Welcome to Ghost Business 👻 Your Tuesday & Friday email, where we turn $1 into thousands building these weird but simple side hustles

Asking 650k People

Top 10… In case you didn’t know. I. Love. Reddit. It’s somewhere I can ask 650k people about making between $1k and $10k PER MONTH in their side hustles.

I navigated the hundreds of responses (so you don’t have to) and brought you the top 10 best and unique side hustles.

These are broken down by income reportedly earned per month and a brief description of how they got started.

These responses have been slightly edited for clarity and ease of reading. Ordered by income and not time. Okay I’ll quit stalling 😎 

Top 10 Side Hustles Making $1k-$10k/mo (according to Reddit)

1. Sports Referee ($1,000) 🏀 

I wrote about how to start in sports refereeing here so I won’t bore you with the details. You can do this working 20-25 hours per month. Start doing rec leagues and work your way up to competitive. Great way to stay in shape and meet people in your area (ONLY if you like people 🙅🏽)

2. Estate Sales Flipper ($1,500) 🏠

They spend Friday and Saturday mornings going to estate and garage sales. THEN sell online and at small swap-meets a couple times a month and antique shows a few times a year. Pro Tip: Find Your Specialty. They specialize in antique tools and know the field very well so it’s incredibly rare to get burned or overpay. The hours spent at garage/estate sales varies from a couple hours in the winter and up to 12 hours in the spring and fall. The swap meets are normally a 7-8 hour deal.

3. Poop Scooper ($1,750) 💩 

This was also a previous Ghost Biz special, check it out here. To get started you only need: Trash bags, pooper scooper or gloves, clever poop pun company name, a very tough nose. Facebook neighborhood pages and NextDoor is where you’re going to find all of your customers in one place. Thousands of people (potential customers) will see your posts and you can start to land leads without leaving the comfort of your home.

4. Blogger ($2,000) 🖊️

Blogging in combination with affiliate marketing in two niche markets (automotive & online marketing). You need to search for affiliates with recurring commissions or with high commissions. Doesn’t take much effort (4-8 new blogs a month). Affiliate marketing is a better option then advertising (Google Adsense). You don’t need as many visitors.

5. Social Media Management ($2,300) 📱 

Got started doing a service swap (where you teach someone your skills and vice versa). Signed up for the free version of Canva and learned everything from content creation, marketing, website design and SEO. ChatGPT was also a huge help to generate ideas, hashtags, meta tags and way more. They now have 6 clients they manage.

6. Cleaning Agency ($2,500) 🧼 

This was also already written about here. How it works is you create a “cleaning business” and start customer outreach. Once you land a customer you give them a quote for the work. You then find a cleaner that can do the work for less than your quote and you keep the difference. This works out because you essentially work as sales inbound for cleaning folks and you can make good money working from home (and without actually cleaning 😏)

7. Amazon Print On Demand ($3,000) 👚 

Merch by Amazon is print on demand. You can upload 8,000 shirts on there (they’ve been doing it since 2019). All you do is upload the designs and Amazon pays a fee after a purchase. You can also do the same on other similar sites like teepublic and redbubble which can bring in an additional 1k a month.

8. Painting Vacant Apartments ($5,000) 🎨 

They only do interior painting with only walls included in the price. You can charge extra for drywall repairs, painting trim, painting doors, and ceilings. Most of the time, you can find business through apartment complexes, property management companies and real estate agents. Pro Tip: March is always bid package time.

9. Making Meals For Gym Goers ($10,000) 🏋️‍♀️

They watched some guy on tiktok making really delicious looking meals while still staying true to a calorie surplus meal. Now depending if you’re on a cs (calorie surplus) or a cd (calorie deficit), the meal you get is made just for you. What worked best for growth was word to word. They got friends to try their food and they started buying. They eventually told their friends and got more orders as time went by.

10. Selling Shaved Ice in the Summer ($20,000) 🧊 

The finale was also a previous post. This family started selling shaved ice in their front yard during the summer (in Idaho). The lines grew so long that it was wrapping around the neighborhood and through peoples yards. They eventually started selling in the local farmers market, which then turned into a food truck for weddings and events 👰‍♀️

The MVP (Getting your first customer)

Just Do It… What these hopefully highlight is this: Just get started. If you have an idea go for it. Most likley someone will have a need for what you’re providing and that’s all it takes to get started.

Just worry about the next step while having an idea for your end goal. The rest is just in your head.

Getting Your Next 100 Customers

Phone a friend… Friends and family are key to getting your next 100 customers. They will be able to review and provide referrals for your business. Some of the highest needs when it comes to growing your business.

Don’t be afraid to ask!

Pro tip: Find where your customers are going to be.

• If you’re selling food, sell at a farmers market

• If you’re painting residential buildings, go to where property managers congregate

• If you’re picking up poop, find a b*tthole 😂 

Viability:

1 [building spaceships] 🚀 to 5 [easy peasy] 😊 

A,B,Zs… The takeaway is this; get started in your journey. Some of my favorite sayings:

• “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today”

• “Don’t worry about every step, just think about step A, B (your next step) and Z (your end goal)

Anyone can make life changing income with their idea but you have to take the leap and learn on the way!

(As usual this is not investment advice. Each business will have it’s own setbacks, and it’s all about the execution and consistency rather than just having the idea 😉)

It’s a great day to be great!

Love, Mike 👋