Erim Kaur, entrepreneur and influencer, made $4 million in sales after founding a hair-oil brand rooted in ancient Indian traditions.

London-based Kaur has over 700,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok combined, and founded ByErim in 2019 — a luxury haircare brand known for its flagship hair growth oil containing eight pure oils, including Amla, Argan, Coconut, and Castor oil. It has raked in £3.3 million ($4.2 million) since its launch, CNBC Make It has verified.

The 30-year-old pinned the popularity of her hair growth oil on having social media savvy and building a core audience of young Indian women and men turning to her for beauty and life advice.

“I think one of the strongest messages I’ve always had has been that I want to do it for girls or boys that have grown up without a mum and sisters,” Kaur told CNBC Make It in an interview about the popularity of her content.

Kaur was only eight when her mother died of breast cancer, and a memory she always cherished was her mother’s long hair, which she said was a defining part of her identity.

“I really wanted to emulate the way that my mother looked,” she said. “It was scary to see her lose the identifying part of what people saw as something that contributes so heavily to her beauty.”

Kaur recalled that her father, who was only 29 at the time, took her to the barber’s for a haircut. “I didn’t even know how to tie my hair. She died before she taught me,” Kaur said.

That was when she decided to turn to her paternal grandmother, who would apply different oils and ingredients on her hair through her early teens, before landing on a formula that Kaur continued to use as an adult and is the current formulation of the ByErim oil.

Those experiences formed the foundations of Kaur’s social media journey, where she shared her story of growing up without a mum, as well as how she learnt to take care of herself as a woman.  

“I wanted to create a shortcut for any girls or boys that had grown up without a mum, which is why I started to speak about that experience on my page,” she explained.

After gaining 100,000 followers in 2019, she decided to monetize her social media and build ByErim as a homage to both her mother and grandmother while also capitalizing on a growing social media trend.

Hair oiling is an Indian tradition recorded in ancient Sanskrit medicinal texts like Charaka Samhita, and passed on through the centuries. Indian women are taught by their mothers and grandmothers to massage oils into their hair from a young age.

With the influx of Indian immigrants to the U.S. and Europe since the 20^th century, hair-oiling has transcended India’s borders.

Cosmopolitan U.K.’s deputy beauty editor Hanna Ibraheem recently wrote that having her hair oiled as a child resurfaced memories of shame about her identity.

“I’d noticed my peers would get teased for their oiled hair on the school playground. Sure, the oil made my hair soft and strong. I know it’s the reason I have healthy hair today. But at the time, I found the whole thing … well, embarrassing,” Ibraheem said in a piece for the magazine.

Once a marker of shame for many children of South Asian immigrants, hair oiling has filtered into beauty trends on social media.

The hashtag #hairoil has almost half a million posts on TikTok, with mainstream influencers sharing their oiling routines, including what hair oils they use and application techniques.

Tips on hair oiling have made the pages of Vogue in recent years, and a range of brands have surfaced alongside Kaur’s ByErim, including Nikita Charuza’s Ayurveda-inspired Squigs Beauty, Akash and Nikita Mehta’s Fable & Mane, and Kuldeep Knox’s Chāmpo.

“How funny is it that ‘to oil’ never used to be a verb that was in everyone’s daily communication but then this morning I was going to my grandparent’s and I was going to say ‘can you oil my hair for me?’ Back in the day, it would have been people from England saying ‘would you mind putting oil into my hair, or would you mind applying oil to my scalp?’ But it’s now a verb,” Kaur said.

Unlike traditional Indian oiling, which includes the use of greasy, thick oils with a pungent odor, the appeal of brands like ByErim is that it’s fragranced and lightweight, Kaur said.

“I have it in my hair right now. Could you ever tell? I could go to Tesco. I could go to the gym. I could go for dinner with my hair like this,” she said.

Kaur says ByErim’s success isn’t just about the rising popularity of hair oiling but because her followers are “emotionally invested” in her brand.

“Influencers cast a very wide net, but the problem is when you’re trying to reach people who don’t already follow you, you’re alienating the people that do. So, I was very focused on my followers. They’re focused on me,” Kaur said.

Influencer-founded brands have increased in recent years, but not all are cut out for success. Famous influencer brands range from TikTok darling Addison Rae’s makeup line Item Beauty to Instagrammer Arielle Charnas’ clothing brand, Something Navy.

However, Rae’s Item Beauty was discontinued by Sephora in 2023, with Rae failing to promote the brand consistently. Meanwhile, Something Navy faced financial troubles and stopped selling clothes through its website.

“People can sniff out authenticity, and they can sniff out fake very quickly,” Kaur explained. “If your followers really genuinely love you and would support you, they don’t want to feel like they’ve been palmed off with a quick, cheap product that just has your name on it.”

She sets herself apart by sharing the highs and lows of building ByErim on social media, from posting about factories accepting her orders to packaging ByErim bottles by hand.

“So by the time I launched it, people were buying regardless because they wanted to be part of that journey,” she said.

The company, which sold 250 units in its first four hours of launching and another 500 units in January 2020, has played a part in keeping the hair-oiling trend alive.

“I can’t take full credit for anything,” Kaur said of the normalization of hair-oiling. “I think there are some amazing brands out there that are pushing the needle when it comes to sharing what was a secret of our grandma’s kitchen to the masses, but I would like to hope that ByErim has played even a 1% part of that.”

When I was pregnant with my first child, my mind was still in work mode. Since starting my company Bridesmaid for Hire in 2014, I’d often worked 70-hour weeks, traveled all over the country for business opportunities, and attached my identity to my hustle. I didn’t want any of that to change just because I was becoming a mom. 

I planned to take six weeks of maternity leave, lining up childcare and business gigs — working weddings and speaking at conferences — right afterward. 

But after my daughter was born in early 2023, I no longer craved being pulled in a dozen different directions. I still wanted to run my company, but I also wanted to spend quality time with my baby.

At first, I put in 40 to 50 hours a week when my daughter was sleeping during the day and when my husband came home from work. But as she grew out of the baby phase, parenting became more hands-on and I could only manage about half of it. 

I decided that I needed to shift how I was working so that I could still earn money while giving my daughter the attention she deserved. Today, I make about $6,300 a month in passive income. Here’s how I made it happen. 

As an entrepreneur, I constantly want to create new products and services. But with less time, I looked instead at how I could monetize the resources and foundations I already established.

For example, I put Google ads on my website, which had about 463,000 users in the last year. Traffic swings mean ad income varies. When I have ads turned on, I earn on average $391 per month, with zero hours of work involved. 

DON’T MISS: How to start a side hustle to earn extra money

This monetization method can diminish the user experience on your website and distract from your own messaging and products. So whenever I have a big product launch coming up, I turn off this revenue stream to focus on quality and conversions. 

I send out weekly newsletters to over 100,000 subscribers and post several times a week on TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to over 90,000 social media followers. A lot of my content is centered around wedding and other suggestions and advice, so I use affiliate links.

Two programs I joined, Amazon Associates and RewardStyle, allow me to create curated storefronts and share links to those lists in my social media profile bios and newsletters. This takes about two hours a week.

If a person buys a product I’ve recommended (or other products on the same website) after clicking through my affiliate link, I receive a commission. The amount varies based on the platform, product, and other factors. The payout averages $129 a month.

Clients often hire me to write their maid of honor speeches. It’s a time-consuming process that takes five or six hours per speech. It wasn’t scalable and I frequently had to turn clients away because I didn’t have the bandwidth. Sometimes I said yes anyway. Just hours after giving birth, I sat in the hospital bed trying to finish drafting one.

I decided to team up with a developer who helped me build an AI maid of honor speech writing tool. He took over 200 speeches I’d composed and programmed the tool to replicate the writing style, format, and structure I used.

This allowed me to offer my service at a lower price point ($35 instead of $397) and scale it to work with an unlimited number of customers. In the past year, we’ve expanded to different types of wedding speeches and vows, and even created a similar tool for eulogies. 

These tools bring in an average of $5,380 a month. I usually spend around five hours a week working on marketing, writing SEO-related blog posts, and designing or filming social media content related to these tools. 

One of my first sources of passive income was an online course I launched in 2017. The idea came from a popular request I got from people wanting to start a wedding side hustle like mine. It took me a few weeks to write, film videos, and create the assignments.

I’ve since launched over a dozen courses, including one on public speaking and another on personal branding. They’re available on my website and I often promote them via social media and newsletters. I spend two to three hours a month updating my courses and creating content to market them. 

I also have three books and a newlywed card game. And early last year, I started monetizing my weekly newsletter. I offer a paid subscriber tier that comes with added benefits, like access to newsletter archives, surprise gifts in the mail, and free copies of my books. This takes only an additional hour of time a month to manage.

All together, these digital and physical products generate about $380 a month. 

These passive income streams allow my business to stay afloat and give me time to focus on the projects I’m most excited about, like new products and a podcast. 

Most of all, I don’t regret working less so I can spend more time with my toddler.

Jen Glantz is the founder of Bridesmaid for Hire, the author of ”Finally the Bride: Finding Love after Walking down Everyone Else’s Aisle,” and the creator of The Pick-Me-Up newsletter. Follow her adventures on Instagram @jenglantz.

Want to earn some extra money on the side? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Start a Side Hustle to learn tips to get started and strategies for success from top side hustle experts. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through April 1, 2025.

A new report from Redfin reveals the most in-demand neighborhoods across the United States.

Redfin ranked U.S. ZIP codes in the 150 most populous metro areas using year-over-year growth in listing views on Redfin.com and a Redfin Compete Score — a measure of how hard it is to win a home in a specific area. The area is then rated on a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 is the most competitive.

Five of the hottest neighborhoods of 2025 are Midwest suburbs.

“People are seeking out neighborhoods that have access to city amenities through transit or nearby job opportunities, but they also want that suburban, small town charm,” Daryl Fairweather, Redfin Chief Economist, tells CNBC Make It.

“The South has been the desirable place in previous years because it’s more affordable on the coast, but insurance costs and property taxes have gone up. The Midwest, however, has stable insurance costs, stable property taxes and a stable housing market.”

The report used 2025 data from January 1 to February 28, with year-over-year data compared against the same timeframe in 2024. To rank on Redfin’s final list, a ZIP code had to have over 50 home sales and a Redfin Compete Score above 50. The ZIP codes on the list may include more than one neighborhood, town or village, and the report uses the neighborhood names that represent the area covered.

In each of the top 10 hottest neighborhoods, homes are selling quicker now than they did a year ago. Six of the 10 have a lack homes for sale and saw a drop in active listings from a year ago.

“It reflects strong demand. When there are more buyers, and there are sellers, homes sell quicker,” Fairweather says.

ZIP code: 11238

Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights-Clinton Hill area ranked number one, with a 105% spike in home sales from a year ago.

The median sale in the neighborhood is $1,397,000, which is up 3.9% year over year, according to Redfin.

“Prospect Heights being No. 1 speaks to how desirable it now is to be in proximity to a strong labor market like in New York, but it’s still Brooklyn,” Fairweather says. “It’s a bit more suburban than Manhattan. I think people are looking for that balance of having job opportunities, especially with return to the office, but still wanting more space.”

Prospect Heights and Clinton Hill offer a small-town charm in the middle of central Brooklyn, with a mix of new buildings and gorgeous old brownstones.

The area is home to the Brooklyn Museum and just a short walk to Prospect Park, the second-largest park in Brooklyn.

1. Prospect Heights and Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y.
2. Jenison, Mich.
3. Campton Hills and St. Charles, Ill.
4. Fairport, N.Y.
5. Polk Gulch and Russian Hill, Calif.
6. Great Kills, Staten Island, N.Y.
7. Franklin, Wis.
8. Prairie Village and Mission Hills, Kan.
9. Lakeville, Minn.
10. Bowie, Md.

Jenison, Michigan — ZIP code 49428 — is the the second-hottest U.S. neighborhood. The median sale price in the area was $356,500, which was down 0.2% year over year.

Fairweather says Jenison ranked No. 2 because of its affordability.

“The Midwest, in general, has been stronger this year because it is one of the few parts of the country that remains affordable,” she says. “Even given these high mortgage rates, a middle-class family can afford home ownership.”

Jenison, Michigan, is a suburb of Grand Rapids. It is less than 15 minutes from the city’s downtown and less than 30 minutes away from Lake Michigan.

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Spring is here and with it opportunities to make some extra cash.

Among the most in-demand side hustles on freelancer marketplace Taskrabbit right now are general furniture assembly, which pays an average of $41 per hour, TV mounting, which pays an average of $52 per hour and moving help, which pays an average of $47 per hour, according to the site.

But there are other, more season-specific ways to make money as well. Here are a few hustles experts recommend considering.

“Spring cleaning is so popular,” says Jen Glantz, founder of Bridesmaid for Hire and the creator of the Monday Pick-Me-Up and Odd Jobs newsletter. She adds that “anything to do with cleaning” could be lucrative, including the following three options:

• House cleaning, where people charge as much as $60 per hour on sites like Taskrabbit

• Home organizing, where experts who help create order in messy rooms charge as much as $150 per hour on Thumbtack

• Power washing, where cleaners use pressure washing machines to clean people’s home exteriors, decks, driveways and so on, and charge as much as $98 per hour on Taskrabbit

Both home cleaning and power washing include some upfront costs for equipment. Electric pressure washers sell for anywhere from $100 to $700 at Home Depot, for example. Cleaning supplies can include a vacuum, a mop, a bucket and various disinfecting products. Depending on where you and your clients live, you might also need a car. Do some research to see what people in your area are charging to make sure your price fits and can recoup your upfront costs.

You can post your services on marketplaces like Taskrabbit or Thumbtack, as well as “any type of local community marketplace, whether it’s local Facebook groups or the Nextdoor platform,” says Glantz.

You can also create flyers and post them on community bulletin boards or “create simple business cards on something like Canva and leave them in neighbors’ mailboxes, on their porch or door handle,” says side hustle expert Daniella Flores.

With the weather warming up, people will be spending more time outside, whether it’s for small gatherings or for big events. And those with outdoor spaces could benefit.

“If you have a beautiful outdoor space available,” says Flores, “such as a large backyard with a gazebo or anything aesthetically pleasing for the spring season, you can list your space on Giggster” for people to rent, they say. You can also try sites like Peerspace or Swimply.

One Los Angeles backyard is going for $50 per hour on Giggster, as is an Austin, Texas, backyard pool on Swimply. Note that both sites charge a fee to renters.

Do you want a new career that’s higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Expert instructors will teach you strategies to network successfully, revamp your resume and confidently transition into your dream career. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes and fees) through May 13, 2025.

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Tax Day is tomorrow. And if you’ve waited until the last second to file, don’t worry — the Internal Revenue Service isn’t going to scold you.

In fact, IRS is willing to give you an extension on your federal taxes. Well, kind of.

“The critical thing that people need to keep in mind is that filing for an extension doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay,” says Ed deHaan, an accounting professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “It just means that you’re going to avoid the hefty fees that pile up if you don’t file.”

Here’s what you need to know about tax extensions.

For the majority of Americans who have relatively straightforward tax situations, it probably makes sense to buckle down and get things done by midnight on April 15, deHaan says. But some people may need more time.

“Extensions are for two broad groups of people,” says deHaan: Those who had major life events that took precedence over working on taxes and people who are part of complicated investments or partnerships, which often haven’t distributed tax docs in time for Tax Day.

“Those entities have to produce their taxes so you can produce your taxes,” he says.

No matter which camp you fall into, the IRS will extend your deadline if you ask. The most common way to request an extension is by filing Form 4868, either electronically or by mail, before the April 15 deadline. The other way to get an extension it to make a payment on federal tax you owe using the IRS’ “Make a payment” page.

By requesting an extension, you give yourself a new deadline of Oct. 15 and also avoid the penalty for failing to file your return on time, which is 5% of any unpaid taxes for each month that a tax return is late, up to 25% of your unpaid balance.

As deHaan points out, though, an extension to file is not an extension to pay. Even if you buy yourself more time to get your paperwork done, the IRS wants your money up front. Failure to pay comes with a 0.5% penalty for each month, which can increase to 1% if the agency sends you a notice of intent to levy property.

If you’re the type of person who typically gets a big refund every year, this shouldn’t be a major worry. But if you owe, it you’ll have some work to do calculating what you owe, deHaan says: “To some extent, you end up doing much of your taxes anyway.”

If you do get an extension and have avoided penalties, the good news is, you now have time to collect your documents and possibly hire a tax pro to help — a task that is nigh impossible at this late hour in the tax filing season.

But don’t put your taxes on the back burner, says deHaan.

“A mistake that people make with the extensions is they then sort of mentally think, ‘Well, now I’ve got six months,’ and then they find themselves beginning of October, realizing, ‘Oh, I need to file now,”’ he says.

Accountants are plenty busy dealing with other extended returns in October, deHaan says, and by waiting, you could once again put yourself behind the 8-ball.

“My advice to people is, if you do extend, don’t check it out of your mind,” he says. “Have a plan in place for when you’re going to get the taxes done.”

Do you want a new career that’s higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Expert instructors will teach you strategies to network successfully, revamp your resume and confidently transition into your dream career. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes and fees) through May 13, 2025.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.