📱 Best Platforms
Upwork (web research and data extraction jobs from sales teams and market researchers), Fiverr (web scraping and data collection gigs), LinkedIn (pitch market research firms and lead generation agencies who need fresh prospect data).
📖 The Hustle
Sales teams, recruiters, and market researchers need lists of companies or contacts from specific industries — and someone has to manually visit websites to collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses. You visit business directories, chamber of commerce sites, and company websites, copying structured data into a spreadsheet. Charge $10-20/hour or $50-100 per 500-entry list.
🚀 First Step
Pick a niche (e.g., dental practices in Chicago), find 20 contacts manually via Google Maps and Yelp, and build a clean spreadsheet as your sample.
🔑 Keys to Success
- Use Instant Data Scraper (free Chrome extension) to auto-detect and extract tables from websites — it handles 80% of the work while you verify.
- Always verify phone numbers by spot-checking 10% of your data with a quick call or cross-reference — bad data kills your reputation.
- Organize deliverables with clear column headers and a data dictionary explaining each field — professional formatting gets you repeat clients.
🛠 Tools & Resources: Google Sheets, Instant Data Scraper, Google Maps, Yelp, LinkedIn