Running a side hustle business after putting in a full day of work can be exhausting. Your brain and body are tired, which can result in lower productivity and less creativity—and, in many cases, it takes away from important time with your family.

The hours before you go to a day job, however, can find you energized and focused, letting you get a lot done in a short amount of time. (There are also typically fewer distractions and your brain has higher levels of chemicals like norepinephrine that let you lock-in on tasks and filter out irrelevant interruptions.)

That makes the pre-work hours a good time to focus on side hustle businesses, particularly passive income ones which only need a limited amount of your day to generate income. It’s also a good time to slowly build a side hustle into a full-time business operation, letting you lay the foundation for a company that has real growth potential.

Here are several side hustle businesses that lend themselves to people who prefer to do that work before they head to their 9-5.

Niche newsletter

The hardest part of publishing a newsletter is finding an audience. By focusing on niche industries, you reduce the competition and can command a higher price point of subscribers.

This is a good side hustle business for people who specialize in compiling and analyzing information quickly. Either set up an RSS feed that captures relevant information or swiftly skim data sources as part of a morning sweep. AI can compile the information for you, as well, but if you choose this route, you’ll want to verify the information before you disseminate it. Your pre-work hours will be spent building the reports, which you can send out to subscribers as you prepare for the day. And if that subscriber list continues to grow, this side hustle can evolve into a full-time business.

Pricing for niche newsletters can start as low as $50 per report, but can escalate into hundreds or even thousands of dollars, depending on how comprehensive and insightful the reports are. Writing is the single fastest rising side hustle, according to research from Falcon Digital Marketing. Interest in the category spiked 5,546 percent last year. Total searches topped 264,000, nearly six times the closest competitor.

Chris Morris

5 Side Hustle Businesses That Fit Into the Hours Before Your Day Job