Here’s the thing nobody tells you when you start looking for a side hustle: most of what’s out there still requires YOU 100%. 

Your time, your energy, your presence. You do the work, you get paid. You stop, it stops. That’s not a business. 

That’s a second job you gave yourself without the benefits. And if you’re already running a business or clocking in forty-plus hours a week, the last thing you need is more work on your plate.

That’s exactly why I put this together. These 23 side hustles are different. Every single one is high-margin, service-based, and built to be handed off from day one. Someone else does the fulfillment. Someone else handles the daily tasks. 

You set it up, you point the right people at it, and it runs. Be wary that some set up,  networking, and planning work will be involved. But the fulfillment can be fully outsourced as long as you know the right people to hire.

(SHOUTOUT: All roles can be fulfilled by Proximity Outsourcing. Get access to the best outsourced talent in the Philippines and Latin America for under $15 an hour.)

No physical presence needed, no micromanaging, no trading hours for dollars. And you can grow it to as big of a business as you want. Whether you’re a business owner looking to add another income stream or a 9-to-5er who’s finally ready to build something that doesn’t depend on you showing up every day, this is the list you’ve been waiting for.

Physical Businesses (with Online Operations) 

1. Event Equipment Rentals 

Rent out items for event and booth set ups. LED projectors, LED walls, chairs, tables, TVs with stands, stanchions/ velvet ropes, red carpet, couches, etc. I personally have this business and it’s really easy to manage. Add: one in-person coordinator for delivery. 

Hire: 

Data Entry Virtual Assistant (to gather the suppliers and canvass contracts)

Lead Coordinator (manages social media, and all inbound leads, coordinates delivery with in-person team)

2. Real Estate Rentals (Long term or Short term/ Airbnb) 

Rent out rooms or a whole house to people looking for places to stay online. The best way to do this is long term rentals, there’s less turnover and headaches. All you need to think about are the occasional repairs. For short term rentals, there needs to be cleaning, turnover, registration, communication, and asking for 5 star reviews. Work with a realtor / real estate sales agent for the most ease. 

Bonus: You’re investing in real estate, and there’s extra rewards in asset appreciation.

Hire: Property Management Virtual Assistants for promotions and ongoing management

3. Local Labor Services Lead Management and Appointment Setting 

Approach local services (e.g. landscaping, dentists, salons, moving, arborists) with poor online response rates and because of that they lose leads. Offer to handle leads and push reviews. 

Hire: Lead Coordinator/ Appointment Setter

4. Reputation Management for Local Businesses 

Clean up online reputation for businesses in your area. Offer review boosts, automate review requests, manage responses, pitch for local PR.

Hire: Online Reputation Business Manager

5. Facebook Marketplace/ Ebay Arbitrage 

Find items that can be sold for a higher amount, and resell them on Facebook Marketplace, your local marketplace, or Ebay. 

Hire: Virtual Assistant who will “hunt” these deals for you, post them, and help you with the transaction

6. Focus Group/ Secret Shopper Opportunities 

Find “focus group” and secret shopper opportunities, show up, give your insights, and get paid. You can also outsource the other participants if you are not a psychographic/ demographic match.

Hire: Part Time Virtual Assistant who will Find These Opportunities for You

7. Cloud Kitchen Marketing 

You know those “restaurants” that are on Ubereats/ Rappi/ Grab but they are not a full fledged cafe or restaurant? These businesses make money from the profit they get from selling and delivering food, without the extra cost of hospitality/ table service. They will appreciate more marketing opportunities, and if they can sell their food outside of these delivery platforms (because they take 20-33%), as well as opportunities for bulk orders and catering. 

Hire:

Social Media Manager (Engagement, growth, bookings) 

8. Part-Time Consulting (Own, or Marketing)

Whatever career you have right now, you’ve gotten there because you knew of a few things more or better than most people. Take advantage of this knowledge and help other people with it. You only need to show up for these high priced calls (you can charge up to $1k an hour) and outsource the business admin and promotion to virtual assistants. If you don’t want to do this yourself, you can approach people who can do this and you can do the marketing and admin work for them, and of course, outsource the tasks.

Hire: 

Social Media Manager (to help with promotion or creating content)

9. Grant Research and Writing for Nonprofits

Digital Services 

1. Done for You Podcast Production

A team that handles all the aspects of podcast production. Several online entrepreneurs use a podcast as a way to build their personal brand, and there’s a ton of benefits for doing it, it just takes a lot of time to build it.

Hire:

1 Podcast producer, 1 video/ podcast editor (Optional: Social Media Manager + Newsletter if you also want to sell podcast promotion or repurposing) 

2. Thought Leadership Ghostwriting (Usually, LinkedIn, Substack, Medium, or Newsletter)

Approach people who have been investing in their personal brand and offer to manage their thought leadership content. 

Hire: 

Content Writer, preferably a former journalist

3. Bookkeeping Agency 

Everyone needs a cheap and reliable bookkeeper. Partner up with a tax prep company to make it better. 

Hire: Versatile bookkeepers (Quickbooks, Xero, etc.)

4. HR and Onboarding Company

Small businesses who don’t have a solid HR team but need to hire multiple people or onboard vendors, they need an onboarding service to do this repetitive thing. There’s only so much AI can do, and not everyone will read the vendor/ employee manual.

Hire: Onboarding Managers, Customer Success Managers 

5. Online Business Connector / Affiliate Manager

Study an industry and connect people to each other by looking at complimentary services. Get a commission once the connections make money. You could be a superconnector while doing this and you can meet a lot of great people along the way. 

Hire: Affiliate Manager

6. Etsy Graphic Design Shop 

This is a design shop that sells digital products on Etsy. People buy a lot of pre-made and customizable designs on Etsy (including me during my wedding!). Continuously churn great designs and content, and optimize your shop. Some are related to invitations, children’s books, or humor-related cards. 

Hire: Graphic Designer

7. Resume and Cover Letter (and a Course on Career Coaching) 

Start a small career coaching business, in a career that you know a lot about. Help people improve their resumes, profiles, and portfolio, and create a course (one time, with Loom and Google slides) that you can sell over and over again, so that you don’t need to sell consulting. You can do different versions of careers if you partner up with an expert, split profits, use their expertise.

Hire: 

Graphic Designer (for resumes, profiles, and portfolios, and the guide), Social Media Manager that will build a page for you and engage with active accounts in the industry 

8. Virtual Receptionist Services 

Offer virtual receptionist services for stores that have to run their customer support 24/7. Even if they have a storefront or not, if they are the type of business  that always has people asking questions, this is a good business. You won’t be on the phone all the time, but the company also can’t afford to have no one on the phone for a particular time. Bonus: leverage AI tools to answer basic questions, then hot transfer to a human agent.

Hire: 

Online Receptionist/s (Virtual Assistants with Great Spoken and Written English) 

9. On-demand Customer Support 

There are a lot of companies that would appreciate even part-time 20 hours a month of customer support. Someone to answer texts and emails, to show their customers that they don’t leave them behind after being sold something. Design a good package that is super affordable, and outsource the work. If you want to step up to higher quality offers, a Customer Success/ Client Success Manager also works.

Hire: 

Customer Support, Customer Service Agents, Customer Success Manager, Client Success Manager

10. Content Repurposing 

So many people, especially Founders and Business Owners who always dreamed of producing a lot of content or “going viral” have gigabytes of video waiting to be sliced and repurposed. Get this behemoth file, and repurpose it. Add on social media management or scheduling and publishing as an upsell.

Hire: 

Video Editors, Social Media Managers

11. Easy Web Support 

Lots of small and medium sized businesses need safe web hosting + insurance that if something breaks, they can contact a web support person for their site. A lot of these business owners are also not techie, and will need a pro to even add one page or post a blog. Start selling web support for as low as two hours of guaranteed work a month if there are any issues + plugin updates and hosting, and outsource the at-need work at 200-500% mark up.

Hire: 

WordPress Developers, Shopify Developers, Virtual Assistants or Project Managers with Strong Website Support Experience for common platforms

12. Research and Data Management 

Even with AI, so many people need help putting some research work together. This could be for school, for a business, or even for personal use. You are given a few websites to go to, a direction for the research work, and then you will submit the output in a format that your client will require. Definitely 100% outsourceable. 

Hire: 

Research and Data Virtual Assistant (preferably an AI fluent one!)

13. AI Prompt Library Subscription

If you are early into AI or it excites you, this is a great, low friction business to have. Sell subscriptions to tried and tested AI prompts and continuously update it. This is very easy to build on any data housing or project management platform, and have an AI Fluent Virtual Assistant or Project Manager maintain it. It’s best to sell this low priced subscription to more traditional businesses.

Hire: 

AI Fluent Virtual assistant or AI Fluent Project Manager

14. Data Cleanup Services 

There are tons of online businesses, local businesses that need cleanup for their data: emails, their CRM (customer relationship management), leads lists, address books, newsletters, etc. This could be a one time thing or an ongoing project. This is something a lot of business owners procrastinate on so they will appreciate it. 

Hire: 

Data Entry Specialist, Project Manager

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Which one sounded easy for you to start? Let us know when you want to build it, there’s a ton of opportunities out there, and you can start with hiring staff for as low as ten hours a week. Book a chat with our team here and let’s outsource that side hustle for you.