2 min read

Starting A Side Hustle with OpenAI

It’s good to follow what the side hustle community is saying about generative AI tools and how they’re recommending people make money with them. Mostly as insight into what ideas will become saturated and more competitive, like dropshipping today.

Side hustle content about using ChatGPT, DALL-E, etc., has already invaded social timelines and YouTube algorithms. Sifting through the generalized advice is tough, but I really enjoyed Brett Malinowski’s video on 7 AI businesses to start with OpenAI (below). In particular, he focuses on value arbitrage, which is much like my theory on getting good at using AI tools before others because the services side and the market for outsourcing generative AI work are where things are headed.

Much of Brett’s advice revolves around providing a convenient service at speed, such as a sales copy service with Copy.ai or landing page design with Sitekick.ai. Realistically, you can pick any of the dozens of AI tools from this list and build a services business with it.

Two of his more unique ideas were a thumbnail creator service targeted at making flashy thumbnails for YouTube creators. And the other was a lead generation business, using ChatGPT to find email addresses (which apparently works).

Services can be lucrative if you know how to scale and don’t mind managing people. However, building an automated service/platform that utilizes an API of one of the generative AIs is where the long-term money is in this field. This, of course, is more difficult to start without the right programming knowledge.

The easiest AI-powered side hustle you can start – the business you need very little knowledge to begin – is blogging.

A few days ago, I covered how ChatGPT is changing the business of blogging, in which I said the short-term impact will be the onslaught of SEO content and niché blogs that emerge. Whether through affiliate marketing or getting a portion of the creator share on Medium, there are multiple ways to earn money through blogging. And ChatGPT gives you the ability to begin immediately.

The key to winning with a ChatGPT-powered blog is going ultra-niché, like starting a coffee blog or game time snacks blog. Because ChatGPT provides a writing superpower, the goal is to inundate the web with your writing, make it easy to consume, and dominate your singular interest.

Learning the ins and outs of SEO, ensuring your writing isn’t flagged for plagiarism, and dialing in your voice will all come with time. With the right niché, though, building passive affiliate income is possible.

AI tools like ChatGPT will create thousands of entrepreneurs, freelance services providers, and business owners over the next few years. But these people are thinking about, tinkering with, and building with the tools now. Not tomorrow.