I caught up with a friend this weekend. As always he is busy with a side business. He is in the trades and does small jobs on the side that are losely in the same nitche. Between contacts from a family business, working and just sorta being his hustling self the guy drums up plenty of business. Enough so that he can pass the couple hundred dollar jobs onto another buddy.
Thoughts: Some jobs are a lot more condusive to side gigs than others. For a variety of reasons the trades are probably best here followed by professions like law or accounting. A manager at a grocery store or a supervisor at a box company or an executive are good jobs to have but it is kind of hard to get a little something going on the side. My gig in the Army and the skill sets I have developed unfortunately fall into the second category. For those at a place in life where they haven't chosen a path yet or need to find another one this is something to consider.
From the successes and failures I have seen it is essential to go into areas with negligible start up costs. Maybe you need to pick up a couple new tools, print some business cards and place an ad for a few hundred bucks, not a big deal. On the other hand renting and setting up a storefront, purchasing equipment, etc before a business has proven itself is risky and not smart. You can fail pretty often if it costs $300 but if it costs $3,000 let alone 30,000 or more that is not an option. Since small businesses fail at a crazy high rate this is worth considering.
Once a business gets going and you start making some cash then putting some money into it is reasonable. Buying a new piece of equipment that will let you do more jobs, going from a normal personal type BBQ to a big custom job on a trailer that will let you feed more people and thus do bigger events or whatever. My anecdotal observation is that the risk of failure in expanding a already profitable business is far lower than getting one started in the first place.
I would be really uncomfortable relying on a new venture to put a roof over out heads, food in the pantry and gas in the car. In other words keep doing whatever thing(s) you are doing now and add the new one. I realize this lack of adventuresome nature will probably mean I will never be wealthy but I will probably also never be broke trying to wrestle a living out of a business that won't get going. Once something takes off you can phase out a less optimal (fun, $ for effort or whatever) thing that you have been doing.
If you only put in a little bit of money and keep doing whatever is already paying the bills all that is really risked is time and effort. The folks who I have seen fail and have it harm them often borrowed heavily (a relative term) and or needed it to start paying out immediately.
Personally I am at a stand still when it comes to developing multiple streams of income. My job is pretty totalitarian in nature and leads me to desire more anonymity than I otherwise would. That kills most of the directions I might go into. All things considered I am pretty OK with this. We hit the live cheap side of the equation pretty hard which helps. Any energy I put in this direction is mostly about setting conditions for the future. It is still pretty interesting to observe what does and doesn't work.
Thoughts: Some jobs are a lot more condusive to side gigs than others. For a variety of reasons the trades are probably best here followed by professions like law or accounting. A manager at a grocery store or a supervisor at a box company or an executive are good jobs to have but it is kind of hard to get a little something going on the side. My gig in the Army and the skill sets I have developed unfortunately fall into the second category. For those at a place in life where they haven't chosen a path yet or need to find another one this is something to consider.
From the successes and failures I have seen it is essential to go into areas with negligible start up costs. Maybe you need to pick up a couple new tools, print some business cards and place an ad for a few hundred bucks, not a big deal. On the other hand renting and setting up a storefront, purchasing equipment, etc before a business has proven itself is risky and not smart. You can fail pretty often if it costs $300 but if it costs $3,000 let alone 30,000 or more that is not an option. Since small businesses fail at a crazy high rate this is worth considering.
Once a business gets going and you start making some cash then putting some money into it is reasonable. Buying a new piece of equipment that will let you do more jobs, going from a normal personal type BBQ to a big custom job on a trailer that will let you feed more people and thus do bigger events or whatever. My anecdotal observation is that the risk of failure in expanding a already profitable business is far lower than getting one started in the first place.
I would be really uncomfortable relying on a new venture to put a roof over out heads, food in the pantry and gas in the car. In other words keep doing whatever thing(s) you are doing now and add the new one. I realize this lack of adventuresome nature will probably mean I will never be wealthy but I will probably also never be broke trying to wrestle a living out of a business that won't get going. Once something takes off you can phase out a less optimal (fun, $ for effort or whatever) thing that you have been doing.
If you only put in a little bit of money and keep doing whatever is already paying the bills all that is really risked is time and effort. The folks who I have seen fail and have it harm them often borrowed heavily (a relative term) and or needed it to start paying out immediately.
Personally I am at a stand still when it comes to developing multiple streams of income. My job is pretty totalitarian in nature and leads me to desire more anonymity than I otherwise would. That kills most of the directions I might go into. All things considered I am pretty OK with this. We hit the live cheap side of the equation pretty hard which helps. Any energy I put in this direction is mostly about setting conditions for the future. It is still pretty interesting to observe what does and doesn't work.
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