I am a data analyst for years and years I have spent countless hours trying out various side hustles to make money online applying to hundreds of jobs across LinkedIn upwork and Fiverr emailing employers hoping that someone would give me an opportunity only to get ghosted indefinitely after 4 years of trying and failing at many many things I have finally found a few side hustles that do work even if you're a complete beginner and in this video I will be sharing with you four ways to make money online as a data analyst in 2024 let's get into it side hustle idea number one is to become a data consultant there are so many small to midsize companies out there that are just sitting on a bunch of data that they don't know what to do with if you can find some of these companies and actually derive value from their data you've got yourself a pretty lucrative side job I have a colleague Andrew who has a freelance job doing exactly this the company that Andrew works with stores all of its data in different Excel files so he just goes in consolidates these Excel files and then creates dashboards and presents to Big Executives in the company the company then makes some business decisions based on his insights the thing is these companies often don't have the budget to hire an entire team of data analysts so they Outsource this kind of work to Freelancers this kind of work it's not that hard it's not too technical in nature often these companies don't even store their data in databases so all you need to know are Excel skills some dashboarding and presentation skills and communication skills it's really not that hard the hard part is finding these companies in the first place because most of these companies don't post their jobs on platforms like LinkedIn or upwork they don't formally hire for these roles my colleague Andrew got his job through Word of Mouth recommendations since he already works as a data analyst he has this network of other people in the industry one of them recommended him and he got the job through word of mouth if you don't already have a job and if you don't have a network of other people and data analysts who can recommend you then it's time you build one and I get it okay I know that this can be so difficult to do when you're just starting out personally I came into this industry with zero connections and I was just applying to jobs that already had like 100 on LinkedIn obviously this is just too competitive I was getting ghosted and rejected I don't think these companies even looked at my resume but now I have worked with over 10 different companies in a period of 3 years and I don't reach out or actively apply to anything they reach out to me how do I do this I just created a portfolio and an online presence and employers started finding me and reaching out to me online and I have a more detailed guide in my description as to how you can build an online presence so do check that out if it's something you're interested in but essentially it's this if your network is devoid of people who can get you opportunities then you have to get creative you need to go out there and showcase your work so that people and employers can find you and reach out to you this is a far better approach than simply going on LinkedIn and applying to jobs that already have like 100 applicants because it's 100 applicants how are you going to stand out that literally sounds so difficult but imagine the same employer has a bunch of data they know that they want to do something with this data they just don't know what or how and they see an article that you have written on data analytics and something clicks they decide to reach out to you you get on a call and before you know it you've been working with them for the next 2 years this exact situation has happened to me and it happened because I've spent years and years building an online presence and a portfolio that it was only only a matter of time before the right person saw it and the right opportunity came in and after working with about two to three different companies like this now you have a portfolio of clients now your existing clients are recommending you to other people in the industry and before you know it you have this long list of brands with whom you've established long-term relationships now companies are reaching out to you with offers before we go to the next side hustle idea I want to talk about the concept of who you know versus what you know because I think that it's so important that people understand this at the beginning of their career so don't click away okay I promise you this is relevant you may have heard of the saying it's not what you know it's who you know a study conducted by Harvard University and the Kani Foundation found that 85% of job success comes from having people skills and social skills even in really technical Fields like Engineering in essence 85% of job success comes from from who you know it comes from meeting the right people and building up your network and only 15% of job success comes from technical skill let that sink in while you're out here trying to get 1% better by taking an endless number of online courses and watching more and more YouTube videos other people are putting themselves out there they're reaching out and developing relationships with other people in the industry they're joining the networking events publishing articles and building an online presence and as a result they're getting the jobs and they're learning the technical skill on the job of course this isn't to downplay the importance of technical skill obviously you still need to know things like SQL and Excel and data visualization to pass the technical interview but when it comes to building side hustles or getting new freelance clients technical skill alone isn't enough to get your foot in the door people need to know that you exist and they have to have some level of trust in you before they hire you because this is a competitive space when you're just starting out you've got to do a ton of self-promotion to have employers notice you because it's a numbers game right so you create one project you write an article about it maybe 10 people read it by your 10th article hundreds of people have read your work now maybe some of them are sharing it and then it's only a matter of time before an employer sees it and decides hey this person does work that is very similar to what we want to do at this company and they reach out to you with a job opportunity you work with them for some time and then you land more clients and more clients until you have this portfolio of really great work and no longer have any problems finding new jobs remember this with every new piece of work that you put out to the internet you get one step closer to meeting the right people and finding the right opportunity as I've said before almost every freelance opportunity inside gig that I've had I got thanks to my online presence and portfolio because it has helped me meet so many new people in different parts of the world who I wouldn't have otherwise met so if there's just one thing that you take away from this video it is to please never underestimate the importance of meeting the right people at the beginning of your career things like building a portfolio or creating an online presence or writing a blog post might sound irrelevant they may sound like they have nothing to do with becoming a data analyst but you cannot even begin to imagine the number of doors this can open for you side hustle idea number two is coaching or teaching I know someone who got a $50,000 contract to teach a 6-month data analytics boot camp and that's not even her full-time job that's like an additional $88,000 a month on a side hustle and I know that this might sound unrealistic or unattainable to some people but the point of me telling you this is that there are people out there who want to learn the skills that you already have and they'll be willing to pay you a significant amount of money for it and you don't have to be an expert in your field to make money from teaching you just need to be one step ahead of the other person think about it what can you teach someone right now that they don't already know and I can't answer this question for you this is something that you have to think of yourself it could be a technical skill like Excel SQL or python or it could be something like resume prep data storytelling presentation skills this step is all about finding what it is that you're actually good at so that you can help other people become good at it as well step two is to think about who is my target audience who can I teach these skills to this is usually someone who is one step behind you it could be a complete beginner to data analytics or it could be someone who's just making the career transition from a field that you have experienc in like marketing marketing finally find companies that are already offering these Services spent a couple of hours do some research go on LinkedIn and find organizations that are offering Educational Services boot camps and online courses and see if you can join them general assembly is one such company I know a few people who are part-time instructors there and even if these companies are not actively hiring you can still send them an email saying that you'd like to work with them send them a cold email pitching your course idea that's actually how I got to teach my first data analytics course I just sent the company an email describing my course idea they likeed the idea and I ended up signing a contract with them you can even start with volunteering volunteer to teach what you know volunteer to become a data analytics instructor obviously you don't get paid anything as a volunteer but you will gain a ton of EXP experience that you can add to your portfolio and as you gain more experience and as you start adding value to students lives people will start recommending you and you can eventually start charging for your services side hustle idea number three is actually the easiest one on this list to start this is something that you can start doing today right at this moment as long as you have an internet connection and that is writing okay so anyone can go online and start a personal blog on platforms like medium in substack and by doing this you can make money by simply sharing what you know I used to make about $11,000 a month on my personal blog on medium and I would write articles about data science and data analytics I would spend about 3 hours doing this over the weekend so it was a pretty great side hustle and it is an amazing way to build passive income what is passive income passive income is essentially money that you're not constant ly working for so you write this article once right and then you publish it and over the next few weeks months or even years people are continuing to read your article and it's generating money for you as they're reading it so you could be doing anything else you could be at the movies sleeping eating and this article is continuously generating revenue for you while you're doing those other things as more and more people read it I have a more detailed guide in my description as to how you can build passive income from writing so do check that out if it's something that you're interested in but apart from a personal blog you can also get paid to write articles for companies on a freelance basis so you can get paid like $100 to write one article for a company like think about it literally every company needs content right so if you can find a data related company maybe a company that offers online courses or data analytics platform or machine learning Services all of these companies have a Blog section on their website they all send out promotional articles and marketing emails like think about the companies or the services that you have used in the past maybe companies like cassera or data camp that offer online courses every time a new online course is released don't you get a promotional email from them or don't you read the blog section of their websites yes yes you do well who WR this content the answer is probably a marketer or copywriter but because this content is specific to data science and data analytics it is highly technical which means that a marketer who doesn't know anything about data or programming isn't going to be able to write an accurate article about the topic so companies need to hire someone who have at least a basic understanding of the subject and that's where you come in you have the domain knowledge in analytics and if you're watching this video chances are you probably understand English so if you just improved your writing skills and learned a bit about copyrighting and SEO you now have a lucrative side hustle for the weekend because you now have a unique set of skills that companies are willing to pay for and these skills are not difficult to develop now you might ask how can I find these roles how can I find companies that are willing to pay me to write some of these companies might post their jobs on freelance platforms most of them don't and I wouldn't recommend going onto freelance Platforms in the first place these platforms are so competitive there's so many Freelancers on these platforms offering the same services at a much lower price so I would just stay away from freelance Platforms in my case employers used to reach out to me with freelance writing gigs after finding my personal blog and my articles online like I said earlier and you're probably tired of hearing this by now every time you promote your work you get one step closer to Landing a well-paying opportunity I have been paid like $11,000 to write one article over the weekend and I was able to raise my rate and charge this much because of my blog posts and online present and all that but if you just starting out I would recommend reaching out to clients yourself just make a list of all of the data driven companies that have a Blog this can be a list of every data related company that offers services to clients spend some time read some of their articles if you think that their work can be improved send them an email I would even recommend going a step further and creating some sample articles for them this shouldn't take too long I think one weekend is all you need send them an email saying hey look at the articles of creative for you I think these would work really well for your blog and you can use them for free if you like my work please consider hiring me just this gesture on your end will open so many new opportunities for you if it doesn't work very well move on but if it does work you now have a freelance gig on the weekends that pays well and you can always increase your prices as you get better and the final side hustle idea in this video is to create a digital product what is a digital product digital products are anything that you build one time and can sell on the internet this can be in the form of an ebook an online course a research paper or even digital art digital products are one of the best way to build passive income because you write a book once or create an online course once and it stays on the internet forever you could be doing anything else eating sleeping going to the movies and people are still buying your digital product and it's just continuing to generate revenue for you forever personally at this point in my career I am prioritizing creating digital products over everything else so I would rather sit down and spend hours building digital products than go out there and freelance or teach a boot camp and that's because I am trying to build passive income for example the friend I told you about who teaches data analytics boot camps yes it's great money but she is spending her weekends and her evenings she has to show up to these boot camps and teach them she's trading so much valuable time for money personally I like the idea of building something once and then having it make money in the long term instead of me having to sacrifice my sleep and quality time so instead of showing up every day to teach a data analytics boot camp why not package the boot camp material into an online course and this way you just build it once and it's continuously generating money for you and that is why I am currently focusing all of my time and energy into building digital products I currently have two I have an ebook on Chad GPT and and I have an online course on social media analytics of course there is a lot of time and research that goes into building a digital product that is actually good and people have to want to buy your product there must be a demand for your digital product I can guarantee you that if you were to create a course titled intro to data analysis no one's going to buy it it's going to fail miserably because there's like millions of other courses out there on the exact same topic but if you invested some time and did some research and learned about Chad GPT and generative Ai and llms and then packaged it into a course titled intro to data analysis with Chad GPT now so many more people will buy your course because that is a topic that people actually want to learn about of course a lot of time goes into creating a digital product that is actually good the key here is to utilize the skills that you have to add value to people whether that is in coding data analysis visualization generative AI or better yet something that is a combination of all of those skills yes that's right I am giving you homework because otherwise you're going to end up binge watching an endless number of YouTube videos like this one but never actually get anything done yourself so here are three things that I want you to do after watching this video homework task number one is to share your work with other people this step is all about putting yourself out there because by now we all know that the more you promote your work the higher your chances of visibility and getting the right opportunity this can be as small as creating a LinkedIn post or a Twitter post sharing something new that you've learned in the past week or it could be an entire medium article describing a project that you've been working on the goal here is to just come out of your comfort zone a little bit so that you can get used to promoting your work for other people to see you can always tag me in one of your posts or send it to me I would love to see it and maybe even learn something from it in fact if you do tag me in a post or send it to me I will reshare it with my network which means that now you'll have more visibility because my network will see your post as well so you don't have an excuse now okay I've literally just committed to helping you share your work the second homework task is networking this step is all about meeting new people in the field of analytics so that you can expand your circle okay listen as an introvert myself I know that this sounds like an absolute nightmare but meeting the right people can take your career to the next level these people can end up giving you opportunities that will change the trajectory of your entire life so it's important that you do this join a networking event in your area anything to do with data analytics data science AI technology if you don't have networking events where you live that's fine you can sign up to LinkedIn community ities attend webinars or conferences the key here is to just meet new people talk to them ask them what they do you might find a person along the way who becomes your Mentor you might find someone to collaborate with on a new project and regardless of how it went you would have still met new people and gain new experiences and learn new things homework task number three is slightly more difficult this involves finding something that is known as your career Capital what is career Capital career Care Capital is a unique set of skills that set you apart from other people in your industry I learned about the idea of career capital from YouTuber Ali abdal he used to be a doctor and now he's a YouTuber and Ali says that when he looked at plastic surgeons who went on to become really successful it wasn't technical skill or grades or education that separated them from their peers because to an extent they all had the technical skill they were all good what did separate them from their peers with the skills that they had on top of this technical skill things like their ability to work in a team soft skills the relationships with their colleagues or even seemingly unrelated skills like video editing web design and coding these unique skill sets made up their career capital and ultimately led to their success in your case apart from analytical skills and SQL and Excel what else do you enjoy doing what else do you bring to the table that's unique to you stop by taking a piece of paper and writing a list of all of the things that you like to do and that you're good at things like art photography talking to people reading this is a unique exercise that can help you take the next step in your career because it helps you capitalize on your strengths it helps you combine your strengths and your interests with the field that you're currently pursuing and that is your career capital for example I know a guy who came into the field of Analytics just because it's good money and he is a huge extrovert he loves talking to people and public speaking it would be his worst nightmare to sit in front of a laptop the entire day and stare an Excel spreadsheet so he became a data consultant which means that while he does some data analytics related work he still gets to talk to people and deal with clients and make presentations every day and that helped him climb the career ladders so fast because he's capitalizing on the things that is good at and that he loves to do and that's all for this video I hope that you've managed to take away at least one thing from this video that you can apply to your life today thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video please do like it and do subscribe to my channel I'll see you in the next one bye