This post originally ran on Maxton Men.
Most people have limiting beliefs that prevent them from creating additional income streams. These include:
1. It’s going to take a lot of time that I don’t have
2. I don’t have any particular valuable skills or connections people would pay for
3. It’s hard to create a product to sell
There’s good news – for most people, these beliefs are false and it’s never been easier to make some extra coin on the side.
The best way to create additional income streams without incurring a large time cost is to package an existing asset into a commodity or service that can be distributed with minimal effort. This is scalable income creation.
Still sound hard? Most people stop here because they’re narrow-minded about what personal assets they can leverage to make money. They’re also unfamiliar with the companies and services that have lowered the barrier to packaging personal assets into monetizable products.
Examples of Personal Assets That Can Be Packaged to Create Commodities:
- Knowledge
- Relationships
- Existing Space
When appropriate, assets within each of these buckets can be viewed as capital which can be put to work to make dinero (assuming there is demand).
Examples of Monetizable Products that Can be Created From The Existing Assets Outlined:
- Knowledge – eBooks, Online and Offline Classes, Curated Experiences, Video Tutorials, A Personal Consultancy
- Relationships – A Personal Consultancy
- Physical Space or Possessions – Home rental, Office Space, Transportation
Identifying Opportunities To Make Additional Income
The most fertile opportunities for generating side income with respect to time, hinge on the laws of supply and demand. I apply two frameworks to think about when these opportunities for additional income exist with limited output per transaction on my end:
Optimize for High Demand: What do I posses which many people desire?
Optimize for Limited Supply: What do I possess which is extremely unique or rare? What’s my 1%?
Whether you know it or not, there’s probably an asset you possess which people desire that you’re not putting to work for you. Here are a few examples within each personal asset class outlined above:
Knowledge:
- How to get a specific type of job
- How to receive admittance to a specific program or school
- How to perform a unique task
- Curated knowledge on the best “something” within a geographic region
Relationships:
- Introductions to important contacts within an industry
- An understanding of who the important contacts are within an organization
Physical Space or Possessions:
- Unused space in your home
- Extra working space in your office
- Storage space in your office
- A spare parking space
- Your car
Have you worked with Virtual Assistants? Write a book on it.
Know how to make gnocchi? Teach a class on it.
Do you know where the best graffiti is in New York? Host a curated experience.
Do you know the most important people in the Franchise World? Set up a consultancy that commands mucho dinero for access to those connections.
Going away for a week? Why not recoup $500 by renting out your bedroom?
These are just a few examples of ways people are creating income-generating surplus from existing assets they already possess. The best news for enterprising folks out there is there is an entire host of services that have made the process of packaging your assets into monetizable commodities easier than ever:
Skillshare – A community marketplace for classes where anyone can teach a class on anything to anyone. I have leveraged Skillshare to finance a nicer apartment.
HyperInk Press – The easiest way to publish an eBook.. I wrote one on Ivy League Football Recruiting. View more books
AirBNB – Join people all over the world to rent your place
LooseCubes – Make use of that extra work space to meet amazing people and get access to the LooseCubes network
Parking Panda – List your parking space
Getaround – Peer to peer car rental
Do you know of other platforms that help people easily leverage existing assets to create additional income? Please feel free to share in the comments.