11 Digital Business Ideas

Prevent yourself from running out of money by creating an income that you can earn from anywhere in the world.

Remote Jobs > Free Nomad Guide > Digital Business

“The most effective way to do it, is to do it” -Amelia Earnhart 

“Regardless of how long it takes to earn your freedom, remember that you are laboring for more than just a vacation. A vacation, after all, merely rewards work. Vagabonding justifies it.” - Rolf Potts, Vagabonding

1. Start a Website based Blog

To get started, you will need a website and the drive to write things down in helpful ways for other people. Generating money from a blog requires designing your blog in a user friendly format, creating content that people want to read, and generating traffic to your website.

It generally takes between 2-6 years, depending on your level of commitment and skill, to get a blog to produce a sufficient amount of income. For the fastest growth, we recommend telling a real story that others can relate to, is emotional, and either is told from a different/unique perspective or is somewhat controversial.

Most bloggers start out with the free WordPress sites, but we opted to use SquareSpace to save time. Check out our Free Nomad MBA for free courses on designing your blog in a user friendly format (UI/UX Design).

Once you have traffic coming to your blog, you can start earning money from it by selling your own products, placing advertisements on your blog, and partnering with affiliates like Skimlinks. Most small blogs earn the most money by selling their own products or services.

Are you serious about starting a blog? Then the Easy Path to a Successful Blog - A Full Step-by-Step Guide was written just for you!

3. Write a Book or eBook

While you're traveling, you could keep a journal.  Eventually that can turn into a book. You can then place the book up for sale on the Amazon Marketplace (or get an agent to get it published through a major publisher), put it up for sale on your own website, publish it in paper copy, or offer an affiliate arrangement with other websites.

Check out a walk-through from Living for Naptime or The Penny Hoarder to make it easier. Then go to Amazon’s walk-through page and start publishing!

Actually, we've talked with some very experienced authors and put together some valuable information on how to write and publish your first book, if you're thinking of going this route.

• Earn Residual Income by Writing a Book - Passive Income & Royalties

4. Start a Rental Business

By becoming an Airbnb Host you can rent out your unused room, vacation home, or even your primary house to earn a decent amount of side income. We listed our place in Orlando on Airbnb to earn a decent amount of extra income. Additionally, we never had any issues with our guests - and even if we had, Airbnb would have covered us. There are companies designed to manage everything for you as well.

Alternatively, you can use TURO to start a vehicle rental business as well! We have rented out our vehicle using TURO when we first started traveling as well, although we were sharing the profits with a friend who managed the account, it was still a decent amount of extra income that we otherwise wouldn’t have.

These are both great additions to your pre-travel Side Income plan, and - if you’re planning on keeping your place or vehicle - great income while you are traveling as well! Check out “Make $1,000+/Extra Each Month! - 5 Ways to Earn Money by using Social Sharing” to get started.

5. Investing

Do you already have some money saved up?  Learn how to invest with a Free Global Markets Course! You could invest that money into Bonds, Preferred Stock, REIT's (Real Estate Investment Trusts) or fundrise.com, Peer-to-peer lending, or Blue Chip stocks to earn a higher rate of interest or dividends from your investment.  What this does is provide you with around 2-8% per year on your current savings (much better than your savings account!). 

How much income that is for you depends on how much you already have. Let's say you have $10,000 saved up - that could be worth $200-$800 per year!  But, if you have $100,000 saved up it could mean $2,000-$8,000 per year!  That's a great side piece of income and, by taking out only the interest and dividends, you won't dwindle down your savings at all!  This makes for a great addition to your Side Income Plan!

If you are not too familiar with investing, check out RobinHood, Acorns, Betterment, Stash, Swell, or Motif. If you are already familiar with trading, check out Sure Trader, ThinkorSwim, or E-Trade.

Want to learn more about Investing? Check out our Finance & Investment Club to get started. Or read our investment articles:

• Investment Income Made Easy - Live on Residual Income

• Investment Strategies that Can Boost Your Returns - Financial Independence

• The Oil-Gasoline Crack Spread: An Advanced Investment Strategy

6. Create an Online Course

Everyone knows how to do something well. Teach someone else how to do this by designing a step-by-step instruction manual for people to learn and then record it in video format. You could create an online course at Creative Live, Fiverr, Udemy, Udacity, or StackSkills.  After publishing the course, all you'll have left to do is market it and you'll be able to earn income from it for as long as it is still relevant! 

We highly recommend building up a YouTube channel to optimize your influence. People don’t know that your course is going to be amazing if they don’t know who you are! Once you have a good following, it should be fairly easy to start selling specific courses.

7. Build a Mobile App

Building a mobile app first requires knowing a bit about programming.  But, don't let that get you down, we offer absolutely free iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) based app courses on our FREE Nomad MBA page.

Once you've built your app, you could offer two separate versions, a free version with advertisements and a premium version without. Alternatively, you could design apps for other people by offering your app design skills up on Design Crowd.  Either way, you'll win by earning income!

Learn how to become a fully certified Mobile App Developer by using our Remote Training Program.

8. Stock Photo Royalties

Do you love to take pictures and would like to get paid for them?  Places like iStock, Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Depositphotos, 123RF, Alamy, Pond5, Bigstock, CanStockPhoto, and Stocksy allow you to upload your photos and earn money from them.

9. Subscription Service

Memberful, Patreon, and even the newest subscription service (and our personal favorite) Ko.fi help people who enjoy creating artistic content that other people enjoy.  There might be a following for some of the things that you like to do. If so, offer up a membership subscription service with some unique perks that your followers will enjoy and you may be able to earn some monthly income!

10. Booming Bookkeeping

We tried this program and have a lot to say about it.

Can you do this without having a background in accounting or bookkeeping? Yes, it is possible. And, if you’re great at acquiring sales, with only about 20-hours of work per week you can earn around $40,000 to $80,000! Each client nets an average of $750 per month (range $300-$3,000) and requires about 2-hours of work per week. Take only as many clients as you need.

But, before you consider this program, make sure you read our full review of it first:

• Is Booming Bookkeeping Business a Scam? Our Legitimate Review of the Course

11. Credit Card Rewards Points

Although not really income, it helps! If you have great credit, then you may already be familiar with Rewards Points Credit Cards.  If not, you can get your credit back in order real quick here and then you will be able to qualify for these cards.  The fun thing is that many of them give you extra points for Travel related purchases and you don't even have to use their sites to use your points.  For example, we use the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and it earns us 3% back on all the Airbnb's and Hotels, Airfare, Restaurants, and Cafes that we go to. Our Barclaycard Arrival+ card gives us 2% on everything else that you can redeem easily on any travel related purchase that you recently made on your card. Additionally, some business cards and hotel cards will offer you from 5-10%. For example, we save 5% on our Airbnb’s by using our Target Red Card to purchase Airbnb Gift Cards and then applying them to our account. It's worth checking out if you plan on spending money - and we all spend money! If your credit isn’t up to par, check out a place like Credit Assistance Network where they will remove or fix up any negative marks on your credit report within 3-6 months!

“‘I don't like work,’ says Marlow in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, ‘but I like what is in the work - the chance to find yourself.’ Marlow wasn't referring to vagabonding, but the notion still applies. Work is not just an activity that generates funds and creates desire; it’s the vagabonding gestation period, wherein you earn your integrity, start making plans, and get your proverbial act together... so that your travels are not an escape from your real life but a discovery of your real life.” - Rolf Potts, Vagabonding

How Other People are Making Income

”Paid market research studies / focus groups -- I usually make at least $3-4K per year doing anywhere between 1-3 sessions per month in the evening or on days off. Best place to start is doing a Google search for "paid focus groups in [your metro area]" and go from there. Start signing up for any and every company in your area. My home base is the SF Bay Area, so there is a lot of opportunity here -- some of these companies have offices in other parts of the country as well: Accelerant Research, AlphaBuzz, Amplify Research, Bay Area Focus Groups*, Elliott Benson Research, Fieldwork San Francisco*, Fleischman Field Research, Focus Insite, Focus Pointe Global*, Hagen/Sinclair Research Recruiting, Hays Worldwide Research, IDEO*, Instant Insights Lab, Intact Qualitative Research, InterQ Research, MindSwarms, Nichols Research*, Plaza Research, Q&A Focus Suites - San Francisco, Q&A Research, Quantum Market Research, Recruit & Field, Schlesinger Associates*, SIS International Research, VGMarket*, VuPoint Research, watchLAB*, WeCruiting*” - Dave A.

“Photography! Very lucrative and little overhead. I use canon equipment, actually just a simple canon rebel but I’ve been able to work it to its max. I do portraits and weddings!” - Lauren H.

“Consulting. $200-400 an hour. $2-3k a month. I solve problems in organizations and systems that nobody wants to admit they have.” - Jonathan W.

“I have a few. I've made over $10,000 a month buying things to resell. Additionally, I'm an Airbnb host.” - Kylie T.

“Driving Postmates on the occasional weekend, when the guaranteed earnings are over $100, I usually make more than my day job.” - Cassandra C.

“I have a few. 1. Own a pooper scooper business - Pet waste removal. Picking up poop out of yards, parks, landscaping. $40-$50k yr. for residential and businesses like HOA’s and Apartment communities. 2. Project management consulting for entrepreneurs (I’m an international PM by day). 3. Online courses and a little FBA as well.” - Phillip T.

“About $30,000 a year. I'm a speaker on top of my full-time job and do three podcasts, two of which make money.” - Michael G.

“I teach ESL online and make just over $1000 per month. I'm with Gogokid. Just got signed up with VIPKid as a backup, but haven't worked with them yet.” - Jen O.

“Ask Wonder - online research. I started making around $200 extra per month, got better and gained access to other jobs, now I bring in over 2,000 extra per month.” - Alexis Z.

“Blogging/family photography as a side hustle. $30k. I really have done it since 2009 but made it consistently in the last four years after honing in and figuring out i just can’t write about random $hit and i had to be intentional. affiliate, ad revenue and sponsored post. the problem for most people wanting to do it is just getting started! even after fumbling, i was still able to make money failure after failure. it’s been a good hobby/money maker. i can sell a sofa and make $100 off affiliate income one time - that is not only a feel good moment, but money in my pocket. i’m targeted to 40k this year. it takes a lot of time, but to me, it’s fulfilling as an entrepreneur with my own platform.” - Seng N.

“Online Tutoring. About $600 a month.” - Kyle P.

“Airbnb hosting.” - Stacy H.

“Food blog...about 2-3k a month with sponsored post. Working on putting ads on it and that will increase my monthly income.” - Ana F.

“I review products on amazon and other sites and also dropship products on my own websites. I usually earn between $3,000-$5,000 a month doing it. Details here.” - Johnny J.

“I own a small web design and hosting company but also sell books I've written on my own websites and use a few of my own websites for affiliate and adsense income. Honestly not much. ($300 mo NOT including web design and hosting) I'd LOVE to get the affiliate and adsense stuff off the ground a bit more. My latest book here: www.re-rebel.com” - Kenneth L.

“I teach esl online for two companies. VIP Kids and MAgic Ears. I make 1000-1500/mo by teaching Monday-Friday, 3-5 hours a day.” - Tricia A.

“As a PT ERP Administrator, I can make $65-$120 an hour along side my ERP Administrator day job. Great part is that it can be remote! I started in operations optimizing processes, learned how a business and had a company take a chance on me. Big things to know is overall business acumen, accounting, and the system can be learned over time (like I did). There are a lot of various ERP systems (SAP and Oracle are big ones), but the ERP system I work on is called NetSuite. Probably one of hardest, but most rewarding job I’ve ever had.” - Damon A.

“Virtual Bookkeeping. I run a FB group about how to get started called Bookkeeping Side Hustle Group that you can join if you want to learn about it. I think it is such a great side hustle for FI folks who like this sort of field. I personally try to do value pricing instead of hourly pricing, but in my head I like to keep my rate above $55 per hour. I'm pretty much there now. Some months some work ends up taking longer than I expected. My "hourly" rate goes up as I get more familiar with each client and start to "train" the accounting software.” - Kate M.

“I sell on Amazon (up to $3k) and I have a blog (up to $1k).” - Peter K.

“My side hustle turned into my full time. I wrote a book, created a blog where I sell info products for golf, and do online consulting for golfers. Earnings can change depending on how much I decide to reinvest into growth, but anywhere between $120 and 180K a year. And I love every minute of it - I would do it for free if I had to.” - Adam Y.

“iPhone apps. I make ~1k a month on apps I haven’t touched in years. Trying to get back into it. Launching a new one next week and hoping that number goes up.” - Derek C.

“I have a blog, geared toward baby boomers, about creative ways to catch-up retirement savings. Blog is relatively new but it's growing & bringing in money!” - Kathy L.

“Airbnb of our second bed/bath. $10k last year for occasional occupancy. I charge $15 cleaning for the entire stay and between $49-199 a night.” - Heather C.

“I do Airbnb in a basement suite and make between $2-5K/month (gross), depending on the season. My rent is $1100, so I make between 800-4k. It is in an area where the Airbnb host community is tight and the units are really competitive and nice. YMMV depending on location.” - Michelle N.

“YouTube channel. ~$100k/year. I recently was a guest on a webinar about it. Nothing special, but I showed how it can be replicated if someone's interested. I have fun doing it!” - Peter W.

“One air bnb netting $23,000. Three 1st trust deeds each paying 10.5%. And trying to cut expenses as much as possible!” - Matt H.

“My sister edits scientific papers, stories, novels, articles. Through Accdon LTD and IOP Publishing mostly.” - Jennifer S.

“Software engineer. I can find a lot of work remotely! And most countries will let you immigrate in via a highly skilled immigrant visa.” - Gloria K.

“Virtual assistant!” - Danielle W.

“Teach English as a second language (ESL) from my iphone X through PalFish Kid Course.” - Molly H.

“Project manager, scrum Master, business analyst, graphic designer, copy writer, software engineer... Basically anything related to software.” - Nathan C.

“I teach ESL for vipkid and hubby is a systems engineer. We chose a place, he applies for a job then we move there for a year or so. Have been doing that for 6 years now.” - Cindy W.

The Nomad Guide
PATH 1: Section 1: Income | Section 2: Lifestyle | Section 3: Budgeting | Section 4: Planning
PATH 2: Section 1: Working | Section 2: Digital Nomad Income | Section 3: The FREE Nomad MBA

Do you have great advice that you think should be on this page?  If so, send us an email with the information and we'll likely add it.  Also, unless you say otherwise, we'll add a special 'thank you' after the advice you've provided on this page.  If you'd like us to give your website or blog  a shout-out along with the 'thank you', please include your site link and we'll be happy to add that as well.  Thank you for your help and support!