#119: 21+ Ideas for Starting a Passive Income Business in 2023

Show Notes

We think starting a side business is a great way to achieve financial independence and an ideal opportunity to try your hand at entrepreneurship because you can do it while working your day job. But growing a profitable business in 2023 and beyond can take a lot of time and energy. 
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If you’re ready to start a business but worry you may not have the bandwidth, we have a solution worth considering. In this episode, co-hosts Lori Vajda and Nola Boea cover the what, how, and why a passive income business model might just be the best way to start your entrepreneurial journey, plus we've got over 21 business ideas for you to consider.

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In This Episode You’ll Learn 

• What a passive side business is AND why you should start one.
• Why making money is a lot easier when you’re starting with a profitable side business model.
• How technology has improved and is making it so much easier to BYOB (Be your own boss).

Key points Lori and Nola are sharing in this episode:
(02:39:27) The difference between a traditional side business and a passive income business comes into play 
(04:56:90) Starting a passive income business using products you already own or have access to but aren't using
(10:09:04) Get paid for doing something you love, something you're interested in, or something you are passionate about. Here are three ideas for a passive side business that don’t require you to launch on Etsy.
(11:32:62) Ten innovative ideas for downloadable or digital products that you can produce and market
(14:47:01) Consider creating and selling evergreen online courses. It’s so much easier today, and these little known platforms might be your best bet

Resources 
Sniffspot - https://www.sniffspot.com/
Neighbor - https://www.neighbor.com/ 
Swimly - https://swimply.com/ 
Turo - https://turo.com/  
Wrapify - https://wrapify.com/ 
StickerRide - https://stickerride.com/
Carvertise - https://carvertise.com/ 
Sparetoolz - https://sparetoolz.com/ 
Skillshare - https://www.skillshare.com/en/teach 
OnZoom - https://on.zoom.us/ 
Spinlister - https://www.spinlister.com/
Udemy.- https://www.udemy.com/
Coursera - https://www.coursera.org/​
Teachable - https://teachable.com/​
Thinkific - https://thinkific.com/​

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Lori: If you've been dreaming about starting a business and being your own boss, but worry that the time it'll take to run it might be too much of a time commitment, we've got an idea for you. How about starting a side business based on passive income? What exactly is a passive income business and what are some worthwhile opportunities, you might wonder. Stay tuned, friend, because we are covering the what, how, and why a passive income business model might just be the best way to start your entrepreneurial journey. And not only that, we've got more than 21 business ideas for you to consider.

[00:00:38] Nola: Welcome to the Sticky Brand Lab podcast where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful information, tips, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Nola Boea, and this is my co-host, Lori Vajda.
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[00:00:57] Lori: Hey, Nola. I think it's fair to say that many people, if not most, at some point in their career, will think about becoming an entrepreneur. Even if they don't follow through.

[00:01:08] Nola: I am sure that comes in many people's minds, especially when A, they think they're going to lose their job. B, they want to quit their job or C, they're just thinking about, this is something I've wanted to do for a while, and then they make a New Year's resolution or some birthday resolution and just basically resolve to say, this is the year that I'm finally going to do it.

[00:01:29] Lori: I think you're right about that. And whether it's the start of the new year or as you pointed out, the ebb and flow of the economy or just one's desire to be their own boss, a side business is a great way to diversify not only a career portfolio, but it gives you multiple streams of income as well as gives you something new and exciting to start. So if you are like many experienced professionals, the idea of entrepreneurship may sound intriguing, but the time commitment it takes to run a side business might feel a bit intimidating. A passive income business might just be the solution you're looking for. But don't let the category name fool you.

[00:02:11] Nola: Exactly. Because passive income often goes with the term, making money while you sleep. But actually, you really need to have at least one eye open.

[00:02:21] Lori: Yes. And I'm just going to expand a minute here on that one eye. Running any kind of business requires you to think about building an audience, optimizing your marketing strategy, as well as delivering a great product experience or service. But here's where the difference between a traditional side business and a passive income business come into play. A typical side business requires daily time and attention. And with a passive income, you still have to put in time and attention. You just don't have to do it as often or be as active to maintain it.

[00:02:59] Nola: Lori, before we go any farther, how is what you're describing different from the longstanding passive income methods such as renting out apartments in a multi-unit building and being a landlord? Even holding an investment portfolio, which is your traditional historic passive income method?

[00:03:19] Lori: I think that's a really good question. I would say though, if you are a landlord kind of thing, running a multi-unit building, you're there more often and it might be more active. If you are an investor in that and somebody else is running it, it would be very similar to kind of managing your investment portfolio. Or some people think about it as managing your retirement, so kind of diversifying it.

So those examples do fit the classic definition of passive income, which I found in looking that up to be defined as a source of extra cash that you can earn with relatively minimal ongoing effort. But when you're talking about a passive income as a business model, I think we would describe it as a way for you to create and sell a product or service that after it's launched, doesn't need as much active or daily time to maintain it.

Now, a good alternative that people also think about is managing a side hustle. And that is not passive by any means. Even though for example, you'll hear Uber drivers say, I choose my own hours. You have to be present in it.

[00:04:31] Nola: So you would still want to have a business bank account and possibly a website, or at the very least, a landing page. You'll still want to think about how and where you're going to market your products and services, who your ideal customer is, and all of those fundamental decisions that you would make in any kind of traditional active business. Correct?

[00:04:54] Lori: Absolutely. That's exactly spot on.

[00:04:56] Nola: Okay, listener, if you are ready to start a business on the side and the passive income model sounds like something that would work for you, we've come up with more than 21 ideas for you to consider and explore.

Let's start with the things you already own or have access to but aren't using. This is where the sharing economy creates opportunities. Most people are familiar with Airbnb, V R B O, platforms like that where you rent out your home or even a room. Well, there are other ways you can monetize other types of property. There's actually sites like Sniff Spot that let you rent out your yard for dogs to use and play. I think that's so cool.

[00:05:43] Lori: It is really cool. So, we have a dog. I know you're a cat person, so you might not be as familiar with it, but from dog owner perspective, you take your dog to a local park that's usually managed by the city and you can't be sure about the type of other dogs that are in there. For example, in our experience, you can get some pretty intimidating or assertive dogs, and they can not only be intimidating to your own pet, but to humans as well. I've seen that happen where they just bombarded you. So for people like myself, knowing that there's a neighborhood place that's well managed, well maintained, and kind of is the gatekeeper of who can use the space, there's a reason why I might become a member or subscribe to somebody locally who has a place where my dog can go off leash and run around.

One thing I do want to say, as we continue to give suggestions for sites and apps and alternative ways for doing a passive income business model, we want to let you know, listener, that we are not paid for any of the suggestions we're giving you. We're just informing you so that you can check them out and do your due diligence. Also, for convenience, we're going to post our list on our show notes so you can find them there, and we ask that if you have any ideas for other websites or business opportunities that you're aware of, listener, please feel free to post on our website, where you're listening to the podcast, or even on our Facebook page.

[00:07:14] Nola: Thanks. Okay. Going back to things that you may own, that could be rented out, let's talk storage. And I'm not saying storage units. Websites like Neighbor allow you to rent out your property as a local place where people can store their car, their truck, even their boat or RV.

Now if you have a swimming pool on your land, Swimly lets you rent that out. If you're not using your car or truck, Turo lets you rent that out to others. If you have an array of tools that are just laying around, sites like Sparetoolz makes it convenient for you to rent those tools to other people. And finally, Spinlister lets you share your bikes as well as other seasonal sporting equipment like skis and paddleboards, which can really also be helpful.

[00:08:10] Lori: What I love about the list that you just gave is, we often invest a lot of money for the things that we own, and we use them for the period of time that we need them, but they also sit there unused. And so then people wonder should they sell them? And here you as a listener might be wondering, well, why would people want to come to me when they could go to the U-Haul, for example, to rent a truck or other places to rent tools? Because you're local, you're in the neighborhood, it's convenient. I'm sure as the owner, you've taken better care to maintain the things that you own. So there's a lot of reasons why somebody would prefer the benefit of local and privately owned to commercial and big box stores.
So that's, speaking of which, other possibilities to rent out things that you own. You were talking about the bikes and tools, and even your car and truck. Well, you can rent out your RV, your camper, or camping equipment.
Another alternative is you can turn your car into an advertisement with a wrap. Companies like Wrapify, StickerRide, Carvertise, and others will pay you to be kind of think about it as a rolling advertisement. Now, one of the things you should consider is each site works a little bit differently. Some will have commitments on time, some will have commitments for you as the owner on paying for the wrap, and some will monitor how often you drive. So there are requirements and you're going to want to know those before you make that choice.

And our last idea in this category is for you to consider starting your own peer-to-peer marketplace. And why might you do that? Because again, it's on the local level, or even more granular, in the neighborhood. And so word of mouth will be how your site gets more exposure.

 Here are three more ideas for making money that are based on your passion. So do you love to take pictures? You can sell stock photos to sites like Shutterstock, Alamy, Getty Images and even iStock Photo, and there's others out there. You don't have to be a professional photographer to sell them. You might just take pictures in your neighborhood or on your vacation. Those sites love and need stock photos because people who write blog posts or do marketing are looking for those everyday type of photos, and that's where your photography comes into place.

Do you write music, make jewelry? I know that last one is something you enjoy doing, Nola. Well, consider selling what you make. We are not talking about setting up an Etsy site; we're talking about having your own website to sell your jewelry or your other products on, and that's where managing it like it's a business on the local level can really be a niche for you to sell.

[00:11:16] Nola: And some of these sites, especially if you write your own music, they will pay you for licensing your music. So those royalties become your passive income.

[00:11:26] Lori: Oh yeah, that's a really good point and a really good suggestion.

[00:11:29] Nola: Well, our next category is creating and selling digital products. Now you might also know those as downloadables. So those are items that your buyer will print out or download to their own computer to be able to use. There is no warehousing or shipping required, which is really convenient. So these might include printables such as quotes. Designing digital invitations, announcements, thank you cards, and those are just a few examples.

They can also be templates, PDFs that professionals might use, such as pre-written sales emails, or employee review guides, or study guides for specific industry tests. Now if you have a creative talent, and let's say you excel at creating presentation decks or you enjoy calligraphy or word art, you design adult coloring pages or maybe even write great generic or customizable cover letters, there are people who would adore what you produce. Now, just like that, we added 10 more possibilities to your list.

[00:12:41] Lori: Yeah, which is really great. When you were mentioning study guides for industry tests, Pat Flynn is a pretty famous podcaster, but before he got into podcasting, he was studying to get his architecture license. And he was trying to put all these resources together to study. Like legal, not everybody passes that test for architecture in the first try. So when he found his method successful and people asked him about it, other students, he then posted it, then he refined it, and one of the questions that was asked of him is, why would somebody pay you for putting a study guide together when they could easily find that same information online? And he said because he did the heavy lifting, he aggregated the information and made it convenient. And people pay for convenience.

[00:13:34] Nola: Yep. Time is money.

[00:13:37] Lori: So with your 10 and our previous list, I now present idea number 23, which is to create eBooks. Now this can be anything from fiction to nonfiction. Personal to professional. Or it can be step-by-step instructions or how-to manuals. And people are often thrown off by that. But you don't have to have a publisher or seek out an agency in order to do eBooks. You can do that yourself, and it can be supplemental to whatever your side business is or things that you naturally want to do. Like if you want to do keynotes, for example, your e-book becomes a way to support your other interests. So e-books are a good way to deliver information and they're a great value to a reader, but they can also be a way to drive traffic, including traffic to courses, that we're going to talk about here shortly, and to your website.

[00:14:38] Nola: And, as Lori alluded to, coming in at number 24, is creating an online evergreen course. Now, selling online courses has really become so much easier today than it was even just recently. So, whether your area of knowledge is, let's say, marketing or illustration or entrepreneurship or gardening or jewelry making, or some other hobby or passion, you can create pre-recorded courses and start selling them with very few limitations.

Now teaching online, it does require an upfront investment of your time because you're going to need to create videos for every module and offer a downloadable material such as templates or a course outline, either for every module or for at least sections of the course. But at least once it's done, it's done.

So if this sounds interesting, there are a number of hosting platforms to explore. They have just their little unique differences with each one, but some of the more popular ones are udemy.com, coursera.org. teachable.com and thinkific.com.

[00:15:54] Lori: Those are all pretty well-known sites and people are pretty familiar with them. They also are a little more polished, so listeners who might be seeking to study would find a more polished example of courses, but two platforms that are convenient for professionals that you might not have considered. One: Skillshare. So people will often put their presentation that they did for work on a site like Skillshare, but that site also pays for user-generated information. And they do that by monitoring how many views, a slideshow or a presentation got. So consider that if you're already doing it for your agency, your networking group, your company that you work for, Skillshare is a way to turn something that you've already created into passive income business.

Another one that many people, if not everyone is familiar with at this point, is Zoom. But Zoom offers OnZoom. So not only can you record and leave it there and charge for its use, you can also do live. Again, reiterating what we said previously, you are doing your marketing and business on the local level. You are the face and the connection that people would want to seek out to purchase from, to study from, to rent from. So this is a really great opportunity for people to have a passive income business.

[00:17:26] Nola: Very good. And with that, we've given you more than the 21 suggestions for passive income. Starting this type of business, it's a great way to use your knowledge, your experience, your expertise in new and exciting ways. It also gives you an opportunity to get paid to do something you love, something you're interested in, or are passionate about without hogging all your free time, at least once you've made the initial time investment. Keep in mind that some of the ideas we've provided may have restrictions or conditions, so please be sure to do your own research. And like with most major decisions, starting a business comes with its own set of challenges. So take time to determine if the risks are right for you. Just don't let your analysis become your paralysis. Okay. With that said, be sure to stick around to the very end of this episode for a fun little surprise.

[00:18:22] Lori: Absolutely do stick around. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you found the information helpful and want more tools, tips, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for our News You Can Use at stickybrandlab.com.

[00:18:38] Nola: Be sure to come back next Tuesday and every Tuesday for another informative, inspiring, and motivating episode. And remember, action creates results. So tap into your desire to create a business and brand you love by taking 1% action every day. Small steps, big effects.

[OUT-TAKE]

[00:18:57] Lori: If you found the information helpful and want molar, you want molars, you want some molars because then your tongue will move freely around your mouth. So you're not... take three. Did you just snort?
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[00:19:15] Nola: I just snorted. That was not intentional.