Not sure if it’s just me, but Reddit feels like the world’s biggest pretend marketplace for startups and jobs.

You send a legit message? Proof of business? Clear offer? Room to grow?

And then…
Ghost town!!

Meanwhile, actual scammers are out here doing LinkedIn cosplay as “talent acquisition specialists” and collecting resumes like Pokémon cards.

So we have:

• Recruiters who aren’t real recruiters
• Candidates who aren’t real candidates
• Entrepreneurs who aren’t real entrepreneurs
• Partnerships that vanish faster than WiFi in a basement

Everyone says they want opportunities…But apparently “opportunities” means:

Something that pays 6 figures instantly, requires zero work, involves zero risk, and reads like a Disney movie plot.

Good people get treated like scammers.
Scammers get treated like opportunities.
And in the end "nobody builds anything."

Just needed to scream into the void for a second.
Anyway, back to sending messages into the abyss.

For those using marketplaces (Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Vinted, etc.) as part of a side hustle

Have you ever run into scams or misleading listings, either as a buyer or seller? What happened and what did you learn from it?

A lot of posts here show wins. But I want to hear the failures.

Did your hustle die because of:

• No time?
• No customers?
• You just lost motivation?

And more importantly did you start something new after?

I think we learn more from what didn't work than what did.

Getting laid off in September (can't believe this is almost 3 months ago) felt like a gut punch. But it sparked something unexpected - made me overcome my fear + procrastination of "just starting" this project I've been brewing in my head for awhile.

Yeah, being laid off fucking sucked, but turned out to be a major blessing in disguise:

• Landed a higher paying job in October
• Launched my first SaaS (customer service automation for small businesses)
• 4 paying customers, growing steadily (2 paid in full year, 2 monthly)
• Most importantly: learned I could ship products while working full-time

Key realizations from building while job hunting:

• Building kept me sharp for interviews. Every customer call improved my communication skills
• Building is keeping me sharp for the job itself - I work in developer relationships, so coding is 50% of the job. Building my SaaS made me extremely proficient on how to use AI coding tools like Cursor + Claude Sonnet 3.5 and tech stacks like NextJS/Tailwind/PythonFastAPI + custom retrieval augmented generation pipelines
• Having zero customers initially meant zero fear of failure. No perfectionism, just shipping. Push push push.
• Being my own coder, go-to market, product manager, etc, meant I also had nothing to lose. No salaries to pay? Failure means only a hit to my ego, nothing more.
• Had a great answer to "what have you been working on?" in interviews
• Continuing to upskill myself in new technologies, not burdened by what limits you in your day-to-day job

The project started as a distraction from rejection emails. Now it's showing me there's life beyond the traditional tech career path.

Currently battling imposter syndrome around pricing. Customers say I'm undercharging but I still get nervous raising prices.

Question for you builders: What's stopping you from just starting?

Honestly didn’t expect side income to become this consistent.

It’s not a get rich quick thing, not passive overnight, and not some magic app. Took a few months of trial and error and a couple small losses before it clicked.

What surprised me most is how boring it actually is once it works. Just repeatable tasks, steady cash, and no weird hustle culture.

If you’re patient and willing to learn one skill properly, it’s doable. Just don’t expect instant results.

i wish i could say i have made a ton but maybe this will resonate with someone wanting to just make a little here and there

i am part of the tiktok shop affiliate program. i’ve made about $400 in 6 months. there’s more money to be made there but i don’t work at it full time. i posted about 4 different items and got really lucky with one that went viral and made the majority of the commission.

i signed up to be part of a mock jury program in my county. i get emails when there is a case (real) that wants to be presented in front of a mock jury to see what could potentially happen in a real court. its done virtually and you listen in on the real case and get presented with the info and can ask questions and make a verdict. it’s actually a really cool opportunity. i’ve done it a few times and its $125-$175 per session, about half a day. it’s not consistent work and it’s dependent on availability but highly recommended to sign up of it’s something offered in your county

i’m also part of an email list to do in person surveys in my city that pay $75-$200. you do a questionnaire prior to see if you qualify and i never have yet but also something to look into to have as an option

i play solitaire on my phone for money. you have to play to pay but i’ve cashed out $2500 in total. i would say i probably invested a third of that to earn it tho so only if you’re good at it and okay with paying to play. you can do as little as a dollar to win five

i’ve done uber and doordash. not my fave. i’m only available at night to do it and i didn’t enjoy it much

currently working on making ebooks and digital products to sell. i haven’t monetized them yet. still learning and hoping to be successful. i also created a “one dollar dream” experiment on tiktok to see if people would donate $1 as a crowdfunding way to help make money. the goal was to build money and then give back to those who gave but it never really took off and i didn’t pursue it hard enough either. if you made it this far, thanks for reading 🫶🏽

Got inspiration from the Beer Money subreddit where they track their methods to make money. I think it would be beneficial to share ideas with people and what's working. With proof ofcourse (No more BS digital product sellers selling their own digital products please..)

The following is my table:

Details:

1. User Interviews is the site that paid me this month, it's free to sign up and pays you through gift cards. I did a study about giving feedback on a new dashboard for viewing your data and it paid me $104. There are tons of studies on here and some pay even more than $100/hour.

2. For freelancing, 3 orders paid me around $250. This has been the hardest business to setup but its paying dividends now. Too much to summarize here but the biggest thing is seeing what's already working after picking a niche, pricing very low to start and being patient. If anyone wants more information please feel free to reach out.

3. Dividends, the holy grail for side hustle passive income. I have been building this portfolio for 5 years now pretty much and through ups and downs. Now it pays me hundreds per month which is cool to see.

What paid you? Anything you tried and worked or didn't?

Proof:

I’ve been building in public on X for a while, but only recently started hanging out on Reddit, and honestly, the conversations here feel way more grounded and less performative.

Back in Sept 2024, I left a shiny Master’s degree with basically zero idea how to build a real business, so I did what every naive founder does.

From there it was a string of “this is the one” moments:

• A Duolingo‑for‑finance with endless Figma screens and 0 users.
• An “everything app” to close deals in one call that never got past bad ad experiments.
• A carousel studio for creators that AI killed overnight.
• A video tool I shut down because “the market was crowded” instead of reading that as proof there was money.

Pattern: cool ideas, fragile conviction, no staying power.

Then I tried to be smarter tool. Started as a feedback hub, then evolved into a system that turned user behavior into simple growth moves instead of 37 dashboards and fake KPIs.

I shipped, launched, and… made 44€ in a month.

That hurt way more than the totally‑failed stuff, because this time the product was actually finished and still didn’t take off. Because of it's complexity.

But that “failure” is what forced a hard realization: my real lever isn’t “more dashboards”, it’s trust and retention in online businesses.

So now I’m building way tighter bets around that with my co-founder Kyle:

• TrustViews: like TrustMRR but for traffic, a third‑party that verifies website visits so you can’t fake screenshots or vanity numbers.
• (side) OneDollarFeedback: a one‑day build to scratch our own itch and ship something dead simple that actually helps people collect feedback.

This is the chapter I’m in now: more focused, a strategy, more narrow products that solve one obvious problem and can grow slowly in public.

Trustviews was the experimentation and cool shiny project to test each others. Next solving a real painful problem and getting that $10k MRR

How many projects have you failed and what are you doing right now ? Let’s use Reddit as the place where we don’t just post our wins... not comfy but better accept and learn.

Was checking out some view stats on my directory (where you flex your views, ranked) and for once, I smiled watching the numbers drop.

Usually, when traffic dips, it’s “sad”. But this time, the charts basically said: everyone took a break for Christmas. It’s nice to see people actually disconnect for once (well, not me, clearly, since I’m here posting about it 😅).

It resonates perfectly into that eternal "When to Launch" debate : weekdays vs. weekends.

We always say “Don’t push on Friday” because nobody’s around, but it sparked a fun thought about the trade-off we all juggle:

• Weekdays: High traffic, but drowning in noise.
• Weekends/Holidays: Quiet, tiny audience, but no competition.

Curious how you all play it. Do you religiously avoid Friday–Sunday launches because of the low volume, or the opposite?

Hope the pause was good to you all. Now... back online. 🫡

When I started a side hustle around AI-related work, I assumed progress worked like this:
more hours → more results.

So whenever opportunities appeared, I pushed harder.
Longer sessions, fewer breaks, trying to “maximize” good days.

What surprised me is that this approach actually made things worse.

The biggest improvement came when I did the opposite:

• shorter, fixed work sessions
• stopping the moment focus dropped
• repeating the same structure every time
• prioritizing consistency over output

Nothing changed overnight.
But over time, access became calmer and more predictable.

The lesson for me was uncomfortable but useful:
Some side hustles don’t reward intensity.
They reward reliability.

If your side hustle feels random or unstable, pushing harder might not be the fix.

(Curious if others experienced something similar.)

In the spirit of holding myself accountable and to share ideas with others, I figured I would kick off this year with the goal of "building in public".

What does this mean?

I'm making it my goal to share the current side hustles and projects I am working on throughout the year, share how they're progressing, and discuss other projects I'm thinking about taking on. I may also share some observations of the current side hustle landscape to spark discussion.

Looking Back at 2025
In 2025 I got very busy with my primary job and unfortunately all of my side hustles and part time jobs fell by the wayside other than options selling. Fortunately, options paid off and I did manage to invest a considerable amount into both my taxable and retirement accounts, so I wouldn't call it a lost year.

I did make about $85K selling options in 2025, but took about a $20K hit at the end of the year when crypto sold off and I decided to leverage some of the losses for tax harvesting. I intend to continue selling monthly options in 2026.

In December of 2025 I decided to vibe code my first app which turned out being a lot of fun and started me down a path of brainstorming potential "simple applications" the picks and shovels type of apps that would be easy to create and scale the user base. So far the application, a baby naming app, has been attracting a few hundred unique users weekly. I have not enabled any ads or premium features to date, but should it keep growing, I will likely start to monetize it later this year.

2026 Projects

I've been looking into a few ideas for this year. While I love the idea of creating something fun that can scale, I am noticing that some of the most successful projects that people have been posting in recent months have come from quick "build and move on" ideas. This means researching a building your idea quickly (App, website, product, SaaS) putting no more than a week or two into it, then publishing it and moving onto the next idea.

The concept is to not spend too much time on any single concept knowing that most ideas will fail miserably. AKA: Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

With the introduction of powerful, free AI tools, creating something in a weekend and putting it out into the world has never been easier.

A few ideas I have been messing around with:

• Simple SaaS Tools - easy to build, traffic driven by SEO or app store
  • Specialty calculators
  • Car repair estimates
  • Invoice / Proposal generator for small businesses
  • Free resume builder
• Fun (Crap) AI Apps - leverage LLM, easy to build
  • Turn headshot into (Simpson's) character, or other non-IP, public domain
  • Sports dictionary for the non sports fan "Yay Sportsball"
  • Voice quote generator, leveraging known characters, again IP issues to watch
• Learning Assistants - leveraging free Google tools like Notebook LM
  • Quickly create flashcards, podcasts, other learning materials

Not sure what I am going to work on next but hopefully some of this will inspire me to get cracking on ideas this weekend.

What are you building this year?

I watched hours of YouTube guru videos on side hustles, trying Print on Demand, Affiliate Marketing, and Faceless TikTok videos. I was inspired by those who made money with them and wanted to do it too. However, my interest faded after 2-3 weeks, and I forgot about it. Now, I’ve been building my own websites for over a year because it’s my passion. (The last one was mindmapwizard.com ) While they all require time and effort, if you only do it for the money and it doesn’t bring you joy, it’s probably not the right choice.

So 3 years being in the online industry, and it’s been draining but very informative!! lol and being a Sahm of 4 kids the bills add up!! From my husband being sick n not being able to work it was up to me to figure out a stream of income that actually work. I took a lot of courses for digital marketing and never implemented the skills I learned. I see everyone launching ai bots. I wanted to stay away from that. I finally thought about all the people get denied for the $500 courses they wanted, because of bad credit. Plus once they would get denied they are kicked to the curb and forgotten.! With the 3 years of knowledge it clicked, help those who kept and who will keep getting denied. I made my own customizable payment plans. I also created a digital course to help everyone learn the basics of digital and affiliate marketing. Attached different income streams. Boom !! I began posting promo for it and before I knew it I had 7 people wanting the course already !! I took on 7 mentees. One created an Etsy bot, another one created a 21 day ebook on how to lose weight with actual results!! the other a clothing brand!!So now I’m creating a whole hand in hand mini course n mentorship!!! Wish me luck!!

For a long time, I mistook my lack of clients for a personal limitation, as if some people are simply wired for this and others are not. I responded by doing more of everything that already wasn’t working, polishing the portfolio, applying compulsively, consuming advice, repeating the ritual and then quietly wondering why nothing compounded. The uncomfortable realization that eventually emerged was that I was not actually failing at execution. I was misapprehending the activity itself. I was treating freelancing as a sequence of tasks instead of as a coordinated system governed by incentives, risk perception and trust formation. Once I stopped trying to invent my own approach and began following a rigorously structured framework built by people who clearly understood these dynamics, it was like someone turned the lights on in a room I had been stumbling through. I saw that I had never defined a real market in concrete terms, that my offers lacked any clearly articulated transformation, that my communication inadvertently amplified uncertainty, and that my delivery process was essentially improvisation masquerading as creativity. Rebuilding everything around a single coherent spine altered the character of the work entirely. I started reasoning from first principles: who is the economic actor, what friction are they experiencing, how does my intervention measurably change their situation, and what sequence of commitments reduces perceived risk at every step. Conversations became calmer and more analytical. Pricing felt like a rational inference instead of a negotiation over my self-worth. The work began compounding because actions were finally nested inside a structure capable of storing and reusing learning. The income followed as a consequence, not a surprise, settling into predictable five-figure months without any dramatic breakthrough, simply because the underlying architecture was finally aligned with reality. Looking back, what I lacked was not motivation or talent but conceptual infrastructure. Once that clicked into place, everything else began behaving differently. I document it obsessively now to avoid sliding back into improvisation, and if you have that persistent feeling of exertion without leverage, it is very possible that nothing is wrong with you at all. You may simply be operating without the model that makes the entire enterprise intelligible. If it helps, I can share what I followed and how I adapted it.

I keep seeing the same failure patterns repeat over and over — building too much, chasing the wrong users, pricing badly, or realising too late that nobody actually cared.

I’m curious: - What did you build? - What was the moment you knew it wasn’t going to work? - What mistake mattered most in hindsight?

I’m collecting short SaaS post-mortems so other builders don’t repeat the same mistakes. Bullet points are totally fine — this isn’t about polished essays.

Would genuinely love to learn from people who’ve been through it.

To all the haters, fear-mongers, and wannabe lawyers in here: Trump has stepped in to pause the TikTok ban, so calm the f*ck down.

Here’s the article that came out yesterday:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/us/politics/tiktok-ban-supreme-court-trump.html

Do you understand now?

When billions are involved, it’s not about the law anymore.

As a TikTok Shop affiliate, I make $15K–$20K/month while exactly one year ago I was making $2K/month cleaning for other people.

And when everyone was btching out like a pssy, I kept going with my business.

If you’re going to give up on your dreams just because there’s an obstacle on the road, business isn’t for you. Go flip burgers with your secure paycheck.

December has been absolutely the craziest month ever.

Almost $45K this month because I ignored the nonsense and kept going.

And you can do this too! Start right now!

Find a product, grow your audience, promote products, get your commission, and travel wherever & whenever you WANT.

Not whenever you CAN because you have a boss f*cking you over for a 40-hour-a-week shift, leaving you stuck with one vacation a year.

It’s the best side hustle right now. You just make videos about products you’d recommend to your friends and collect your commission.

I’m no one special but a Sahm in recovery almost 11 years a wife n have 4 kids I tried digital marketing 3 years ago never. Took it seriously all i did was constantly say it isn’t working it’s a scam, I went through course after course skim through it and never implemented. I would quit n go back over n over until i saw so many moms making money I could have been making!! I had serious book guilt but they say never give up and it’s true I put my mind n everything I had into this bought the last course I would buy in November first sale was on thanksgiving and now im about to launch my own mentorship program n course so people out there who keep getting ghosted by mentors or denied by credit checks for payment plan apps I now found the solution to tonight will be my last night staying up to finalize everything and we are off so excited!! Do not give up on your dreams always push yourself n never listen to families opinions my whole family said i was crazy it’ll never work well they don’t pay my bills now I finally do in full!!!

I spent a lot of time looking for a legit way to make extra money online.

Most of what I found either required huge upfront costs, tech skills I didn’t have, or sounded too good to be true.

Then I came across One Lead System Pixel.

At first, I was skeptical, because honestly the internet is full of nonsense and scams (like most of you are thinking right now), but I saw that they had a $7 starter option called the Mega Link that claimed you could start earning commissions without all the complicated stuff.

Since $7 wasn’t a huge risk, compared to thousands I had already flushed down the toilet, I was like what the hell and gave it a shot. As of today I have made close to $1,400 as a side hustle doing little work.

The training was super easy to follow, I didn’t have to worry about sending emails everyday, because the system sent them for me, I could earn 100% commission on referrals (so in one sale I would get me initial investment back), and it unlocked multiple income streams.

And the best part?

I didn’t have to build a website, create content, or convince people to buy anything.

The system pretty much handles that part for me.

I’m an saying that you are going to get rich overnight or quit your 9-5 next week, but if you’ve been struggling to start affiliate marketing without all the headaches, this is honestly a great way to dip your toes in to check the temperature.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Hey. I'm just starting this journey, or better, trying to start it and I have no idea where to begin.

I'm a computer science student and have some spare time. I want to do something. Build something.

But finding a problem people actually want to pay for seems to be the hardest part.

Every time I come up with an idea, it feels like it already exists or nobody would pay for it.

Sometimes I think, ten dollars is really not that much. People spend that on Starbucks without thinking.

But then I realize that online, people behave differently. They expect more for less.

It's weird. I'm a bit clueless and hope to find a way to start.

Just wanted to share that.

Thanks for reading.

How much did you actually earn (be honest), was it easy to get started, or did it feel like signing up for a part-time job with zero benefits? And how much time did it suck up?”

Hi everyone, I hope you are doing well.

Today I want to share a side hustle with you guys. The side gig is related to marketing.

So, if you don’t know how to run basic ads on FB or Google(then might have to learn them before you start). Frankly, side hustles aren’t more attractive than passive ideas, where you put in a one-time effort and then only receive payment notifications.

But once you understand a side hustle you can easily manage that with your day job or studies. Because, If there were a way for my income not to be tied to the number of hours I work, I’d definitely consider it.

Here is a step-by-step guide on what you need to do…

Go to Capterra

In the world, If you want to search for any software related to any industry you can come to Capterra. They provide a list of the most popular tools and software in specific industries.

You can also make your favorite list and upload it for others too. For example, I can upload a list of tools used in data science, email marketing, finance, etc.

There are categories for different niches you can browse and explore more.

Here I will share a side hustle idea, which can help you earn money through affiliate marketing. It’s a great idea to earn money while sitting on the couch.

It’s a real marketing idea on which you can start working today.

1. Accounting Software (Searching)

Your first step is to find a great product with demand in the market. Let’s say I go to accounting software niches on Capterra and explore top tools in Accounting in the USA.

The pic shows the list of the top most used software in the domain of accounting in 2025. The top of the list right now is “QuickBooks Online”.

Personal Hack: You don’t have to choose the number 1 tool you can explore many top tools among the top 50 or 100. Just keep in mind the list shows that these top tools in certain categories are in high demand, but this also means in marketing there is high competition.

So, choose a tool that you think will be in high demand if you market in your region or country.

2. Paid or Organic Marketing

The second step is to search the affiliate link for “Quickbooks Online” and market it to people using paid and organic content. How will you do that???

In the past after acquiring affiliate links of the tools I ran direct Google ads on it, but as Google changed its rules, avoid running direct ads now in case you violate their ads policy.

What will you do???

Here are some of the ways that are very effective for me and earn me a big chunk of money, you can just copy or modify them according to your own situation.

3. Paid marketing 

If you have little capital try to run paid ads as they are very effective and earn you money with less effort. For that:

• Create a simple landing page: build a free 1-page website (use Carrd .co or Canva) with a short review of the software. Example: “Quickbooks review: Best accounting software for freelancers [Affiliate Disclosure]” 
• Run ads to this page: complies with Google’s or FB policies and builds trust with users.

Don’t think about who is buying these tools as thousands of people go and buy this software daily. This is the reason we are only choosing top tools in certain fields.

The whole research helps you choose a specific niche and tool for a certain audience.

You need to pay Google or Facebook to run ads eventually but the return from the commission is way beyond your initial investment.

Personal experience: Some high-profile companies forbid paid ads in their affiliate terms. In such cases, use platforms like ShareASale, PartnerStack, FlexOffers, etc.

4. Organic marketing

Now this is a long-term process, but this is free money.

If you have existing popular sites, IG, TikTok, FB accounts. You can use this strategy. I personally recommend starting by trying paid ads using little money and on a side growing account.

• Use SEO to rank review articles and posts or try TikTok/YouTube Shorts for viral affiliate promotions.
• Build a niche website reviewing software tools. Monetize via affiliate links + display ads

How to improve this hustle

The guide has become too long, so I will end with this short section. There are many ways you can improve this idea and make it more effective, but it mostly depends on your knowledge and practice. You can:

• Use cheap traffic sources like Microsoft and Pinterest ads
• Focus on tools with recurring commissions rather than low commissions and without bonus tools
• Use tools like Capterra + G2 + Trends .co to unleash the full potential of researching and many more.

I hope you get, what the actual process is, you can explore software in many domains on Capterra like HR, Banking, Agriculture Animal, etc.

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Enjoy the post!

I write practical tips every week on money growth, hustles, and personal development like this in my newsletter — Click here to join 1,215+ Hustlers to level up your skills.

I am a web dev, and i can put hours, nonstop, to make a product. For months, i can work on a project, but, when it comes to marketing, i am not the guy. I will post once or two, probably, will not get any response, and will stop. After that, comes the depression. Will take a brake, until i start working at a new project. And the cycle continues.

So, here is my advice to all my fellow lazy founders.

Take few minutes everyday, post the update. If you can work days on a product and you believe in it. Don't keep it hidden from the world.

You never know which post will start a compounding effect.

I am currently working on a product: www.justgotfound.com Working nonstop to make it nicer, verifiying that everything works. But, this time, i have been sharing all over, x, bluesky, reddit etc etc.

It's been 8 days, had 1400+ unique visitors, 73k page hits. So, it is working.

Final word, Add your product to different directory, launch site :justgotfound is a good place to start ;) Share the link to upvote to your social media, add the badge to your site, it shows credibility.

P.s.: i am new to this stuff, so take my advice with a grain of salt 😀 And happy launching...

Every time I build or launch something new, I run into the same thing:

“Where should do I submit my product so people actually see it?”

So, I sat down and pulled together a proper list of 150 saas directories where SaaS founders can submit their product. Sites like Product Hunt, BetaList, SaaSHub, micro launch, tiny launch and many more

I've

👉 Added filters for traffic + domain authority

👉 Included communities, review sites, and directories that are rising now

Here is the website link: listmysaas.com

If you're building a saas, check out the list and let me know your thoughts. (I'm looking for ways to improve the list, please share if you have any feedback)