If you're a creative professional either looking for more financial security or for a new venture entirely, there are several types of businesses and side hustles where you can put your expertise and talent to work.
8 Business Ideas for Creatives
Here, we give you a hearty list of solid business ideas and side hustles for creatives to help you find your next best step.
1. Rent Short-Term Properties
One of the most appealing business ideas is earning money by renting holiday homes to travelers and vacation seekers, and you can use your creative skills to do so.
Whether you decide to rent out your primary residence while you're away, a room while you're there, or others' properties; there is a huge market for vacation property rental, especially during the summer.
2. Create and/or Serve Healthy Meals
If you are someone who is an enthusiastic cook and enjoys sharing your healthy meals with others, you can start a meal service business in which you plan, create, and/or deliver healthy foods.
You can use your creative skills in writing, graphics, and/or marketing to reach out to busy customers who are looking for a convenient way to eat healthy through social media or your own website.
3. Make Caricatures or Portraits
If you’re an artist, there are several ways you can put your skills to work and make extra income. Those with incredibly talented portrait or caricature skills can certainly market themselves for seasonal and celebratory events such as birthday parties or local fairs and farmers' markets. However, you’d have to be confident in your artistry and comfortable talking with people to do this regularly.
Another option is to offer portrait art as an online business. If you have digital art skills, then you could offer to draw portraits or caricatures of people as a gift in which you send a digital form of the artwork. According to a recent survey by Self magazine, selling crafts and designs accounts for nearly 8 percent of side hustle work.
4. Blog
Blogging is one of the most popular side hustles for creatives. Blogging is a business and can be quite lucrative if you work hard at it. It can be a fun and rewarding way to pursue many different passions and skills, including writing, photography, graphic design or illustrating.
“There are many methods for making money through blogging, such as affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, ads, etc.,” explains Tara Reid, an entrepreneur and freelance marketer.
You must build a dedicated readership and following by posting regularly, and aim to rank high on Google with search engine optimization at the same time. While it can be a labor of love, if you stick to it, blogging can be a profitable side hustle for creatives to earn passive income from and pursue your creative talents.
5. Develop and Sell an Online Course
"Many corporate workers and even students crave learning experiences in areas outside their regular field,” says Brian Nagele, CEO of Restaurant Clicks which creates a great opportunity for creatives like yourself to teach others your skills.
“Many of the course seekers are looking for your expertise to start their own side businesses in copywriting, graphic design, content creation and the like,” says Nagele. You can easily create paid online courses either through your own platform or popular ones like Udemy or Coursera. Once you create the course, it can then become a source of passive income with only occasional updating required. This is perfect if you love sharing your experience and expertise in a particular field or niche.
6. Coach and Mentor
Along the same lines as developing an online course, you can also offer coaching and mentoring services to professionals or students looking to grow in their field.
However, to build a reputation as a valuable coach or mentor, you must be known as being an expert in your field. “Positioning yourself as an authority in your niche now will build the momentum and trust factor needed to attract leads and convert them into paying clients or students by summer,” says Nagele.
It might take time to gain a good reputation as a coach or mentor, but the long-term benefits can be huge if you regularly find people coming to you for advice.
7. Social Media Manager
If you consider yourself adept at the various platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and are passionate about putting together content, you can offer a range of services to businesses over the summer.
This might include running marketing campaigns, social media ads and posting on their social media pages. However, you’ll likely need to demonstrate a track record of improving social media stats and engagement rates to show your value to brands, but this could be as simple as using your own accounts as examples.
If you’re especially good at creating content but not necessarily a social media whizz, then you can still offer social media content to businesses. You could capture photo or video content for social channels or even create pins for Pinterest or templates to be used for blogs or websites. The social media world has plenty of opportunities for creatives.
8. Freelance in Your Creative Niche
It’s particularly popular to freelance in the creative industries because many of the skills are required by businesses for short-term projects and initiatives. This means that you can offer almost any creative service or skill that businesses might need for a particular project or operation.
Some of the popular freelance professions are:
- Graphic designer
- Copywriter
- Photographer
- Social media manager
- Website designer
While being an expert or professional in your niche can help, it’s not a requirement. According to surveys done by Side Hustle Nation, freelancing is the second most popular side hustle. Many freelancers or self-employed creatives don’t have qualifications in their fields but have simply developed their skills along the way. As long as you’re competent at marketing yourself and willing to get in front of businesses, you can grow a freelancing side hustle.
Which Creative Business Ideas Should You Pick?
If you’re a creative person looking for more financial freedom, starting a small business or side gig can be an attractive option, and you can find plenty more ideas for starting a side hustle. Whether you start a blog, develop an online course or rent out holiday properties in your hometown, it will all depend on what skills you have and what you love doing the most.
If you play to your strengths and market yourself well, any of these creative business ideas could work for you. Incfile can help you launch your business, whether it's a side hustle, full-time freelancing or establishing an LLC for $0 + state fee.
Jenna Scatena
Jenna Scatena is a writer and content strategist with a love for stories that have never been told before. More than a decade of working with prominent magazines and brands informs her approach to impactful storytelling. Her stories have reached more than 30 million readers, won multiple awards and been anthologized in books. Jenna's work has appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, Vogue, Marie Claire, The San Francisco, BBC and The Atlantic. She's the founder of the editorial consultancy, Lede Studio.
