6 Realistic Side Hustles Anyone Can Start in 2025

Up until a couple years ago, I thought that the best way to get rich was to work your way up in a company. This however, wasn't until I woke up to an email saying that I was laid off, along with the rest of my marketing department. This led me down the route of trying out side hustles, and ultimately I've made over $3 million in profit just in the last couple years alone.

So in this video, I'm going to show you the 6 most realistic side hustles that you can start in 2025 that will actually make money. Now, beyond just telling you what these side hustles are, I'm actually going to switch you over to my computer and I'll show you real examples of each of these. And then most importantly, I'm going to give you my best piece of advice.

The thing that I wish I knew when I was just starting out in each one of these six. Guys, if you are looking to start a side hustle in 2025, this is going to be a really helpful video. And without further ado, let's get right into it.

Okay, so for your guys' sake, the first one on this list is going to be the easiest one that you can start today and start generating income. I know for a lot of you guys out there, you want to see results quickly, and that's going to give you proof of concept. This is the business that's going to do that the fastest.

So if you go over to Google and you type in Amazon KDP, this first result right here that says self-publishing and it says kdp. amazon, if you click on this, this is going to bring you to Amazon's homepage for Kindle Direct Publishing. Now, for those of you who have not heard of this before, essentially Amazon KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing is where anyone can create and sell books on Amazon.

Now, something that is very important to clarify is we are not creating full-fledged novels. We're not writing whole books and trying to sell those on Amazon, rather, there are a ton of different types of books that you can create and sell on Amazon. So switching over to Amazon, if you type in something like a workout log book and you start scrolling through here, you're going to see all of these are actual physical books.

They're things that people are holding in inventory, and then when someone makes a purchase, they're shipping them out to the customer. Now, as you keep scrolling down here, you're eventually going to find some of these that just have a mockup of a cover. So here's some perfect examples.

So as you can see, this is a digital mockup of the cover, a digital mockup of the cover. Again, over here. So if you click on one of these, this, from experience, I can tell is being done with Amazon KDP, and by using Amazon KDP for this, the seller has just created and uploaded the front and back cover and then uploaded what is actually going to go in that book.

So what's going to get printed on each page. And then anytime someone comes in here and they add this to their cart and they order it from Amazon, Amazon will print it in their book printing facility, they will ship it out to the customer, handle all the customer service, and we as the creator just get a split of the profit. So guys, just to show you some real examples of this, just by uploading those front and back covers to Amazon and then what's going to go inside the book, Amazon will print books just like this.

This is what they look like when they get printed and shipped out to the customer, and we as the seller have nothing to do with this actual printing. Now, you're probably wondering, I said that this was the easiest business model to get into and it starts making money the fastest. But what if you know nothing about designing covers, or designing page layouts for what goes inside of the book?

Well, this is where a huge perk to my channel comes in. I've laid out full step-by-step tutorials for most of these businesses I'm going to talk about today, and Amazon KDP is one of those that I have a full free tutorial here on YouTube showing you how to do every single step in this business. Now, with that being said, before we move on from Amazon KDP, I'll give you my best piece of advice.

The thing that I wish I knew when I was just starting out in this business and what that is, is I'm going to put up a big list of different ideas that you can create Amazon KDP books on. As you can see, there are a lot of really good ideas beyond just workout log books, but my best and most valuable piece of advice I can share with you is that out of all of these categories, my best performing category that I would recommend for you guys to see those sales the fastest is word search books. Now, I have talked about this a couple times recently on the channel, and the reason being is not many people know how to create the word search puzzles that go on each page of these books.

Now, I could continue talking about this one, but I do wanna keep this video moving forward. So for those of you interested in Amazon KDP, I'll put a link to a full tutorial. It's here on YouTube so it's free to watch and it will teach you everything you need to know to start this business today.

All right, so this brings us right into the next realistic side hustle that you can start in 2025. And what this is is if you go to Google and you type in Amazon Merch on Demand, and let me quickly say this video has nothing to do with a sponsor from Amazon. It's just that Amazon is the largest marketplace online where people are spending money.

So that also means it's the largest opportunity for people who want to make money online. Amazon has a whole bunch of divisions, or different ways that you can sell on their platform. Both Amazon KDP and Amazon Merch on Demand are really good platforms to make money.

So once you've searched for Amazon Merch on demand, once you see merch. amazon, this is the one that you want to click on. Again, this is going to bring you to kind of the homepage for this department.

And essentially the best way to explain Amazon Merch on Demand is it's just like Amazon KDP, but instead of for books, it's for T-shirts. Now, again, just like Amazon KDP, Amazon Merch on Demand is 100% free to join. There's no monthly fees.

And to show you a real example of this, if you go over to Amazon, I just typed in Funny Dad T-shirt, but you can do any category you want to. It could be funny fishing shirt, funny mountain biking shirt, any type of T-shirt that you wanna search here. Once you start scrolling down here, this is how you find the Amazon Merch on Demand T-shirts.

So as you can see in this first one right here, and also the last one, they have the exact same black mock-up. Now, it can be in any different color, but the shape of this mock-up is just a flat lay T-shirt as opposed to these two right here, they have a different bend in the shoulder. This one is kind of a 3D mockup.

As you scroll through all these T-shirt listings, the ones that have this simple flat lay, those are all going to be done with Amazon Merch on Demand. Now, let me just click on one of these to give you an idea of this. So just like creating the book covers we were talking about for Amazon KDP, for Merch on Demand, you are just creating this design and uploading it to Amazon.

Amazon creates this virtual listing for you. Again, you are not printing any shirts, you're not responsible for any of that. Amazon has full apparel printing facilities where they will professionally print these items whenever someone places an order.

Now, since this business model works very similarly to Amazon KDP, I can skip over explaining this in more detail and I can get straight into the valuable tip that I wish I knew when I was starting out with Amazon Merch on demand. So I'm going to split this into two tips, because there's a lot of information that I wish I knew on this business. The first tip is that when you create your designs to sell on Amazon, you can actually upload those designs to other what's called print on demand websites.

Two of the other really good websites would be Redbubble and Teepublic, and they basically look just like an Amazon, but they are just for apparel. Also, they work in the same way where nothing is printed until someone places an order, and then those companies will print the items, they'll ship 'em out to the customers for you, and by uploading your designs to those websites as well, you're just getting more traffic and more people seeing your shirts. Now, the other thing that I wish I knew is that there are graphic design tools out there that have T-shirt designs that you can customize and use for this business.

So to give you kind of a quick sneak preview here, this is the tool that I personally use. It's called placeit. net.

If you just type in Car T-shirt, it's going to bring you all of these different designs that you can use and customize, and they also have mockups. So once you've created that design, you can put it on a model. You can post it on social media just to do some of your own marketing.

So by using these T-shirt templates, you really don't need to have any graphic design experience to start this business. And speaking of starting this one, for those of you who are interested in this one, again, I will link a full step-by-step tutorial here on YouTube, totally free to watch, down in the description below. So just like that, we are onto the third realistic side hustle you can start in 2025.

If you go back over to Google and you type in Amazon Influencer this time, the first result here says affiliate-program. amazon. This is the one that you want to click on, and this is going to bring you to Amazon's page to sign up as an Amazon influencer.

Now, this is another really cool opportunity and don't think right off the bat that you have to be a social media content creator, to be an influencer and get accepted here. Essentially what this is, is you can create quick videos reviewing products that you've purchased on Amazon, and Amazon will post those on the product page. Now, in order for this to make a little bit more sense, let me show you what this looks like.

So if you go over to Amazon, let's just look at this product right here. So this is a microphone and over on the left side, as usual, all of the photos of the microphone are here. But then you're going to see this little tab that says eight videos.

If you click on that, the first couple videos are posted by the company that sells the product, but then they have this section here that has related videos for this product. These are all going to be videos that Amazon influencers have created and posted to Amazon. Essentially the way this works is if you click on one of these videos and you are watching it and then you get convinced, okay, yes, this is the right product for me.

Once you click out of this and you go back and you purchase the product, Amazon is going to give a percentage of this purchase to the creator whose video you watched. Now, I know that may be a little bit confusing at first, but essentially this is a form of affiliate marketing. So anyone can create review videos just like the ones that you see here, and then by posting it to Amazon Influencer, Amazon will review those videos.

And if they are videos that they want posted on their platform, they will post them right in this section right here. There's nothing else for you to do. People will automatically watch these videos and then if they then go on and purchase the product, you are then going to get a commission added to your account.

So now that we got to see a real example of what this looks like on Amazon, lemme give you my best piece of advice on this business. So my best piece of advice here is that since I don't have content to refer you to of actual step-by-step tutorials on doing this one, I can recommend another YouTuber to look at. His name is Steven Charles, and he has specifically one video right here that does an exceptional job at explaining this business model and giving you his best tips as you're getting started.

So for those of you who do wanna get into this business model, that's where I would refer you to. All right, so moving right along. We are onto the fourth realistic side hustle that you can start in 2025.

And what this one is, is actually on TikTok. So assuming that TikTok stays available to use for everyone, what this business model is is just like Amazon Influencer where you're creating reviews of videos, you can actually create TikToks, or short videos showing different products that you can use. I've just searched cooking to give you an idea here, but this can be for any different topic, or different hobbies that you have showing the different products, and then you can have a link to purchase that product.

Now, what's cool about this is in these videos specifically, these are products on Amazon. So they're sending you to Amazon to make a purchase and they get a commission, but TikTok actually does this directly on their platform. So if you look up the TikTok Shop, you can actually refer people to products directly in your videos.

So you can show how to use a product again in any category that you want, and then you can have a direct link where you are going to get a commission if someone purchases through that link pop up in your video on TikTok. Now, the best piece of advice I can give you on TikTok Shop is that when you are creating videos on TikTok Shop, you can actually request from companies to give you the product for free to create that video. Typically, big creators are the only ones getting free products in affiliate marketing, but on TikTok Shop, you don't have to be a big creator.

Anyone can request to get a free product to create videos with. And I will say for this one, you are going to have to go on YouTube to learn all about it. I don't personally have step-by-step tutorials to refer you to.

So next up is the fifth realistic side hustle you can start in 2025. And what this one is is digital downloads. Now, if you haven't heard of a digital download before, essentially you can create something on your computer, a file, whether that's an arc file, or it's a template file, and I'll explain that a little bit more here in a second, and you can upload that to marketplaces where people can purchase that file from you.

So to show you a real example, so this all makes sense, if you go over to Etsy, which you've probably heard of, is a big marketplace where you can sell digital downloads and you can also sell physical products and you search for something like a wedding invitation. As you scroll through here, you're going to see some of these are physical wedding invitations that will be printed and they'll be sent to you, but as you keep scrolling through, you're going to find some of these that are digital downloads. So I'll click on this one to show you, but this is what the templates look like.

And then if you do purchase this from the seller, you are going to get a digital download. So you can go in and you can edit the template yourself, and then you can save that customized version to your computer and you can go off and print it yourself. So a couple really good tips I can give you here.

First thing to know is that this is $7 and 50 cents for this digital download that is almost all profit. Since this is just a digital download, there's no actual cost of goods to be printed and shipped. So the profit margin on digital downloads is really, really high.

Now, the other thing that's really good to know about this is that you're not limited to just wedding invitations. You can create digital downloads on any topic that you can think of. Just to give you another example here, this is a budgeting Google sheet that I have searched for, and these are just pre-designed layouts with different calculations built into them, and someone has just created that on their Google sheets.

They've saved that, and you can purchase that, download it and use it in your own Google Sheets. So guys, if you have Excel or you have Google Sheets and you've created your own kind of budgeting layout that you use for yourself, you can actually save that as a template and you can upload it somewhere like Etsy and you can sell that to other people. Now, I have a lot about digital products that I'd like to talk about.

So quickly, I'm going to give you a couple rapid fire tips, things that I wish I knew when I was starting here. First thing is that if you're not creating something that is based on Excel or Google Sheets, I would recommend using something like Canva. You can go into Canva, and what's cool about them is they have pre-made templates.

So you can go in here and type in something like Wedding Invitation. You can click on a template from someone else, and then you can use this as a reference point to start your own template. Now, I never recommend going in here and just changing one, or two things and saving that, trying to sell it as your own, but you can use this for ideas.

And then you have a really good starting point to create your own digital download that you can then go sell on Etsy. Or the last tip that I'll give you here is that you can also sell these on a website called Gum Road. Gum Road is kind of a smaller marketplace that's coming up, but they allow you to do digital downloads, they get plenty of organic traffic, and then you're diversified selling it both on Etsy and on Gum Road.

I wish I did have some step-by-step tutorials for this one. If you guys would like to see that type of content, let me know and I can create it on this channel. But at the moment, you'd have to go to YouTube and find other people's tutorials to learn from them.

Now, with that being said, that is a perfect transition into the sixth realistic side hustle you can start in 2025, and what this one is is creating a niche-specific educational YouTube channel. Now, I know YouTube's not for everyone, so before you guys tune out on this one, just know that YouTube is the way that you can make the most money, and it's actually a lot easier than people think. So I will give you my years of experience on YouTube just in the next couple of seconds here.

The first thing is to make sure that you are doing a niche-specific channel. So to give you an example here, how to start homesteading. Homesteading is very niche-specific.

It's not like you're generally creating finance videos, for example. Secondly is to create educational videos. What a lot of people don't realize is that one of the main ways you make money on YouTube is by advertisers paying to put ads in your videos.

So those ads you see before, during, and after videos, YouTube gives the person that created the video just about half of the money that that advertiser paid. But the kicker here is that there are kind of entertainment videos. These are vlog videos or things that are just there to keep you entertained, or educational videos.

The educational videos, which are mainly how-to videos. Advertisers are paying significantly more for those videos so that people who create those videos are just going to make more money for every view. So to give you some really good examples of those, if you type in how to start and then whatever niche you are thinking about going into, just look at some of those first results.

So here's your first five steps to starting homesteading. This is a sit down talking to the camera video. Questions about starting a homestead from scratch.

This is just a walking around talking to the camera video. Same thing here. This is going to be walking around talking to the camera, but the really cool thing about this business model is you can start small, you can just kind of get your toes wet, creating some educational videos, but over time, you're going to make money in three ways.

First is going to be those ads that we were talking about. You're just automatically going to get paid every time you get a view. Second is over time, as you start creating more videos, brands are going to reach out to you and they're going to offer to do a sponsored section in your video.

So you can say, "This video is sponsored by. " And then you can do kind of a shout out for that company and you can get paid just a flat fee from them. And then the third way is you can tie in affiliate marketing.

So remember we were talking about Amazon Influencer and TikTok Shop. When you are reviewing products and putting those in your videos, well, you can create those product review videos about products in the niche of your YouTube channel, and you can post those review videos on your channel as well. All right, guys, as a reminder, all of the full step-by-step tutorials and resources that I have for you guys on these side hustles will all be linked in the description below.

I'm always here to answer questions. I'm checking the comments just about every single day. So if you have any questions, let me know down there.

Otherwise, if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up and I'll plan on seeing you all in the next video.