Popular Online Side-Hustles From Scratch: Week #5: New designs

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'If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.' — W... [more]

2 years ago

Topics: Personal Development, Online, Wealth, Future, Passive income, ...

Intro

On April 21, 2022, I decided to start a series of articles to document the process of me trying out popular online side-hustles from scratch. I will share with you my struggles, successes, and learning process along this journey.

I will post updates on my progress and what I've learned along the way every Thursday. If you would like to follow along, use this link to get these stories directly to your inbox. If you just stumbled upon this you might be interested in reading some of the previous updates. Here is a list of all the articles in the series so far.

Disclaimer: This article may contain affiliate links.

Week #5

This week I focused on creating better designs for my RedBubble store. And I would say it went pretty well. I also managed to gather some more valuable information. And found some amazing resources and tools to make my journey easier and more productive.

Earnings

Total: $2.88

Breakdown:
Print-on-demand: $0.61
Affiliate marketing: $2.27

This week: $0

Breakdown:

Accomplishments

Series started - April 21, 2022
First photos accepted to Shutterstock - April 26, 2022
First video published on Youtube - May 5, 2022
First sale on RedBubble - May 10, 2022
First referral on Medium - May 12, 2022

Progress update

The harsh reality of starting something new from scratch is that you will not be good. In fact, you will probably suck. But that's alright. You have to start somewhere.

This week I focused on improving the quality of my print-on-demand designs. And I would say I succeeded. I still need to work on speed though.

Affiliate Marketing

I have new ideas. And I have found affiliate programs I would like to join. And I will be working on promoting those next week.

However one of the tools I used this week for my Youtube journey also has a good affiliate program that pays a percentage for the lifetime of your referral subscription. And I truly believe this tool could be very useful to online creators and affiliate marketers. More on this tool in the next chapter.

Faceless Youtube Channel

I didn't have a lot of spare time for video editing this week, but I wasn't worried and put off the video-making process for later. And thanks to this new tool I found, I was able to turn my article into a video in no time.

The tool I am talking about is Pictory.AI (affiliate link). It is a tool that will turn your article into a video fast with the help of AI. It uses stock footage from sites like StoryBlocks.

It is also possible to add a voice-over. And it turns out they also use Amazon's Polly as their text-to-speech software. The voice I used is - Mathew.

Here is a video I made using this tool. All I did was copy a link to my article and select the text to be included. I could have edited the video more and changed the stock footage I didn't like. But this is what came out Immediately with no effort at all. And in under 5 mins.

I have decided to keep this video unlisted on YouTube. So only you, my readers with this link can see it. Because I used the free trial of the tool which includes a watermark. And as I am starting from scratch I currently don't have the budget to pay for it.

But I see great use-cases for this tool and will take a deeper look at it in the future.

You could also easily generate videos in different form factors. Portrait mode could be great for TikToks, Instagram Reels, or Youtube shorts, or square for Facebook.

And article to video is only one of the things this tool can accomplish. Here's more:

Try it out yourself. You don't need to enter credit card info for the free trial. But the results come with a watermark. The standard subscription costs 19$. Here is my affiliate link.

Stock Photography/Video (with my iPhone)

I am currently putting more of my focus on other hustles. But I am still taking new photos. I will upload them once a larger amount accumulates.

Print-On-Demand

This week I learned a lot. I improved my skills. And made new better designs. I still need to improve on my speed. But I see a higher potential for success now than I did before.

Here is a design from the first week I started making designs (I will remove this design, I don't like it):

Versus a design, I made this week:

I finally managed to create some designs I would love to purchase myself. I will tell you more about my process below. But here is a link to my RedBubble store if you are interested in checking it out.

Designing

One of the most important things to understand when creating designs for print-on-demand or selling, in general, is copyright. You cannot simply copy other creators or use your favorite fictional characters as you please.

But there are some things you can do. For example, use famous works of art that are no longer protected by copyright and are now in the public domain.

This website great free tool to find such works of art: FreeImages.com
And here is a great informative video on all of this by WholesaleTed

If you are interested in how exactly I created these designs using pictures of paintings that are in the public domain, leave a comment below and I might make a dedicated tutorial.

Now that I have some good ideas for designs I would ideally get the most out of them similarly to what I do with my articles by posting them on other platforms.