Bernadette SchwerdtAugust 25, 2026 — 1:57pmWith the cost of living mounting and household budgets under pressure, it’s no surprise that more Australians are looking for ways to generate extra income. The good news? You don’t need a huge amount of capital, a business degree or a fancy office to get started.In fact, many of the most successful online businesses began as off-the-cuff experiments, one-off endeavours or personal passion projects. Having interviewed more than 40 of Australia’s top online entrepreneurs, I’ve discovered that there are a few secrets to turning side hustles into successful online businesses.MasterChef guest judge Kirsten Tibballs left school at 15 to complete a baking apprenticeship.Channel 10Test before you investIf you’ve watched MasterChef, you’ll know Kirsten Tibballs. She’s a regular guest judge, has over a million followers and her own TV show dedicated to all things chocolate. What most people don’t know is how she got started.She left school at 15 to complete a baking apprenticeship. The hours were brutal – 2am to 5pm – but she loved it. Years later, after competing internationally, she was invited to run a chocolate-making workshop in a supplier’s warehouse.This was a weekend side hustle alongside her day job writing recipes for a leading chocolate brand. She took class bookings via fax, set up a trestle table and got started. The course sold out, as did the next and the one after that.Demand grew so quickly, she launched her own cooking school. To scale, she filmed her classes and put the videos online. Her students wanted to buy the equipment she used, so she uploaded her kitchen utensils to the website and hyperlinked them to her recipes.Today, she has more than 20,000 members in her online community, plus a global speaking career, brand partnerships, cookbooks and a retail distribution business.Play the long gameSocial media was the perfect place for actor Adele Samus to launch her side hustle. By day, she worked in a fashion store. By night, she created comedic social media content based on the conversations she overheard from customers.Her goal was to land acting work. To achieve that, she first needed to build an audience, so she wrote her own scripts, acted out all the parts, and edited everything herself.After several years of consistent effort, she built a loyal following, found an agent, secured a host of brand deals and appeared as a stunt woman in Ryan Gosling’s film The Fall Guy. Her success was made possible because she committed to posting even when no one was watching, and to playing the long game.Acting is still a side hustle, but it’s attracting deals that help pay the rent and support her while she builds her personal brand.Find your passionWhen it comes to building a side hustle, it helps to genuinely care about what you’re promoting. If you’re only showing up to sell something, people can spot the insincerity. Jenny Fisher (@FosterJen2072) is a perfect example.Jenny Fisher has rescued seven cats that she believes might not have survived in Hornsby.Edwina PicklesWith 11 cats and four dogs, it’s fair to say she loves animals. What started as a personal Instagram account for sharing cat videos with family and friends soon evolved into something much bigger.Driven by her passion for rescuing cats and finding them loving homes, Jenny began showcasing the foster cat sanctuary she had built in her backyard. Complete with climbing towers, rope bridges, hammocks, tunnels and outdoor runs, it was the Taj Mahal for cats.When she started sharing her videos with fellow cat lovers, her audience exploded, and within six months, had attracted 44,000 followers. Since then, she’s received collaboration opportunities from cat food, litter and pet accessory brands, along with an invitation to appear on the cover of a cat magazine.Jenny’s success came from building a community around a genuine passion. The audience came first, and the commercial opportunities followed soon after.Sell what you loveYou don’t have to go big to be successful. Dylan Schwerdt works in a bank by day but trades Pokemon cards by night. He buys the cards in the US, sells them in Australia and pockets the price difference.Some people call this arbitrage. He calls it “cardbitrage”. He spotted the opportunity on a trip to New Orleans, where he saw the cards in a gaming shop selling for 50 per cent less than in Australia. Months later, stuck at home with a broken arm, he set up a test.He bought a few cards and listed them on eBay. He didn’t have a website, a brand or any proof of demand, but people could see what a good deal they were getting and piled in. That early success gave Dylan the motivation to keep going.Graded Pokemon cards can fetch up to tens of thousands of dollars in online markets.Joe ArmaoHe dug out the thousands of cards he had lying around the house from childhood, catalogued them and listed them on eBay and Instagram, including running live online auctions and awarding the cards to the highest bidders.He works about 10 hours a week on his side hustle, makes over $100,000 a year, and now spends his annual leave travelling to Pokemon conferences around the world sourcing new stock.He loved Pokemon as a kid and still does. The difference is he’s now getting paid for it. “I mostly do it while I’m watching TV,” he says.If you’re thinking about launching a side hustle, don’t overthink it. Start small, see what happens and pay attention to what people respond to. The market will tell you what to do next.Bernadette Schwerdt, author of Secrets of the New Online Entrepreneurs, is the founder of the Australian School of Copywriting, a TEDx speaker, and an award-winning author and ghostwriter for Australia’s leading CEOs and entrepreneurs. For more information visit bernadetteschwerdt.com.auAdvice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.Expert tips on how to save, invest and make the most of your money delivered to your inbox every Sunday. Sign up for our Real Money newsletter.From our partners