7 individuals share their top side hustles, from reselling on eBay to building an Etsy shop out of 3D prints

While Austin Ziegler is at his day job managing an engineering team, he has a dozen 3D printers at home printing various products, from soap boxes to coat hooks to keychains, that he sells on Etsy.

One of his most popular items is a gas can ornament with a hole in the middle designed to hold cash so you can gift money.

In August 2023, he brought in $10,000 in a single week, mostly from the gas can ornament.

He invests most of his profit back into the business, which he hopes to scale to the point where it’s bringing in enough passive income that he can live off of.

“The whole goal of the 3D printing was to make some side cash so I could woodwork,” said Ziegler, who specifically wants to do epoxy projects. “The goal is to woodwork in the future and have a company that can generate enough money where I can spend minimal time on it and maximum time on woodworking.”

Jacob Shaidle started deep-cleaning his neighbors’ barbecues

While watching YouTube videos one day, investment banker Nischa Shah thought, “Why don’t I just do this myself? I have nine years of experience in banking, I’ve got the qualifications, everyone is always asking me about money tips.”

She filmed, edited, and uploaded her first video to YouTube in December 2021 and continued intermittently posting personal finance-related videos to YouTube.

For a year, her side project didn’t drive any revenue. Then in late 2022, one of her videos on what it’s like to be an investment banker went viral, and her subscribers snowballed: “It took me 11 months to get to 1,000, and then one month to get from 1,000 to 100,000.”

Shortly after, she monetized her channel, started earning enough to cover her fixed costs, and quit her corporate job.

It’s been over a year since Shah turned her side project into a full-time gig. She believes in maintaining your day job for as long as possible while simultaneously building your side hustle or business, as it removes pressure; you can work on your side hustle because you want to, not because you have to.

Sahaj Dhingra resold Costco products on Amazon for profit

Richard S., who prefers not to share his last name for privacy reasons, plans to retire at 40, thanks to the reselling business he’s built over the last 15 years. The first item he resold on eBay was a T-Mobile Sidekick. He eventually pivoted from reselling electronics to clothing.

“Anybody can do it,” said the financially independent eBay veteran. “It took a minute or two to make the profile and list the items the best that I could at the time. I was not an expert. I didn’t know everything.”

In the reselling business, “it doesn’t matter what I think is cool,” he added. “It matters what the customer thinks is cool.”

Rather than guessing what might sell, use the tools available to you to understand what people are buying. He recommends browsing the “sold items” section of your category on eBay to figure out what is selling well and what isn’t. When it comes time to actually source an item, look it up on eBay before you buy it.

“You can go right on the eBay app and you can look at the comp,” he said. “In 2024, there is no excuse to speculate on an item, and there is no excuse to lose money on an item because we have this luxury.”

Erika and Kareem Hall earn passive income from two soccer franchises

In 2017, Erika and Kareem Hall started looking into ways to earn passive income.

“We were both really happy in our careers, but, at the same time, we wanted another stream of income that could help with other things like investments or just adding to the satisfaction of our life,” said Erika, who is an associate professor at Emory University’s business school. Kareem runs his own consulting firm.

What the Halls liked about the idea of investing in a franchise was that there was a pre-existing model for how the business should be run.

“We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel,” said Erika. “And franchising offered us the opportunity where we wouldn’t have to start from scratch.”

The Halls, who own two Soccer Shots franchises in Georgia, have done more than $1 million in revenue since launching in 2019.

They both plan to continue working full-time. Their salaries cover their household expenses, while their franchise profit is extra money they can use to invest for their futures or in experiences they might not have been able to enjoy otherwise.