Side hustles are ideal for anyone wanting to make extra cash outside their everyday work.

The phrase ‘passive income’ has gained more traction following talks about the cost of living crisis in the UK. In short, it means you are gaining income from something without being actively involved. In theory, it’s the dream scenario, however, it’s important to remain diligent in this space. Otherwise,  you could find yourself in a tricky situation where you lose money, rather than earning it.

Perhaps you’re a student looking for a side hustle or you simply want to make more money outside your typical salary. Either way, technology can play a huge role in facilitating side hustles and optimising them for success. Here’s how you can take advantage of it.

Use AI

Many people are already using AI to their advantage by embracing the technology rather than hiding from it. You can take dedicated courses to enhance your knowledge of it, plus there are plenty of resources online.

If you have good copywriting skills, you can position yourself as an AI copyeditor. Another approach to leveraging AI is through the creation of colouring books, which you can then send to print when you sell your designs. This can be set up automatically, meaning there’s little need for you to intervene. Meanwhile, AI can be used to make other creative assets such as stock images or improve existing images before selling them.

Automation

As touched upon earlier, automation can be used to your advantage to help kickstart your side hustle. If you design creative assets that need to be printed and sent to the purchaser, you can use print-on-demand platforms that do this for you automatically. If you work in social media management, there are specialist scheduling platforms that allow you to curate your social media plans and set up a time and date for the content to go live using automation.

Automation can be a godsend, saving valuable time, which means you can place your focus elsewhere. Admin tasks will no longer be the bane of your life.

Consider dropshipping

Dropshipping has gained a poor reputation in some areas, however, when done responsibly, it can be a brilliant way of generating passive income. Make sure you familiarise yourself with the legalities involved with dropshipping before diving in head first. You’ll need to be wary of copyright laws, tax laws, consumer protection laws and more.

In short, dropshipping is a fulfilment method. It involves a company dealing with customer service, marketing and sales while another company deals with the manufacturing and fulfilment process. Sometimes, an additional company will ship the item. Benefits include reducing overhead costs (e.g. utilities and rent for space) and the fact there’s no need to handle warehousing or inventories.