Uncategorized | Page 39 | New Stream Income

How to Use AI to Create Digital Products: $30k a Month

Becky Beach’s side hustle journey began like many others—with an unhealthy relationship at a day job.

After being fired from her toxic work environment, Becky was inspired to start her own business.

She launched the blog MomBeach.com in 2015, but it took 6 long years of blood, sweat, and tears before it became a full-time income source.

When COVID-19 struck, Becky’s blog exploded from 20,000 pageviews a month to over 250,000. Riding the growth, she took the leap into full-time blogging and digital product creation.

Just two years later, Becky now earns $30,000 a month, largely from digital product sales. She sells printables, courses, planners, workbooks, and more through her website, Etsy store, and TeachersPayTeachers.

Tune into episode 582 of The Side Hustle Show to learn how to:

Build an audience and digital products around problems you can solve
Research demand thoroughly before creating any product
Funnel free content into paid digital product purchases
Drive consistent traffic to maximize your sales funnel potential

Ready to start a site of your own? My free video series will help you get online quickly and affordably.

New to the show? Grab your personalized playlist here!

Becky’s Path from Side Hustle to Full-Time Business

Becky started MomBeach shortly after getting fired from her toxic job. She knew she didn’t want to rely on bosses for income anymore.

However, blogging as a business was still new and unproven for her. Becky shared that her friends and family told her she was wasting time and should stick with a 9-to-5 job.

But Becky persisted because the alternative was going back to the corporate grind with controlling bosses. She had a deep drive to make it work.

In the beginning, progress was very slow. Becky made only $1 in her first month. After 6 months, she was earning just $100 a month from her blog.

It took a full year before she began ranking on Google and driving organic traffic to her posts.

For the first six years, Becky gradually tried different income models like display ads, affiliate marketing, and selling printables. Revenue grew from $1 to $5,000 but she still relied on her day job.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything almost overnight. Her monthly traffic rocketed from 20,000 to over 250,000 page views per month in early 2020.

Seeing her income from blogging, Becky made the decision to go all-in on MomBeach and quit her job.

Just years later, Becky’s monthly income now sits at $30,000 per month — a huge increase from 2015!

Let’s look at what exactly Becky is selling to earn such high revenue.

Digital Products Driving Over $30,000 a Month

When her blog first started, Becky focused on monetizing through display ads and affiliates. But after years of testing, she realized digital product sales could provide the highest income.

Now the bulk of Becky’s earnings come from digital products like:

Printables
Planners
Budgeting spreadsheets
Workbooks
Online courses
Bundles

She sells these through three main channels:

Her own website store
Etsy Shop
TeachersPayTeachers

By having multiple sales channels, Becky is able to scale her reach and maximize profits. She can sell each digital product on all three platforms.

Shopify powers the product sales on Becky’s website. She uses the digital downloads app so customers instantly receive a download link after purchase.

Between these three sales platforms, Becky is able to drive over $30,000 a month selling her digital creations.

But what’s the process for researching, creating, and selling these products? Let’s break it down step-by-step.

Researching Profitable Digital Product Ideas

The first key to success is only creating products that have demand. Becky starts every product launch by validating that people actually want what she’ll be selling.

Here are the tools Becky uses to research digital product ideas:

Pinterest – Becky browses top trends and best-selling products in the printables niche on Pinterest. This shows her what current demand looks like.
Etsy and Etsy Tools – Becky uses Etsy research tools like Everbee and Sale Samurai to analyze product trends. These show digital product demand data like monthly searches and competition levels.
Google Trends – For broader market data, Becky looks at Google Trends. This shows high level search volume and interest over time for relevant keywords.
ChatGPT – Becky taps the AI tool ChatGPT to automatically generate digital product ideas for a specific niche. She gives it 10-20 ideas and then vets them herself against actual market data.

The goal is to brainstorm dozens of digital product ideas first. Becky then researches the market demand for each one. If an idea lines up well with current demand data, she’ll move forward with creating it.

Driving Traffic to Validate Product Demand

Before spending time building a digital product, Becky likes to validate demand by driving targeted traffic to a related blog post.

She’ll research keywords that her target customer would be searching for in Google around that product theme.

For example, if Becky comes up with a “money savings challenge printable” product idea, she’ll create a blog post targeting long tail keywords like:

30 day money savings challenge
how to save money in 30 days
30 day save money challenge printable

She taps into ChatGPT to help create detailed blog post outlines around these topics quickly.

Becky will then publish this content and see how well it ranks and drives traffic. If the blog post sees strong organic traffic, it’s a good sign her printable or digital product would have demand too.

This validation traffic is key before investing time into creating the product itself.

Creating High-Quality Digital Products

Once Becky has validated a digital product idea against market demand data, it’s time to actually create it.

For printables and PDFs, Becky turns to Canva to handle the design work. She shared that having a background in graphic design gives her an edge here.

Becky makes sure to create designs tailored to her audience of moms and women. She adds graphics, colors, and styling that would appeal to her target customers.

Some of Becky’s tips for maximizing product sales with your design:

Use graphics and visuals (don’t just rely on text)
Pick color palettes that complement each other
Add design elements your audience would enjoy
Ensure a clean, high-quality look and feel

Becky also bundles her printables and PDFs so they are 30+ pages. She’s found that more value-packed products sell better than quick one-pagers.

For instance, her top-selling digital product is a home organization planner bundle priced at $17.

She uses ChatGPT to generate craft ideas, activity lists, trivia questions, and other printable content quickly. Becky then takes the AI output and customizes it herself before adding it into Canva.

Selling Digital Products Through Marketing Funnels

The final piece is marketing and selling Becky’s digital products effectively.

Most of her sales come from marketing funnels that start with a blog post and end on a sales page.

Here is the typical workflow:

A reader finds one of Becky’s blog posts ranking organically on Google. Her posts solve problems for moms around topics like saving money, home organization, activities for kids, etc.
Each blog post offers a free printable opt-in as a lead magnet. For example, a post on the 30-day money savings challenge would offer a free budget planner printable.
After opting in with their email to get the freebie, readers are sent to a sales page. This showcases Becky’s paid product bundle at a discounted price.
To create urgency, the discounted bundle price is only available for 20 minutes via a countdown timer. After that, the price goes back to full retail.
For readers who don’t purchase, Becky sets up email follow-up sequences. These continue promoting the bundle deal at the discounted price even after the timer ends.

This marketing funnel system takes readers from a free blog post, to a free opt-in, and finally into a low-risk product purchase offer.

According to Becky, layered value delivery is key. Don’t give away a 300-page mega printable for free or people will less likely purchase it later. Instead, give a smaller 5-10 page freebie and sell the bigger bundle.

Driving Traffic to Power Marketing Funnels

Now that Becky has optimized funnels in place, consistent traffic is required to maximize sales.

Her main traffic sources in order are:

Organic search (SEO)
Pinterest
Facebook groups
YouTube videos
Email list

For SEO, Becky focuses on long-tail keywords with decent search volume but lower competition. This results in easier ranking potential.

She also leverages ChatGPT to help create content and detailed outlines around these SEO keywords quickly.

On Pinterest, Becky re-pins her content 5-7 times per day with different images, captions, and descriptions. This essentially A/B tests different variations to see what drives the most repins and clicks.

And in Facebook groups like her “Mom Bloggers and Business Owners” group, she shares her new blog content and reviews. This brings in another stream of engaged website visitors.

By driving external traffic to her funnels, Becky is able to maximize digital product sales and profits.

What’s Next for Becky?

Now that MomBeach is Becky’s full-time business, she has more freedom to focus on what she enjoys.

A VA (Virtual Assistant) handles her product creation and sales funnel management. Becky spends her time on course development and product research—playing to her strengths.

She is excited to continue expanding her use of AI for easy printable and workbook creation. Becky sees huge potential to accelerate growth even more.

She also gives you these free gifts for the Halloween!

No matter what the future holds, Becky is living proof that with persistence and grit, you can turn a side hustle into a thriving business. She hopes her story inspires others to take the leap and pursue their dreams.

The Key Takeaways

While Becky’s success may seem overwhelming as a new blogger or side hustler, she didn’t achieve it overnight.

Far from it, Becky almost quit her blog entirely after 6 months and 1 year due to seeing no results.

The key learnings from Becky’s journey are:

If you are just starting out, focus on providing value by solving problems for a specific audience. Start building your email list with a free opt-in like Becky did.

As your audience grows, you can tap into tools like ChatGPT to efficiently create paid digital products tailored exactly for them.

Just like Becky, you can build a life-changing income online by sticking with it long-term. She went from $1 a month to over $30,000 a month over the years.

If you also have a vision for earning from home while ditching bad bosses, take inspiration from Becky’s journey. With hard work and consistency, you can make it happen too.

Becky’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Don’t give up.”

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.

The award-winning Side Hustle Show is a
Top 10 Entrepreneurship podcast
with over 1,100 5-star ratings!

Listen in your favorite podcast app or directly in your browser.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The 25 Best Remote Side Hustles to Make Money From Home

What are the best remote side hustles to make extra money from home?

Here’s a crazy stat: 58% of workers already have a job they can do from home — at least part of the time. That means there’s never been a better time to pick up a remote side hustle.

And there are tons of options to choose from!

In this post, I’ll break down my top picks based on:

Almost 20 years of making money online (and working from home full-time since 2008)
100s of interviews with remote side hustlers
The potential earning power of each one

Ready? Let’s do it!

1. FlexJobs

Your easiest remote side hustle option may be to pick up some flexible, part-time work.

This is where FlexJobs comes in — it’s the leading work from home jobs site.

With over 50 career categories, FlexJobs has jobs ranging from entry-level to executive and freelance to full-time.

They charge a nominal monthly fee to access their listings, but you’ll easily earn that back and then some with one job.

When I filtered to only part-time positions, I found over 1,000 remote jobs!

2. Remote Bookkeeping

If you have an accounting background—or are just good with numbers—this might be a good fit.

Why? Bookkeeping is often one of the first roles new companies hire for, and can easily be done from home.

For example, Kate Johnson reported earning $60 an hour or more with her virtual bookkeeping business.

Here’s a free training on how to get started.

3. Freelance Writing

Freelance writing is a fantastic side hustle — you can use skills you already have and just need one client to get started.

In the past, I got paid to write articles on creative ways to save money at Starbucks, or to summarize and re-purpose some of my podcast interviews. I made around $75 an article from home, but have paid freelance writers anywhere from $10 to $500+ to help me create content.

Where can you find work? Here are some resources to check out:

ProBlogger – A free remote jobs search site specifically for freelance writers.
BloggingPro – A free job board that is updated daily with paid blogging jobs, blog writing jobs, and freelance writing jobs.
Freelance Writing Jobs – A list of paid freelance writing and writing-related jobs that are hand-picked from various job sites, classified ads, and company websites.
Online Writing Jobs – Freelance writing jobs for website content in various industries. Join for free. Required to submit an application and a writing sample. Pay varies per project but ranges from $15 – $50.

To learn more about making money as a writer, check out this free guide from the American Writers and Artists Institute:

4. Virtual Assistant Service

There’s a growing demand for work-from-home administrative support professionals, or virtual assistants. Virtual assistants have been around since the dawn of the Internet, but the industry has really exploded over the last several years.

To find VA work, you’ve got a couple options.

The first is to get onboard with an established VA agency, like BELAY Solutions. But the pool of applicants is always deeper than the demand, so these companies are notoriously hard to get accepted to. (Most brag about only hiring the top 1-3% of candidates — and even then, may only pay $12-16 an hour.)

The other option is to set up shop as your own virtual assistant business. My friend Abbey Ashley, who started her VA business on the side, put together a free training that shares:

Where to find thousands of potential clients.
How to make a full-time living working from home.
What clients are really looking for in a VA. (hint: it’s not prior VA experience)

Click here to learn more about becoming a virtual assistant.

5. Web Design Service

You might be surprised, but many businesses have a really outdated-looking site — or they don’t have one at all.

Thankfully, web design is a learnable skill, and can still has great earning power.

My advice: pick a niche to specialize in, and become the go-to provider for businesses in that space.

For example, Ryan Golgosky from 180sites.com primarily builds sites for pressure washing companies. (Really!) When we spoke, he shared how this strategy — and a unique pricing plan — built his web design business to $100,000 a month.

6. Build a Helpful Website

While building websites for clients is a great remote side hustle, it may be even better to build one for yourself.

Now to be totally upfront, there’s a lot to learn to make this business work, but when it does, it can be extremely lucrative.

For example:

Scott earns 6-figures a year from his bird-watching blog
Shelley earns $50k a month from her travel blogs
Andrew earned over $1.2M from his gift ideas site

Their sites are monetized with advertising and affiliate partnerships, which scale as your traffic increases.

Want to start a blog of your own? Check out my free 6-part video course on how to start your own site.

Pros:

Low startup costs

Great long-term earning power

Can sell the business down the road

Cons:

Slow to see results

Lots of skills to learn

Start your site!

Free Blogging Playlist

7. Start a YouTube Channel

Another way to make money from home is by posting content on YouTube.

Once you’ve built up a following, you can monetize your videos with Youtube’s built-in ad platform.

Lately I’ve been earning around $500 a month from my YouTube channel, but some some YouTubers make millions from their content!

To get started, I’d recommend choosing a niche and creating “question and answer” content. Examples might include:

how to do _______?
what are the best ______?
how does _______ work?

Those types of videos give a new channel the best chance of ranking in YouTube’s search to start getting views.

8. Self-Publishing

Self-publishing on Amazon is one of my longest-running remote side hustles. I started in 2012 and still remember the thrill of receiving my first author royalty direct deposit.

(It was something like $46.42!)

I’ve added several more books to my portfolio since then and consistently earn a few hundred dollars a month.

One of my books is actually free on Kindle if you want to check it out:

The Side Hustle: How to Turn Your Spare Time into $1000 a Month or More

9. Focus Groups and Surveys

While online surveys won’t make you rich, they’re definitely an easy way to make extra money. If you’ve got time to kill while waiting for the subway or watching TV, here are some options to check out:

Swagbucks – Earn up to $35 a survey with this mega-popular app, and get a $10 bonus just for signing up!
Survey Junkie – Earn up to $40 a month and cash out beginning at just $5.
InboxDollars – Get a $5 bonus just for signing up!
Branded Surveys – One of the best-rated survey sites with millions paid out.
Pinecone Research – Earn $3 for each 15-20 minute survey. They’ll send you a $3 check after your first one.
American Consumer Opinion – Join millions of free members and earn up to $50 per survey.
YouGov – Long-running survey panel, with data often cited in the media.

The better-paying option is to get matched up with paid research studies and remote focus groups through companies like User Interviews.

Here, the average payouts are $50-200 an hour, and new studies are added all the time.

The downside is they usually pay via Amazon gift cards instead of cash. Check out our full User Interviews review to learn more — I’ve earned $105 so far, in about an hour and a half.

10. Remote Real Estate Investing

You might not think of being a landlord as being a work from home side hustle, but there are ways to get it done.

For example, my friend Dustin Heiner manages his portfolio of rental properties from several states away. He just has a team of property managers and contractors “on the ground” to help out should the need arise.

Alternatively, you might take a look at a platform like Arrived, which lets you invest in cash-flowing rentals for as little as $100.

The company pools money to buy rental properties, manages them, and then distributes the cash flow every month.

11. Test Websites

As a website tester, you record your computer screen and your voice as you use a certain site or app. You may also need to write survey responses as part of the job or use a webcam.

Essentially, you’re giving your opinion about the usability of a website or app with the goal of improving the user experience. You discuss your likes and dislikes, suggest improvements, and discuss any difficulties you have with the site or app.

Learn more about remote website testing jobs at these sites:

User Testing – Rewards vary based on the assignment, but average in the $20-30/hour range.
TestingTime – Earn up to $65 per every 30-90 minute study.
Trymata – Earn $5-30 per test.

12. Sell Printables and Spreadsheet Templates

One of the most interesting remote side hustles I’ve come across is selling printables.

These are digital files you upload to a marketplace like Etsy. Think:

budget templates
chore charts
habit trackers
meal planners
intake forms
wall art
and more

And the best part? When someone orders, the file delivery happens automatically.

On The Side Hustle Show, Rachel Jones explained how she earned $10,000 a month from her portfolio of printables.

If you have an eye for design and can be quick to act on trends, you could capture lots of customers.

Similarly, Emily McDermott built a cool remote side hustle selling spreadsheets on Etsy. She specializes in budgeting templates, and has sold over $250,000 worth of them!

13. Voice Over Acting

Could you get paid to talk? Doing voice overs is another way to earn money working from home.

You’ll need a quiet home studio with a good microphone and a computer with audio editing software. Rates range depending on the client and your experience, but can be anywhere from $10 to $10,000!

For example, Dom and Nicole Draper reported earning $4,000 a month with their voice over acting business.

Here are some places to get started:

Voice.com – Get matched with remote voice over job opportunities.
Voice123.com – A leading platform to find voice over work.

14. Transcription and Captioning

Sites like Rev.com pay you to transcribe audio or video clips.

Members of Side Hustle Nation report earning anywhere from $5-12 an hour doing this. (Fast freelance transcriptionists can earn more though; as this free mini-course explains.)

To make this work, you need fast and accurate typing skills, and excellent language skills.

15. Customer Service (Non-Phone)

Live chat customer support is a common part-time work from home job.

Naturally, you’ll need to be a fast typist and proficient in English. Hours vary on the company and job, but often range from $8-20 an hour.

Check out sites like FlexJobs and Arise for current job postings.

16. Editing and Proofreading

One of my early remote side hustles was editing and proofreading non-fiction books for self-published authors. I found clients through Fiverr, Facebook groups for authors, a self-publishing training program, and word of mouth.

My rates were generally between $0.01 and $0.02 per word, which worked out to around $30 an hour.

If you don’t want to stress about finding clients on your own, here are some companies that offer remote editing and proofreading jobs:

Edit 911 – Edit dissertations, theses, and books. This one requires extensive experience, education, and accomplishments.
Enago – Edit academic papers from a wide range of subject areas.
ProofreadingPal.com – Proofread and edit of all types of documents, from academic and business to books and resumes. Top editors earn $500 to $3000 a month.
ProofreadingServices.com – Full-time and part-time proofreading remote jobs, with pay from $19-46/hr. Accepts applicants from all countries.
Scribendi – Enjoy more of a community feel since this freelance editing job includes working with other staff members. Payment varies per project.
Wordvice – Part-time editor positions. The workload fluctuates seasonally. Graduate degree required.

17. Graphic Design

There are lots of ways to make money from home as a graphic designer.

For example, you could create print on demand products to sell on Amazon, Etsy, or Redbubble.

You could take on client work, or even start a graphic design agency.

One great place to look for remote graphic design jobs is SolidGigs — a hand-curated list of freelance jobs updated daily.

The team at SolidGigs combs through dozens of freelance job boards every weekday and posts the top 1% of jobs to their freelance job stream.

Their design category is definitely one of the best and most active on the site.

They also have a growing library of great resources—courses, templates, interviews, scripts—for helping you actually get the gig.

Side Hustle Nation readers can try SolidGigs for just $2 by clicking here.

18. Microtasking/Micro Jobs

Microtasking is getting paid to perform brief online tasks from home. Some examples are data entry, creating product descriptions, research, surveys, and copy editing.

You decide which tasks you want to tackle and when. These don’t pay particularly well, but the results can add up if you don’t have anything better to do.

In fact, one reader reported earning over $50,000 on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

Here are some other microtasking sites:

ClixSense – Get paid to do simple online tasks.
Clickworker – Earnings vary based on the task.
Appen – Help companies train, test, and tune their machine learning and artificial intelligence programs.

19. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing and management are popular work from home side hustles.

Your responsibilities might include:

Creating social media content/posts (text, images, videos)
Increasing followers/growing a community
Managing social media engagement and conversations
Moderating online communities
Commenting on social posts
Curating relevant content
Scheduling content in online tools like Buffer or Hootsuite
Running ads and campaigns
Increasing brand awareness
Generating leads

On The Side Hustle Show, Brien Gearin shared how began landing $1500/mo clients to manage their Facebook ads campaigns.

20. Tutoring

Tutoring is a terrific way to take your knowledge and share it with others. Plus, it can be done remotely over Facetime or Zoom.

For example, Matt Fuentes transitioned his in-person tutoring business to online, and makes around $1000 extra a week.

Here are online tutoring platforms to help you connect with students:

Cambly – Earn $10-12/hr teaching English online.
Skooli.com – Online tutoring jobs for professional teachers and subject-area experts. Pay is $25 an hour.
Wyzant – Set up your profile to get discovered by students. No teaching certification required.

21. Teach an Online Class

While one-to-one tutoring can be rewarding and even pretty lucrative, it’s still trading time for money. One side hustle with a little more scale is to teach an online group class through a platform like Outschool.

The peer-to-peer education marketplace focuses on students ages 3-18, and has courses on nearly every topic imaginable. On The Side Hustle Show, Jade Weatherington shared how she was earning $10,000 a month on the platform, primarily teaching middle school English writing classes.

I even connected with an Outschool teacher with a series of popular video game classes!

22. Academic Scoring

You can earn money from home scoring or rating student essays, tests, or exams.

For example, Educational Testing Service (ETS) hires online, work from home “Raters” to score Advanced Placement tests.

Typical rates range from $10-20 an hour. Your hours may be flexible, but the work is seasonal and there are usually deadlines for completing the scores.

23. Data Entry

Data entry is a common work from home job, but the pay isn’t great — around $12 an hour on average.

The only reason I’m including it in this list is because some people find satisfaction in this type of work.

One potential place to look is SigTrack, a service that helps check petition signatures against voter databases to see if they match. Demand is highest during election seasons, and you get paid based on accuracy.

24. Translation

If you’re bilingual, consider a work from home job as a translator.

You’ll need good grammar skills, cultural knowledge, conversational competence, and the ability to articulate complex concepts.

Fast, accurate typing skills and a quiet environment will make your job go faster, which increases your earning potential.

Check out these remote translation job sites:

Gengo – Rates vary based on language.
Multilingual Connections – Freelance, remote translation projects.
Translation Services – This company offers translation services in more than 100 languages. At press time, part-time and full-time remote positions were available with competitive pay and flexible hours.
Stepes – An online database of on-demand translation jobs for freelance translators. You can work from your smartphone with their mobile messaging based translation model.
Unbabel – Work on the go and get paid weekly.

25. Online Arbitrage

With online arbitrage, you buy inventory from one website to resell on another (usually Amazon). It’s amazing to me that this is a thing, but it very much is.

When I sat down with Chris Grant, he described selling $75,000 worth of products in a typical month!

Online arbitrage is a beginner-friendly remote side hustle because you can start with any level of inventory investment you’re comfortable with, and scale up as you learn more and see results.

Where Else to Look for Work From Home Side Hustles?

You don’t need to spend all day looking for work from home side hustles! Here are the best sites to find a remote job.

FlexJobs — The largest remote jobs database.
Virtual Vocations — Hand-screened telecommuting jobs that offer “real pay for real work.”
HireMyMom.com — Helps professional women find flexible, legitimate, home-based work. (Unlike many of the other job sites listed here, HireMyMom doesn’t aggregate job listings from other sites. All jobs on HireMyMom are posted by the employer, and in most cases, these jobs cannot be found anywhere else.)
Remotive — “Find your dream remote job without the hassle.”
SkipTheDrive — Specializing in flexible, remote, and hybrid jobs.
We Work Remotely — Remote jobs from the “best remote companies in the world.”
Working Nomads — For professional career seekers who dream about working remotely and traveling the world.
Hired.com — This tech-focused platform mainly offers “traditional” job postings, but occasionally you’ll see well-paying remote and part-time opportunities as well.
FreeUp — A fast-growing freelance marketplace specializing in e-commerce, digital marketing, web development and virtual assistance.
Dynamite Jobs — A growing marketplace of remote work opportunities from remote-first companies.
Upwork — The web’s largest freelance marketplace.

What’s the Best Remote Side Hustle for You?

We’ve thrown out a lot of different remote side hustle options in this post. Did any resonate with you?

When it comes down to choosing the best option, it’s always dependent on your interests, experience, and long-term goals.

For some, it’s about flexibility and freedom. For others, it’s a change of careers or an entrepreneurial challenge.

The most important thing is to pick something and take action! Otherwise, tomorrow is going to look a lot like today.

Serious About Making Extra Money?