Nate O’Brien is a YouTuber who makes content on personal finance, investing, and entrepreneurship. Here are his best business ideas for 2022. First is some type of influencer management. There’s no startup cost associated with it, which is nice. But basically, when someone like Nate gets a big audience, they’re constantly going back and forth with brands, trying to get sponsorships, negotiating, planning, scheduling, all that jazz. You could help with that, and get paid for it.
How much could you make managing influencers? Typically ten to twenty percent of the deals you help put together. So say you represent some fitness chick on Instagram who’s got a million followers. You get a supplement company to agree to pay ten Gs for her to feature their new organic plant-based protein powder in a sixty second video. Boom, there’s fifteen hundred bucks in your pocket, give or take. Now go get another deal or another influencer or, better yet, both.
Nate’s second business idea for 2022 is so Nate: Converting vans. Like for digital nomads, road trippers, campers, or maybe even hippies who just wanna puff some of that Pink Panther by the beach all day. If you like to work with your hands, this’ll be right up your alley. Find some rich person in New York who doesn’t know a hammer from a screwdriver and have ’em pay you up front for it. Or buy a used van, convert it, sell it for double what you have in it. Could be a nice little side business.
Third, a monetized newsletter. Build up an email list, send emails, sprinkle in affiliate links (or sell ad space or do brand deals or create your own courses or sell coaching), repeat. It’s bootstrap-friendly. An email service like Mailchimp lets you send up to ten thousand emails a month for free. Create opt-in pages using something like ClickFunnels for $97/mo, and you’re good to go. Two big challenges though. One, driving traffic to your squeeze pages. And two, creating emails worth opening.
Nate’s fourth business idea for 2022? Renting out cameras. “I know a lot of photographers, videographers, even YouTubers who don’t wanna buy those really expensive five or ten thousand dollar digital cameras,” he says. “Because maybe they just have one shoot they wanna do or one project to finish up. Not just cameras, but you could rent out all types of audio gear, lighting, et cetera. Or take this idea and apply it to other niches. What do you have around the house that someone might be willing to rent from you?”
Fifth? Mow lawns. It’s not sexy, but it works. It’s how Nate paid for college. Pretty easy to pick up clients by posting in local Facebook groups or on Craigslist or even just a few well-placed flyers in the ‘hoods you wanna hit. You could charge forty or fifty bucks per lawn, suck it up and mow all day Saturday and Sunday, and easily walk away with five hundred, a thousand bucks per weekend. Like Nate says, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel or try to be the next Elon Musk to make money. Just do a simple business model.
Last but not least, number six is: Editing podcasts. Thanks to Joe Rogan, everyone and their wine-guzzling aunt thinks they’re gonna sit around with some friends, shoot the breeze, record it, and get picked up by Spotify for a hundred million. Needless to say, there’s no shortage of podcasters who need help with the tech side of things. Start reaching out to them, offer your assistance. Subscribe to Nate on YouTube for more business tips or click below for one last idea.
