Side Hustles In Tech Are Abundant
If you have a skill, then there is always someone willing to pay for that skill. Most of the time for us tech workers we take our skills to a job and work for 40+ hours a week for one company at a time. While tech salaries can be ridiculously high, that is still only ONE stream of income. If 2020 showed us anything, it is that job security is a myth. The only job that is secured is one that you make for yourself! I’m not telling everyone to quit their jobs and become entrepreneurs who work solely for themselves. That wouldn’t be feasible. What is feasible however is for everyone to add multiple streams of income into their lives with some side hustles. Here are five side hustles in tech that can bring you extra money in 2021 right now!
Create & Host Websites
Did you know that less than 2/3 of U.S. small businesses have a website? A lot of business owners are not tech savvy and honestly the thought of creating a website scares them. This is where you can come in and make money two ways. First you can make money upfront by offering to create their website and then you make passive income by charging them for hosting their website. Let’s do some quick math. Let’s say you have a small business website package for $1000 and a hosting package of $30 per month. Let’s say you do 1 website a month:
- 12 * $1000 = $12,000
- 12 * $30 per month = $360 per month = $4320 per year
After your first year you made an extra $16320 on top of your regular job pay. If you provide reliable and quality service then your clients will stay with you for hosting. That extra monthly income is infinitely scalable and is worth more than than the $1000 in the long run.
Tutor CS Students
This is a pretty self explanatory side hustle. As more and more people go to university and boot camps to become software engineers and developers, there has opened up a niche for tech tutoring. Get paid to help others by signing up for websites like CodeMentor or advertise your services solo. Tutors easily can make $40-$60 per hour tutoring and while it’s not much when you only do a couple hours, that’s still extra money. Go to your local community college or university and find the CS department and offer your services or some flyers, trust me you will get calls soon.
Sell A Course/E-Book
This one is definitely more involved but can easily be one of your most lucrative passive income side hustles in tech. By creating a course or an e-book in your niche and selling them you are creating evergreen content that can last well beyond the time of creation. A good portion of my website sales come from my courses such as PWA To APK course and once the hard work of actually creating the content is done, it’s a relatively hands off process going forward.
Create A PWA & Android App In 30 Minutes!
Progressive web applications (PWAs) are a type of web application that can run on any browser compatible device that brings mobile and desktop functionality to the web, such as offline functionality, push notifications and more. This new format for web applications is quickly becoming the standard for web development. In this course I will show you how to quickly and effectively create the scripts necessary to turn any web application into a progressive web application.
WebAPK and TWA are Google technologies that allow you to convert your PWA into Android applications. In this course you will learn how to turn any existing web application into a PWA and subsequently convert it into an APK to upload to the Android Play Store!
You still need to do marketing if you want consistent growth but you should be reinvesting your sales into ads anyway! Courses can sell for years after they are created, however depending on the context of the course, it may want to be updated from time to time to stay relavent!
Flip Apps
Going on two years ago I wrote a Twitter thread on app flipping using websites such as Flippa. Essentially it works like flipping anything else. You find an app that is undervalued and being sold whether by auction or direct sale. Once you find the app, you can either keep it, enhance it and profit; or you can polish it up and resell it for a higher price. I personally prefer keeping the apps and riding the passive income train.
Create An App
This is the holy grail of passive income in my opinion. The majority of my side hustles are in the form of apps that make me money. This obviously will require the most time and if you are working a full time job you will have to juggle both which is easier said than done. However the reward has the highest potential of all the tech side hustles. Web apps, mobile apps, it doesn’t matter (I do both).
Conclusion
Nothing worth while will happen fast. If you decide to pursue a tech side hustle in 2021 then the first thing you must understand that living a #CodeLife takes time. Be patient, stay focused and HUSTLE. If you enjoyed this article then share it on social media and consider joining the Code Life Newsletter. Every week get fresh updates and inside looks in the world of tech and entrepreneurship with special content only for subscribers!