A Few Ways You Can Make Money As A Dev Or Non-Dev.

14 Min Read

[Updated: 14/03/20]

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The Story

Global recession has hit it’s peak, there’s never been a better time to make some extra money on the side. Especially if like me you have found yourself broke many a times in your life to the point where you would start selling some of your memorable asserts just to make ends meet, the feeling of not having money is no like any other feeling trust me.

In this post I will detail a few ways I have made extra cash on the side, most of these items are directed for South Africa audiences but I am sure you have something similar in your country.

Note: This will not get you RICH but at least ensure that you always have a positive bank balance.

I created this blog post so that you do not have to make your own research.

Donations are welcome in the form of Paypal, Bitcoin or drop me a mail: mpho@mphomphego.co.za

https://paypal.me/mmphego

Bitcoin: 12JxrvC3BtfhygBCC6i1dPyF4qwbpERLwu

DISCLAIMER

This post is for informational purposes only. I am NOT a licensed financial adviser of any kind. I am not being endorsed, sponsored, or paid to solicit my opinions or promote products of any kind (However, should you wish to sponsor me, any form of sponsoring is welcome, drop me a mail: mpho@mphomphego.co.za). If you are a brand and want to become a sponsor, link up with me: https://webfluential.com/mphomphego

I’m just a nerd trying to keep it real, share my knowledge with the lovely people who happen to stumble upon this blog ;)

Stay on the right side of the law, disclose extra income when you file your taxes or else… Benjamin Franklin once said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes.

TL;DR

FYI Read everything…

The How

I will divide this in various section, and note is randomized and doesn’t really follow a pattern.

Full-time Job

The most common and obvious is to have a job at a company. Duh!!!

Freelancing/Consulting

Freelancing/Consulting is the 2nd biggest opportunity where people make extra income on the side. There are dozens of popular freelance sites that offer you hundreds of different jobs that you can do for your clients.

You can provide various services such as programming, writing, web designing, data entry, the list is endless - you just need to find your niche.

I personally use 2(two) platforms for freelancing which has worked for me in the past, you can also look at https://www.freelancer.com/ and https://www.toptal.com/.

Fiverr

Become a seller on Fiverr.com and join the growing community of freelancers who offer professional services from graphic design to resume writing and more.

You can work as little or as much as you want and set your price at $5 per gig or higher — up to $995.

Hit the button to register your profile.

I have a couple of gigs listed on Fiverr, checkout my gig list for inspirations or purchases.

Upwork

I was on Upwork for over 3 months mainly doing some software development work for a client 10 hours a week. Upwork is one of the world’s biggest freelance platforms which offers a wide range of jobs range from content writing to software development - there’s something always something for everyone!

If you would like to work with me, link up with me on my UpWork profile

This platform is great for beginners and hourly jobs are tracked by the UpWork team software from the logged in time till the completion of the project this simply means you’ll need to install their app such that it can track your progress as you work. I guess you would need to trade off your privacy for some extra cash else create a virtual machine and use it mainly for Upwork related work.

Software, App or Web Solution

If you can come with any kind of solution whether it is a kind of software or an app or a website then you can make a lot of money online you can have ads or in-app purchases. Create a dating, fitness or dieting app(s) these are a great way to start making endless income.

Write e-books

Another great way, if you are a good writer or perhaps knowledgeable in a specific field. You can consider writing an e-book/manual and publish it on websites like https://www.sendowl.com/ and https://www.lulu.com/

Blogging/Vlogging/Podcast

Personal Blog

Blogging is a fun activity that can improve your quality of life and give you an opportunity to express yourself – and even make extra money online while doing it. Through this blog I have made extra income in the past (via Google Ads). However, the income isn’t enough to make you retire and live the rest of your miserable life on a beach house somewhere. The maximum amount of income I have ever received was R2000 (roughly $150) but hey who would give you that kind of cash this day of age.

As with all things, a high-earning blog takes time and effort. If you are passionate about writing and stick with it, you will be able to join the many other professional bloggers that are turning a profit off of site traffic.

Ideas on how you can monetize your blog:

Ads (Google Adsense, carbonads, etc)
Sponsorships
Become an affiliate and promote other people’s products
Promote your own products
Get paid to write articles for publications

If your blog or website is very popular and getting huge traffic then you can sell some space of your site for marketing. You can set a price for showing ads on your website.

Should you wish for me to market or blog about your product (Preferably in line with the content I deliver), drop me a mail: mpho@mphomphego.co.za

Vlogging/YouTube (Monetization)

Vlogging or video blogging is where you create and upload great videos on YouTube or other video sharing sites earn income. However, this niche requires a lot of commitment, time and creativity not forgetting content and delivery.

The best thing about YouTube is that even if you eventually get tired of it, your videos will still continue to generate income off of Google Ads revenue; making video creation one of the best ways to create a extra income.

If your videos are special and people like it then you earn revenue by partnering with Google. A lot of people are making good income running their own channel on YouTube most of the YouTubers I follow have even left their full-time jobs and focus more on YouTubing - As with every bubble (think BitCoin) this is not sustainable as Google/YouTube keep updating their t’s and c’s, algorithms and related in order.

Screenshot of my channel (Unfortunately my monetization has been disabled until I get 4000 watch hours Ridiculous.)

While you are here, please subscribe on my YouTube channel - I will be uploading content soonish…

Ideas on how you can monetize your vlogging:

YouTube ads
Sponsorships
Affiliate marketing
Promote your own products

Trending Topics

Tutorials (Development, etc)
Developer lifestyle
Tips & tricks
News in the field

Podcasting

Another great idea to make extra money online that I wasn’t aware of is podcasting. There are so many podcasts out there, and some of them make a lot of money either through Ads or sponsorship.

Some few ideas of podcast topics/subject one can consider are finance, personal health, programming etc. If you know the subject you can record videos and sell it online or upload on YouTube or similar.

Coaching/Teaching

Another great way to make extra continuous income is to create an online course on a field or something you are an expert/knowledge on.

Link of great place you can upload your courses:

skillshare: is an online learning community with thousands of classes in design, business, tech, and more.
udemy: is a site where you can set up courses and offer them at a price. On the off chance, you think you’re not sufficiently qualified to run a course, you should take a look at what individuals are instructing. There’s a huge number of different topics!

Another great option is tutoring, especially if you are knowledgeable in programming, maths and science. Either way, if you’re well-educated, mentoring can be an amazing money earner. Parents and guardians will pay tons of cash to help their kids learn or improve their results.

Bug Bounty Program

According to techopedia:

A bug bounty or bug bounty program is IT jargon for a reward or bounty program given for finding and reporting a bug in a particular software product.

Great way to learn and get paid to find vulnerabilities or bugs in/on software(s).

List of bug bounty programs you can checkout:

GitHub Security Bug Bounty
Google Vulnerability Reward Program
HackerOne
Microsoft Bug Bounty Program
Mozilla Security Bug Bounty Program
PayPal Bug Bounty Program

Checkout this YouTube video, you might get inspired.

Paid Code Challenges/Code Reviews/Code Competitions

Another alternative way to extra-income is paid code challenges, I know that hackerrank usually have those but cannot seem to get the correct link.

Not sure if https://geektastic.com/developers is legit but it is worth a try, they pay you to do code reviews.

If you are more into the data science and machine learning field you can also check out https://www.kaggle.com/competitions get paid and learn a new skill.

While going through my GitHub feed, I found an awesome list of ways devs can make money on the side. According to the README.md:

Making money from your own code has never been easier, but it’s still hard. Here, I try to curate a list of resources to help everyone interested in making money from their digital products get inspired and give it a try. Be it monetizing side-projects, bootstrapping business ideas, etc.

Projects don’t need to be big, actually, it’s better if they are not, they just need to be profitable. They might provide a passive income after the initial bulk of work, and who knows, maybe even help you reach financial independence.

You can access the list by hitting this link: https://github.com/mezod/awesome-indie

You can get paid for technical articles, share your technical knowledge and get paid. See the links below.

Credit @TerraMeijar

Affiliate Marketing

According to smartpassiveincome website:

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.

Naturally, when signing up for an affiliate program it has to be relevant with the content that your audience is expecting from you. If you are in the money making field you cannot be selling health supplements and vice versa. Otherwise, you run the risk of alienating your audience and losing more than you have the potential of gaining.

A list of affiliate marketing programs you can join:

South Africa

International

Referral Programs

Similar to affiliate marketing there’s referral programs. According to referralcandy:

A referral program is a deliberate, systematic way of getting people to make referrals to your business. Referral programs reward existing customers for sharing word-of-mouth and incentivise new customers to try out your brand, increasing long term revenue whether for products or services.

A list of referral programs you can join:

Offerzen: A great referral program for developers is Offerzen, where if any of your friends find a job through them, they give you both R5000 ~ $330.

Clink here to register and find a job, and we will get paid.
easyequities: Great way to start investing on the equities and stock think JSE and NASDAQ, sign up with the link and you’ll get R50 to start investing.
luno: CryptoCurrency is the future of money, and why not start investing with luno. Use this link to sign up and get R25 worth of BitCoins in your wallet.
loot: You will earn a R50 voucher to spend on purchases of R250.00 or more, for each new customer that you refer.
AirBnB: For every person who completes a stay or goes on an experience, you’ll get up to R450 ZAR in credit.

Clink here to register and on your first booking you’ll get R825 off.
Taxify/Bolt: You’ll get a free ride up to R75 when your friend takes their first trip
Uber: Every time a new rider signs up with link, they get a free ride or credit.
Skillshare: Invite Friends, Get Free Months of Premium Content
AA: Refer your friends and family to join the AA and earn R150 for every friend who joins

Advertising

Wrap your car in advertising

brandyourcar turns your commute into cash, but this money-making opportunity is probably not a good fit for car enthusiasts.

brandyourcar is a company that pays you to wrap your car in advertising for their clients. This personally is a great way to make extra cash on the side I have been on the platform for some time now this is best for those with longer commutes think Cape Town N1/N2 peak hour traffic.

In 2017, I signed up to be CellC’s brand ambassador I made R2000 ~ $160 per months for a year.

There’s a growing trend of social media influencing these days, if you have enough social media followers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc you can make extra income by means of personalized adverts. Small companies are in great need of social media influencers.

You can set up an account to start getting paid for your Tweets/Instagram/Facebook posts and I’m inviting you if you are keen to work with brands to develop content and share with their audiences, click this link to register:

Buy And Sell

If you have start up funds you can look at flipping, which is the process of buying and selling products or property for a profit. A lot of people don’t know what things are worth, and you can take advantage of that by reselling things you find for cheap. Once you get rolling, it’s a fairly passive source of income.

Conclusion