Have you ever tried to get a bunch of odd jobs?  I just joined Fiverr and posted some “gigs” on the site yesterday in an attempt to get more traction for my sales, but also to see if I can get some extra income from doing random tasks.  For now the only thing I’ve come up with that doesn’t involved selling a product is teaching people origami.  I’ll have to keep thinking of what else I could do that’s worth $5 but not too much effort on my part.  I was going to do a Chinese name translation, but there are a lot of those out there so I’m not sure if I should compete…

Awhile back, I became fascinated with community marketplaces.  I had considered trying to become a TaskRabbit and provide services like pet-sitting, but I don’t really have a strong skill in those sorts of things that I could really do well.  It’s always a challenge trying to pinpoint my expertise in things like that – a concrete skill that I can do better than most that people would want to have done for them.  Then I came across Vayable, which I thought was really cool with its community-powered tours.  I have considered doing a UCLA tour through that, but have yet to organize an awesome tour that I would be proud of.  Luckily, I have a head start since I’d led tours for summer orientation, but I also want to include more cool historical facts and some updates since the campus has changed so much.

Most recently, I learned about Lyft, which is a community-powered transportation service.  That’s something I think would be really cool to do, since I’ve often driven my friends around, but I live too far from the central areas of Los Angeles to be of much use right now.  Such a pity, since I enjoy getting out and driving around (and hate finding parking) so this would be a great way to earn some money.