How to start a creative side hustle
You may have recently started thinking about how you can make more money whilst being at home. When I was on extended maternity leave after redundancy from teaching I did just that. Here’s how I started a creative side hustle.
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What is a side hustle?
A side hustle is something you do in addition to your normal day to day role. Whether that is at home or working somewhere else. That said some side hustles can become so profitable they become your main source of income.
At the moment in addition to teaching I have four side hustles that bring in a range of money throughout the year. Some in the hundreds and one in the thousands.
What could I sell?
If your aiming for the minimum outlay you can get away with and don’t want to fork out on material costs. I would strongly recommend looking at digital products to sell as a side hustle.
Just a quick search for digital products reveals a whole host of options:
- Art prints
- Planners
- Scrapbook papers
- portraits
- Stickers
- Photography backdrops
- cards
- calendars
- clip art
- embroidery
- patterns
- templates
- fonts
- colouring pages
Where should I start?
One of the easiest and most well know places to start selling digital products would be Etsy. I have been running my digital cross stitch pattern store on Etsy since 2013. A quick google search will reveal a vast array of helpful articles to get you started on opening a store.
What tools can help me?
When I first opened my store selling digital cross stitch PDF patterns. I was convince that I had to have hand stitched every pattern that I was selling and then painstakingly photographed each one before I could list it.
In an ideal world, this would be great. But in reality it was taking a huge amount of time and in that time I wasn’t making money.
After researching other competitors I realized they were using mock ups to showcase their designs.
Not only did they look great, they often looked better than my photos of actual products.
Mock ups are a fantastic design resource and I would thoroughly recommend that you consider them in developing your side hustle. From a mockup logo to creating images for promotion on social media. Sites like design bundles can save you a whole lot of time. Time which can then be spent making money!
Creative side hustle top tips
- Write down your current skills (is there anything you could be making money from)
- What equipment / tools do you already have?
- Do some research on what is already on the market
- Don’t spend lots of money initially.
- Set aside a time slot for working on your side hustle
- Keep it simple to start with 10-15 great products are better than 50 low quality ones
Final thoughts
I’ve been working on my side hustles for over 6 years now. I have tried lots of things and made loads of mistakes along the way.
It has all been a learning process and now I make a respectable amount of money from them.
But they are not a get rich quick scheme. Don’t believe people who tell you that they are and even more so. Don’t get fooled into buying expensive courses from so called ‘experts’. There is plenty of great free advice and resources to help get you started with just a mouse click away.
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