4 Things I Learned While Starting a Side Hustle
…and still learning more as time goes by.
Starting a side hustle isn’t easy. Right now, it is sort of this glorified thing that currently goes around the internet and that you find on motivational Instagram pages. It almost seems like you’re doing something wrong if you don’t have a side hustle. I don’t buy into that. Some people make lots of money in their day jobs, to have the freedom to switch off once they get home — and rightly so. Others, however, are maybe more inclined to build something on the side, because they don’t like what they do during the day. There are also people who like multiple things and want to pursue all of those things simultaneously. Whichever way you look at it, if you decide to create a side business, it has to be something you are passionate about and don’t mind sacrificing your free time for. For me, this is Airbnb hosting. I grew up in a family of real estate developers and hotel managers, so doing something in the hospitality and tourism industry comes most naturally to me. With this post, I’m not planning to do a deep dive into what I do, but more about what I learned during the process of building up a side business. If you’re specifically interested in the Airbnb side of things, I have a publication on Medium called The Hosts’ Corner — feel free to check it out.
The lessons I’m going to share are universal and can pretty much be applied to any type of situation, business, or person — so if you’re reading this, I hope you can get a little bit of value out of it, no matter what field you’re interested to go into. So let’s get into it, shall we?
Don’t start neglecting your day job.
This is something that I started noticing in myself. Your day job is your main source of income. It’s the paycheck at the end of the month that gives you the time and resources to pursue your side hustle in the first place. You should therefore always prioritize your day job. Putting yourself at risk of getting fired due to poor performance is not the logical way to do things. As ambitious and motivated as you might be, there’s no guarantee that your side hustle will work out, so make sure to be calculated with your risks and be sensible with how you prioritize your time. Getting fired and ending up with no income is not the way and won’t help you achieve your goals. In order to avoid neglecting your day job, you have to be very conscious of how you spend your time. Create a daily schedule for yourself to make sure you spend the 14–16 hours per day in which you are awake wisely.
Look at things how they are instead of how you want them to be.
When we want something really badly, we almost already create certain scenarios in our heads of having already achieved the thing we want to achieve. This phenomenon is called the Progress Paradox. This is when we, as humans, visualize a certain thing over and over again until we trick our brain that we are actually on track to achieving this goal, even though we have not taken any actionable steps to achieve it. Idealizing something and ignoring the possible challenges or red flags is therefore not the way to go. Even though we might want something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we will get it. It sounds a bit demotivating but you should give yourself boundaries, both timely and financially, and call it quits once you’ve crossed those boundaries. Getting too deep into something that might not work out will only increase your pain down the line as you keep putting more time and money into something that you could have abandoned a long time ago. Those same resources could have been used for the next possible business idea you have.
Whatever it is that you decide to do, be well versed in the subject.
It’s important that you are knowledgeable in the subject matter that you conduct business in. The only way to become knowledgeable is to have a genuine interest in it. Therefore, choose something that you don’t mind spending your free time on. The more you know, the less likely you are to make mistakes and uninformed decisions. It’s also easier to identify ways of how you can make money. Therefore, if you are unsure of what you can pursue at a side hustle just think about how you spend your time and what interests you. Do you watch a lot of YouTube videos about a certain subject? Are there any books you are particularly interested in? What do they talk about? Write down a bunch of questions such as those above, and help yourself to narrow down your interests and which of those interests have the potential to make into a business.
Share your idea with family and friends
A lot of people are scared of sharing their business ideas because they think someone might run away with it and create the next big thing. This fear is completely irrational and will honestly get you nowhere. When you have a good idea, share it with as many people as possible and collect their thoughts and feedback. That way it’s not just you who creates a certain image in your head, but by bouncing your idea off of other people, you might gain perspectives that you might not have stumbled upon if you would have kept it to yourself. Sharing your idea will also open opportunities for collaboration, and as we all know, becoming successful is easier when you have help than when you take on the world alone. Getting feedback and refining your idea through discussions is a good way to assess the viability of your business idea and will also help you develop it.
Conclusion
Side hustles are becoming more common, especially amongst millennials. If there’s an interest that you want to pursue and think you can make money with it, I say go for it. Just remember to manage your time really well, don’t get too romantic about your idea to the point where you might run yourself into the ground, make sure you have an avid interest in the subject matter, and make sure you share your idea with as many people as possible to gain as much constructive feedback as possible.
