I Tried 8 Side Hustles in College, Here are the BEST Ones (No Quick Money)

Summary

The speaker shares their journey of earning over 31 lakh rupees through various side hustles, excluding risky ventures like crypto trading. They highlight the importance of financial independence and relieving parental financial burdens. The video discusses five effective side hustles for beginners, emphasizing YouTube's significant but time-consuming income potential, video editing's high ROI with quick payback, and the challenges and rewards of freelancing in art and merchandise. The speaker stresses the need for passion and persistence in any side hustle to achieve success and fulfillment.

Takeaways

• 💰 The speaker has made approximately 31 lakh 55,000 rupees through various side hustles, excluding income from affiliate marketing, equity trading, and high-risk ventures like cryptocurrency or dropshipping.
• 🏆 The speaker emphasizes the importance of financial independence, especially for those from lower middle-class families, to alleviate the burden on parents and gain more freedom in life.
• 📚 The speaker will answer common questions about side hustles based on their own experiences and then guide towards the right question to ask when choosing a side hustle.
• 🎥 YouTube has been the speaker's primary source of income during college, with earnings coming from AdSense and brand sponsorships, but it requires significant time investment and patience.
• 🖼 The speaker has had success with video editing services, which can offer a quick payback time and high ROI if one can secure clients, especially international ones.
• 🎨 Art freelancing was another side hustle for the speaker, but it is not recommended due to the time-consuming nature of art and the competitive market for artists.
• 👕 Selling merchandise can be a viable side hustle with a potentially quick payback time, but the profit margins are not very high and require good marketing efforts.
• 🌐 Digital assets like presets and lots have a high ROI because they are virtual products with no manufacturing or shipping costs, but the market in India may not be very lucrative.
• ⏰ Time investment varies across different side hustles, with some requiring significant upfront work and others being more time-efficient once set up.
• 💡 The right question to ask when choosing a side hustle is whether you enjoy doing it, as passion and enjoyment are key to sticking with it and achieving success.
• 🔍 The speaker suggests trying various side hustles to discover what one enjoys and is good at, leading to fulfillment and potentially higher income than a traditional job.

Q & A

How much money did the speaker make through side hustles during college?

The speaker made approximately 31 lakh 55,000 rupees through various side hustles during college.

What is the speaker's perspective on the relationship between money and happiness?

The speaker humorously challenges the notion that money can't buy happiness, suggesting that those who say so are not spending money on things that can bring happiness.

What is the speaker's advice for those from lower middle-class families?

The speaker advises individuals from lower middle-class families to learn to make their own money as soon as possible to relieve their parents of the financial burden and gain more freedom in life.

What are the three key aspects the speaker evaluates for side hustles?

The speaker evaluates side hustles based on time investment, payback time, and return on investment (ROI).

How much time investment does the speaker suggest for YouTube as a side hustle?

The speaker rates time investment for YouTube at five out of ten, indicating it requires a significant amount of time compared to other side hustles.

What is the payback time for YouTube according to the speaker's experience?

The speaker mentions that the payback time for YouTube is generally 6 to 12 months or slightly more due to YouTube's new monetization policy.

What is the speaker's view on the ROI of YouTube in the beginning?

The speaker indicates that in the beginning, the ROI for YouTube is very low, rating it as a 1 out of 10 or even a 0 out of 10, as it can take a year or more to start making money.

How does the speaker describe the process of earning through video editing as a side hustle?

The speaker describes earning through video editing as having a quick payback time, with the potential to start earning within a month or two, and an impressive ROI if foreign clients are involved.

What is the speaker's advice for video editors to stand out in the market?

The speaker advises video editors to have a polished portfolio and a professional presentation, such as having their own website, rather than sharing files through an unorganized Google Drive.

What is the speaker's opinion on the profitability of selling digital assets like presets and lots?

The speaker finds selling digital assets to be highly profitable due to the high ROI, as there is no need for manufacturing, storing, or shipping, and it requires less time investment compared to other side hustles.

What is the most important question one should ask when choosing a side hustle, according to the speaker?

The speaker believes the most important question to ask is whether one enjoys the side hustle or not, as enjoyment is a key factor in sticking with it and achieving success.

Outlines

00:00

🤑 Side Hustles for Financial Independence

The speaker shares their experience with multiple side hustles, which have collectively earned them approximately 31 lakh 55 thousand rupees, excluding income from affiliate marketing and high-risk ventures like cryptocurrency and dropshipping. The speaker emphasizes the importance of financial independence and the relief it brings to lower-middle-class families. They address common misconceptions and questions about side hustles, offering their insights based on personal experience. The speaker also introduces three matrices for evaluating side hustles: time investment, payback time, and return on investment (ROI). They highlight YouTube as a significant source of income during college, explaining how AdSense and brand sponsorships work, and discuss the time and effort required to be successful on the platform.

05:01

🎬 Video Editing and Freelancing in Creative Fields

The speaker discusses their journey in video editing and how it became a lucrative side hustle, especially when working with foreign clients. They emphasize the importance of having a polished portfolio and a professional website to stand out in the competitive field of video editing. The speaker also touches on the challenges of being a freelance artist, noting the time-consuming nature of art and the difficulty of making significant income without exceptional talent or connections. They share their experience with selling merchandise, explaining the initial effort required to design, manufacture, and market products, and the potential for quick returns with effective marketing strategies.

10:02

🎨 Art, Merchandise, and the Quest for Side Hustle Success

The speaker reflects on their experience with art freelancing and the challenges of making a substantial income in the field. They provide a step-by-step guide on creating a professional website using an AI tool, which can be crucial for showcasing one's work and attracting clients. The speaker also discusses their venture into merchandise design, the initial setup required, and the potential for high returns with minimal ongoing effort. They mention digital assets as a side hustle with high ROI due to the virtual nature of the product, requiring no physical manufacturing or shipping. The speaker concludes by stressing the importance of enjoying the chosen side hustle to ensure long-term commitment and success.

Keywords

💡Side Hustles

Side hustles refer to additional jobs or projects taken on outside of one's main employment to earn extra income. In the video, the speaker discusses various side hustles he engaged in during college, such as YouTube, video editing, art freelancing, and selling merchandise. These side hustles provided him with significant earnings and practical experience.

💡YouTube Income

YouTube income is derived from ad revenue and brand sponsorships. The speaker explains how YouTube has been his primary source of side hustle income through AdSense and brand deals. Despite its time-intensive nature, YouTube can offer substantial long-term returns, especially for those who consistently produce quality content and grow their subscriber base.

💡AdSense

AdSense is a program by Google that pays content creators a share of the revenue generated from ads displayed on their videos. The speaker notes that AdSense earnings can be minimal, particularly for channels with predominantly Indian audiences, highlighting the importance of supplementing income with brand sponsorships.

💡Brand Sponsorships

Brand sponsorships involve companies paying content creators to promote their products or services in videos. This form of income can be more lucrative than AdSense. The speaker emphasizes the significance of brand deals in his YouTube earnings, demonstrating how creators can leverage their audience to attract sponsorship opportunities.

💡Payback Time

Payback time refers to the period required to start earning from a side hustle. The speaker evaluates the payback time for various side hustles, indicating that YouTube might take 6-12 months to generate income due to new monetization policies, while video editing can start yielding earnings within a month or two.

💡ROI (Return on Investment)

ROI measures the profitability of an investment relative to its cost. The speaker discusses ROI for different side hustles, highlighting that while YouTube has a low initial ROI, it can become highly profitable over time. Conversely, digital assets have a high ROI due to minimal costs and immediate sales potential.

💡Video Editing

Video editing involves creating and refining video content for various purposes. The speaker mentions video editing as a profitable side hustle with a short payback time and high ROI, especially if one can attract foreign clients. He also emphasizes the importance of a polished portfolio and professional presentation.

💡Digital Assets

Digital assets are intangible items like software, photos, videos, or presets sold online. The speaker found success selling video editing presets and LUTs. These assets have a high ROI because they require no physical production or shipping, making them an attractive side hustle for content creators.

💡Merchandise

Merchandise refers to branded products like t-shirts and posters sold to fans or customers. The speaker launched his own merchandise line, leveraging his YouTube and Instagram audience. While it involves significant upfront work, it can quickly generate revenue with effective marketing.

💡Time Investment

Time investment is the amount of time required to maintain a side hustle. The speaker assesses the time needed for various side hustles, noting that YouTube and video editing require substantial time commitments. He advises balancing these activities with academic responsibilities and social life.

Highlights

The speaker emphasizes that money can buy happiness and discusses the importance of financial independence.

The speaker has made approximately 31 lakh 55,000 rupees through various side hustles, excluding income from affiliate marketing and equity trading.

The speaker shares the emotional relief his father felt when he no longer needed to financially support him.

The speaker will address common misconceptions and questions about side hustles based on his own experiences.

YouTube has been the speaker's primary source of income during college, generating the majority of his earnings.

YouTube income comes from AdSense and brand sponsorships, with the latter being more significant for the speaker.

The speaker rates YouTube's time investment as high and its payback time as slow due to new monetization policies.

The speaker's experience with video editing and production led to an 'unofficial agency' with a junior, Kunal.

Video editing services can have a quick payback time and high ROI if one can secure international clients.

The speaker advises having a professional website for video editing services to stand out in the market.

The speaker discusses the importance of presentation and professionalism in attracting clients as a freelancer.

The speaker's experience with art freelancing through Instagram and Fiverr, and the challenges of time investment.

The speaker rates art freelancing as having a low ROI and high time investment, making it less recommended.

The speaker talks about designing and selling merchandise, leveraging his pre-existing audience on social media.

The speaker finds selling merchandise to have a high payback time and moderate ROI, given effective marketing.

The speaker discusses the high ROI of selling digital assets like presets and templates, with minimal time investment.

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of enjoying the chosen side hustle for long-term success.

Transcripts

people who say money can't buy you

happiness are spending money can't buy

you

happiness all right don't become a

philosopher before you

rich game

time once starting a DI Hyderabad I have

tried my hands on multiple side hustles

and made around 31 lakh 55,00 rupees

approximate now this number does not

include my income from affiliate

marketing Equity trading or anything

that is a little bit risky like crypto

trading Drop Shipping or anything like

that now one guy in the comment will be

like what what a flex dude but unlike

that guy if you come from a lower midd

class

family the amount of Rel my father felt

when I told him that you don't have to

give me money anymore and I know your

parents have also walked their as of to

put you in school or put you in college

and I want you to also make your own

money as soon as possible so you can

take a burden of their chest and

basically have more freedom in your life

but you know what is sad

still get

say and it's very sad to see ke everyone

is asking the wrong question so you know

what I'll answer all your wrong

questions I'll answer all three of these

questions through my own experience and

then I'll tell you what is the right

question to ask now among all the eight

to nine side hustles that I have done in

college life I think five are very good

for beginners to start with and uh I

will give you all the three matrices

that you asked for time investment the

amount of time you will ideally want to

invest in that side hustle per week

number two is payback time which

basically means the amount of time it

will take for you to get your first

paycheck on number three is

RO now in terms of side Hustle YouTube

has been my bread and butter throughout

College I have made hundreds of videos I

have going like 1.2 lakh subscribers and

the majority of the 31 lakhs that I made

in college came from the domain of

YouTube now YouTube in income is

separated into two parts AdSense and

brand sponsorship if you do not know how

those work I'll explain very briefly

Brands pay YouTube to run their ads and

if someone watches your video they end

up watching some ads as well and YouTube

pays you a very small amount of that

money that brand paid them to you

because you kept someone some kind of

audience on that platform so they could

watch those companies ads that is how

AdSense works but the sad reality is if

your channel has majorly Indian audience

you're not going to make much out of

AdSense like for example on my channel

on average per thousand views you only

make this much of money which converts

to this now you can probably imagine

that AdSense is very small amount in my

YouTube income the other part comes from

Brand sponsorships what are those Brands

basically pay me to promote their or

feature their product or their service

and talk about them in my videos and

that is how a whole brand sponsorship

works now let's talk about the three

aspects that I promised time investment

YouTube does take quite a lot of time

compared to other side hustles on a

regular basis so I will probably give it

uh five out of 10 because you also have

your classes your assignments your exams

your social life and everything and

managing YouTube with that does take a

lot of sacrifice now talking about

payback time it generally takes you

around 6 to 12 months or a little bit

more because the new monetization policy

on YouTube does not let you monetize

your channel right off the B so it's

probably a three out of 10 now the ROI

on YouTube is a little bit tricky and it

is very VAR because at the start for

probably a year you won't be making any

sort of money so it's going to be a 1

out of 10 or a zero out of 10 back then

but if you stick to it for 3 to 4 years

it can give you disproportionate income

so it goes from 0 out of 10 to 10 out of

10 but it takes quite a lot of time and

you need a lot of patience to stick to

it while doing YouTube I had quite a few

videos of mine cross 100K views and some

of them cross Millions as well and

that's when I

realized pry good at it and as someone

said if you're good at something never

do it for free and honestly I never

reached out to any clients uh it was

mostly Brands creators or some other

clients who would come up to me to idate

shoot edit or conceptualize their videos

and I started doing that but very soon I

realized I have very limited time I

cannot do it all on my own that is when

I met Kunal my beloved Junior who was

very very interested in film making

video making and all these things and we

worked together for more than a year and

currently we have like this unofficial

agency unofficial because I never really

reached out to any clients so I still

call it unofficial now in terms of time

it obviously depends on the complexity

of the videos and also the number of

clients so it's absolutely variable

cannot comment on that now the payback

time is quite impressive on this because

even if you're starting to learn video

editing and you find a good resource a

good Workshop or a good course to start

off with or if you are spending a lot of

time to learn this you can probably

start earning in a month or two and

that's a very very good so I'll give it

like a 7 out of 10 and in terms of Roi

if you can land some foreign clients the

ROI is crazy good for the amount of

effort you put on so I'm also going to

give it a eight out of but especially in

this age of media a lot of people are

starting to uh learn video editing to

earn some kind of money but the reality

is that only the top 10% of video

editors actually earn some tangible

amount of money why let me give you my

own situation I get hundreds of DMS and

emails throughout a month people saying

that bro I want to edit videos for you I

a video editor let me help you blah blah

blah blah and when I go and look at

their portfolio when I go look at their

work there are two things that are very

offputting one is that their work is not

polished they are not very good they

just learned the video editing software

and they now they're like bro let me

edit for you and the second thing is

that their presentation is very very bad

even if your videos are very good nobody

wants to click on your portfolio and

land on a disorganized ized Google Drive

man that is the problem with 99% of the

editors that have reached out to me

having your files in a Google Drive and

sharing that is the most unprofessional

thing you can do to a client so the

first biggest and the most important

step that you need to take is to have

your own website and now be like Z but

I'm not a web developer I'm just a video

editor I'll show you this really handy

AI tool that will make your website in

like a click I'll show you how easy and

quick it is to make your own website

with hosting for example I need a

website for my production house let's

say just go to the first link in the

description and the first thing you need

is a domain and a

hosting do not worry there are multiple

plans available here and I will highly

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that will do the hard work for you along

with this hostinger also gives you free

services like lifetime SSL which is the

security of your website and much much

more now while choosing the plan I would

suggest you go somewhere over 12 months

monthly fee

once the payment is done follow these

easy steps which are self-explanatory

and click on build with AI and this is

where the Magic Begins all I need to do

is to fill out the name and give a very

good description of the website of the

brand and whatever I want and with one

single click This brilliant looking

website is ready but I don't like this

particular text here well no problem

everything on this page is customizable

I can edit this text or any other text

that I want I can also add any new

element that I want and I can also keep

checking how the website looks on a PC

by clicking the preview button how it

does it look on a mobile device I can

check that as well we need a good logo

that's where AI comes in the rescue once

again it can make me a logo and I can

tune it to my own liking I can use AI to

write paragraphs in the website and I

can also use AI to generate a heat map

for my website what is a heat map it

shows logo

mostly so if you are a serious

freelancer you need to use hosting to

get a professional website by clicking

the first link in the description they

also have their data center in Mumbai

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has so you have nothing to lose thanks

again to hostinger for supporting the

channel now most of you wouldn't know

this but I have been into art for like

five to six years of my life I never

took any professional learning sessions

but I just kept drawing a lot of things

and after one time just like video

editing I realized hm I'm not that bad

at it and again I said to myself let's

not do it for free anymore so I started

freelancing in art as well and I was

running my art freelancing business

through Instagram mainly from this

account and other than that I was also

going on to Fiverr but after some time

when I came into college in second year

I guess I completely quit art I don't

know why I just just not getting the

time in terms of time drawing is a very

time consuming process so it is a two

out of 10 in terms of payback time if

you are a complete beginner you do not

do anything it will take you a lot of

time to learn to get good at Art so it's

a three out of 10 in terms of Roi it's

not that good as well unless you are

very good you're among the top 1% of

artists or you have insane connections

you're not going to make much money so

it's another three out of 10 so this is

probably the least recommended in the

top five of my side hle list now just

when you're thinking that Soo can't

possibly be doing any more things buy my

merch this also goes back quite a

lot I have been designing merch and

posters and all these things for uh

College clubs and societies for other

startups for quite a long time since my

first year of college and final year may

I finally decided that it is time for me

to sell my own merchandise because my

whole Moto of college was to try as many

things as possible now granted although

it's a side hustle it was easier for me

to sell merge because I had an

pre-existing audience on YouTube and

Instagram that won't be the case for you

but again it can still be done with good

amount of marketing and a good amount of

brain cells talking about time

investment it's a lot of work up front

so one time you'll have to design you'll

have to find a manufacturer you'll have

to find like figure out how you're going

to ship them you going of make a website

but it's all one time the only reconing

things are like taking orders and

shipping out products which is does not

take much of your time so I'll give it a

somewhere in the middle five or six out

of 10 now we payback time if you are

talking about it technically getting

your first Revenue can be done within a

week or two and if you're really good at

marketing you can generate a huge amount

of Revenue within a month so 9 out of 10

now in terms of Roi it is not that great

because one you're investing a lot of

effort and the profit marging for

selling T-shirts in India is not that

much even if you're trying your best

you'll probably end up and the best case

scenario would be like 30 to 35% so it's

a solid three out of 10 now digital

assets is a very minute percentage of

the whole income that I made in college

I have been doing photo editing and

video editing and messing with color

grading quite a lot so at one point I

thought like why don't I sell my own

pets and lots and it's not just me I

have seen other Indian creators try to

sell them as well and the amount of

money people are willing to spend on

these things in India is not that much

so it's not very profitable but again

the catch is at the ROI the ROI is very

high because you do not need to

manufacture anything you do not need to

store anything do not need to ship

anything everything is done virtually

that is why the Roi is absolutely

humongous probably a nine out of in

terms of time investment it is also very

less compared to other things so it's

probably a 8 out of 10 and in terms of

payback time if you're good at marketing

if you have some kind of audience if you

have a good Niche audience to sell to

you can literally start earning money

today so that also gets a 9 out of 10 or

even a 10 out of 10 I would say now as I

promised at the start of the video that

I'll tell you what is the right question

to ask and for that you need to

understand although this is called the

side hustle and the passive income this

takes a huge amount of time it it's

going to take like at least four to 5

hours of your every single day and uh

that will be for like 6 to 8 months or

even more than a year and the single

deciding factor behind whether you make

money out of it is whether you can stick

to it or not and whether you can stick

to it or not depends on whether you like

doing it or not so the first and the

most important question that you should

ask when you're choosing which side

hustle to go into what to build is do

you enjoy enjoy it or not now you're

going to be like I don't know and I was

exactly like you I had no idea

what I wanted to do so you just need to

do exactly what I did try your hand at

everything that you possibly get your

hands on and if you keep doing that

things are going to turn on great look

at me after 5 years down the line I am

still doing out of those eight things

I'm still doing two to three things

every single day because I like doing

them I get fulfillment and I also get an

income that is more than my software

engineering jobs so yeah