The Dark Side of Starting an Online Business Nobody Talks About

But let's talk about the nasty underbelly of full time work, side hustles and entrepreneurship. I never thought y' all will want this video so badly, but you asked and I answered the call of the disco ball. I'll walk you through the pros and cons of purely working 9 to 5 having a side hustle while working full time and going into full time entrepreneurship and business ownership. I have done all three and can honestly say all three have big pluses and and big drawbacks and depending on your personality, your career and the life you want to live. This is not a one size fits all answer. So I'm going to give you the unfiltered, the nitty gritty, the blood, sweat and tears that I have put into my career and my business so that you can come out knowing exactly what is best for you and make those life altering choices no matter which way you're leaning of which way you want your career to go. I really emphasize that you should listen to all three aspects that I go over because I think there's going to be a lot that may surprise you. And do note that this is one turkey's experience. Your mileage may vary, so I encourage you to leave your own experiences in the comments so we can get a more well rounded perspective. If you're new here, this is self made Millennial. I'm Madeline Mann. I am a human resources leader and job search strategist. You may have seen me in these places New videos on Thursdays. First off, let's start with when I only worked at a full time job so I had no side hustle, no business. Yet. One thing about my career that is pretty rare is once I found human resources was the right career path for me, I loved each full time job I obtained. Of course I had crappy jobs before then, but I realized my life was way too short to spend my waking hours in a career that I wasn't stoked about. So I went through a deep process of determining my career path. I soul searched before I job searched so that I knew that my career would be this constant upward trajectory where I was passionate and energized by the work. Instead of going from job to job, being fine at the work but never really enjoying it that much and just accepting that that was my reality. No no no. So I had incredible jobs in human resources and I will link the video where I describe how I was able to find the perfect career for me and I'll also link a free masterclass to help you below. What were the pros and cons of working for someone else. Let's start with the pros. I was able to get into my zone of genius every day and have so many resources at my disposal of other team members and company budgets to make the initiatives I wanted to execute come true. And I had a knack for interviewing companies just as much as they would interview me. So I chose roles based on the duties and how much those play to my strengths and interests. And I chose great managers who would help me learn so much faster. And you know what? I really think people who emphasize you should be your own boss are people who have never had a great boss. Being your own boss is a ton of work and comes with a lot of bs. A manager's job should be to shield you from the BS and find ways to make sure you reach your highest potential. And so if you have a manager like that, you'll see your career skyrocket so much faster. And that's what I experienced. I had highly knowledgeable bosses who also allowed me a lot of room to make decisions on my own and thrive. So overall I found working for someone else to be absolutely blissful A lot of the time. I didn't choose companies that had much politics, so I was doing great work that played my strengths. And if there were politics, often my boss handled that so I could focus on being the best at what I do. And there's something so incredibly liberating knowing that yes, you've got that paycheck coming every two weeks. And if I ever wanted to pick up and leave one day, if things were just getting to be too much, I was over it. I could just give my two weeks notice and do whatever the heck I wanted. Just cut it run baby. Your problem now and the flexibility and the lack of things you need to worry about when you work from someone else is something that I think a lot of people take for granted. And I will talk more about what I mean by this when I talk about being a business owner. And it's funny because my career has been focused on partnering with CEOs to help them build their hiring and people strategy. Working so close with so many founders, it made me never want to be a founder. These entrepreneurs would always work more hours than the employees were consistently stressed out about headcount and raising more venture capital to ensure the business could see another day. And we're balancing so many dynamics between all the major enterprise deals and product strategy and appeasing the board of directors and executive mishires. I mean, it's so much and I'm dizzy just talking about it. Just like looking at how much presidents age in a four year term. I saw that in these entrepreneurs over four years as well. But of course, spoiler alert, I also became an entrepreneur. So what's wrong with me? Do I regret it deeply like my fashion choices from the early 2000s? Well, stay tuned. Now let's talk about the cons of working for someone else. If you're working at a crappy job with a crappy employer, of course you're not going to like it. So if that's the case, you need to change your situation immediately. You may have had unfortunate jobs in your past, but you are not going to make that mistake again, my friend. Our time on this earth is too short and too precious. I'm an example of someone who was able to find a career that she loved with managers who were fabulous and that work was meaningful. I will link a free five day masterclass called upgrade your career which will help you to do exactly that. Okay, so get on the wait list if that class is not currently open. Now, I would say the biggest downside for working for someone else is is typically that you have a cap on your compensation. Your ability to make $10,000 more a year often has to do with a negotiation and or having to follow a certain process within a company with approvals and hoops you got to jump through. When you have a business or other ways of making money, you're in control. You can work extra hard that month and make that extra 10k. So typically your earning potential is capped with an employer. Now that's not so bad if you've got a great size salary, great bonus that allow you to live the lifestyle you want. The second con is that you are signing over your time to a company. They are essentially buying 40 hours of your week. This means if you wanted to work fewer hours, you would likely need to find a different way or forfeit some compensation or whatnot. You're trading hours for dollars essentially. And with time being so precious, I can understand why that would be a huge reason to not be employed by someone else. Finally, I see the last con is not having full strategic, creative and lifestyle freedom. It's a tough one to solve because on one hand you have the ultimate freedom to be able to walk away from this full time opportunity at any moment, which is not something you have the luxury of doing when you're running a business. But there are limitations when you work for someone else as to the way that you can design your life and if you're designing your life, intentionally working for yourself can lead to more freedom. Now let's talk about working a full time job while also having a side hustle. A side hustle, by my own definition, is a way that you're making money on the side of your full time job. There are millions of different side hustles you could do. It could be land flipping jewelry, selling dressing, is Olaf for children's parties. Whatever it is, for me, it was career coaching. How did my side hustle begin? Well, I was working an amazing job that I couldn't stop talking about. Of all the fascinating dynamics I was seeing every single day working in human resources, I was the one who was reading thousands of resumes, hearing feedback after every interview from the interviewers about what went right and what went wrong, being in the back room with executives, seeing exactly the strategy, how it was built, who was getting promoted, all of those things. And I saw very specific patterns of what made people successful in their careers versus not. And I had so much fun thinking about these things. But it also killed me inside because I was exposed every day to job seekers where if they only knew how to better conduct themselves in the job search process, they could get any job they wanted. So because I chose the perfect career for me, and because I had so much energy after work from loving my work, I started putting out these YouTube videos to help people. And that's how I started my YouTube channel, Self Made Millennial. Now, earlier I did define side hustle as something you make money from on the side. But full disclosure, I did not make money. Any money. If anything, the YouTube channel was losing me money with all the equipment I had to buy, the courses I bought to learn it, the coaching I endured, the assistant I hired to help me with all the admin hullablue for two years I did it and I didn't make any money off of it. It was purely a hobby that was done out of the joy of helping people and sharing about a career that I felt so passionate about. Of course, there's something magical about authentically loving what you do and giving freely because people take notice resonates. And very quickly, I started receiving thousands of success stories from people who'd watched my YouTube videos and it had changed their lives. They had landed incredible jobs and were getting paid more than they could have ever imagined. This built up a massive demand for my coaching services and more premium products that led to even more transformational results. So I wrote my first ebook called Fill in the Blank Job Essential Email Templates for the job search and it was a huge success. It's a book full of emails you need to send to land everything from an interview to a job offer. And immediately after releasing that book, even bigger and bolder success stories avalanched in. So I will link that book below as it continues to be a fan favorite. And then I came out with two digital courses. One revealed my scientific approach to attracting opportunities on LinkedIn, helping you to completely blow up on the platform. And the second one was a resume formula that was proven to dramatically increase the number of interviews that people got. And again, if you're interested in either of those, I will link free previews below so you can watch those So I had these three digital products and that was how I was finally recouping all of the lost money from my side hustle. So let's talk about the pros and cons of having a side hustle while you're working a 9 to 5 job. First, the pros. When I had a side hustle, I actually became a better employee. What happened was since I had this creative outlet that was completely mine and was impacting thousands and even millions of people, I put less pressure on my full time job to have it give me everything. For example, since I got so much fulfillment from my YouTube channel, I didn't stress so much about needing to be recognized at work all the time, or to get the top projects or to be competitive among my coworkers. I didn't complain about the work I was doing or the scope or the autonomy because even if the work wasn't particularly exciting during that season, I had an outlet to make up for that. Do you see what I'm saying? Do you have one of those friends where their job is their life and when things tip one way or another it completely impacts their mood? Well, once I had a side hustle, I put less of my identity in my job and was much more willing to go with the flow. This made me a focused worker, content even tempered and consistently motivated. The next pro is the creative freedom and that is the ability to build your own personal brand, which is something you can take with you no matter what happens to your job. It is a safety net for you, which takes us to the next pro, which is a side hustle allows you to make money outside of your job. I designed my side hustle where I could do things asynchronously, such as after I created the ebook, which, you know, did take me a lot of time up front, I was then able to help people using the ebook. But I was not trading my time for money at that point. This is a great approach to a side hustle because your hours are limited that you can work on it. I would typically wake up at about 6 in the morning and work on my side hustle from 6 to 8:30am Then I would leave for work. Then I would get home from work at around 6 and then from about 8 to 10pm I'd again work on my side hustle and then I would work quite a few hours on the weekend on my side hustle as well. So I so to say that I worked a lot is certainly a fair statement. But the good news was I loved my full time job and I loved my side hustle. Both gave me energy. So while it may seem a bit sad that I was working so much and in some ways, yeah, that is kind of sad, it was also invigorating because both were so rewarding and I was seeing results both in consistently getting promoted in my career and constantly hitting new milestones in my business. The final pro is building new skills. I learned a lot of marketing skills, social media, graphic design, video editing, and how to start an online business. Between what I was learning in my full time job and what I was learning in my side hustle, my brain was exploding with new insights. I've never learned so much in such a short amount of time because the best way to learn something is by doing it. So if you want to learn something new, then dive into a side hustle. The cons of a side hustle. You heard me talk about how much time I would dedicate to my side hustle. I was working so many hours on top of my full time hours. Full disclosure, it really did feel like way too much at a certain point. I remember finally outsourcing video editing because I was spending over 10 hours editing each video. But that was really difficult decision because I wasn't making much money from the side hustle so it felt like I was working from a deficit. Of course that deficit did not last because I pushed through the early times, the difficult times with getting a business up and running and I did see tremendous success ultimately. But I always have to emphasize how I started from zero and there were moments when I considered giving up. I was really exhausted and I remember my YouTube channel barely growing at all and people were kind of consistently commenting saying I'm surprised your channel isn't bigger based on the quality of your information. There were several times I was just going to quit everything altogether because the road to success was slow and treacherous and people Online are dang cruel, okay? And they want to tear you down. And at a certain point I was wondering if that torment was even worth it. People often asked me whether the companies I worked for were okay with me having a side hustle. This is an interesting question. Me having a side hustle hustle only launched my career farther into the stratosphere. The employer I worked for when I started my YouTube channel was thrilled that I was building a name for myself and at the same time they liked that by me putting myself out there, the company was also getting attention. Then I started getting a lot of job offers from literal CEOs of incredible companies flying me out to their businesses because they had seen my videos and wanted me to head up their HR departments. This happened to me three different times. I do know that depending on your side hustle and depending on the company, the company could be a bit upset by your side hustle. For example, I have friends who were career coaches while working at major tech companies and because those companies are so high profile, they ask these people to stop their career coaching businesses because they didn't want there to be some sort of unfairness where in their hiring process the people who got through were the ones who hired employees from that company to help coach them. I can understand how this would get sticky quickly, so it really depends on your situation. The final con I'll bring up is I find a lot of people first ask the question what should my side hustle be versus should blank be my side hustle? The difference between those two questions is if you're chasing a side hustle, I hope you don't choose it for the wrong reasons. Such as if I wasn't that into building a job search YouTube channel, I would have never gotten through through those two years of grinding. In order for the business to be a massive success, you need that passion and drive and genuine interest in your side hustle in order to dedicate the appropriate energy outside of work and stick with it until it is what you consider successful. So do side hustles that truly echo your strengths and curiosities instead of a side hustle that you read from a blog list of top side hustles and you don't really have a strong why for doing it. Now let's talk about becoming an entrepreneur or business owner or as they like to say, working for yourself or being your own boss. Like I said before, I was in an amazing career where I was able to focus on what I did best and I was working alongside founders who were constantly stressed out and on the verge of a breakdown by the weight of the work they had to do and how they had to lead. And it was February of 2021 and I remember I was on the phone with someone in my professional network and they asked me when I plan to leave my full time job and do my career coaching business full time. I told them I had no interest in leaving my full time job and that it was my dream career. Everything with my business on the side was meant to be on the side. One month later, In March of 2021, I sat down and worked out my financials for Q1 of my business. I had hit hockey stick growth. Of course this sounds like overnight success, but to me, the person in the driver's seat, it all felt so gradual and like something I've been working so hard towards for so long. That week I submitted my resignation. It wasn't even just about the money. I realized that I was getting thousands of success stories a year and my influence and my impact on the world was much greater if I put all of my energy towards the business. And again, that's something to take with you. I'm not saying that my way was right, but by not focusing on money and instead focusing on touching lives and creating results, I was able to create an abundant business. Now let's be real about the pros, pros and the cons of entrepreneurship. The pros, as I mentioned, include the fact that you are not limited by the amount of money you can make. The only limit is your abilities as a business owner. I started getting very used to investing in myself because I recognized that the weight of the entire business was on my shoulders and there was plenty of things that I didn't know. Therefore, I invested in joining group coaching programs. The first year I spent about $2,000 on these programs. The next year I spent about $12,000 and then the next year I spent over $70,000. Each time I spent that money, I thought it was an astronomical amount. I thought $2,000 was super high, all the way up to $70,000. I labeled myself as insane, or the technical term is I was off my freaking rocker. But I made each of those investments back bare minimum 10x. That's really cool about entrepreneurship is you start having a place to invest that isn't stocks or cryptocurrency or real estate, but something that you are almost entirely in control of the outcome. You start investing in yourself and then you see the returns of those investments and it's arguably one of the most invigorating things you could ever do. It's life changing. The second pro is being able to control something in its entirety and build a legacy. There's also a major con to this, which I will bring up, but if having a legacy that's all your own is important to you, it is pretty great. To be honest, this isn't something that's as important to me. I also felt like I was doing great work working for someone else and building a legacy there. But it is nice. And finally, the third pro is you can stop trading your time for money. This is this massively backfires for many entrepreneurs because they trade their 40 hour work week working for someone else to an 80 hour work week working for themselves. We talked about being your own boss, but who wants to work for a boss that makes you work 80 hours? But if you design the business right and get past that toddler stage where you're working overtime to get the business finally walking on two legs, you can move from being a solo entrepreneur slash freelancer to a business owner where you own the business and others operate it. And you do have that flexibility in your life to step away and work far fewer hours than you would if you had worked for someone else. Okay, let's get to the cons. Because my friend, there are cons. I have several times wanted to douse my business in gasoline and throw a match on it. Okay? To quote the E Myth revisited, Michael E. Gerber said, if your business depends on you, you don't own a business. You have a job and it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic. And this is true. Running your own business means that you are the CEO, the Chief Everything Officer. It's important that you understand each part of the business, which is mentally exhausting. And sometimes it feels like everything would fall apart if you weren't there to constantly piece things together. You don't get to only play to strengths. There's a lot of nonsense you have to deal with. For example, I've had to spend time writing reports to my payment processor refuting disputes that were unfounded. I've had to oversee customer support requests when our links weren't working. I've had to learn so many technologies to string together a digital business, and alas, they always malfunction. If you're a business owner, you know what I'm talking about. So on any given day, you might find me on customer support call trying to figure out what the heck happened with the technology we just paid for, or on another call with my accountants going over this month's financials. This is all to say be your own boss means your mind is constantly overloaded with everything from the crushing pressure to make sure you're able to pay your employees each month to the mundane stresses of trying to figure out why the dang order form isn't working. Of course the goal is to hire other people to manage these things, which I have done. Hiring great people is really hard to do, and even once you have those great people, you need to take extensive time to train them. I have learned the job of every single one of my employees so that I can train them on it and then should they leave, I can step in. Of course, there are systems and documentation that help with this greatly that I have built, built. But it is a continuous work in progress. It's not something you can snap your fingers and have a perfect running business even if the end result is that you're hands off. There's a lot of work that goes into that. You really need to invest your time up front to ensure that you're working on the business, not in the business by learning these skills, hiring right people, and then building the right processes so that you can step away. A lot of people are nervous to hire when they start their own business. I will say that when you start your own business and you pay people, it literally feels like you're taking money out of your wallet and handing it to people. It feels a lot different emotionally than when you work for someone else. So when you make mishires or employees aren't performing, it really messes with your head. And yes, I am able to step away from work more now and feel more in control now that I have these wonderful employees on my team and the company is very successful and we are not in any sort of danger of anything financially negative. But there is this pressure of always making sure that these investments in people and these resources are multiplying the outcome of the business versus sucking it dry. And when you are a small business, each person who you hire either makes or breaks the business outcomes. This is all to say that when I worked for someone else else, I could actually close my laptop at night and rest peacefully. But as a business owner, I don't feel that way at all. I am consistently thinking of the business, putting my everything into it and striving for excellence with my team. It's very difficult to escape and I've had to undergo a lot of executive coaching and therapy in order to manage the stress and the weight of the situation. Now, now I am very happy to report that I am wonderful now and things are going extremely well, like the best they've ever been. The business is great, my team is amazing and I'm feeling balanced and wonderful. But just note that there has been a lot of sacrifice to get there and a lot of adjustment and a lot of help I've needed from professionals. Being an entrepreneur is not freedom, or at least it's not freedom unless you take the immense time and effort effort to design it that way. That's my warning to you. I love where I am today. It has been the thrill of my life and the impact this far is so beyond anything I've ever imagined I would have in my career. But to think that being a business owner is instantly more blissful than working for someone else is a naive perspective. And this is not a path that is meant for everyone. There have been moments even in the past year where I've asked myself why am I doing this to myself? What if I just left it all behind and lived in a little gnome home in Solvang? But these thoughts are short lived, usually in last for like an hour. And trust me, I am not at risk of disappearing on you my dear friend. I'm getting stronger every day. I feel extremely fortunate to be in the situation I'm in and I absolutely love serving my clients. And if I were to sum it all up up, I'd say find a 9 to 5 job that lights you up. Do not settle for a mediocre career. If your career is mediocre, and that's your entire reason for working for yourself is so you can trade one misery to get another, then make sure the things in your life are instead pulling you towards them like a side hustle that's pulling you because it's so interesting. A business idea that's pulling you because you're already already seeing tangible results from it. Not a life where things are constantly pushing you. A toxic workplace that's pushing you to get out. You're saying I need to get out. An unsatisfying career that's pushing you to quit and try freelancing. Let's do things from sources of motivation and look before you leap. Look before you take that next job. Truly analyze if it's the right next step. Look before you start a business. Is your business business already proven or are you overly optimistic about what it's going to be like? I feel so fortunate that my entire career has been full of thrills and things that truly make me happy. And while my transition from working full time to being a full time business owner was a bit jarring. I'm also living a life that I just have to sometimes pinch myself that I get to help you and reach millions of people and see these, these incredible transformations of my clients. I know I'm meant to do this, and I will continue to do this. And I love being a part of your life. So please feel free to ask me any questions below and I'll do my best to answer them. Maybe even do a follow up video if there's enough questions. So which path do you think is best for you? I'm really interested to hear as well as which part of my story stood out to you most. If you want more content like this this, be sure to like this video and subscribe to this channel. You've got this wifi high five.