Have you ever wondered what kind of side business you can engage in as a full-time employee without it impacting your job negatively?
It became necessary to write this article because many Full-Time employees in Nigeria have experienced one of the most difficult times economically. The past few years have witnessed a consistent increase in the cost of living without a commensurate improvement in the wages of workers.
In this article, I’ll share five side business ideas you can start right here in Nigeria working only at your spare time. It will do you well to put away every distraction, grab a pen and notepad as we begin to explore some side business ideas you can use.
5 Questions to Answer Before You Choose a Side Business
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1. How much time are you willing to invest in your side business weekly?
There are only 24 hours in a day – and it’s in this time period you get to do whatever it is that you need to do; take care of yourself, your family & important relationships, work your job.
If you start a side business, you need to understand that you won’t be getting any extra time on top of the 24 hours you already have and as a result, you might need to make some adjustments in the way you currently spend your time.
Ask yourself “How much time am I willing to invest in this business each week?” and let your answer guide your choice of a suitable business you can do on the side.
2. How long are you willing to put in before the result come?
If you’re just looking for a part-time business to augment your current income, you might have to look in a different direction from someone who is looking to replace his salary.
While the both of you will eventually need to start small, the person looking to replace his salary with income from a part-time business before quitting his or her job will be more inclined to thinking long term as opposed to someone who just needs an additional stream of income to make up for what his or her salary cannot attend to.
So, you need to be asking yourself, are you in for the long haul or you’re looking for a short-term solution?
3. Is it flexible enough?
Another question you need to ask yourself before you choose any side business idea to run with is this, ”does the opportunity before you afford you the flexible to work on your own schedule?”
One reason a lot people who start a side business end up getting into trouble with their employers is because they do not pay attention to this and eventually their side business encroaches into their work time resulting in divided attention and making them inefficient on their job.
Before you choose any side business idea to start in Nigeria, take a moment to really assess the opportunity to know if it offers you the flexibility to deliver without being ineffective on the job.
4. Do you have the resources, capacity and relationships to get started immediately?
Money? Information? Skills? Networks? Tools?
If you do not have the resources or the capacity to get started immediately, what can you do to get them?
If you are unable to get the resources to start at this time and you cannot figure out who to partner with, waste no time whining or complaining about that.
Simply keep the idea aside and look for another one. Do not be emotionally attached to any idea.
5. Is the reward commensurate?
Finally, nobody starts a side business for the fun of it. At least I am yet to meet one person who did.
I have often heard people say “don’t do it for the money”, while this article is not to dissect that statement or reveal the error in using it out of proper context, I have only one request to make to you… please pay attention to the money.
When assessing business ideas to venture into on a part-time basis, it is very important that you venture into a business that will help you meet your financial goals.
This is particularly important if you’re planning to quit your job and hope to replace your salary with income from this venture.
If you find that a business cannot get you the results you desire for the efforts you put in, I’d sincerely admonish you not to get involved in the first place.
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5 Part-Time Businesses You Can Do in Nigeria
Side Business Idea #1:
Freelance Writing, Proofreading, and Editing Services
As a full-time employee looking to start a business on the side, you’re
likely going to be faced with the challenge of not having so much time on your hands, and that is why this freelance business model is top on my recommendation list.
If you’ve been around the internet for any significant amount of time you would have come across a saying; content is king.
It’s true.
We all come online to do two things – create content and consume content. Whether it is a blog post, an article, an email, audio or video content, it has to be created by someone and this is where you come in.
Text is the most consumed form of content online.
As a full-time employee, you can conveniently make a decent income helping people create, proof-read or edit their written content online.
How to Make Money Offering Freelance Writing, Proofreading, and Editing Services
So here’s a three-step process you can use if you’re interested in building a side business offering Writing, Proofreading, and Editing Services on a freelance basis.
a. Sign up with a freelance website
There are many freelance websites online you can sign up with using your Nigerian Address.
I have personally used upwork.com, freelancer.com and fiverr.com. You can check them out and use them for a start.
b. Give a lot of care to setting up your profile
When signing up on freelance websites, I strongly advice that you treat your profile with the same amount of care you would give to your curriculum vitae.
Additionally, think of the about section of your profile like a cover letter as this is the section of your profile a lot of your prospective clients will scrutinize before deciding to work with you or not to.
Ensure there are no grammatical errors or misspellings and try to make it as compelling as you possibly can.
Finally, while setting up your profile on the freelance websites, ensure to choose closely related skills so that you can be notified of a wide range of projects that you can bid for.
c. Aggressively Bid for jobs.
A bid is a proposal you send in indicating your interest in working on a particular project, why you should be considered for the project and how much you want to be paid for that task.
Take it seriously.
I see a lot of people making mistakes here…
They sign up on a freelance website, setup a profile, bid for one or two jobs and go to bed hoping someone will accept their bid and invite them to do a job.
It doesn’t work like that.
You must realize there are several other people who are out to get the same job as you and as a result, the competition can be quite high.
So how do you increase your chances of landing jobs?
Read the project brief carefully before you bid – many employers hide code words in their brief to screen out people who don’t read carefully.
Bid for more projects than you planned to – this will increase your odds.
Be among the first set of people to bid – this will put you in the face of many employers.
That’s it.
The most exciting part of this side business idea is that you can offer your writing, proofreading, and editing services from the comfort of your home working only after work and leveraging the power of the internet.
Side Business Idea #2:
Drive with Uber, Taxify or other cab services.
While I have personally never tried this business, I have encountered quite a number of people who hold full time jobs and still drive for Uber or Taxify on the side and make a decent income on the side doing this each month.
If you own a car and have ever wondered how you can make money from your car, then this is it.
If you don’t mind driving people to their destination for cash every now and then – whether it’s during your break time or even two hours after the close of work. Then you should seriously consider using this model to make extra income.
This business allows you to work at your convenience – when and how you want to work.
What if you don’t want to work using of the cab services?
That’s okay too. Set aside some hours after work and look out for passengers to convey to different destinations.
One advantage of using the cab services is that they already have a larger customer base who use their services and they only match you with passengers near you, saving you stress and fuel.
Whether you decide to use Uber, Taxify or any of the other cab services available, you can visit their website or walk into their offices to get the details and guidelines before you get started.
Side Business Idea #3:
Buying and Selling Used Items on Classified Sites
Regardless of how the economy goes – up or down, people will spend money to buy things.
The internet has made it easier for people to buy and sell online with the introduction of different eCommerce platforms.
For example, many people constantly change gadgets like phones and many of them rely internet to either purchase new gadgets or sell the old one.
Classified sites are eCommerce websites that allow users to post items they wish to sell online and create room for those interested in those products to contact the seller.
One way you can make money working this model on the side is to constantly be on the lookout for people who want to sell used items around you, negotiate for a good deal and post those products for sale online for a higher price.
That way you can easily start this business without any capital.
When an interested buyer calls you, then you can make a deposit, collect the product, arrange a meeting with the buyer, finish the transaction, balance the original buyer and keep your profits!
Tip: used gadgets like phones and electronics sell really well.
One interesting thing about this model is that you can get started using only your smartphone!
Simply sign up on one of the classified sites (they’re usually free) and it takes under 5 minutes to sign up.
Here are a few classified sites you can get started –
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Side Business Idea #4: Blogging
One part time business you can start without a modest capital investment in Nigeria is Blogging and if you do it right, it can be very profitable.
How to Start A Blogging Business the Right Way
a. Choose a Topic for your blog –
Decide on a topic that is going to be both profitable and that you at least have some interest in.
My first blog was a blog about everything that caught my fancy… inspirational, relationship and entrepreneurship articles.
Big mistake.
I still see a lot of people starting new blogs about everything and predictably their blogs rarely ever see the light of day.
Don’t fall for it.
Also, it is important that you start a blog in an area you at least have an interest in so that you don’t run out of drive and lose your enthusiasm before you start earning any money from your blog.
b. Consistently Create Content for your new blog.
Now that you have decided on a topic for your blog, your job is to consistently create content for your new blog.
Choose a publishing schedule that suits you – once or twice a week should work well in the beginning – and stick with it.
Also bear in mind that while writing on your side income blog, you do not need to be a professional writer. Simply write like you are talking to a friend or your student – just write.
People are not out there trying to figure out whether there are errors in your writing or not, they are looking for answers to their problems and if your article provides that answer, they’ll forgive your minor errors.
c. Drive targeted traffic to your blog
While content is crucial for a blog, you need a constant stream of new people coming to consume your content or your blog is doomed to fail.
Don’t let that happen to you.
There are both paid and free ways you can drive targeted traffic to your blog. By targeted traffic, I mean people who are interested in the subject of your blog.
They include both free and paid methods –
Free methods of getting traffic to your blog include;
– Sharing your blog post on social media and asking your followers to read and rebroadcast.
– Search engine optimization of your content.
– Guest posting on already established blogs with a backlink to your site.
Paid Methods of getting traffic to your blog include;
– Facebook Advertising
This is where you pay Facebook to show your blog post articles to people who are not connected to you but are interested in the subject of your blog.
You can get started advertising on Facebook with as low as N1,000.
My friend has a detailed article on getting started with Facebook Ads, read it here – How you can get started advertising on Facebook.
Other paid traffic avenues include; LinkedIn PPC, Google Adwords, Twitter Ads, Sponsored posts.
Here’s a blog post I wrote a while ago – Three ways you can get traffic to your blog.
How to Make Money from Your Blog in Nigeria
Now that you have your side business blog setup and you know how to drive traffic to it, the question that might be on your mind will be “how do I make money from my blog”?
This is especially important because of the main reason you’re looking for a side business idea in the first place – to augment or replace your income.
There are various ways you can make this happen, let’s explore just three of them.
a. Pay Per Click Ad Networks
PPC Ad Networks is one of the most preferred ways for bloggers who want to earn online and this is because of the low entry barrier and simplicity of the system.
“A PPC Ad Network is an advertising in which ads are placed on your blog and you are paid whenever your visitors click on the ads.”
It’s really that simple and of course completely passive. All you have to do is sign up with them, and place the Ads anywhere you like on your site and you can start making money almost immediately.
One factor to bear in mind when using this model to monetize your blog is that you need to have a large amount of traffic coming in for you to make a decent amount of money on the side.
Google Adsense is unarguably the leader when it comes to PPC AD Networks and you can sign up with them using – https://adsense.google.com
b. Sponsored Posts
Another way to make money from your side business blog is through sponsored posts. These posts are similar to your regular posts except that they are written to promote a particular business, product or cause in a bid to reach your blog readers.
As your blog traffic grows, companies will begin to send you posts to publish on your blog and you get paid for each post you make.
c. Affiliate marketing
Another way you can start earning money from your blog is by promoting relevant products to your readers for a commission.
There are affiliate networks where different product creators join to recruit commission salesmen for their products. These networks give you a unique product identification link to place on your blog and you earn a commission when one of your readers click through to purchase the product using your link.
Some affiliate networks you can join include Clickbank.com, Markethealth.com and JVzoo.com.
d. Sell Your Own Products and Offer Services
One of the most lucrative ways you can build a part-time business to quickly augment or completely replace your salary is to sell your own digital products or offer services on your blog.
You are in total control of how much you charge for your products and/or services and hence, a higher profit margin is open to you.
If you’re looking to replace your salary completely, selling your own products and offering services might prove to be your best bet.
At this point, it is important to point out that while blogging affords you the opportunity to create multiple streams of income from your blog, it is not a get rich quick business model. Many successful bloggers report they started to see real momentum on their blog after 1-2 years of putting in the work.
Side Business Idea #5 –
Confectionery Business
One side business idea that I know would work really well in Nigeria is a confectionery business. There’s a constant demand for confectioneries in Nigeria as many people like to use cakes, meat pies and other snacks for different occasions.
If this is something you’re good at or even interested in, you should consider doing this.
You can start with your weekends only and then expand to start taking some with you to work. You never know what you can make of this unless you try.
There you have it, whether you were looking out for side hustle ideas you can do in Nigeria, side business ideas you can do in Nigeria, part time business ideas you can do in Nigeria, side hustles in Nigeria, I hope you found these ideas helpful?
Now go and implement these ideas, learning alone will not do you any good – action will.
If you have any questions, kindly let me know in the comments section below – I’ll do my best to answer as many questions as I can.
Nice list, so many options to choose from.