1) Create a website. Join some affiliate programs. Drive traffic to the website. I've done this. Didn't make too much money but it was a small income. I know a lot more now so probably could do a better job.
2) Create a course and sell it via Udemy. Not done this myself (yet).
3) Write an e-book and sell it through joint venture via someone else's website. Done this (back in 2003/2004). Make a couple hundred a month from it. I wrote a book on living in Thailand but you could do anything.
4) Start your own removals company using a rented van. (You only need some insurance a strong back and a few local ads or word of mouth). Having done my own removals a few times plus the same for friends can be a nice little business. Be prepared to walk away from specialist jobs though (no grand pianos)! Free workout with every job. ;)
5) Learn a trade. You an set yourself up as a painter and decorator for next to nothing. This is a nice little side earner for me (and was for my Dad too - he taught me, and his Dad taught him).
6) Set up a little consultancy showing small businesses how to use free software. I've done this too after I got asked to install a free CRM system for a little business (oil services) and they then asked me to work up a training course for them. I then found myself doing various jobs for them like setting up wikis, email, showing them how to use Google Docs etc etc
7) Sign up to UpWork and do odd jobs in an area you can handle.
Lots more ideas but partner home now so I need to go! Good luck!
Just to comment on one of your points:
On creating a website... probably less than $30 to get it started, or if you start on WordPress.com or something like that, you can start for free.
But I'd say if you were looking to make money with a website, don't do it just for that. Most people try.. and fail because unless you have a passion for it, it's not going to be what you want.
I began Confessions of the Professions ( http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com ) and it is nearing 5 years old now, close to 1800 posts. I never thought it would actually bring me any money, but it has brought me in nearly $3,000 - $3,500 over the past 5 years. Not anything near where I could quit my day job... but it is money I would have never made had it not been for me starting a website... and keeping it going.
It takes patience and a little hustling, between sponsored posts, ads, text ads, banner ads, etc. All from just blogging and accepting guest posts. Guests posts are free submissions (with about a 2 week wait), but there is the occasional person or company who wants to get it out within the week, so that has been a great upsell for me there.
I'm sure I could have brought in a lot more... but it is a side hobby and I work on other things as well.
But starting a website all began with a passion to get it started.. and even more passion to keep it going. Luckily for me, I'm not the only one who has the passion to keep it going... if it weren't for my contributors... I probably wouldn't have the motivation, but it is that strong community support that keeps me going on.
If I could change anything... I would've probably taken my email list more seriously. I actually just have a very small email list and I don't really advertise collecting of email addresses.
For many people out there... their businesses all started simply.. with a huge email list.
Things I would do differently now:
1) I would do keyword search. This was back in 2003 and I didn't know what keyword research was back then!
2) I picked a lousy domain name. I thought it was cool, but I soon found out that my domain turned out to be the name of a Gary Numan song - and I thought my domain name was cleverly original!! Most of my organic traffic from Google was people looking for the song lyrics!! Doh!
3) I never did a podcast.
4) I never wrote many guest articles.
5) I should have done more Joint Ventures.
6) I should have had a mailing list and provided a free ebook to encourage sign up.
7) I focused mostly on content but should have been splitting time at least 50:50 with traffic generation - having great content only takes you so far - you have to let people know about it.
8) I did several interviews with retired expats - I should have done more.
The content was pretty good. I ran the site for I think eight years - it was more a labour of love than a business. I had people write me and say they moved to Thailand because of my site, or it helped them make the move. However, I regret I did not take it more seriously as a business - the market is now enormous, but hard to break into these days.
By the way I love your site!
No matter how much we read.. no matter how much we all take in.. there are ALWAYS things that we should've done and could've done.. or done them better. It is a learning experience. Honestly, I had no desire to build an email list at the time, as my whole focus was on writing quality content, but those people that have done so... and acquired something like 30,000+ subscribers have to market less, whereas I have to try and find those people with a subscriber list and either ask them to mention my products, or pay them to do it.
Or... as I'm doing now for marketing... I'm just writing about the topic and topics surrounding my products.
.asia domain name: $5
Google Play account: $25
Logo: Free. Designer friend did one in exchange for me doing an app for him. He decided not to do his app in the end, so it didn't even cost me man hours.
Development: An incubator (Startup House) gave us 3 months to stay + food.
Marketing: ~$5 for domain name, $25 for copywriting. We did a fake blog. Registered a domain name for it. Paid a blogger friend to write up something along the lines of "If you follow the Atkins Diet, you MUST download this app". We sneaked the link into an Atkins Diet Facebook group and got over 1,200 downloads in the first 24 hours.
Products: We made a recipe app and sold ingredients through it. Our ingredient supplier partners packed and delivered them for us. We simply gave them a list of who to send to and then paid them once every few weeks. We made almost no profit from this, roughly 5%, not including payment gateway, but we didn't have to have money on hand either. After verifying the business model, we bought the products, stocked, and distributed them ourselves, for up to 30% profit margin.
Later, we sold off the company, for more money than I've ever got in my years working.
My goal was to launch a single digital offering / service or product and launch it in less than 6 hours and make USD $10,000 in the first month.
1. Find value proposition (Bootstrapped startups need quality design services but don't want to pay agency prices) 2. Find business model (fixed fee per month for almost unlimited design service) 3. Find how you can fit value prop with business model & be profitable (flew to SE asia to meet designers there & live there a few months) 4. Make it scalable (set up quality control processes & communication processes) 5. Code (actually did not code much, used Paywhirl for the payment / membership system) 6. Launch
Here is the breakdown of my expenses:
1. Namecheap .co domain name - $8.88 2. OVH vps - $6/month ($72/year) 3. Themeforest template - ~12$
Total: $92.88
The project generated ~$3k in the first week of its operations (though most of it is not actually profits - but I am already in the green :))
Did you get on Product Hunt or something? I'm curious how you made $3k in the first week.
Low tech: I can think of lawn mowing, fixing PCs for the elderly, etc.
Programming: find something that you can fix for people around you... is some friend or family member having trouble with invoices? Tracking Christmas packages is a pain? Handling returns/gift cards?
Quora thread answering same question:
If you had $2000 or so to start with, that's a different story.
For starting here is my advice: get a small linux VPS or just install python on your laptop, get as much back data as possible, covering at least one market cycle (this will be your initial expense) and start back testing every trading strategy you can find on the net or in books (library) for free...
Never pay for strategies, because they will all fail, but by testing them one by one you'll come up with your own ideas and one day hopefully you'll find your edge...
It's not going to be easy or "get rich quick thingy", but it is well worth it in the end...
Use historical pricing data, NLP and comment volume on cryptocurrency subreddits and threads, frequency of search terms from Google analytics, major exchange status (Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, etc. - whether they are up or down as dummy variables), frequency of crypto-related news, etc. all plugged in as features into models in Python and linked with Gemini trading API.
I started working on it and then got lazy (and bad RSI from being at my computer way too much) and it never materialized. Plus, I guarantee somebody else is doing it, or models like that probably aren't too successful anyway.
Could be fun though.
You need money to make money in this world... But if you have an edge, raising money won't be a major problem...