy Cody? Do you want, you

[45:22] know, Cody doing X Y or Z? Like, that would be a really cool business idea. Almost having these packages of like AI videos that would just be delivered to people. >> So, kind of like HeyGen on steroids. And

[45:34] maybe it's like a white label of the AI avatar generation, but like take it one something that's going to stop the scroll and and get attention and make it

[45:47] >> Yeah, it's just like a cool way to get marketer. Or I mean, I'm sure people will just play around with this tool, too. Some of the new stuff that people are doing like people are It's like one

[45:59] man one woman armies now producing these movies and like video game trailers. It's insane what uh like generative AI can do nowadays. >> I've yet to create my HeyGen avatar, but even just watching some of their stuff,

[46:13] like the line between what's real and not is getting more and more blurred. a really unique, you know, journey to financial independence? We're starting from a really young age, look, we're going to

[46:26] going to kind of turn turn take an alternative path to the script. We're going to do some real estate stuff. We're going to do digital

[46:39] estate stuff. We're going to do digital products. And within just like 3 years, really nice nest egg that could continue to compound for decades. Can you speak to that a little bit?

[46:51] show, and I'm very partial to side hustles in general, is standpoint, controlling the gap between your income and your expenses is the most important metric on your path to financial freedom. So, with side

[47:05] part of the equation and you can keep your expenses the same, I was talking about that car detailing kid. He was making 86k from his day job and extra learning to just live on his day job

[47:18] hustle money into things like market, into small business, whatever he wants to invest in. independence in well under a decade at that rate. Like

[47:31] years, during my financial freedom journey, I kept my expenses like spending $24,000 a year, like $2,000 a month for

[47:43] like 3 years in a row, and my income during that third year, it kept jumping from all the entrepreneurial and side hustley things I was doing, my income was 403,000 that third year, and my expenses were 24. So, I had like a

[47:56] $375,000 gap between my income and my expenses >> profitable year if you're thinking in terms of what's my personal profitability, profit margins. >> Yeah, it was huge. I tried every side

[48:08] hustle under the sun. At one point I had 20 plus income streams. I've tried over 35 side hustles. I've since paired it down a bit, but dude, I was I was like >> What were the big um the big two or three levers for you?

[48:22] >> It's digital products, which is in the form of I have a couple Etsy shops, Shopify store, like a whole template library, and that has since became like a courses and communities in the digital product space. So, that's one kind of

[48:35] >> Yep. >> Then I have my real estate portfolio, Airbnbs, short-term rentals. I've done flipping in the past. Uh I do some syndication investing. So, let's nest that all under real estate. That's

[48:50] really three, is just like kind of personal finance educator, if you will, which I'm going to bundle all my social media, my podcast, my now book in there. So, those are the kind of the big three. >> Um and that's pretty much it, but before

[49:04] it was like I was, you know, delivering Uber Eats on a bicycle. I was, you know, billing Christmas trees. I was doing landscaping. I was uh running email marketing campaigns for people. I was planning a book tour and going on the

[49:17] boats. It was like all all this random stuff. Um stuff. Um >> Oh, yeah. I admire how proactive and intentional you really were about this. Recognizing, look, the most important

[49:29] lever here is that gap between income and expenses. How can I grow that as much as I can and try and keep living below my means, live live lean, and invest that difference at an early age, stack it into real estate, stack it into

[49:44] the market, and then watch that compound because it opens up so much optionality little breathing room now and I don't have to be making this commute that I don't like to this job that I don't like to pay the bills that I have kind of

[50:00] committed myself to. And so I'm uh I think that's really really powerful. Like it's not necessarily following the path of least resistance, it's following the the path that's going to lead you where you want to go. Taking a pause to

[50:13] be intentional about it. >> And to your point before, you don't have to do this forever. Like my expenses are way higher now. I spend a lot on travel. just experiences in general. My housing's still super low. I'm still

[50:26] house hacking. I still drive the same paid off car, but like my eating out, my experiences, and travel budget has gone like 10x since those cheap years when I you have to do is get it right for a couple of years. Like that was kind of

[50:40] it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. Like obviously if you're older than 30 listening to this, you can still completely transform your financial life the fact that you can do it so quickly, you can do it so rapidly. Like the book

[50:53] freedom as fast as possible then do whatever you want, but that's not quite as catchy on a cover. Um but yeah, if you're someone who listens have all these side hustle ideas. Like seriously act on one. Act on two. And

[51:08] from those side hustle income streams, and you can just, you know, live on your you're going to be set after a couple years of doing that. >> Yeah, it's that post-fire idea of continuing to do the work you love in

[51:23] the time that you want to spend on it, but letting compound interest kind of work in your favor. So again, that's retireby30book.com. The business idea donations were this virtual staging service, this virtual

[51:36] image listing service for real estate, for houses. And this AI video suggestion HeyGen is your, you know, virtual avatar, but like, beyond that, here are

[51:49] we've already created for you. You don't have to think about it. Just add your own voiceover or add your own text to call to action on top of that. Let's move to round three, starting with a marketing tactic that's working for you

[52:02] right now. >> So, this one might be unexpected. Some know, AI video or like some of these newer tools. What's been working well whole like book launch and stuff, is leaning hard into personal connections,

[52:16] like affiliates and relationships. I think these are in today's digital world just like they want to automate everything and they, you know, they online. They like just want this side hustle that magically starts making them

[52:30] money, but I think there's so much value in connection and having friends and mentors in whatever space you might be operating in. So, that's that's what's working really well for me is like not only for the marketing piece, but like

[52:42] the shoulders of giants, people who have done it before me. Like, I've talked to just picking your brain before we hit go here about your book and revamping your book. Like, I think I've learned so much and I wouldn't be where I'm at today

[52:55] without having an amazing network surrounding me. >> Yeah, there's a lot to that and it's probably something I neglected early on. I was very heads down, looking at the laptop, trying to do my thing without

[53:08] any sort of mastermind or mentorship or community support. And it's like, oh, it gets a little easier and it gets a lot more fun, too. And that's why, you money in going to different events throughout the year to to get out from

[53:25] the routine, get out from the laptop, and and see people face-to-face. laptop, but yeah, I like to pull myself out once in a while and I'm like, wow, this space over the past 8 plus years I've been in it.

[53:38] >> Time flies when you're having fun. How about a new or new to you tool that >> Where I've been having a lot of fun is with like vibe coding. And so I've used replit and I've used cloud code. Both of those have just like blown my mind and

[53:52] how far they've advanced in the past year and a half or two years since I started using them. Like you could have an idea for an app and have something somewhat operational within an hour or two. It's like it's honestly

[54:05] coding at all. So I've been having a lot of fun and like some of these are just uh pedaling around on the weekend and that's that's just that stuff's just fun to me. Just building and vibe coding.

[54:20] building like internal tools for Gold City or what's going on? >> Yeah, building some stuff for Gold City. Some uh that we haven't announced yet. So I can't say too much, but we're building a

[54:32] Kind of top secret. But I started messing around originally on replit with a lot farther than I thought I was going to get with that." started with the kids like a browser-based little little push-button

[54:47] browser-based little little push-button game. And it was just an intro intro to using cloud code. And it it created the first version in like two minutes. And "Oh, can you increase the gravity or can you make it

[54:59] go faster after, you know, level 10?" Or and it's just it's really interesting. you know, building different automations and even like a Chrome extensions and trying to build a couple apps. And it's it's not as easy as the gurus like would

[55:13] make it out to be on YouTube, but it's also but it would have would have been impossible for me, you know, even a year or two ago. So it's um a definitely a can you can

[55:25] of will it into existence if it can be done with some of these coding tools. So really cool. Um the last uh question in the triple threat is your favorite book other than your own from the last 12 months?

[55:40] clarification. I reread a book within the last 12 months. It's a book that had Okay, cool. Cuz I really wanted to mention this again because it just hit different and better the second time even though this book changed my life.

[55:53] The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. And that book, when I first read it back in 20 17, I think it was. wanted to reread it cuz I'm like, I know so much more stuff now. Like, am I still

[56:07] going to have the same wow effect that I did back then like based on what I know now? And there was stuff that I just completely forgot was in there. And so now that I've, you know, built multiple businesses. I've, you know, my net worth

[56:20] is not negative like it was when I first read the book. Like, I'm in such a different place mindset-wise, financially, everything. And it still hit. It was still such a good book. And it was still There was so

[56:32] that I'm like, "Oh, maybe that's the reason why I think X, Y, and Z because I I read it in the 4-Hour Workweek all those years back. >> Yeah. Yeah, I it's been probably 18 years or something for me.

[56:46] I've read >> it's worth it. Through as well. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Yep. >> Be, have, do. I mean, it's a it's a classic. It's

[56:59] one of the required readings for anybody in the passive income or side hustle space trying to get out from a traditional week for somebody else. >> Yeah. Yeah, if you haven't read it in 18

[57:13] years, I would definitely suggest a reread with your new lens on life. >> I'll put it on the list. We'll link that up in the show notes as well along with Cody's new book, Retire by 30. You can grab yours at retireby30book.com.

[57:28] Check him out at The 5 Show. We will link up Gold City Ventures as well. Big Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. sidehustlenation.com/deals is where you'll find all the latest

[57:42] offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of The Side Hustle

[57:55] in the next edition of The Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.