How to earn an extra $1000 per month?
jasonleow • 22 May 2023 •
Finances had been a bit tight recently. The fam could do with a bit more. Maybe $1k more per month is a good target – not too much to shoot for that’s it’s overwhelming or stressful, but not too insignificant either that it doesn’t require some planning and concerted effort.
So here’s me writing to brainstorm how to achieve that:
Services
– Services are the fastest way from idea to revenue. Minimal upfront effort, but lots of recurring effort. What skills do I have right now that I can immediately offer services for?
- Carrd-related services - unlimited design, installation, unlimited support
- Web design freelance gigs
- Conduct design thinking 101 workshops - remote? Face-to-face?
- Design thinking coaching for teams
- Remote gigs - RemoteOK, Upwork, Fiverr
- Drop services - Repackage niche gigs from Upwork/Fiverr, add my own spin and expertise, charge for more, e.g. UXStoryboard.
Info products
– Next to services, info products are the next easiest to get off the ground, and move to revenue. Some upfront effort, but minimal recurring effort (other than marketing). What’s something I’m already an expert in and can talk for hours without preparation?
- Keto ebook
- 5am club/sleep biohacking directory
- Twitter hacks directory
- Carrd helpkit - a comprehensive support directory of just about anything Carrd-related
- Design sprint guide and workbook
SaaS/Software
– No immediate payoff, but could be complementary to the other ideas with more fast payoffs. Some types of software can be done quickly and flipped too. What ideas in the drawer have I kept that I can execute on right now?
- Build and launch more Carrd plugins.
- Build apps with intention to flip on microacquire.
- Buy an app on microacquire, reflipped it for more months later.
- Put Sheet2Bio on sale.
- Pivot Sheet2Bio to B2B to show charts and stats.
- Build niche websites that grows from SEO, monetized via ads.
- New product idea: Plugins marketplace for any website. Repurpose Carrd plugins to be suitable for any website.
- Design thinking micro-SaaS: Storyboarding, service blueprints, journey maps, personas, stakeholder maps, insight writing, HMW AI engine, ideation prompt engines,
Ecommerce
– Selling stuff online is a popular trick. What can I sell that works well with what I’m good at, in niches that I’m familiar with?
- Finally kickstart my single item ecommerce site in waiting - career conversation cards.
- Indie hacker swag store? Posters, memes, tshirts, mugs, stickers.
- Use Midjourney to make physical products or printables to sell on Etsy? Tarot cards, posters?
Grants
– There’s funders who are keen to give you money. Who are these funders and what can I do to apply?
- Ask for money to build tech for good apps from local philanthropic grants - SGStrong, Lien Foundation
- Ask for government productivity grants for local SMEs
Slash big item spends
- We dropped plans for an overseas trip in June.
- No staycations for time being.
- Relook insurance payments.
What else can I do to quickly earn $1k more per month?
Comments
@tao Thanks for the idea, mate! Yeah something with less marketing is definitely needed. I like that Etsy store to sell MJ images. Have you tried? I can imagine it’ll be so easy to do… wouldn’t everyone be flooding the market with it by now?
I haven’t tried it as yet, but it is on my list, along with all the other crazy ideas I have for making money… :)
I guess it will be a another “go all in and make it work” type of thing
My thought would be to try to do something that would require minimal marketing. As you well know, that sucks a lot of time and energy from your day. Things like a Keto book might work, but you would have to be able to market it properly to get any traction.
Here’s an idea - whilst the kids are still quite young, what is something you could set up that your wife could also help with? Etsy springs to mind and there are plenty of people there creating Midjourney images that are selling well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K24dvIPhoFw is an interesting watch. Sure, the guy does use another tool to find profitable niches to use, but the guts of an idea is there. You can set up the step-by-step process and you can both create the images when you have free time. I suspect the majority of the effort goes into making the store pages look nice.
Edit: obviously, that thought it based on me not knowing your home/work/wife situation. But I thought if kids are still young enough to sleep in the day or are soon off to school, some spare time might be able to be used that way?