MBA1205 Q&A Wednesday: How long should I be side hustling?

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Hey O welcome to the Hundred Dollar the RMBA show. Your daily business workout every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and today's episode is a Q and a Wednesday episode. On our Q and A Wednesday episodes I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you have a question you want to ask just email me over@omarr.net Today's question is from Lisa and Lisa asks how long should I be side hustling? I've been building my business on the side with my full time job for about a year now. When do I make that leap to full time entrepreneurship? How do I know it's time? Great question Lisa. It's a very very common question a lot of entrepreneurs have as they're getting started. It's a question I personally had to answer myself. So in today's list I'm going to give you some solid advice on this topic. When to know to make that leap from being a part time entrepreneur, doing it on the side while you're in your full time job to making that full time leap. I'll be sharing some different scenarios because everybody's situation is different. And I hope in doing that, my answer caters to everybody who is listening. I know for many of you that are side hustling, it can get frustrating. It's like I want this thing to be my full time thing already, but I have a few things you need to look out for. You don't want to procrastinate, but you don't want to jump the gun either. Let's figure out when is the best time to quit the side hustle and make it your full time thing. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I want to start by saying that many of the big successful businesses we admire like Mailchimp and ConvertKit, they all started out as side hustles, side projects. They did for years actually. So just because your business is a side hustle now, it doesn't mean it can be successful in the future. Now I also want to begin by saying something I think is critically important for most of us. We're side hustling because we are working in a full time job and use our spare time to build the side business. That full time job is sustaining us. It's paying the bills, it's giving us some financial comfort. And leaving that behind is not an easy task. It's not an easy thing. And actually I do not recommend you put yourself in a difficult financial situation to pursue your dreams. I know a lot of people may advise the opposite, say hey, just go for it and you'll figure it out. No. The reason why I say no is because when you are in that situation where money is tight and it's stressful, you start to become desperate and you start to make poor decisions. They say that desperate people do desperate things and those desperate things are bad for your business. You want to make sure you're operating from a stance of strength always. So there's nothing wrong with building your business on the side because your job allows you to have, you know, that comfortable lifestyle to pay your bills. Now you might be saying, well then when do I make that transition? How do I do that? At some point I gotta leave my job and build my business full time. Well, you definitely need an exit strategy. You can't just say tomorrow I'm leaving my job. That's it. Ideally, it would be nice to have a year saved up, a year of your salary saved up in your savings account so you can pay yourself for the first year as you're working on your business full time until you're profitable and hopefully you can pay yourself through the business's profits. Now maybe that sounds really ambitious because, hey, money's tight and you don't have much money left over at the end of the month. And I totally get that and I've been there and my best advice is to lower your expenses and do that now. So even if you can save, you know, 1000 or 1500amonth, that's going to add up. And by the end of the year, with your lowered expenses, you'll have about six months of Runway. It's just not going to happen by itself. You have to plan for it. You got to make sure that you do something different to have that money on the side to pay yourself when you're not working in your job. Another option to know when it's time to leave your side hustle is when your side hustle is making close to how much money you're making at your job. That's a great sign. That means you can leave your job and you'll be okay, especially again if you lower your expenses. And in fact, I don't recommend you leave your job or take your side hustle and turn it into your full time thing until you're making some sort of profit. In my opinion, if you're not making 5k in profit, $5,000 a month in profit, then this business is not proven yet. You can't even pay your own personal bills with the profits of the business. There's no real reason for you to go full time on it. Now I want to acknowledge the fact that it can be frustrating with limited hours to grow your business. Like my business can't go beyond a certain point because I'm not putting enough time. I encourage you to be a little bit patient. Maybe you can only put 10 to 15 to 20 hours a week on your side hustle. And if you had 40 hours a week, you might be thinking, wow, this business could take off in a year. So if you're working 20 hours, that means it's going to take off in two years. And that's fine. Just be patient. It is fine to do that because then you're operating from again, a position of strength. You're not putting yourself at risk of going into debt, are not paying your bills. Listen here. On this podcast, we deal with reality. That's the reality. You need to make sure you pay your bills and you don't want to let go of one branch, like your job to grab on a mystical branch, a branch you're not sure that is actually secure like your business. You got to have A proven model where you're making money. Like I said 5k a month so you can at least pay your own expenses to keep the business running. And one big piece of advice I want to say is you could side hustle for as long as you want. There's no reason, there's no rule that says you have to stop side hustling at some point and go full time. You could side hustle for the rest of your life. Some people love their careers but just are looking for some side income. They like to have, you know, a toe in the water. Like to dip their toe into the waters of business but still enjoy their 9 to 5. That's a totally doable option, especially with an online business. I know I did that for 10 years. For a decade I built businesses on the side, I ran businesses, made money while I had a full time job where I worked 40 to 60 hours a week. And I transitioned out of my job and into full time entrepreneurship because it was just time for me to let go of that career and give 100% effort on business, which I enjoyed more and I planned for it and I had, you know, a Runway and I lowered my expenses and it was still hard. But I side hustled for 10 years so there is no time limit. There's no hard and fast rule. It's up to you and your lifestyle and what you want to do. But make sure you do it from a strong financial position.

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So to answer Lisa's Q and A Wednesday's question today, how long should I be side Hustling. The answer is two things. As long as you want to and as long as you have to. If you want a clear and fast rule in your head, if you want to. If you want to do your business full time, then let it be revenue. As soon as you're making enough money to pay your bills with the profits of your business, after you've done paid all the expenses of the business, that's a good time to transition out. And it's also showing that, hey, this business has legs. People actually want what I'm selling. Now, the key here is you don't spend that money that you're making from the business. A lot of us, what we do, we're making our salary from our job. And then as we're making more money with our business, we just keep spending more instead of saving that money on the side, saving that profit from the business. Be careful of that. That's why I recommend having a separate business bank account for your business. Let the profits sit there and don't let any of your bills or expenses or credit cards deduct from that account. All right, that wraps up today's Q and A Wednesday. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you have a question you want to ask here on Q and A Wednesday, just email me over at omar@100mba.net and I'll add it to our queue and answer it right here on the show. If you love this show, hit subscribe so you don't miss a beat by hitting subscribe. You get our episodes automatically right on your device so it's ready for you when you're ready to listen. It doesn't matter if you're using Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Castbox. We're on everything. Hit that subscribe button and you're good to go. All right, before I go, I want to leave you with this. Business is hard as it is. You don't want to add extra pressure on yourself. You don't want to add extra pressure of finances. You're going to have your own challenges in business, struggles, mistakes. You don't want to compound it with not being able to pay your mortgage. So make sure again, you get out of your side hustle only when you're comfortable financially to do so and that you can pay your bills with the profits of the business. And again, it's a good way to prove if the business has likes. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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