9 Best Side Hustles for Men in 2025

  • Post last modified:May 9, 2025

Think you can do better than your 9-5? Want to build something that’s yours? Earn that Lamborghini?

But don’t know where to start?

The best opportunities have three traits:

  • Low barrier to entry in skills/cost
  • Can be done out of normal working hours
  • Has recurring monthly revenue

From these traits, I identified 9 businesses and ranked them against each other according to their:

  • Start Up Viability – How much and how fast can you make money?
  • Time Convenience – How much control of your time will clients want?
  • Scalability – How accessible and receptive are clients to your services?

The 9 Services are:

Without further ado, here is the list:

The (Surprising) Top 3 that Scale Well with Low Cost

#1 Bookkeeping – Tried and True

Total Score: 3
Start Up Viability: 1/9
Time Convenience: 1/9
Scalability: 1/9

Surprised? I am too. Bookkeeping, while boring, scores very well in every category. It requires very basic math and data entry skills to service small businesses. Luckily, owners will pay between $250-$750/mo to take this problem off his/her hands.

On top of that, bookkeeping seldom has “crunch time” hours making it the most convenient for potential side hustles with the ability to work on it during the day or at night. Add in that every single company needs a bookkeeper and this side hustle is severely underestimated.

Just make sure to take a QuickBooks course before diving in head first.

#2 Google/Meta Ad Management – For the Money Seekers

Total Score: 8
Start Up Viability: 4/9
Time Convenience: 2/9
Scalability: 2/9

Google/Meta Ads are still the most popular way for small businesses to get their name out to customers. However, if you have ever used these ad platforms (looking at you in particular, Meta), you know just how much of a pain it is for someone to work with these platforms.

That said, there really isn’t much of a constraint on your time with relatively no deadlines and ads are immensely scalable (with someone else’s money!) leading to seriously high potential if you are good.

For the ridiculous speed of scalability alone, knowing how to do ad management ranks highly on this list. If you really, really like money, this may be an option for you.

#3 Social Media Management – Organization with Creativity Mixed In

Total Score: 10
Start Up Viability: 2/9
Time Convenience: 3/9
Scalability: 5/9

To be clear, this is not making your own social media pages, this is helping an owner manage theirs through infographics and comments.

Social media management scores well because owners know the value of social media, but don’t have the time to do it. As social media is pervasive in our lives, it is relatively intuitive to do and, for small businesses, does not require a large time commitment.

While customers may be easy to find, getting them to actually buy your services might be a bit more challenging. If you go this route, make sure you are well organized and have good knowledge of Canva.

The Middle 3 – Higher Upsides but Greater Downsides Too

#4 Website Management/SEO – Strong Customer Stickiness If You Can Land One

Total Score: 13
Start Up Viability: 5/9
Time Convenience: 5/9
Scalability: 3/9

Starting the middle of the pack is Website Management/SEO. Having a pretty steep learning curve on this one makes it both a challenge to start, but it also makes you super valuable to your clients. It is very much a once you are in, you are in moment with customers seldom looking elsewhere. The perks of time convenience and decent pay make this one a good path forward.

The downside is that scaling Website Management/SEO is difficult. Customers are usually apprehensive to sales approach due to a poor reputation in the SEO industry. If you are going to try website management/SEO out, make sure you learn are constantly learning as the field is miles deep.

#5 Content Creation for Others – If You Like Alone Time

Total Score: 14
Start Up Viability: 3/9
Time Convenience: 4/9
Scalability: 7/9

I chose a person editing a video in the picture for a reason. Content Creation is video editing. It is unquestionably tedious and time consuming. It also requires a powerful gaming laptop and expensive software like Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or Premiere Pro to push past the initial phase.

That said, content creation is great when it comes to money and time. Companies know the value of it and you can work on it whenever, wherever if you set the right expectations.

Scaling this business is a challenging because finding companies willing to invest the money you need to justify your time and tech resources is difficult. For that reason along with the tediousness, it is down on the list here.

#6 Content Creation for Yourself – If You Love to Gamble

Total Score: 17
Start Up Viability: 6/9
Time Convenience: 7/9
Scalability: 4/9

Bet you thought this would be higher! Truth is, content creation is brutal on your time and pocket book. Making content that engages a niche audience is usually expensive and competitive. Add in a very long run way to seeing any profit and Content Creation for Yourself is a challenging path forward.

That said, if you can defy the odds and pull it off, it can be your path all the way to the highest levels of fame and stardom. “Customers” (fans) are easily accessible online and the services you used to attract them will promote you aggressively if you do well.

The Bottom 3

#7 Affiliate Marketing/Blogging – The Uncertain World Remains

Total Score: 21
Start Up Viability: 9/9
Time Convenience: 6/9
Scalability: 6/9

Is blogging dead? I sure hope not, but there is no question that AI is coming for a subsection of blogging making it harder than ever to get started. Worse, it takes at least 6-12 months of grinding every day seeing minimal revenue before you can reach something sustainable.

That said, affiliate marketing opportunities in certain blog spaces are ludicrous. Get somebody to sign up for a software or finance platform and you could be seeing $200 checks every single month for the rest of that person’s time with the platform. It only takes a few of those to make everything worthwhile.

#8 Drop Shipping – Only If the Tariffs Clear

Total Score: 24
Start Up Viability: 8/9
Time Convenience: 8/9
Scalability: 8/9

The art of building a website, using SEO to promote it, and selling products you have no responsibility for creating is extremely challenging. It takes quite a long time to build the multiple skillsets required and customers are at their most ruthless when online shopping. Plus, you know, tariffs can come out of nowhere and spoil whatever you’ve made literally overnight.

That said, it is pretty easy to build a second, third, fourth, etc. website once you have the skillset down making this a viable path to profitability. And you don’t need an expensive computer, just time.

#9 Podcasting – The Super Saturated Market

Total Score: 25
Start Up Viability: 7/9
Time Convenience: 9/9
Scalability: 9/9

You hear of a new podcast every single week and, frankly, those podcasts are coming from experts on their topics. That’s why you hear about them. Because it’s experts talking about things.

The truth is that people can only handle a handful of podcasts that they like and the vast majority are extremely niched. With payouts for listeners being so low, the only option is to sell sponsorships to make money. And that’s after the tremendous amount of time investment it takes to find ideas, interview people, and painstakingly edit the audio.

Podcasts are viable, but consider Content Creation first.

Summarized Table Calculations

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Everyone starts somewhere. I started Bootstrap Mode with no clients, no reputation – just hustle. Now it’s your turn. If you want more real-world tactics like these (no fluff, just stuff that works), join the Bootstrap Mode newsletter and get the next playbook sent straight to your inbox.!

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