Escape from cubicle nation - sidehustles / passive income

Hey monkeys,

Many of us are trying to find a way out of the rat race. Thought I'd query the monkey tribe to see what has worked (or not) for you, and what ideas you have.

I've been experimenting with side-hustles and passive income for some time, with various degrees of success. I'll share my 2 cents. And it has always come to a trade-off in time + capital expenditure vs income. Time is often the biggest gating factor. Since for me having a day-job in finance is fairly lucrative, I need to minimize time outlay to SH.

1. funds mgmt: currently my wife and I generate $120k / yr (60 each) with no work. 0 time outlay, 0 capital investment, I don't want to go into too much detail on it here around that, but it leverages our funds mgmt experience.

2.. capital raising consulting I have done capital raising consultancy. That did not work so well. Generally, funds want to pay a success fee only, and no retainer. That sucks, because most funds who take on independent help are not top flight funds. Capital raising is VERY time consuming (making PPTs, researching which LPs to call on, having LP calls, arranging roadshows, etc.) it's a lot of time to invest, in the hopes that just maybe that fund manager can close a check, and then honor his commitment to pay. That work sucked.

2. real estate We're in Asia, Real estate has been a low-yield game, but oh, those capital appreciations. RE has gone up 10x in value in our portfolio in the past decade. We are sitting on a lot of value, but yields are still low, and in many cases negative, so it's more like we're feeding the beast. I was at a BB in 2010, so I wish I'd bought US property then. Damn. So maybe doing more emerging markets real estate investing (or waiting for a downturn to buy distressed) is a better way to go. My wife is the queen of distressed-seller real estate.

general (non capital raising) business consulting I had 4 consulting gigs running in parallel, and it was a disaster. Mostly, I've found clients are NOT understanding of the time limits. They expect to have you all to themselves, and are judging by results, not time spent. It's like having having 4 unsatisfied and demanding b*tch girlfriends, and even tho you told them it's non-exclusive, they are not understanding. They all felt under-served even tho I said "well, you're paying my for 15 hrs / wk, and so I can't give you more."

One of them in particular took WAY MORE TIME than we agreed to originally, and I didn't fire the client, though I should have. They paid $7k/mo which in our agreement was enough for 15-20 hrs a week max, but they ended up taking consistently north of 35hrs/wk. This one gig cost me my other consulting gigs, which eventually melted down.

Other Side-Hustles I've heard worked well for others:

-import export from China-to-global (maybe pre-fab buildings, pre-fab interiors, etc.) -EB-5 consulting 7, -advising startups on capital raising