Why Airbnb Experiences Are The Best Side Hustle

“You need an 18-step email funnel. You should be investing money into Facebook ads. Don’t forget to reach out and network daily. You must be working on your copywriting. You have to be putting in that work. You need to be on Twitter. You need to be promoting on Pinterest.”

There’s a lot of effort and time that goes into most side hustles.” The average person looking to make more money on the side just wants to get started. We don’t want to have to spend a small fortune on email marketing services and so on. We just want to start making money because we don’t have full-time hours to commit to this project yet.

This is why I’ve been promoting Airbnb Experiences. You can focus on bringing in money by becoming really good at offering your experience (which can be anything). There are people out there getting paid to eat pizza, drink coffee, go kayaking, and anything else that you could imagine.

Keep on reading to see why I’m into Experiences and why these are the best side hustle out there right now… If you’ve ever tried to pursue a side hustle, I’m sure that you’re aware of the struggles that go along with it. You have to worry about trying to collect money, you have to work for free for a long time to get noticed, and you don’t really know if it’s going to work out in the end.

With an Airbnb Experience, you don’t have to worry about trying to collect money, spending a fortune on Facebook ads or trying to sell stuff to your family. You also don’t have to worry about working for “exposure” or any of that other nonsense that comes with most income streams. You also don’t have to share inspirational quotes on social media.

I’m going to convince you to start an Airbnb Experience by the time you’re done reading this.

Here’s why Airbnb Experiences are the best side hustles…

I’ve covered many side hustles over the years. Some of the side hustles allowed you to make money instantly (like driving for Uber) and some of the ventures required some work upfront (such as starting a blog). I found that with Airbnb Experiences, you can turn something that you’re already doing into a paid gig. Here’s why you should start an Airbnb Experience if you’re looking to make some money on the side…

You can turn the wildest idea into a profitable business.

I don’t want to sound like I’m selling the dream to you here, but you can turn any wild idea into a profitable business. I love looking up random experiences from around the world to see what people are doing to make money. If you’re ever bored, go to the Airbnb app, and look up any random city in the world to see what suggestions they offer for things to do. Here are some interesting experiences that I’ve seen pop up lately:

• Pizza making class.
• Kayaking through unique places (Shell Key Preserve, Slack Resorvoir, and so on).
• Walking tours of fascinating places
• Hike with llamas.
• Yoga in random locations.
• Sunset sailing with wine and cheese.
• Rocky running tour in Philadelphia.

Open up the Airbnb Experiences app and see what’s interesting around you. On that note…

You get paid to work.

Getting paid for your services is more important and challenging than you may think. When you work at your 9-5 gig, you know that you’re going to get paid. In fact, you know when you’re going to get paid and you also know how much you’re going to get paid. With most side hustles, you don’t know when you’re going to get paid. You’re also not sure if you’re going to get paid. Most freelancing gigs these days want to pay you in exposure or some other nonsense. You can’t pay the bills or improve your quality of life if you get paid in exposure. This may sound absurd, but the freelance space is filled with people trying to pay you less than you deserve. With an Airbnb Experience, you get paid every single time. You perform the activity and the app sends you the money. You don’t have to chase people for money or worry about getting paid. This is a huge deal for freelancers out there.

Airbnb does the majority of the marketing.

Marketing can be really annoying when you’re first starting out. I’ve done my best to read many copywriting and marketing books. I understand how it works. I just find marketing to be time-consuming and frustrating at the early stages. You don’t have to worry about email marketing or creating funnels. You just focus on providing the best experience that you can provide. How does marketing happen with an Airbnb Experience? As soon as you book a trip with Airbnb, they send you a list of things to do. You may have noticed this before. These activities are all experiences that are run by regular people. A buddy from out of town actually booked an apartment for his birthday party and he was amused when Airbnb sent him an email suggesting that he attends my coffee crawl. Airbnb takes a piece of your money so they ensure that they promote your experience. Everyone who’s visiting your town will see you. As your experience gets more popular, you’ll get pushed to the top of the list. Airbnb wants to be a travel hub so they want to offer people a place to stay and something to do. Airbnb will do the marketing for you so that you don’t have to stress about trying to get noticed.

You get paid for your hobbies.

One of the biggest criticism of side hustles is that they take time away from your hobbies. I totally get that since I enjoy having hobbies that keep life interesting. With an Airbnb Experience, you can still perform your hobbies and make money in the process. You could monetize your hobbies and make money for something you were going to do anyways. What are examples of this?

• Turn your love of walking a slack line into an afternoon experience.
• Take people on bike rides with you.
• Show tourists the best restaurants in your part of the community so that you don’t eat alone.

Does this sound too good to be true? Look up local experiences in your hometown. You’ll be surprised to see by what’s popular. Chances are that the hosts are immersed in something that they actually enjoy.

You can turn an experience into an empire.

You’re not just limited to your experience on the app. You can do so much more with this experience. Before the pandemic, I was on my way to becoming some sort of a coffee ambassador. I even had a popular dating website approach me about an exclusive partnership. You can turn your experience into an entire business. You can go all the way with this. You can create multiple revenue streams from one venture. What can you do to turn an experience into an empire?

1. Build a social media page around the experience. I turned my experience into a page where I discuss all things coffee. You could go all in depending on how much you truly enjoy this topic.
2. Offer multiple experiences. I started a coffee crawl on Queen West, then I started one in Yorkville, and then I got approved for a cheat day crawl. You can run multiple experiences once you get the hang of hosting.
3. Offer upgrades. Your experience doesn’t have to be limited to one activity. You can offer upgrades and VIP versions of the event.
4. Become the face of the niche. You don’t just have to run experiences. You can become the go-to person of the niche. You can then earn sponsorship money and focus on finding advertisers.

That’s why you should be starting an Airbnb Experience ASAP if you want to make money on your own.

How do you start your own Airbnb Experience?

So how does someone start an experience? Let’s go over a quick summary of the steps.

Step 1: You have to decide on what you want to offer.

You have to figure out what kind of experience you’re going to host. I would also go on an experience first to see what the process is like. How do you decide what you want to offer?

1. Check out the categories and themes. There are many different directions that you can go in.
2. Check out what’s popular where you live. What are suggested things to do near you?
3. Look at something that you do that’s fun. Do you have any interesting hobbies?
4. See what’s missing in your hometown. There could be a booming food tour on the west end, while there’s nothing happening on the east end where you happen to really enjoy the local restaurants.
5. Collect all possible notes about your experience (your history, the location, what makes this unique, and whatever else you can think of).

Once you decide on your idea, you can move on to the next step…

Step 2: Make a plan of what the experience will be like.

What will happen on your experience? What are you going to do with your guests? Here’s what you need to think about with your experience:

• What will the experience be exactly?
• How long will this experience go for?
• What makes this experience interesting?
• How much is this experience worth?

You have to give people an interesting experience or else it’s going to be tough to get approved. You also have to think about what will happen on your Airbnb Experience. Then you can move on to the next step…

Step 3: Apply to host an experience.

Go through the steps and apply to be a host. This will take some time on your first try. The good news is that you can save your application if you feel stuck on something. Once you apply, Airbnb will send you an email to confirm receiving your application.

Step 4: Launch or edit based on the feedback.

If you get approved, then schedule an experience. If you don’t get approved, then edit your application. Airbnb will give you direct feedback if you don’t get approved. Don’t take the rejection personally as they just want to ensure that you’re ready for this experience. They may ask for more information about you since they want to ensure that you know what you’re doing.

Step 5: Work on your sales page and process.

You have to work on your sales page and your actual experience. These are two things that you’ll always be working on since it’s almost impossible to make these aspects perfect.

The first few experiences are going to be rough. There’s no way around this. You’re likely going to be nervous. You won’t be sure of yourself. You may even stutter a bit.

Eventually, you’re going to get a hang of the process. You’ll find out what works and what doesn’t work. You’ll learn how to improve the entire process. You’ll update your sales page.

For example, I found that I didn’t have enough stories about my community to share on the walk in between coffee shops. I just kind of went silent for a stretch of the walk. I wasn’t sure if the guests wanted me to shut up so that they could mingle or if they wanted me to share stories. So I learned from a review that I should be telling more stories even when it feels like nobody’s listening.

You can also refer people to your Instagram page on the sales page. When someone comes to my Instagram, they’ll see pictures of groups and they’ll know what to expect. You don’t want to set false expectations.

That’s how you can make money with Airbnb Experiences. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about hosting your own experience.

Martin Dasko is the founder of Studenomics, a financial lifestyle website and Do You Even Hustle, a podcast about, well, side hustling. You can find his book on AirBnB Experiences on Amazon and his immersive training class on running a professional AirBnB Experience on Teachable.