The term side hustle refers to extra work that you do on the side in order to make extra money. If you think you can benefit from creating a side hustle, then this article will help you come up with ideas for creating one. If you’re not sure what your skills are or how to put them to use in your own side hustle, or if you want inspiration from others who have had success with side hustles, check out these 8 profitable side hustle ideas for user experience designers in Africa.
As of April 2016, South Africa has an unemployment rate of around 27%, and there are currently over 500,000 software developers in the country. Clearly, there’s an abundance of work available to UX designers who know where to look! Here are 8 profitable side hustle ideas UX designers can try to earn extra money on the side from their day jobs.
In the current climate, where everyone needs additional income in order to survive, it can be hard to make money on the side as a user experience designer. Fortunately, there are still plenty of ways to make some extra cash with your user experience design skills. This list of eight profitable side hustle ideas will help you figure out how to get started turning your skills into cash ASAP. You won’t become rich overnight, but you’ll have something to add to your income streams and build on moving forward!
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What is Side Hustle?
A side hustle is a term coined by blogger and author Tim Ferriss which refers to creating additional streams of income, especially those that require few or no startup costs. The idea behind it is that people can find ways to make money on top of their regular jobs—and thus not have to rely as much on their primary source of income.
Side hustles are perfect for freelance and part-time workers who want to increase their income and stop living paycheck-to-paycheck. Freelancers also often use side hustles as additional streams of income when they run into times when work is slow. People can earn money with a side hustle while also keeping up with their normal workloads and maintaining good relationships with clients or customers.
Here are the 6 Profitable Side Hustle Ideas for User Experience Designers in Africa:
1) Start a YouTube Channel
User experience designers can make money by starting a YouTube channel. If you’re not familiar with how YouTube works, don’t worry. It’s much easier than you think! On your channel, create videos that relate to your expertise as a user experience designer. For example, if you’re doing UX research for an e-commerce company, go record your observations about common shopping behaviors at physical retail stores and upload them to your YouTube channel.
You could even start uploading short video tutorials on specific user research techniques (e.g., contextual inquiry or usability testing). You may have no views at first but once people see that there are high-quality videos related to their interests (UX design) they will start subscribing and watching!
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2) Run a Workshop
One of my favorite side hustles involves teaching workshops on anything from design to personal finance. If you’ve done a good job establishing yourself as an expert, it’s surprisingly easy to find groups of people who will happily shell out hundreds of dollars to learn more about your topic. Don’t have any expertise? No problem!
Teaching a workshop on anything from upholstery to web design will almost certainly force you to research and study like crazy and that knowledge could come in handy later when you start freelancing. Who knows, once you build up a reputation for running successful workshops, the word might even get around town that you’re willing to consult on freelance projects or hire yourself out as an independent contractor.
3) Teach Online
Teaching online is another side hustle you can do from anywhere. Many sites, like Udemy, Treehouse, and Skillshare let you teach a course on your subject of expertise— whether it’s UX design or storytelling, or personal finance—and share revenue with you based on student enrollment. If you’re already teaching a class in person, consider recording your lessons and selling them online as an educational product. For example, there are over 20 million students enrolled at iTunes U; if even a fraction of these students subscribed to learn from an industry expert like yourself it could be lucrative—not to mention give your career some added visibility.
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4) Start Freelancing
If you have expertise in a specific industry or business area, why not look into freelancing? Freelancing can be a profitable side hustle idea for user experience designers. Set up your own business website to advertise your services. You’ll need to invest some money upfront, like any small business, but if you build up your client base and portfolio, it can pay off down the road. And even if you’re just starting out or only focusing on local clients, don’t discount outsourcing—it could end up being one of your most profitable side hustles. A service like Upwork makes it easy to find new freelance clients who want jobs done now and will compete over price with their peers to get them done.
5) Design and Sell WordPress Themes
A lot of designers don’t realize they can make money off their designs. Well, actually, that’s not true—most of them do realize it, but they think you have to go through design contests or sign up with sites like 99designs and similar. That is just a big hassle. If you want to skip all that and keep 100% of your revenue while still having an audience vote on your design, check out Envato Studio. You pay nothing to submit designs (other than time), but you only get paid when one gets accepted—and most get accepted if not all of them get accepted!
6) Start Blogging
Getting started with a side hustle can be overwhelming, but it’s more than just putting some time aside to make some extra cash. Before you even start considering a potential business idea, think about your motivations and purpose: Do you want to start a small business or simply make money from home? Is there another project that would bring more joy and fulfillment? Asking yourself these questions will help you determine what kind of side hustle is right for you. To get going, here are 8 ideas that could work for any UX designer based in Africa.
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In Conclusion
Becoming a full-time freelancer is an opportunity to maximize what you earn as a UX designer. It’s also about building your personal brand and finding fulfillment through supporting other designers and by doing something you love. I hope that after reading these ideas, you can see how there are dozens of ways to earn money on your own terms, without giving up your passion. Even if you don’t feel ready yet to dive into freelancing full-time, it’s important to start thinking now about how you want your career to look when it is time for a change.
