A full-time lawyer with 10 income streams shares her biggest flops, and the easiest way to earn side money in 2026
Lawyer Lucy Zheng shares her experiences managing 10 income streams, highlighting both successful ventures and notable failures like leather hats and recycled-plastic bags. She emphasizes that side hustles often require iterative learning and suggests user-generated content as a low-cost entry point for new entrepreneurs.
Why it matters
Provides practical, realistic advice for the growing gig economy and side-hustle culture, emphasizing the importance of skill-stacking over overnight success.
Lucy Zheng and her husband have built a household with 10 income streams. Lucy Zheng Lucy Zheng has experimented with multiple ventures, from a fashion blog to a bounce-house business. Not all of them took off. Some flops include leather hats and recycled-plastic tote bags. Zheng has 10 income streams, and says user-generated content is a low-cost way to start earning on the side. Lucy Zheng has been building side businesses since 2012 , when she was looking to supplement the income from her first job out of law school and pay down student loans. Her first project was a fashion blog. "Blogging was a huge thing back in 2012," she told Business Insider. It was also cheap to get into. Aside from a "semi-decent camera," she said, "there was virtually no cost."
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