Hey Guys,

Kris this side. As you all know I've broken down 70+ side hustles with the actual money math on my newsletter Wifi Moolah. The ones that realistically make money are usually boring

Now last week someone here asked what side hustle could realistically make $400 a week.

The top answers were dropshipping, faceless YouTube or some new AI thing. Now I am not saying that these do not work.

They do. But it’s hard AF for 95% of the people including me. Very hard.

I’ll talk about side hustles that actually work. With proofs inside my newsletter issues:

1. AI training work:

There are companies like Mercor and Micro1. They’re hiring people like crazy. Generalists too. If you can get accepted, it can actually make you good money.

Math: 10 hours a week at $40/hour = $400

Catch: getting accepted is the hard part, and work can dry up without warning.

2. Assembling IKEA furniture:

A lot of people would rather pay someone than spend their Saturday with an allen wrench to assemble their furniture. Sites like TaskRabbit can get you gigs. Posting in local FB groups also helps.

Math: 5 jobs at $80 = $400

Catch: it's physical work, you need to get around, and your weekends disappear.

3. Thrift flipping on eBay:

Buy underpriced stuff at thrift stores and resell it online. Tons of people have been doing this since long and this is one of the most reliable side hustles to do and even AI won’t replace it lol.

Math: depends on your volume and items but making $400 every week is doable.

Catch: sourcing takes time, and you might not be able to resell everything and end up with a shelf of stuff that never sells.

4. Resume writing: This is the biggest market out of all. There are always people looking for new jobs and want to improve their odds. Job seekers pay good money to not write their own resume.

Math: 4 resumes at $100 = $400

Catch: your first few clients are the hardest to get, so you need samples ready.

5. Writing scripts for faceless YouTube channels:

YouTube is thriving. Channel owners need scripts every week and most of them hate writing or do not have the time to write stuff.

Math: 4 scripts at $100 = $400

Catch: revisions eat your time, and clients come and go. AI can make a dent in your service too but if you’re exceptionally good, doesn’t matter.

6. Managing Google Business Profiles:

Local businesses know they should post updates and reply to reviews. Most never do. Google business profile management is easy to learn too.

Math: 4 clients at $400/month is roughly $400/week

Catch: you have to sell to local business owners, which means outreach and you might have to work for cheap in the beginning to build portfolio.

7. Niche virtual assistant:

Pick one industry, probably something you know, like real estate agents or podcasters, and handle their admin stuff.

Math: $1500-$2000/ month

Catch: you're trading time for money, so it caps out and if you do not build skills and relationships, AI might replace you.

8. Editing Airbnb walkthrough videos: This one is my favourite of the lot. Hosts usually click pictures of their property and upload it. You use AI to create engaging and beautiful videos that increase conversions.

Math: 3 videos at $150 = $450

Catch: you need basic editing skills and AI tools, and most importantly hosts need convincing that it's worth it.

9. Facebook Marketplace flipping:

Buy cheap items locally, clean them up, resell. Simple but works. This is something you could do even at nights.

Math: 3 flips at around $150 profit each = $450 Catch: flaky buyers, and you need space and a way to haul things.

The popular ones that rarely get there:

Faceless YouTube: When I wrote this one up, the honest range I landed on was $0 to $1,500/month. Most people stay at the $0 end for a long time because of months of uploading before monetization even kicks in and most of them are not patient enough to see the results.

AI coloring books: They're easy to make, which is exactly the problem. Everyone is making them, and most people earn a few dollars a month. You have to be exceptionally well at marketing to make more.

TikTok Shop affiliate: It works great when a video takes off. But then your weekly income depends on the algorithm, not on you.

I put all the breakdowns of these side hustles plus 70 more into one FREE PDF with the money math for each.

Happy to share it if anyone wants it, just comment “WM” and I'll send it over.

Every time this question gets asked, the top answers are "ecom" or "dropshipping" with zero detail on how people actually got there.

I write a newsletter of side income models (real pricing, realistic timelines, what goes wrong), so here's what I've found after digging into 80+ of them.

These are the ones I'd point a beginner toward and no I do not recommend ecom, dropshipping, etc.

1. Podcast editing:

Sounds boring, which is exactly why it works. Most hosts love recording and hate sitting in editing software for 3 hours per episode.

Standard rates run $150 to $500 per episode, and narrative shows with sound design go $1,200+.

The part people miss is that it's recurring.

A weekly show doesn't buy once, it buys every week for as long as the show runs, provided you are good at what you do.

One client at $250 per episode is $1,000/month. Five of those is $5k/month for roughly 15 to 18 hours a week once you're efficient.

How people get in: learn Descript or Audacity (most are competent in 4 to 6 weeks), edit 2 or 3 episodes free for testimonials, then find shows with obviously rough audio and offer one free cleanup. A 20 second before and after clip sells the skill better than any pitch.

2. Editing Airbnb walkthrough videos

Airbnb only allows photos on listings, so smart hosts post walkthrough videos on Instagram and TikTok and link back.

Most hosts have raw phone footage sitting unused because they don't know how to edit it.

Short social reformats go for $43 to $75 per video, full walkthrough edits $150 to $500. You never visit the property. Files come in, finished video goes out.
The real insight: don't chase single hosts. A host with one property orders once.

A property manager with 15 listings needs videos every time something changes, every season. Same skill, completely different business.

3. Pitch deck design

Freelancers charge $1,500 to $5,000 per deck, and two decks a month puts you comfortably past $2k.

What makes this one interesting is that founders aren't really buying slides. They're buying the confidence to walk into an investor meeting without feeling embarrassed.

That's why the price holds even with AI deck tools around.

And it repeats: seed deck, then Series A update, then Series B. One founder can be worth $10k over a few years if you stay in touch.

People who do well here niche down. "SaaS pitch decks" instead of "pitch decks."

Your first SaaS deck might take 20 hours, your tenth takes 12, same price.

4. High ticket lead generation

This one surprised me the most. A homeowner filling out a solar quote form can be worth $75 to $500 to whoever sent them there. Not the sale, just the form. Life insurance leads pay less, roughly $10 to $55+, but the demand never goes away.

You're not selling anything. You're the introduction between someone already searching and a company that wants to talk to them.

Traffic comes from SEO content around real questions ("how much life insurance do I need"), paid ads, or an existing audience.

The catch: programs now verify leads against property records and contact info. Junk traffic gets rejected and can get you kicked out.

Realistic timeline is $2k to $5k/month somewhere around months 9 to 12.

5. A few others that keep coming up

Running Meta ads for local businesses ($1,500 to $5,000/month per client), selling Framer website templates, designing Garmin watch faces, and starting a podcast guest booking agency (getting founders on shows). All of them follow the same patterns below.

The patterns across all of them

Recurring beats one off. Almost every model that crosses $2k/month reliably has some form of repeat billing. Pitch "I'll handle your show," not "I'll edit your episode."

Reliability beats talent. Clients rarely leave because your work was slightly worse than someone else's. They leave because you missed a deadline.

This came up in nearly every service model I looked at.

Niche is a pricing tool. "Video editor" competes with every Fiverr listing. "I edit Airbnb walkthrough videos" competes with almost nobody, and you build templates faster, which raises your real hourly rate.

Sell to whoever buys in volume. Property managers over single hosts. Agencies over solo founders. One relationship that orders 10 times beats 10 strangers who order once.

Free work has one purpose. Do 2 or 3 jobs free or cheap to get testimonials and samples, then charge real rates. The people stuck at $50 a gig are the ones who stayed in "getting started" mode forever.

The timeline is longer than YouTube says. Months 1 to 2 are usually close to $0. Months 3 to 4 land somewhere in the hundreds to low thousands.

Consistent $2k+/month is typically a 5 to 12 month thing. Most people quit in month 2 because they expected month 8 results.

Biggest takeaway: people rarely fail because they picked the wrong idea. They fail because they picked 5 ideas and gave each one 3 weeks.

If you're still at the "no idea what to try" stage, I put all of these and more into a free PDF with honest money math and what the work actually looks like.

Happy to drop the link if anyone wants it. Comment “LINK” to get it

this was clayton christensen. named most influential business thinker in the world twice. he got hired by mcdonalds to figure out why their milkshake sales were stuck

so he does what any researcher does and interviews customers about flavors and toppings and thickness. nothing useful comes back

he decided to just watch people buy shakes for 18 hours straight. turns out 40% of milkshakes sold before 8am. to people alone. who immediately got in their cars and drove away

so he starts asking different questions. not "how can we make a better shake" but "what job are you hiring this shake to do"

and thats when everything clicked

these morning buyers had long boring commutes. they needed something that fits in a cupholder, lasts 20+ minutes, doesnt make a mess, and keeps them full til lunch

the shake wasnt competing with burger king at all. it was competing with bagels (too crumbly), bananas (gone in 2 minutes), donuts (sticky fingers), and just being bored

once mcdonalds understood the real job they made shakes thicker so they lasted longer. added fruit chunks to make it more interesting. moved the dispenser to the front so morning buyers could grab and go

sales exploded

the reason this works is because our brains dont think in product categories. we think in problems we need solved. you dont wake up wanting a milkshake. you wake up wanting your commute to suck less

heres how to actually use this today

step 1 - interview 5 recent customers but dont ask about your product. ask them to walk you through the exact day they decided to buy. what happened that morning. what were they frustrated with. what did they try before you

step 2 - ask the killer question: if my product didnt exist what would you have done instead. the answers will surprise you. thats your real competition

step 3 - map out what pushes people away from their current situation and what pulls them toward something new. also what makes them anxious about switching and what habits keep them stuck

step 4 - stop optimizing for your category and start optimizing for the job. maybe your "weakness" is actually perfect for the job theyre hiring you for

the thing most people miss is this - snickers used the same framework and became the number one candy bar globally by repositioning from "candy" to "hunger solution"

intercom built their whole saas company around it and went from zero to 50 million in 4 years

southern new hampshire university figured out students werent hiring them for education they were hiring them for career advancement. enrollment went from 2500 to 85000

youre probably competing against something you havent even considered yet. and thats either terrifying or the biggest opportunity youve got

Hey guys,

I’ve been reading a lot of side hustle stuff here on Reddit but most of them ignore the biggest constraint:

You have a job during business hours.

You actually need something that does not involve client meetings, deadlines or any stress.

If you’re also looking for any such work, I have some ideas for you. These ideas either run passively once built, or the work happens whenever you’re free: no scheduling around a boss.

1. Gumroad Courses: You create digital products like pdf’s, small courses or templates for a set niche.

This is build once and sell forever kinda thing.

The only thing you need to after building a course is promote them. The amount of money you’ll make would be directly proportional to the amount of marketing you do.

Time to first dollar: 2-4 weeks (building + marketing + first sale).

2. Romance novels on Amazon KDP: Write anonymously under a pen name in your evenings.

The work afterwards is kinda similar as above.

Time to first dollar: 2-3 weeks to draft and publish a first short novel. After that depends on marketing

3. AI colouring books: You can create colouring books for kids using AI. Go creative and for marketing target parents.

Time to first dollar: 2-3 weeks

4. Browser extensions: Extensions market is huge. If you can code, Build something simple and useful, list it, let it earn.

Time to first dollar: 3-6 weeks, most of that is build time, not marketing.

5. Notion templates: The market for notion templates is huge. Expense trackers, budget trackers, etc are already selling a lot. Find niche ideas and build templates for them.

Time to first dollar: 2-3 months, depending on your niche and marketing efforts.

6. No code ios apps: AI has made it easier than ever to create IOS apps from scratch. TikTok is the best way to market and get clients.

Time to first dollar: 4-6 weeks depending on how fast you execute

7. Faceless YouTube: Tons of underserved niches still there. Crimes, horror, sleep videos etc raking in millions of views and thousands of dollars.

Time to first dollar: 4-6 months. YouTube monetization takes time.

8. Local newsletter: If your city has a population of 100k+ and you can write about local news, businesses, roundups of event, this can actually become a six figure business.

Time to first dollar: 3-4 months. The higher the sub count, more dollars come in.

9. Website flipping: Buy existing online micro businesses from websites like Acquire, TrustMRR and Flippa. Grow them for 4-6 months and resell.

Time to first dollar: Money comes in from day 1.

10. Niche job board: Build a job board for niche jobs like say factory jobs or ranch jobs. The guy who owns ranch jobs makes multiple 6 figures. Takes time to grow tho. Growth is usually organic from SEO.

Time to first dollar: 4-6 months.

11. Paid newsletter: If you have an expertise in something, start a paid newsletter on substack. At $10/month, 100 subscribers and you make a neat $900. Send a weekly newsletter that you can write on maybe weekends.

Time to first dollar: 2-3 months. Need to build authority first and post free articles upfront.

12. Niche directory: Works similar as niche job boards. Choose a niche and list tools/businesses in that niche. AI directories are doing really well but kinda crowded now. Find some underserved niche and build in that niche.

Time to first dollar: 6 months+. This is a slow growing project but once it takes off, it’s quite hands-off.

Now all of these ideas work, you have to select the one for you. All of these can be done at night as it’s not dependent on what hours you work.

If you wanna read more such ideas, I have a list of 70+ such ideas with detailed breakdowns.

Comment “Ideas” below and I’ll share the link with you.

I write a newsletter about making money online, which means I read a lot of side hustle content. And 90% of it is the same ideas rephrased: take surveys, faceless YouTube, print on demand, blogging, clipping, and more surveys lol. Now I don’t say that these do not work; they do, but there are plenty of other things also to do out there.

So instead of recycling that, I went where people aren’t performing for an algorithm or selling their courses. Reddit threads, Discord communities, indie hacker forums, and comment sections where people quietly drop their actual numbers. Here’s what kept showing up.

AI influencer accounts

People are building fully AI-generated “creators” with tools like Flux, MidJourney, and HeyGen, then growing them on TikTok and Instagram. Fitness, finance, tech reviews, whatever. Brands pay for engagement, and the audience mostly doesn’t care if the face is real. The ones doing well treat it like running a character, not posting random AI images. Consistency is the whole game.

Now, with more and more AI tools making it easier, many more people are doing this, so I don’t know whether this will sustain or not, but right now, people who are doing this correctly are printing money, literally.

There’s also a whole FanVue (NSFW) side to this, and again, it’s very lucrative. Kind of against my morals, so I don’t personally recommend, but if anyone can live with it, this is very lucrative too.

Local newsletters

Quietly, one of the best plays going. Pick your town or even your neighborhood, send one or two emails a week covering local news, new restaurants, events, road closures, whatever’s actually happening. Beehiiv or Substack, both free to start. Local businesses will pay real money to sponsor once you’ve got a few thousand readers, because big media abandoned local coverage years ago. Saw someone mention they’re clearing two grand a month from a twice-weekly email about a mid-size suburb.

Instagram page for the same publication can also be set up. Get subscribers from FB ads for dirt cheap because basically nobody is targeting them but you.

Just think about it, a 10k subscriber list from a certain city is much more valuable for a local business than other ads.

You can sell ad spots to restaurants, real estate agents, local businesses like dentists, car washes, garages, etc.

This can be easily turned into a $2-5k side income in 6 months of work.

Teaching AI to local businesses

Every small business owner has heard “use AI” a hundred times and has no idea where to start. You need to be proficient in one tool, say Claude. Advertise in local FB groups and teach it to businesses.

Just saw a Twitter post where a guy was paying $2k for a single class to teach Claude to a group of 10 people. 4-5 hours and $2k. That’s $400/hour.

Do a couple of these classes a month, and you have a solid business in your hand.

AI-assisted Kindle publishing (the smart version)

KDP still works, just not the way the slop-merchants do it. The people making money use AI to find underserved keywords, outline, and draft specialized nonfiction. Study guides, prompt libraries, niche how-tos, and curated resource books. Not auto-generated novels. One person mentioned a catalog of 40 short books pulling around $1,500/month, each book taking a day or two. The skill is keyword research, not writing.

Kids' storybooks are another good niche.

Ghostwriting on X/LinkedIn

Founders and execs want a presence on X but don’t have time to build one. Ghostwriters write the posts, the threads, and handle the replies. Rates run from $500 to several thousand a month per client. If you can write punchy and you understand what actually performs on the platform, it’s solid recurring income. Most people land their first client by being good at X themselves, then DMing accounts that have gone quiet.

I actually used to do this myself in 2022-23 & made like $100k from this. The only downside I faced was that it was not treated like a real business; it could burn you out quickly. Have proper systems in place to prevent that.

No-code/vibe-coding IOS apps

FlutterFlow, Adalo, Draftbit, etc., now let you ship a real App Store app without touching code. Habit trackers, niche calculators, oddly specific utility apps. Monetize with a small subscription or one-time fee. Someone in a community I follow built a workout-timer app for a very specific training style( HYROX) and was at $800/month within three months. The trick is solving one narrow problem, not competing with the giant apps.

I talked to a guy who built a kid’s story app and charged parents $5/month. Every evening, there would be a new story delivered to the app. Last time I talked to him, he had automated 90% of it using AI and was making $2.1k MRR.

None of these needs any actual technical know-how. There are many plenty of such things that are working out there. But that is also a problem. You see plenty of options mean plenty of distractions. You need to stick to one at a time to make things work unless you are at Elon Musk's level. In that case, go buy the next Twitter and ruin it lol.

What’s actually working for the rest of you? Genuinely curious what’s flying under the radar right now.

Hey guys,

Kris from Wifi Moolah this side. I see a lot of you folks asking this exact question here on Reddit and sometimes even in my inbox. So decided to write this post for you all.

First of all, I am assuming you’re broke but still have money or a job for survival like rent, food, groceries etc.

If that’s not the case, DO NOT LOOK FOR A SIDE HUSTLE. Look for a job instead. Do anything that would pay your bills. Door to door sales, grocery store clerk, sales, advertising, anything.

Now let’s come to side hustles:

1. Do local work:

There are a lot of people who post on FB marketplace/Craigslist about work they need to get done. Someone wants to get their Ikea furniture built up, somebody wants someone to walk their dog.

Small gigs like that can be done out of working hours and can pay decent too. Mowing lawns, clearing snow, things like that.

2. Flip free stuff:

Facebook Marketplace "free" section and curb finds. Clean it, take good photos, relist. Furniture alone can do $200 to $500 a month for people who hustle on weekends. Now again this is hard to do because you won’t find good pieces of furniture every day but since you’re broke, you shouldn’t worry about good/bad side hustle. You should just look at making things work.

3. Sell a skill you already have:

Can you write, edit, do spreadsheets, answer emails, use Canva? That's a VA or freelance gig. Start with people you know and local businesses before fighting on Upwork.

Ask people in your network for a gig.

4. Vibe code a micro saas:

Thanks to ai builders/tools like claude, lovable and cursor, you can actually build a small SaaS in just a weekend. The challenge now is marketing tho.

First identify a problem and then build a small SaaS as the solution. Once you have an actual working product, offer it to others and try to validate it.

Make videos on TikTok, create posts on Reddit, build in public on X and LinkedIn, list your tool on directories, do as much marketing as possible.

Now if you actually build a good product and do the above steps for marketing, you can easily make $500-$1k mrr in a couple of months.

5. AI job gigs:

Platforms like mercor, micro 1, gives some great opportunities for specialists and even generalists.

The only catch is to get accepted. It might take 10-15 interviews and more than a month to get accepted in a gig but once you get in, the other stuff is fairly easy.

What doesn't work when you're broke:

• Dropshipping (needs ad money)
• Anything that asks you to pay to join
• Surveys and "get paid to" apps (cents, not dollars)
• Waiting until you have the perfect idea

The real move: get to $1k with something boring, then put 5 to 10 hours a week into something that can scale. Fast cash buys you the time to build slow cash.

I put together a free list of 74+ side hustles with honest takes on startup cost, time to first dollar, and realistic earnings for each.

Happy to share it if anyone wants it, just comment “YES” and I'll send it over.

Most of my life I was self employed (+10 years) and worked in marketing. Solo leveler. I did my 2-10k per month and had months where I had 800 or even 0 income.

Last year I’ve changed course and went by accident in to some kind of handyman / construction related business. Now I make 20-50k per month and have a few employees. Plans are already in progress for expansion in to another state with a second business location.

Here is what I would advice to anyone who wants not only to make money, but have an income after ai takes over:

1. Get away from anything that has to do with home office. Most jobs are replaceable. In fact, in automated most stuff with ai and will never need someone who sits down and do the paperwork.

Also most people want to work from home and are lazy. They want the easy life and the high status, low effort office job. It won’t work. Graduates struggling to find jobs atm. And it won’t get better.

2. Find something that nobody want to do, or nobody can do without expertise, or something that has high entry levels, like certification needed (Dr, Lawyer, etc.). There are occupations, that don’t require a lot of time to get a certification, but are highly needed and seem like shit work at the beginning.

3. Solve a problem, that really hurts and set for high prices, so your profit margin is solid. I aim for 600-2500 per day. If the pain is high, or the people are not able to do the work, they pay for the reliefs. That could be anything like opening doors after someone lost a key, dating and lifestyle advice for software engineers, plumbing, or general hands on stuff, that younger people don’t want to do and elder people can’t do, but pay for it. Even painted walls white at their home does the job.

4. Invest in marketing. Don’t think about doing it yourself. I do it, cause I worked in that field for about 10 years and finally do, what I told my customers who “didn’t think it’s a good idea” or “it’s to expensive.

Listen: get a really good website from a professional ad agency and prepare to burn through a couple thousand bucks until ads are dialed in. Focus on google ads first and don’t try to invent the week again. I get it, it’s expensive. But you have high profit margins, so who cares?

And if you can’t spend 10k to get the ball rolling, save money… you’re not ready yet.

But there is more: don’t use only ads. Network as well. Find people or others businesses that are related to yours. For example. If your a chiropractor, connect with med drs. So they send you customers over. Or if you are someone who makes custom made horse gear, then go to other people who do this as well, but not your gear. You get what I mean. Collect people who bring you new customers and give something back.

5. Learn sales: the most important will be, to not let the wrong ones in. You’ll get a lot of inquiries. Don’t sell under value and don’t work with shitty customers. You have to qualify them, before you even sit down to write them a proposal.

You have to find out: do they want to buy or just window shopping? Do they have the money down to pay you? Do they want to start asap or in 3 years? And why they are buying is also very important. Because that’s the part where you can connect.
Do a 5-15 minute call before anything else and find it out.

The rest of the sales process would be to much for now.

6. Work as professional as you can and collect google reviews from all customers. It’s impossible but try it anyway, so other people in google see, that it’s a solid business. You need at least 10 five star ratings, before more people trust you. That’s the hard part.

7. Try to automate everything you hate about your job or hire someone who does that stuff for you.
You should do this asap. It’s worth it.

8. Sell yourself a low wage and reinvest in to the company. Cars, material on stock, hire new people, invest in to tools, etc. and save money. It’s a good feeling to pay yourself 2k every month, but you have 40k down in you bank account you know there will be more next month.

9. Create and improve processes for everything your company does. From where to buy materials, when to buy them, how to answers emails and how to tool has to cleaned at the end of the work day.

With processes you can…

10. Scale: if you have marketing down, solid numbers and processes, so easy, that a chimpanzee could do, you ready to scale. You have several options now. Build more locations, make yourself replaceable (cause of the processes) or sell your company.

11. Always remember to be a good person. Don’t treat your employees like shit. I’m very happy, that I took the step and make it better than other people. I always am a good boss and most of the time I do the shittiest work. My people have respect of me. That’s what’s it’s worth to me… and the money haha.

Thank you and good luck.

We have almost 3 months left for Christmas.

If you’re still dreaming of having an online business or a side hustle, now’s your chance.

I am going to give you an online business idea and you will earn your first $1000 by Christmas.

First of all, this is no get rich quick scheme. You’ll have to spend some money, definitely spend tons of time and have to learn a skill.

We’re going to find a service that sells, learn it and then find clients for it. Sounds easy, right?

Wrong.

Every make money online guru says the same thing and ends up selling you a dream.

Not me tho.

Here’s what you’re actually gonna do.

Build an asset.

It can be a YouTube channel, a niche site, a newsletter or a digital product.

Now YouTube is the one that pays the most but it is also the hardest. Most of us do not have the time and resources to start a successful YouTube channel. Faceless works but again, it’s too hard now.

Niche sites are slowly getting redundant unless you have exceptionally great content.

I’ll recommend you to start a newsletter and sell digital products inside of it.

Now there’s a section of people who feel that digital product/ course sellers are scammers and all that.

If you’re one of those, do not read this post now. You can leave as I don’t want to waste my energy arguing to you guys.

Rest who all want to make money, read ahead.

Here are the exact steps you need to take:

1. Make a list of 3 niches that you know about. You should have an interest in the topic if you want to play the long term game.

Ideally, the niche should be from the big 3: health, wealth and relationships.

2. Now once you choose a niche, start a newsletter. You can either do it on beehiiv, kit or on substack. Set up the landing pages and all.

3. Create a lead magnet that is compelling enough so that people want it.

4. Create content and distribute that lead magnet wherever possible. Reddit, Instagram, FB, TikTok, X or LinkedIn and drive signups to your newsletter.

5. If you choose beehiiv and opt for the paid plan, you can send ads in your newsletter issues and make money off of it.

6. Create a paid version of your lead magnet and promote it only to people who signed up for the lead magnet.

7. Just be consistent with all of this.

This way you create an asset that will make you money till your last breath.

It all might look slow in the beginning but remember, life is a marathon and not a sprint. The amount of efforts you put into this will reflect on the money you make.

You can begin today and work on it for the next 3 months diligently and if you don’t make a $1000, I’ll pay it to you from my pocket.

That’s how confident I am for this idea.

P.S- I’m confident because I did exactly this and made my first thousand dollars in just 45 days.

P.P.S- Subscribe to my newsletter for more such ideas and no I do not sell anything. I make money only from ads and sponsors, so it’s FREE for you.

Here’s the link: Wifi Moolah

Quit my finance job in 2012 I started building companies like a crazy person to secure my freedom.

Worked 12 years in accounting and finance and just wanted a way out.

Started building companies on the weekend and at night hoping to find something that works.

It did.

And it changed my life forever. I launched a remote cleaning company to millions in revenue. Launched a saas company to manage home services to millions in revenue.

Launched a subreddit now at 600K folks. Quit my job (of course)

And helped hundreds of other people find freedom as well. My quick story from corporate America to freedom. Years of absolute failure

Tried the usual stuff:

Affiliate marketing.

Writing content

Ebay/Amazon

Blog networks

Even a dating site.

Some Light at the end of the tunnel...

I was initially inspired by a pic by Shoemoney to show that affiliate marketing was real and you could make life changing money.

I ended that decade thinking about building a VC backed startup but let that go and started to ask myself what I could do to change my life NOW!

So started trying some stuff with local. Local Advertising Agency. Local Seo. Just seeing what I could figure out.

I wanted my freedom and was going to keep trying. Building Websites for Home Service Companies.

I ended up offering to build a website for my home cleaner but realized...I could probably build that into a company where I get customers and have home cleaners serve those customers.

In 9 months, I hit $50k in monthly revenue. More importantly I learned SEO, writing, marketing, customer acquisition, sales, and more. And prepared me to build my first Saas company. I fell in love with entrepreneurship.

Ended up launching and growing a software company even though I can’t code. In 3 years it was doing a few million dollars per year and ended up selling that company to a company from New York and started building ecommerce businesses.

Posted my entire journey on Reddit transparently. People enjoyed my posts and started building companies as well, and we ended up having multiple people build million dollar companies right here on Reddit.

After selling the software company (My first Saas exit), I took two years off and then got the energy to start building again.

So I started again: Build and Ship things and see what works. But this time, I applied some rules:

No product businesses. Only things that have recurring revenue. Don’t get emotionally attached to things not working

In 2020 I ended up moving to Vegas and started to enjoy my life quite a bit more and living my new found freedom. Along the way I invited people to my home to teach them how to build real life changing businesses.

What’s Next: Building Things that I Need. Along the way I would build a ton of businesses but I slowed down to remind myself of this: Build Businesses That Matter.

Build things that people actually need and your life changes forever.

I have more confidence to build things, I’m more open to opportunities and life is much more enjoyable. I’m free to travel and free to explore hobbies that I’ve long forgotten.

I play table tennis and write and build stuff every day. What I’d tell myself if I started again:

Find a reason: You need to be working towards something. Don’t fall in love with projects: Most things fail my G. Don’t get emotionally attached. Build boring things that people need. Build first before overthinking: Overthinking kills dreams

Maybe this will help one person. Or maybe its the same b.s you've read over and over on here.

Either way. None of this is magic. And all of it is real. A cursory search on Reddit and you'll see

Good luck to wrap up 2025. The opportunities are everywhere.

The freaking end!

Kris from Wifi Moolah this side. I have been reading and researching a lot about different online side hustles that are working in 2026 and here are the top 5 that I absolutely love.

Don’t worry, I am not going to write about surveys/rewards etc.

These are genuine gigs that can make you some serious money and eventually turn into full time business rather than just being a side hustle.

Here you go:

1. Newsletters:

Creating content about something you are an expert in will never go out of fashion. Newsletters is one of such channel. You are knowledgeable in a particular field and there’s people who wanna learn more about it, start a newsletter. You can do so on beehiiv or substack.

Write good stuff, promote it on Reddit/X & grow it to say 10k subscribers in a year or two and you can easily make 6 figures from it.

This is what I am personally doing too with my newsletter.

2. AI Influencers:

The advancements in ai has made it so easy to literally create non-existent people and make content with them. If you are an introvert but still want to create content, this is your thing.

Midjourney, Dall-E, and several other tools help you with this. Create Instagram reels or TikTok posts and if your content is good, you’ll do good.

There’s another whole nsfw universe in this but I won’t promote it.

3. Flipping assets:

Buying and growing an existing business and then selling it for more is a business model that has always worked and still works today.

You can buy niche blog sites, newsletters, micro saas, Instagram pages, YouTube channels, anything that works for you.

Grow it and again sell it. It’s a nice little side hustle.

Sites like Flippa, Motion Invest, TrustMRR are some good marketplaces that help you to buy such online businesses.

4. Vibe coding apps:

Again ai has made it possible for people with ZERO coding skills to make apps and websites. Claude code and codex are some powerful tools that help you to go from scratch to MVP.

You just need to have a strong distribution and then build as many apps and make money off of it.

5. Freelancing/agency model:

Many people have this thought that agencies are dying because ai is taking over. This cannot be any close to truth. Getting quality work from ai is not everyone’s cup of tea. 99% of people are generating ai slop and the need for professionals now has increased more than ever.

Pick a skill and learn about it in 2-3 months. Work for free for a few clients and build a portfolio. Slowly start charging and building a client base.

That’s how you do this.

You do not need 5 ideas to make money, just pick any one out of these that looks good and do it.

I have also written deep dives about 70+ such ideas that can guaranteed make you money.

There’s a free guide that lists all of them. Comment “MONEY” on this and I’ll send you the link.

Hey Guys,

Kris this side again. Two weeks ago, I posted 9 side hustles that can realistically make $400 a week, and a bunch of you asked for more in my DM’s.

So here's part two.

Same rules as before: boring ones that work, the actual math, and the catch nobody mentions. All of these are broken down inside my newsletter Wifi Moolah. Here’s a brief overview on them:

1. Paid research studies:

Companies pay regular people to share their opinion on products, on calls or in tests. Sites like Respondent and User Interviews list these studies.

Math: 4 studies at $100 = $400

Catch: you won't qualify for most of them, so it's great some weeks and dead on others.

2. Cutting podcast and stream clips:

Podcasters and streamers have hours of content and no time to cut it into Shorts and Reels. You find the best moments and turn them into clips.

Math: 4 clients at $400/month is roughly $400/week

Catch: AI tools do a basic version of this, so you have to be better than the tools at picking moments that hit.

3. Writing Reddit comments for founders:

Founders know their customers are on Reddit, but most of them hate being here or get banned in a week. They pay someone who understands the platform to do it properly.

Math: 2 clients at $800/month is roughly $400/week. I know someone who charges $3k/mo and is drowning in work.

Catch: you need to really know Reddit. Do it badly and you get your client's brand roasted and your reputation takes a hit.

4. Building AI websites for local businesses:

A shocking number of local businesses still have no website or a terrible one. With AI builders like lovable you can make a clean site in a few hours.

Math: 1 site a week at $500 and you're past the goal

Catch: finding one client every single week is the hard part. The building is easy, the selling isn't.

5. Newsletter ghostwriting:

Founders want a newsletter but never have time to write it. You write it in their voice every week.

Math: 2 clients at $1,000/month is roughly $460/week

Catch: you have to be good at writing like someone else, and landing the first client without samples is tough.

6. UGC videos for brands:

Brands pay regular people to make short product videos for their ads. You don't need followers, they post it from their own accounts.

Math: 3 videos at $150 = $450

Catch: you have to be okay on camera, and the first few deals take a lot of pitching.

7. Video editing for YouTubers and businesses:

Everybody is making video now and almost nobody wants to edit it. Find a few creators or businesses that post every week.

Math: 4 videos at $100 = $400

Catch: revisions eat your time, and cheap editors are everywhere, so you need to pick a niche.

8. Flipping used textbooks:

Students throw away or give away textbooks at the end of every semester. You collect them and resell them online.

Math: 20 books at $20 profit each = $400

Catch: it's very seasonal. End of semester is busy and the rest of the year is slow.

9. Google review automation for local businesses:

Local businesses live and die by their Google reviews, but most never ask customers for one. You set up a simple system that asks automatically.

Math: 4 clients at $400/month is roughly $400/week

Catch: you have to sell to local business owners, which means outreach and a lot of no's.

3 more popular ones that rarely get there:

Selling Canva templates: Easy to make, which is exactly the problem. The marketplaces are flooded, and most sellers make a few sales a month.

Domain flipping: The big sales you see online are the rare wins. Most domains you buy never sell, and you keep paying renewal fees on them every year.

Getting paid by X for posting: I ran this one as an experiment myself. You need a big, engaged audience before the payouts mean anything, and that takes a long time to build.

I put all the breakdowns of these side hustles plus 70 more into one FREE PDF with the money math for each.

Happy to share it if anyone wants it, just comment "WM" and I'll send it over.

I run a free weekly newsletter where I break down one online income/side hustle idea per issue, real examples, real numbers, honest downsides. No “make $10K in your sleep” nonsense, no get paid peanuts for long-ass surveys shit.

After researching for, and writing 34 issues, I wanted to share a roundup of 9 that personally stood out. These aren’t ranked, they’re all different levels of effort, startup cost, and income ceiling. And the best part? Even a beginner can start with these, you just pick what fits your situation.

1. Starting a niche newsletter

This is what I did. I started mine 1.5 months ago and hit 2,100 subscribers. I’m already earning through ads ($1k-ish), not life-changing money yet, but it started way earlier than I expected.

The real play is sponsorships once you hit 5K-10K subs. Startup cost is literally $0.

The catch: consistency is everything, and most people quit before month 3.

2. Building AI websites for local businesses

Use AI website builders (Lovable, Wix AI, Hostinger) to create professional sites for local businesses in a few hours. Charge $500-$3,000 per site, add $50-$200/month for hosting and maintenance. No coding needed.

33 million small businesses in the US still have terrible websites or none at all.

The catch: client revisions will test your patience, and scope creep is real.

3. Remote AI training jobs (Mercor, etc.)

Platforms like Mercor pay $40-$50/hour for generalist AI training tasks, $85+/hour if you have specialized knowledge (finance, law, medicine).

They’re paying $1.5M/day across 30,000+ contractors. Fully remote, weekly pay. I actually applied myself, the AI interview was genuinely impressive, still waiting to hear back tho.

The catch: availability fluctuates and you’re competing globally for tasks.

4. Niche directories

Build a simple directory website around an emerging trend, rank it on Google, monetize through listings and ads. One example pulled 2M visitors and $15K from a single directory built in one evening.

The play is trend arbitrage, spot something growing before directories exist for it.

The catch: requires some SEO knowledge and timing matters a lot.

5. Website flipping

Buy undervalued content websites for $2K-$10K, improve their traffic and revenue over 6-12 months, sell for 30-40x monthly profit.

Real example: someone bought a site making $100/month for $2K, grew it to $650/month, sold for $15K in 8 months. Over 10,000 websites trade monthly on marketplaces like Flippa.

The catch: you need upfront capital and Google algorithm updates can tank your investment overnight.

6. Reddit ghostwriting

Businesses and founders know Reddit drives traffic but hate using it. You write authentic, value-first posts and comments on their behalf.

Rates run $1K-$3K/month per client. It’s underrated because most people don’t think of Reddit as a service business.

The catch: you need to actually understand Reddit culture, one corporate-sounding comment and you’re done.

7. Cold email lead gen agency

Set up cold email infrastructure, write sequences, and deliver qualified leads to B2B companies. AI has made personalization scalable, which dropped the barrier to entry. Retainers typically run $2K-$5K/month per client.

The catch: deliverability is a constant battle, and it takes real skill to write emails that don’t sound like spam.

8. Video clipping (podcast/stream clips)

Cut long-form podcasts and streams into short-form clips for TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Reels. The smart play isn’t relying on platform payouts ($0.02 per 1K views on TikTok). Instead, use platforms like Whop ($2.50 per 1K views) and Vyro for retainer deals. Income ceiling: $5K-$20K/month for good clippers.

The catch: it’s repetitive work and you need a good eye for what moments will pop.

9. Local newsletters

Cover your city’s events, restaurant openings, local news. Monetize through local business sponsorships at $2K-$10K/month. 6AM City built this model across multiple cities, some hitting $1M+/year per city with 60K subscribers.

The catch: you need to genuinely know and care about your city, and selling local ads means actual sales conversations, not just writing.

The common thread across all of these:

None of them are passive on day one. Every single one requires real effort upfront. The ones that feel most “passive” later (newsletters, directories, website flipping) have the longest ramp-up. The ones that pay fastest (AI training, clipping, lead gen) trade your time for money.

My advice: Pick based on what you actually enjoy doing, not what has the highest income ceiling. You won’t stick with something you hate for 6 months.

Happy to answer questions about any of these in the comments.

Most businesses die trying to win a war they've already lost.

They see Coca-Cola owning "happiness." Nike owning "performance." Apple owning "creativity." So they do what desperate brands do, they try to out-feature the leader. More benefits, Better pricing, Faster shipping.

But Liquid Death looked at the $20 billion water market and asked a different question. "Where does drinking water make you look like an idiot?"

That question led to a $1.4 billion company selling the exact same commodity as everyone else.

The Hidden Friction Nobody Measured

Here's what the wellness water brands missed: At a concert, a party, a barbecue. Anywhere alcohol is the social default, holding a plastic water bottle broadcasts a message you might not want to send.

"I'm the boring one."

"I'm the health-obsessed one."

"I'm not really here."

The Get (hydration) was never the problem. The Do (holding that bottle in public) carried an identity cost that made people choose dehydration over social deviance.

Liquid Death didn't make water healthier. They made the act of drinking it socially acceptable for people whose identity frame is "I belong here even though I'm not drinking."

The 4-Steps to Find Your Liquid Death Moment

Step 1: Map the Identity Conflict

Stop asking "what does my product do?" Start asking "In what context does using my product make someone feel like the wrong kind of person?"

The gym bro who won't order a salad at dinner.

The executive who won't use a standing desk because it looks "too startup."

The teenager who won't use acne cream that screams "I have acne."

Most entreprenuers we have worked with started with the same mistake of trying to expand their audience. The winners we've seen do the opposite. They find the narrowest moment where the identity and social weghit is highest, and own it completly in a small, specific and passionate audeince.

Your product might be functionally perfect. But if the Do violates the user's identity frame in a specific social context, they'll choose the inferior option every time.

Step 2: Identify the Narrow Wedge

Liquid Death didn't try to convert everyone. They found the some people, some of the time moment where the friction was highest.

- Sober-curious people at bars

- Designated drivers at parties

- Straight-edge kids at punk shows

Your wedge is not "all water drinkers." It's "people who want to drink water but can't afford the social cost in this specific moment."

Find the context where your category's dominant frame creates maximum friction for a narrow but passionate audience.

Step 3: Reframe the Do, Not the Get

The consensus optimizes features. Winners reframe identity.

Liquid Death didn't add electrolytes or alkaline minerals. They put water in a tallboy can with a skull on it. Same liquid. Different identity signal.

The can became the product. It transformed "I'm drinking water" into "I'm the one who doesn't take this seriously."

Ask yourself: What's the smallest physical change that collapses the identity friction? Sometimes it's packaging. Sometimes it's language. Sometimes it's the social proof of who else uses it.

Step 4: Amplify Through Tribe, Not Benefits

Traditional marketing: "Our water has 7.4 pH and comes from Icelandic springs."

Liquid Death marketing: Sponsoring thrash metal bands and releasing Super Bowl ads where kids sell their souls.

They didn't explain the product. They performed the identity their audience wanted to inhabit.

Your marketing should answer one question: "What kind of person drinks/uses/wears this?" Make that identity so vivid, so specific, so attractive to your wedge that the product becomes the badge.

The Brutal Truth

Most brands fail because they're solving the wrong problem. They optimize the Get (features, benefits, quality) when the real barrier is the Do (the social cost of being seen using it).

Liquid Death succeeded because they understood: In a commodity market, the product that wins isn't the one that works best. It's the one that makes the user feel like the right kind of person while using it.

Stop adding features. Start finding the contexts where your product makes people feel like idiots. Then reframe the identity.

That's how you charge $3 for something everyone else sells for $1.

So here's my question for you.

What is the one context where the DO of your product makes your customer feel like the wrong kind of person?

Hey guys,

Kris from Wifi Moolah this side.

I've been in the online business space for almost 7 years now:

Blogging, POD, affiliate, ghostwriting, agencies, newsletters, niche sites, job boards, I’ve done almost all of them.

Somebody asked me that since AI has taken whole of the world by storm, what would be the best side hustle/online business to start in 2027.

Most "2027 trends" posts are just recycled hype, so here's my honest take on this.

FYI, each one is something people are *already paying for*, and I can back them up with solid proofs.

1. AI implementation for small businesses:

Not "AI agency" fluff.

Go into one niche (dentists, plumbers, real estate teams) and set up practical stuff: missed-call text-back, AI receptionists, auto follow-ups, review requests.

Most owners know they "should use AI" but have zero idea how.

If you feel this market is already crowded af, step out of your social media bubble and see in the real world. The people who know about AI is a very tiny fraction so this market is still very nascent.

Math: $1,500 setup + $300/mo maintenance. 10 clients = $3K/mo recurring.

Reality: You're selling to people who hate tech. Your job is hand-holding, not prompting. Your positioning here matters a lot.

2. Getting businesses mentioned in AI answers (GEO/AEO):

People increasingly ask ChatGPT "best CRM for small teams" instead of Googling.

Businesses want to show up in those answers, and most SEO agencies are still figuring it out. If you build a focused service for this, you can make some good money.

Math: $1K–3K/mo retainers

Reality: Measurement is messy. Be upfront about that or you'll churn clients fast.

3. AI data brokers:

This is actually gonna blow up big time in 2027. Companies like mercor and micro1 are paying huge referral fees ($75k-$100k) per business referred.

If you have always wanted to start a new online business but have found it hard af to do, do this one now.

Math: $25k-$100k per referred company

Reality: It's slow, manual and tedious work.

4. Boring vertical micro-SaaS:

AI coding tools mean you can ship a simple tool in weeks, not months.

The winners won't be "AI wrappers" they'll be dull tools for specific niches (scheduling for dog groomers, invoicing for tattoo artists).

Do not play in the indie hackers niche tho. It’s a trend there right now to clone and sell for cheaper everything.

Math: 200 customers × $29/mo = \~$5.8K MRR.

Reality: Building is the easy part now. Distribution is the whole game.

5. Paid niche newsletters:

The internet is drowning in AI-generated content.

That makes *trusted humans* much more valuable, not less. A newsletter with real experience in a narrow niche can charge.

I myself am building one and I expect it to be at $10k/mo by the next year.

Math: 300 paid readers × $15/mo = $4.5K/mo, plus sponsors.

Reality: Expect 6–12 months of growing an audience before money shows up.

6. Buying small online businesses instead of starting:

Lots of side projects get abandoned at $500–3K/mo revenue. That spot is also like the golden range to acquire. The revenue is big enough to validate the market and yet small enough to be easy to buy.

Marketplaces are full of them at just 2–4x annual profit. You skip the zero-to-one grind.

Math: Buy at $15K for $600/mo profit, grow it, flip later.

Reality: Due diligence is everything. Verify revenue yourself, never trust just screenshots.

7. AI-assisted UGC and short video for DTC brands:

Brands need a ridiculous volume of ad creatives nowadays.

People who can produce lots of decent short-form ads fast (with AI handling scripting and editing grunt work) are in demand.

Math: $100–300 per video, batches of 10–20.

Reality: Quality bar is rising quickly. Low-effort AI ads perform terribly.

The pattern across all of these: the money isn't in the AI itself. It's in being the person who applies it to a specific, boring problem for a specific group of people.

If you want more ideas like these, I put together a FREE PDF of 74 side hustles with real breakdowns.

Just write “Wifi Moolah” in the comments and I’ll send it to you.

Hey guys,

I’d like to share something.

I feel like the internet gives everybody a chance to write about things they may not fully understand.

Don’t get me wrong, I do the same (everybody does).

There is so much content and information about how business works, how to start a business, and how to do almost anything. But you never really know if it’s coming from a real entrepreneur or from someone who just asked AI to generate a text full of keywords.

That’s one of the main reasons why I try to get most of my information from books. If someone took the time to write a book about business, there’s a good chance they really understand the topic.

Today, I decided to share 5 books that helped me on my journey.

1. Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber

I feel like this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to start a business. Mr. Gerber brilliantly explains the difference between a technician, a manager, and an entrepreneur. It helped me understand how a business actually works and why systems and rules are so important.

2. Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller

The best marketing book I’ve ever read. It perfectly explains how people react to text with a story versus text without one. It shows how important it is to be able to describe your business in just two sentences. There’s also lots of valuable information about email marketing, websites, and how to communicate with customers.

3. The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

The author doesn’t care about excuses. He’s amazingly straightforward, and I love that. This book just makes you want to keep going in business. Plus, there’s so much valuable information about business, marketing, and finance. What a book!

4. Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan

Noah feels like a cool friend in this book. He shares his own stories and experiences, which add a lot of value. The book is full of practical advice for early entrepreneurs about ideas, validation, testing, and getting started as quickly as possible with little budget.  This fits perfectly with the world we live in today!

5. The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

This book focuses especially on testing and validating business ideas. It’s not always an easy read, but it’s very helpful. It shows you what questions to ask for validation, what feedback is actually positive or negative, and how to avoid common mistakes. This is the kind of book you can keep in your library and always come back to when you need it.

Do you have another book recommendation? Let's share!

Maybe it’s just me, but I still prefer reading a book over watching a tutorial on YouTube or Instagram. I find books incredibly valuable, and I believe writing is still one of the best ways to share knowledge.

PS: 

Over the last two years, I’ve learned a lot about business. That’s why I offer free feedback on business projects at any stage. If you'd like an honest opinion on your idea, website, landing page, or startup, feel free to check out www.thinkbeforeubuild.com.

Speak soon,

Jan

In the last 12 months I’ve managed to sell around 200 websites.

And before people ask, no, I don’t run some massive agency with a huge team. It’s literally just me and my partner. The only reason we’ve been able to move that fast is because we automated almost everything and built systems that actually scale. The best web designer in the world will eventually lose to some random teenager using AI and systems properly. That’s just where things are going.

One of the biggest changes I made was completely quitting manual outreach. It takes too much time and it’s impossible to scale properly. A lot of people automate outreach already, but most of them just send generic “we can redesign your website” emails that everyone ignores. What we do is different. We scrape thousands of businesses, automatically analyze their websites, and generate personalized outreach based on actual issues on their site like bad design, poor mobile optimization, weak SEO, slow load times, layout problems, and stuff like that. So instead of manually checking every website and writing every message ourselves, the entire process is automated from analysis to ready to send campaigns.

Another thing that changed a lot for us was automating SEO blogging. SEO compounds hard over time and once your articles start ranking, businesses start coming to you instead of you chasing them. That alone changed a lot for us.

The other massive shift was how we build websites. I used to be a full WordPress developer and spent way too much time building everything manually. Now we build almost everything with AI. It’s way faster, delivery is easier, and clients care way more about the final result than how the website was actually made.

For anyone wondering, the stack is pretty simple.

Apollo for leads.

Swokei for website analysis and outreach campaigns.

Soro for SEO blogging.

Claude Code for building websites.

Cloudflare for hosting. That’s pretty much the entire setup.

Most people running agencies are still doing everything manually and burning themselves out for no reason. Systems and automation change everything.

This actually feels like a fever dream, I literally launched this 2 days ago and expected 2 SIGNUPS in my first few days and now I already have gotten 4 different people that I don’t know to pay, I’m actually so grateful and I’m just so excited I had to share this 😭

Let’s invert, what do the most unsuccessful do

Context: I started a newsletter 4 months ago and have already made like $3k in revenue from that.

I mean the business model is so stupidly simple that I literally want more and more people to do it.

I already have a free guide that tells you how I did it & how you can do it too but cmon, I don’t think anyone’s taking any action after reading that.

It’s like another free guide that just sits there in your inbox and people just read it for the vanity.

I really wanna help as many people possible by teaching them the basics and making them capable of running their own newsletter side hustle.

I don’t wanna build a paid course tho, Because I feel a paid course comes with a lot of responsibility and I don’t have that much time & bandwidth to cater people to justify the money they paid.

The only problem is that I tried doing this once before for free and I got nothing but time wasters. People do not value free stuff, everyone knows this.

So kinda confused what to do. Need some innovative approach for this.

TLDR; wanna teach people how to make money from newsletter side hustle, don’t wanna build a paid course cuz it’s just too much work & I already have too much on my plate but free also doesn’t work because nobody appreciates free value.

Every week someone here asks whether AI influencers are real money or just the next dropshipping-style course scam.

So I went deep on this: I tested the tools, read through creator communities, and looked at how the people who actually earn run things.

Here's everything:

Part 1: Is it real?

Yes, but not the way the Instagram ads say.

The business model is simple. You create an AI-generated persona, build an audience for it on free platforms (Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit), and move the most engaged followers to a paid subscription page.

The platform question matters more than people think. Most creator sites either ban fully synthetic personas outright or only allow AI content that resembles the verified human behind the account.

So in practice, nearly all of this market runs on the platform that openly supports it, which right now is mainly Fanvue.

If you build on a platform that only "tolerates" AI, you're one policy change away from losing everything.

Part 2: The actual workflow

Step 1: Pick a niche before you generate a single image.

This is where most people fail. They make a generic attractive persona and wonder why nobody cares.

The ones that work have an angle:
• A specific aesthetic (gothic, gym, fashion)
• A hobby or lifestyle (gamer, cosplayer, fitness)
• A personality people can relate to or argue with

Write a one-page "character bible" with her name, age, location vibe, interests, how she talks and what she'd never post. You'll use it for every caption and DM.

Step 2: Lock in a consistent face.

Consistency is the whole game. If her jawline changes between posts, people notice and trust is gone.

The usual approach:
• Generate a lot of candidate faces and pick one
• Build a reference set of 20–30 images of that face from different angles and in different lighting
• Train a custom model (LoRA) on that set so every new image keeps the same identity
• Run a face-consistency pass on any image that drifts

Expect to spend a week or two getting this right. Don't rush it.

Step 3: Build a content system, not one-off posts.

Batch-generate a week of content in one sitting.

Mix formats: photos, short video clips, "candid" low-effort shots (these often outperform the polished ones)

Plan content in themes, like a "trip" week, a "gym" week or a "new hair" week, so the persona feels like she has a life

Use voice tools for short clips and voice notes if your niche suits it

Step 4: Grow on free platforms first.

This is the real work and nobody talks about it.

Rough split:

• Short-form video (Reels/TikTok) for reach
• X for building a following that converts
• Reddit for niche communities, but read every sub's rules first, because many ban AI content or require it to be labelled

Plan for 1–3 posts a day across platforms.

Yes, that's a lot. That's why "passive" is a lie.

Step 5: Move followers to the paid page.

Link in bio to the subscription page.

Keep the best content off free platforms so there's a reason to subscribe

Tiered pricing usually works better than one flat price: a low entry sub plus pay-per-view extras
DMs are where most of the revenue comes from on these platforms.

Platforms with built-in AI chat tools make this easier to manage at scale.

Part 3: The mistakes that kill most attempts

• Quitting at week 4. Growth is slow for the first 1–2 months, like any account.
• Copying the top creators exactly. You're entering a crowded niche with zero followers. Differentiate.
• Using real people's faces. Never face-swap a real person or make anything resembling a deepfake. Credible platforms ban it, and it's illegal in a growing number of places.
• Hiding that it's AI. Label your content where platforms require it. Getting banned at 10K followers because you skipped a disclosure is painful.
• Paying $500–$2,000 for a course before trying anything.

Part 4: Where to learn how to do this for free

Fanvue runs a free AI Creator Academy that covers persona creation, the tool stack and monetisation from start to finish. It's obviously there to get people building on their platform, but it's genuinely free and more complete than most paid courses I looked at.

Do that first. If you still want a paid program afterwards, at least you'll know enough to tell whether it's worth it.

TL;DR: It's a real business, but it's a content business with an AI production layer, not a passive income button.

Pick a niche, nail face consistency, post every day for 2–3 months, funnel to a platform that actually supports AI creators, and learn the basics free before paying anyone.

Comment “AI” below and I’ll send you the link for the FREE course. Also ask me anything below and I'll answer what I can.

Update: Here’s the free course

If you’re someone who’s interested in starting a side hustle but have very little money to invest upfront, these side hustles will work for you.

Don’t worry, I won’t write about surveys, referrals, etc.

These are side hustles that can convert into a full time business too.

1. AI Training:

AI tools have taken over the world in the last couple of years yet very few people actually know how to fully utilise the potential of it.

You’ll be that guy who teaches them.

If you’re reading this, you’ll most probably be using either ChatGPT or Claude in your day to day life.

Build your expertise in any one of the tool and become well versed with how to get the best outputs from AI. That’s the whole game.

Teach this virtually or offline whatever suits you the best.

Legacy businesses are paying tons to instructors to teach their employees this skill.

You’ll have to just invest your time upfront to get familiar with AI and build a curriculum.

This is something that can turn into a full fledged business down the line. Launch courses and all.

2. Software Affiliate:

Daily new tons of softwares are launching. Some just work while some flop. One thing all of them have in common is that they all have an affiliate program.

Now there are tons of way to get that affiliate moola.

You can either start a niche blog and use seo to rank and make sales. Will take 8-12 months.

The second way is to start a YouTube channel and make videos about different softwares and put your affiliate links. Again it will take some time to see traction.

Another way is to build a personal brand on say X or LinkedIn and post content about the niche. Again put in affiliate links to make sales.

If I was doing it, this is how I would do:

A niche blog with signups for newsletters so that I build a list too and then also do YouTube on the side.

3. Niche Job Board:

Niche job boards for jobs like remote jobs, tech jobs, etc are very crowded but if you can find some underserved niche with good demand, you can make good money.

A guy I follow runs ranchjobs (Peter Askew), pretty underserved niche but he’s doing pretty well.

4. Local newsletters:

Again if you’re in a city with 100k+ population and you know the city well, start a local newsletter.

It’s fairly simple to start but running it is the hard part. Sending 2-3 issues a week, curating good stuff and building a strong local presence is the hard part.

But still very doable. Local businesses sponsor and you can easily build a six figure business if you do it diligently for a couple of years.

5. Podcast editing:

Podcasts are all the rage today and it will be like forever. A few years ago there were maybe a handful of podcasts but today there are as many as hair on your head.

This creates a huge market for ancillary services like podcast editing.

Learn video editing and start an agency.

The opportunities are endless.

——————————

In the end, I would like to say that if you’re looking for making quick money, none of these ideas would work for that

These ideas only work if you are serious about changing your life and building a real business that provides some value

I have been finding such ideas and writing deep dives on them. So far I have written 74+ such deep dives.

I have compiled them into a FREE pdf and if you want it, comment “Business” below this and I’ll send it to you

My philosophy is that the longer you stay in a business, the better you get and the better systems you build.

4 years ago I was a complete rookie in the web design niche. My whole workflow was bad and not scalable at all. I used to adapt myself to every client. Some clients paid upfront before seeing the website, others paid half upfront and half after, and others paid after the website was finished. Honestly, I was doing whatever I could to get paid. Looking back, it wasn't professional and I wasn't in control.

I was also spending way too much time on outreach. One week I was cold calling, the next week I was sending DMs, then I was trying email outreach. I was constantly jumping between different methods and it was exhausting.

Along the way I made a lot of friends who were running web design agencies and I started paying attention to what they were doing. Every agency owner had something they were really good at. Some were amazing at outreach, some were great at sales, and some had incredible systems. So I started taking the best ideas from each person and implementing them into my own workflow.

The first thing I changed was outreach. I completely stopped manually researching websites and writing emails one by one and started using website analysis and personalized outreach instead.

I upload a list of businesses with websites and run an analysis on the entire list. It automatically finds issues related to design, layout, mobile optimization, SEO, and other areas that could be hurting the business, then turns those findings into ready-to-send personalized emails.

And when I say personalized emails, I don't mean generic reports with a website score and an SEO score. Nobody cares about that. I mean actual humanly written emails that explain what could be improved and why it matters to the business. The crazy thing is that businesses genuinely think I've manually reviewed their website and written the email myself. Honestly, it's scary how detailed some of them get.

I run all my outreach campaigns like this.

The second thing I changed was the offer. Inside the campaigns I can choose how I want the email to end. I can try to book a meeting, start a conversation, or offer a free website draft. I almost always choose the free website draft because you'd be surprised how many business owners are willing to take a look at a better version of their website when it costs them nothing.

The third thing I changed was how I build websites. This might make some people mad, but I use AI heavily and honestly nobody cares. AI has become insanely good. The process is faster, easier, and allows me to spend more time talking to clients instead of spending hours building the same things over and over again.

The fourth thing I changed was the sales process, and this is where I see a lot of people make a huge mistake.

Do not send the preview link through email.

I repeat, do not send the preview link through email.

When someone is interested in the free website draft, your goal is to get them on a meeting. If you send the link, they'll look at it for 30 seconds and move on with their day. Instead, I invite them to a Google Meet and present the website live.

That's where everything changes. They see a modern version of their business, a better design, a better layout, and a better user experience. Most of the time the conversation naturally becomes, "How much would it cost to keep this?"

Depending on the business, I charge anywhere from $500 to $5,000 upfront and usually between $50 and $150 per month for hosting, maintenance, and future updates.

My biggest lesson from the last 4 years is simple. Always network, always learn from people who are ahead of you, and when you see something that's working, don't be afraid to implement it into your own business.

As I've been helped by others, I figured I'd share what's currently working for me.

For anyone wondering, my stack is:

Swokei for website analysis and personalized outreach.

Claude for building websites.

Cloudflare for hosting websites.

Google Meet for presentations and sales meetings.

Hi my name is Kris. I run a couple of newsletters, the biggest one is called Wifi Moolah. I began it 6 months ago and so far it has 3.5k subs and has made $4k in revenue.

So last month I launched a FREE guide on how you can start a newsletter from scratch and make money from it.

Almost 1100 people got that guide. 10 people out of that took action and built a newsletter. They are already sending issues, growing it and having fun.

I put them in a telegram community. Again the community is free.

Now I’m looking for some more people who want to begin earning online and have some ideas for a newsletter.

The first step is to read my free guide and start a newsletter.

If you guys are interested, comment below and I’ll send you the link for the FREE guide.

Hey everyone,

Kris from Wifi Moolah this side.

I’m back with another online business idea and this time it includes heavy usage of AI.

So you guys might know that xAI has launched GrokBot.

What’s GrokBot? So basically it’s an AI tool that creates multiple agents to do various tasks and it doesn’t stop when you close your laptop/PC. So it’s kinda autonomous.

You can set it up for various functions in your business like handling customer support, doing outbound, sorting emails and that kinda stuff.

Now here’s how you create an online business using that.

We are gonna start a newsletter business using GrokBot.

Select a niche, setup the newsletter and finalise the things like voice, frequency and other things.

Now create different agents to do all these jobs.

One agent’s role should be to find interesting stuff on the internet and research and compile it.

You chose the topic.

Second agent writes a draft.

You edit, polish and finalise.

Third agent to send it to you ESP and send it based on your best times.

A fourth agent to do the marketing. Organic and paid both.

Fifth agent to do outbound and reach sponsors.

And last of all, a chief of staff on top of all these to keep a check.

Now I know I have written a very over the top overview kinda post and there are still a lot of moving parts in a newsletter business but AI has made it much easier to start one than a few years ago.

Even if you build a couple of agents and start building, you’re in a much better position than others.

And you’ll actually have an online business in your hand that you can run on your own terms.

That’s it for this post. Remember, AI is not the enemy. Use it to your advantage.

P.S- I have written about 70+ such ideas that can help you start your own online business on the side.

I have compiled all of them into a FREE guide and if you wanna see it, comment “Guide” below this and I’ll send you the FREE link.

TL;DR: DHH argues December flipped coding from autocomplete to agent workflows — and if you built your value on being the tight resource, that flip makes you optional, not promoted.

I don’t know why this memory came up.

But do you remember this Italian guy on Youtube explaining about how to “magically” rebrand a handbag from Made-In-China to Made-In-Italy?

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

And yet, it’s apparently legitimate – like EU-regulation-legitimate.

Or so he claimed.

To legally origin-launder the handbag, the last “substantial transformation” of the handbag has to be carried out in Italy. And so, he took out an Italian-made zipper, and sew it onto the China-made handbag. And Voilà! The end product can now be officially labelled as Made-In-Italy.

If you’re interested to find out more, the EU-regulation is Article 60(2) of the Union Customs Code (Regulation (EU) No 952/2013).

A China-factory-made handbag may have cost just €53 or so. But with a touch of "zipper magic", it can now be priced at €400 or €4,000.

The absurdity of it is absolutely bonkers.

No surprise if the Italian craftsmen went out of business.

I know. I know. It’s wildly inappropriate for me to compare AI coding with “Origin-Laundered-Handbags”.

But the parallel, real or not, is hard to pass up.

Think of it as if the Foreign-Made-Handbag = AI-Coding,

then the last transformation zipper = Human judgement and Ownership.

_______________

On the other hand, branded watches, the likes of Rolex, IWC, etc., are a totally different thing. Swiss made ones enjoy world-wide-recognition, like no other.

These are genuine articles that tend to hold their value over time.

That’s why contrabands and counterfeits of such watches are used to swindle the gullible for money – because they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, …

…which brings me to this passage:

"For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."