You’ve probably tried the obvious stuff already. A survey app that paid out four dollars after three weeks. A course that promised a full-time income and delivered a login screen. Now you’re reading an About page to find out whether anyone here has actually done what they write about.
Fair question. Here’s the answer.
Why I started writing this down
I’m Nicole Hanson, I’m 30, and Tech Broast began as a private spreadsheet. My side hustle story starts with Pinterest. Around 2021 I began using it as a side hustle, mostly to find out whether pinning could send real readers to a website. It could, and it taught me how much work sits behind a simple-looking pin.
Once I understood how Pinterest worked, I kept finding other platforms where people were earning real income: Etsy shops, Canva templates, digital downloads and printables. I started digging into each one and writing down what held up and what didn’t. Most advice online skipped the slow, unglamorous middle, and that’s where most people quit. So I started writing the middle down, and that became Tech Broast. I tracked the hours I put in against the money that came out, and the honest numbers were less exciting than anything I’d read online.
That gap bothered me. Most advice I found skipped the slow, unglamorous middle, and that’s where most people quit. So I started writing the middle down.
What I got wrong at the start
Quite a lot, actually. My first mistake was not picking an audience. When I started on Pinterest, I pinned whatever I came across: a recipe one day, a decor idea the next, a random productivity tip after that. I figured more variety meant more chances to get noticed.
It had the opposite effect. Nobody could tell what my account was for, so nobody had a reason to follow it, and I got almost no results. Things only started to move once I chose one group of people to write for and made everything speak to them.
That lesson runs through everything here. Every article on Tech Broast is written for a specific reader, usually someone starting a side hustle with little time and little money. When I recommend a tool, I tell you what it cost me, what it did well and where it annoyed me. When something didn’t work, I say so.
What’s on the site
Five areas, each with a clear job:
- Side Hustles: Realistic ideas, who each one suits, what it costs to start and how long it usually takes to see a first payment. No “quit your job in 30 days” promises.
- Canva: Templates, tutorials and freelance work you can do with a free account and a laptop, plus which Pro features are actually worth paying for.
- Etsy: Shop ideas, fees, listings, photos and packaging, written for people opening their first shop.
- Digital Products: What to make, how to price it and where to sell it, from planners to templates.
- Printables: Worksheets, planners and seasonal sets, and how to turn one good design into something people buy.
Who’s behind it
I write most of the articles. Andrea Bell is my co-author. We read each other’s work before it goes live, and we disagree about it more often than you’d think.
How we check what we publish
Everything on Tech Broast gets fact-checked before it’s published. Prices, fees, platform rules and features are checked against the company’s own pages, not against other blogs. Every article is reviewed by me or Andrea and edited for accuracy and clarity before it goes live.
Platforms change their fees and rules constantly, so we go back to older articles and update them, and each one shows its last-updated date. If we recommend something we earn commission on, we say so in the post. Sponsored content is always labeled. And we don’t claim income results we can’t back up with real numbers.
If you spot something wrong, email us at contact@techbroast.com. We’d rather fix it than leave it.
