Starting at 0 cost, a worker earns 350,000 yuan a month by doing a side job

A 35-year-old worker makes a comeback by relying on his side job!

Ryan Hogue started out selling print-on-demand T-shirts on Amazon, then slowly expanded his product categories and markets, and replicated his success on other platforms. In 2020, he quit his job to focus on his business. What started as an experimental sideline has now grown into 10 sources of income, bringing in $49,000 (about 350,000 RMB) a month.

Starting a Side Business with Amazon

In 2017, Ryan Hogue started his first side job on Amazon with $0. At that time, he was a dedicated web developer and an ordinary worker .

He started out selling T-shirts on Amazon , earning some extra income by selling printed-on-demand T-shirts through Amazon Merch on Demand .

Ryan Hogue's business model is print on demand, printing and shipping products after they are sold . His job involves creating graphic designs and listing them on various products in the Amazon catalog for sale. He found that simple, text-based designs could generate a lot of sales, so in his opinion , this side job does not require design experience.

Ryan Hogue's favorite thing about the Amazon platform is how automated it is. Once an order is received, Amazon will pick , print , and ship the product . Every month, he receives royalties from the sales generated.

Later, Amazon 's business expanded to the international market, and his products were soon sold to many countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.

Not only has the sales market expanded, but the products he sells have also expanded from T-shirts to vests, long-sleeved shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, mobile phone cases, pillows and handbags .

Amazon isn’t the only platform Ryan Hogue uses to make money with print on demand . He’s also applied the same side hustle and product design he’s done on Amazon to other products and markets.

Ryan Hogue has also been selling print-on-demand products on Etsy since 2018. The only cost associated with Etsy is the $0.20 fee to create a product listing, and if you use an invitation link to start selling on Etsy, you get 40 free listings.

Etsy is an American online website for selling handicrafts, which brings together many influential and attractive handmade art designers. By the end of 2022, Etsy had more than 100 million products on its market, connecting 7.5 million sellers and 95.1 million buyers. The platform's product categories include jewelry, bags, clothing, home decoration, furniture, toys, artwork, and handicrafts and tools.

In addition to Etsy, Ryan Hogue believes that you can also consider cross-listing print- on -demand products to Walmart , eBay and Redbubble. He also uses these three platforms . Redbubble and eBay have been around for quite a long time, while Walmart 's online business has just started. Each platform has its own advantages .

Expanding the sideline business

Ryan Hogue is not only satisfied with making money by selling print products on e-commerce platforms. He has also started other businesses on several channels such as Amazon.

He has been a member of the Amazon Influencer Program since September 2023. The program allows sellers to earn extra income by creating video reviews of Amazon products .

Ryan Hogue introduced that it is free to join the program and you can start recording videos using your smartphone. The uploaded videos will be displayed on the Amazon product detail pages of the reviewed products and similar products. If someone watches the video you posted before buying the product , the person who recorded the video will usually receive a commission of one to three percent.

Before starting this business, Ryan Hogue first reviewed all the products that could be found on Amazon . As long as the product was sold on the platform, no matter where it was originally purchased, it could definitely be reviewed. He reviewed hundreds of products and believed that this was a huge potential source of income, but it was not well known.

At the same time , Ryan Hogue also started a side job on YouTube , which also has no cost. He found that when he made videos about his passion and hobbies, it didn’t feel like work but rather doing what he liked.  

The requirements to monetize your YouTube channel with AdSense are 4000 hours of total watch time for all video uploads and 1000 subscribers. Once you are approved, you can get paid monthly based on the number of ads your viewers watch.

Ryan Hogue makes about $ 4,900 a month in extra income with his own YouTube channel . He created a channel where he unboxes Amazon returns in hopes that he can resell them for a profit. It's a fun project , and it pays him advertising revenue once the channel meets profitability requirements .

Behind the 0-cost startup

One thing worth noting is that all the side businesses Ryan Hogue started cost nothing.

In his view, if you want to open a retail store, your expenses include monthly rent, purchasing merchandise (to put on the shelves and then resell to customers), and employee salaries. This is the traditional way of doing things, which requires a lot of investment.

His custom business model allows him to eliminate the cost of inventory, rental, and other overheads. The online print-on-demand business model is his favorite business model. He can effectively minimize his expenses by investing in inventory only after a customer places an order. After receiving the order, he then pays other service companies that specialize in printing and shipping products to fulfill the order .

Ryan Hogue 's side business seems easy, but he actually put in a lot of effort. He believes there is no shortcut to success, and in the early days of his side business, he worked hard many early mornings and late nights. And doing a side business is not arbitrary. If you want to get a good profit, you have to work hard, observe discipline, and learn to delay gratification .

In addition to hard work, Ryan Hogue suggested that people should be skeptical of the concept that a business needs a team. He believes that this concept cannot be completely denied, but it can be divided into specific tasks. He did not rely on a team when he first established his side business. Seven years later, he is still able to complete a lot of work independently, partly because there are many different tools available now.

He believes that artificial intelligence is developing rapidly nowadays, and many things can be done with the assistance of artificial intelligence. At the same time, some tools can also be used, which can greatly automate the creative design process. Learning to use these tools strategically can help Ryan Hogue control everything, and it also allows him to put work behind him whenever he needs to and truly live the relatively free life he wants.

Ryan Hogue used Amazon's on-demand printing as a fulcrum to expand his side business, put his eggs in different baskets, slowly accumulated experience and broadened his runway, and eventually his efforts paid off.

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