Top 4 Best Side Hustles For Teens
Frey Chu
Table Of Contents
Top 4 Best Side Hustles For Teens
If you’re a teenager looking for a side hustle that has the highest likelihood of success, this article is for you.
In 2024, side hustle ideas are everywhere. But given that your resources are limited, many side hustles aren’t worth pursuing if you want to guarantee success.
Starting a side hustle is like starting a small business. If done correctly, the ideas featured in this article can earn you an extra $200–$1000 a month. And if done professionally, it can be much more.
As someone who has started multiple side hustles, I’m here to give you the best and worst side hustles to start as a teenager.
The best side hustle opportunities are:
- Low cost to start
- Offer flexible schedules
- Ways to develop business skills
- Proven ways to make extra income
The worst side hustle opportunities are:
- Expensive to start
- High risk
- Difficult to learn
By the end of this article, you’ll have four incredible side hustle opportunities to choose from, an understanding of why these side hustles work, and how to start today.
1. Flipping Items On EBay
Flipping Items on eBay For A Profit
You’ve probably heard of flipping items for a profit, but don’t underestimate it until you try it.
If you’re not familiar, flipping, or reselling, is when you purchase items and sell them online for a higher price.
The most common places to find opportunities to buy items for cheap and sell them for a profit are:
- Garage Sales
- Flea Markets
- Estate Sales
- Thrift Stores
Think about it.
People move all the time.
College students move out of their dorms, families move to other cities, and old people pass away, leaving their belongings to donation centers around the country.
Why Reselling is the Best Side Hustle For Teenagers
Flipping items for a profit is one of the best side hustles for teens because it’s cheap to start and can be highly profitable.
If you have $50, a smartphone, transportation, and an eBay account, you can start today.
Disclaimer: You need to be 18 years old to start an eBay account. If you’re not 18 years old, you’ll need to work with your parents to create an account and link it to a bank account.
How To Start Flipping Items on Ebay
Quick steps to start:
- Start an eBay account (18+ years old, or with parental guidance)
- Find your nearest garage sales, thrift store or flea market
- To find garage sales, use craigslist to find out when local garage sales happen near you
- Look up “how to find sold listings on eBay” on YouTube to learn how to check market prices for any any item you’re purchasing
- Purchase an item (Before buying, make sure to follow the step above)
- List the item on eBay
- Take at least four good photos
- Use a descriptive title
- Price your item competitively
- Complete the item description
- Set shipping prices
- Pack and ship your orders carefully when the item sells
2. Learn to Build Websites
Learn to Build Websites
In 2024, small businesses and individuals still need websites to run their business and sell products or services.
Today, there are unlimited resources around building websites on YouTube that you can learn from.
To earn money from this, you must learn how to build a website, ideally for a specific industry or niche, and sell people on why they should pay you to update their website.
Why Building Websites Is The Best Online Side Hustle For Teens
With websites like Squarespace, Shopify, and WordPress, you can learn how to build custom websites for small businesses and individuals who don’t have the time to learn how to build one themselves.
Without a doubt, this can be the most profitable side hustle to start as a teen. However, it’s also the side hustle that requires the most technical and sales skills.
Before you try to sell your website services to customers, you need to:
- Learn how to buy a domain
- Learn how to buy web hosting
- Find a website builder
- Beginner-friendly: Squarespace
- Advanced: WordPress
- Learn how to build a simple, modern website for yourself
- Learn simple copywriting
- Learn how to create a simple but easy-to-use website experience
This is an excellent side hustle to start an online business, selling website design services.
Also, if your goal is to become an entrepreneur in the future, learning how to build websites is a valuable skill you’ll be able to use throughout your entire career.
How to Start Building Websites As A Side Hustle
Quick steps to start:
- Learn how to build a modern website for yourself
- Find 2-3 small businesses or individuals who will let you re-design their website for free
- Gather positive reviews and testimonials
- Go out and find a small businesses with an outdated, but simple, website
- Contact them, introduce yourself and explain how you can help them modernize their current website
3. Shoot and Edit Graduation Photos
Take Professional Graduation Photos
Every year, students are looking for ways to celebrate their graduation day in ways they will remember forever.
Whether students graduate from high school, college, or even first grade, there will always be a parent or student who wants professionally taken photos of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
You might think that photos taken by your smartphone are good enough, right?
Why would someone pay you to take photos?
It’s true.
All smartphones have advanced cameras that have the potential to take professional photos.
But there’s a reason why our smartphone photos don’t come out like professionally taken photographs.
To make money as a graduation photographer, you will need to guarantee your customers high-quality photos that are edited professionally.
During your photoshoot, you’ll need to know exactly how to guide your customer with a series of creative backdrop ideas and body poses that allow you to capture the individual’s authentic personality.
How to Take Grad Photos Good Enough to Charge Money
To start a profitable side hustle in graduation photography, you need to be able to deliver photos that stand out from your typical iPhone photo.
The skills you need to learn to pull this off successfully are:
- Portrait photography
- Photo composition
- Natural lighting
- Framing your subject
- How to guide your subject
- Direct poses; tell them where to place their hands, how to stand, and where to stand
- Finding a beautiful, scenic background or backdrop
- Edit the photo
- Bring out the best qualities of your subject without changing their natural look
If you can learn these skills, you can reasonably charge $40–$100 per person for a set of 10–20 professionally taken and edited photos.
The reason this side hustle is great for teens is because you’re already spending time with friends and peers that can become potential customers.
As an ambitious side hustler, you can take advantage of the years in life while you’re still in school.
Your friends can be potential customers. And if you don’t have friends who want professional photos, you have hundreds of other students and parents of students to sell to.
Keep in mind that this side hustle is seasonal and only works during the months when students graduate.
For this side hustle, it’s recommended to spend money on a professional camera. It’s not required, but this can help you stand out as a professional, so you can charge more money per customer.
How to Start Selling Grad Photos
Quick steps to start:
- Learn all the skills above in order to produce the highest-quality edited photos
- Show people your photography portraits to gather feedback
- Create a small portfolio by asking friends to take their graduation photos
- Start selling your service to parents and students
- Ask for referrals
- Bonus: Give them discounts if they successfully refer another customer who purchase
4. Create Short-Form Videos
Create Short-Form Videos
Small businesses need all types of video content in order to stay relevant in 2024.
There are many different types of short-form videos you can make in exchange for money.
In the beginning, choose one form of short-form content and become an expert at it until people are willing to pay for it.
The Best Creative Side Hustle For Teens
This is one of the most recommended side hustles for teenagers to start if you want to be an online creator or business owner in the future.
Not only is it possible to start this side hustle with just a smartphone and video editing software, but you can scale this side hustle to a point where you’re earning some serious cash.
Businesses and individuals who are willing to pay for short-form videos may be looking for:
- User-generated content (UGC)
- Product reviews that look authentic
- Testimonials
- Explainer videos
- Tutorials
- Product Demos
But where there’s high potential to earn a significant amount of money, there’s competition. To stand out, you’ll need to learn the following qualities and skills:
- Organic video and photo composition
- Video editing
- Product photography
- High-quality audio
- How to talk in front of a camera
- How to film yourself
- How to catch and keep a viewer’s attention
How To Start Creating Short-Form Videos
The best way to start this side hustle is to get good at one specific type of short-form video (UGC, tutorials, etc.) and target a specific type of product type.
For example, if you’re known as an expert in short-form UGC videos for food brands, your services will be more attractive to other food brands.
In the business world, it’s called finding your niche. There’s a famous saying among side hustlers and business owners: “The riches are in the niches,” and it couldn’t be more true.
Quick steps to start:
- Learn all the skills above
- Start a short-form video portfolio
- Create this by creating UGC videos promoting items and product you already own
- Create website or social media platform to showcase your content
- Message small businesses and sell your service
Final Thoughts
The Best Side Hustle For Teens Will Teach You Valuable Business Skills
As a teenager, I didn’t have a lot of ways to make hundreds of dollars. Today, we have smartphones and internet side hustles that require hard work and consistency, but can result in earning hundreds of dollars every month.
If you’re a teenager looking for ways to make more money, the digital side hustles mentioned in this article will be valuable even when you’re an adult. The skills you’ll learn are also crucial for building a business if you want to be an entrepreneur in the future.
While there are a lot excellent side hustles you can start as a teen, such as mowing lawns and cleaning pools, these side hustles are harder but more rewarding in the long run.