The $100k/mo Single-Function Site, the $4k Pet Party Planner, the $30k Cheese Fortune Teller, and More

Today, we’re digging into a stack of side hustle examples and brainstorming ways you could put your own spin on it.

To help me out, I invited Deacon Hayes back on the show. Deacon is the founder of WellKeptWallet.com(opens in new tab) and the author of You Can Retire Early(opens in new tab).

He’s a serial entrepreneur whose latest project is actually a rap album(opens in new tab)!

Tune in to Episode 760 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

how a single-function website built in 2014 still pulls in an estimated $100,000+ a month
how niche, in-person “experience economy” businesses like line dancing lessons and pet birthday parties are cashing in
how Deacon turned Facebook content into $3,000 to $4,000 a month using a simple content system

The $5-6 Million Word Unscrambler Site

Wordunscrambler.me(opens in new tab) is a simple tool where you type in letters and it shows you what words you can make.

Built in 2014 by Ramesh Jha(opens in new tab) in India, some estimates(opens in new tab) put its traffic at 8 million visitors a month and its revenue as high as $5-6 million a year, monetized mostly through ads.

Ramesh’s broader portfolio, which includes a port checker site(opens in new tab) and a syllable counter(opens in new tab), pulls in around 17 million monthly visitors combined. He uses part of the income to fund a nonprofit and run a free public library in his village.

This kind of single-function calculator site is easy to build with AI today. I even built my own side hustle quarterly tax estimator as an experiment.

I also found an intermittent fasting calculator(opens in new tab) reportedly(opens in new tab) making $400 a month, clearly AI-built.

Other ideas floated included:

a paint coverage calculator
a concrete yardage calculator
a sod calculator for yard renovations
a reading-level checker for text
a calorie deficit calculator
a will-it-fit-in-my-garage calculator for cars

How a Car Reviewer in Quebec Makes $500+ a Day

A guy running the TikTok account Parlons Auto(opens in new tab) (with under 6,000 followers) gets hired directly by car dealerships to film honest, short-form video reviews of their vehicles(opens in new tab).

@parlonsautoquebec
Aujourd’hui, on est chez Lexus. On va faire le tour de la gamme : les UX, NX, RX, le gros GX, le luxueux LX, et peut-être quelques surprises. Lexus, c’est Toyota… mais avec le cuir, le silence, le confort, et surtout un prix qui grimpe assez vite. Alors aujourd’hui, on va voir si ça vaut vraiment la différence : est-ce qu’on paie pour du vrai luxe, ou juste pour le logo? Comme d’habitude, on va regarder ça simplement : les modèles qui valent la peine, ceux qui sont trop chers, et les pièges à éviter avant de signer. Bienvenue chez Lexus. On commence ça maintenant. #Lexus #ParlonsAuto #AutoQuebec #VoitureDeLuxe #ConseilsAuto

♬ Funny – Sound Tiktok

He’s paid around $750 Canadian (roughly $500-550 USD) per day.

His edge isn’t follower count; it’s honesty. He tells dealerships upfront he’ll show the good, bad, and ugly, which builds trust with viewers in a way an in-house salesperson’s content couldn’t replicate.

That honesty is also his competitive moat against dealerships just doing it themselves.

I suggested the same formula could work for other big, infrequent purchases like RVs(opens in new tab), boats, motorcycles, or construction equipment.

Deacon raised the idea of a lower-cost version, around $250, for individual sellers rather than dealerships, and even floated restaurant reviews using the same “pay me to feature you” pitch.

Megan Collier (Episode 666)(opens in new tab), who does UGC video work for brands without needing to be an influencer herself, is charging $100 to $300+ an hour as she leveled up her skills.

And Kelly Stumpy, “The Car Mom”(opens in new tab) at thecarmomofficial.com(opens in new tab), reviews family SUVs with a car-seat-safety angle, using dealership connections from her past as a car salesperson to get vehicle access.

The $30,000/Year Cheese Fortune Teller

Jennifer Billock(opens in new tab), a Chicago-based journalist, runs a side hustle called the Cheese Oracle(opens in new tab), practicing “Tyromancy,” reading fortunes with cheese.

She charges $75 to $85 per 45-minute session that opens with a history lesson on the practice, which she says dates back roughly 2,000 years to ancient Rome and Greece.

The business pulls in(opens in new tab) about $30,000 a year, and Nick suspects the bigger money is in private and corporate event bookings where she’s hired as unique entertainment.

The lesson here is positioning: by being the “world’s only” cheese oracle, she’s automatically a market of one.

It’s the same “best, worst, or only” idea John Lee Dumas talked about years ago, and what my old intro to econ professor did by branding himself the world’s first and only stand-up economist.

Summer Ray, who does aura photography at festivals and private events and has earned up to $5,000 in a weekend, is another example of niche, spirituality-adjacent side hustles that do well despite skeptics.

The $4,000-$10,000 Pet Birthday Party Planner

Amanda Shaw runs The Barkday Planner(opens in new tab) out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, throwing over-the-top birthday parties for dogs (and some cats) at $4,000 to $10,000 per event.

She started the business in 2018 after throwing a party for her own dog, Buster, went full-time in 2022, and grew through word of mouth in the local dog community.

In 2022, she acquired one of her suppliers, a pet party hat and accessories brand(opens in new tab), which now cuts her supply costs, adds a new e-commerce revenue stream, and generates leads for her party-planning services.

This ties into a broader trend of pet “humanization,” pointing to a previous guest’s mobile dog treadmill service(opens in new tab) that saw strong demand, plus other pet-focused side hustles like pooper-scooper services(opens in new tab) and a specialty hamster wheel(opens in new tab) that sold hundreds of units a month on Amazon.

How a Boot Barn Employee Became a Viral Line Dancing Instructor

Justin Lee Williams was a part-time Boot Barn employee when a customer suggested he teach line dancing classes, despite never having line danced before.

He learned the skill, stayed one step ahead of his students, and then went viral with a video of himself line dancing with his daughter(opens in new tab) to a Shania Twain song, which hit 3 million views and got a response video from Shania Twain herself.

@justinleesounds
My Niece Loves Line Dancing ♥️ #linedancing #linedancingontiktok #linedancingtutorial #linedancingnashville

♬ Man! I Feel Like A Woman! – Shania Twain

Now he teaches through his site tennesseebackroad.com(opens in new tab) and has grown to roughly 300,000 followers on TikTok, getting flown around the country(opens in new tab) to teach classes at conferences and corporate events.

Deacon and I floated related ideas, like teaching popular viral TikTok dances in a single lesson, or leaning into other accessible group activities like sound baths.

Get Paid to Do Chores on Camera

A new category of apps pays people to film themselves doing everyday physical tasks, like making the bed, loading the dishwasher, or cooking, to train AI models.

Door Dash Tasks (not available in Washington state), and I also came across two others, Atlas(opens in new tab) and Amelia(opens in new tab), that work similarly.

Pay reportedly runs around $15 to $25 an hour, with one reviewer reporting $50 in their first week and $30 to $40 a week ongoing. Availability varies by state, so check before diving in.

I also referenced a recent episode with Nate Jackson on the Amazon Influencer Program(opens in new tab), where Nate earned around $20,000 a month from roughly 3,000 videos, using the benchmark of about $1 per month per video as a rough goal for newcomers.

Round 2: Donate a Business Idea

A Neighborhood Meal-Sharing Marketplace

Deacon’s idea is a personalized, neighborhood-level version of Uber Eats(opens in new tab), where home cooks become “mini restaurants” for their neighbors.

Someone who loves to cook could make extra portions of a meal and sell them locally, similar to how kids sell baked goods at a school bake sale.

There are regulatory hurdles (food handler’s cards, food safety rules, cottage kitchen licenses), but the concept has precedent.

Some friends ran an informal meal-share where a few families took turns bulk-cooking on Sundays and trading meals, with no money changing hands.

Deacon suggested a “personal kitchen inspector” role could even become its own side hustle to help solve the safety and trust problem.

Round 3: Triple Threat

A Marketing Tactic That’s Working: Facebook Content Monetization

Deacon got approved for the Facebook monetization program after building his page to somewhere around 50,000 to 60,000 followers, though he’s seen the eligibility threshold cited as around 10,000.

He simply clicked a button expressing interest and was later approved.

He now posts up to 16 times a day, sharing personal finance tips, sample budgets, and debt payoff stories that align with the WellKeptWallet brand (no HELOC or personal loan promotions, always actionable and hopeful).

A virtual assistant in the Philippines uses Canva templates and brand guidelines to help produce the content, and Deacon uses Claude to help generate content ideas as well.

The current pace puts him on track for $3,000 to $4,000 a month from Facebook alone, which would extrapolate to $36,000 to $48,000 a year.

His content also syndicates to Instagram, where he’s grown to 30,000 followers (up from around 10,000 in under a year) but isn’t yet monetized there.

If you’re interested in this one, Episode 706 with Jeff Rose(opens in new tab) is worth a listen. He was earning about $1,000 a day in the same Facebook program.

A New Tool He’s Loving: MCP Connectors for Claude

Deacon started an online marketing agency about a year and a half ago and uses the Supermetrics(opens in new tab) MCP connector inside Claude to pull ad performance data for clients — best and worst performing ads, cost per click, and return on ad spend.

The bigger unlock is closing the loop on revenue. One roofing client uses Jobber(opens in new tab), so Deacon can tie a specific $15 Google ad click to a $1,000 roof repair.

Tools/Tech

Supermetrics(opens in new tab) — an MCP connector Deacon uses inside Claude to pull ad performance data (best/worst performing ads, return on ad spend) for his marketing agency clients
Claude(opens in new tab) — used with MCP connectors like Supermetrics, Kit, and Google Drive to automate content and marketing analysis
Canva(opens in new tab) — templates Deacon’s VA uses to produce daily Facebook graphics
Suno(opens in new tab) — AI music tool Deacon has been experimenting with for his rap album

Deacon’s Favorite Book

No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline(opens in new tab) by Brian Tracy.

Deacon said the book helped him stop treating obstacles as reasons to quit and instead use them as prompts to find a workaround and keep moving toward what he actually wants.

What’s Next for Deacon?

Outside of WellKeptWallet, Deacon released a rap album under the name 48 Daze(opens in new tab), a passion project years in the making.

He writes clean, message-driven songs based on real-life stories and has been using Suno to help produce the music, comparing it to using a distortion pedal on a guitar: a tool that enhances the art rather than replacing it.

He’s not treating it as a side hustle exactly, but says he wouldn’t turn down income from it if it came. For him, it represents the kind of creative freedom his side hustles have made possible.

Episode Links

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