Pros/Cons of a Side Hustle
So every once in a while my buddy and I get into this conversation:
"What is better, to direct all of your attention to your full time job, or to spend some of that time/effort on your own side deals."
On the one hand, if you have a good career track, side projects could get in the way or be unnecessary. On the other hand, it's nice to set up some income streams just in case. Heck, even KKR was started as a side venture, so I think the question has merit for lots of situations. I suppose a good question to ask would be, does the side project have the potential to become larger than your opportunities in your full time career.
Fire away...
IMO its good to take some time off of one thing and build on another
i'm waiting for authorization so i can actually have a side venture. it should be nice side income (even if it only generates slim profits, it's still extra $$), not time consuming (at least mine isn't, and i have the right partners), and nice experience being involved in generating cash outside of a paycheck. worst case scenario i lose some (in the long run, insignificant) cash. best case scenario, i have some extra dough to spend on a real venture or to expand the current one.
It depends on what company policy is. I sure and hell wouldnt want to come up with a great idea and then have my company come back and say "well you did this while working for us, so its not yours anymore its ours."
Rick Ross is that you?
Should lay off the twinkies
I'm sure Patrick will be the first to tell you that nothing good ever came out of starting a side project while working FT.
I was being sarcastic. Hint about the story: you're using Patrick's side hustle right meow.
Niglet whatchu know bout that hustle??
Niglet whatchu know bout that hustle??
Good question. I plan on starting some of these side hustles as soon as I conquer this POS gmat.
I attempted a side venture in college while working part time. In the end the venture almost put me on academic probation for a GPA dip. That and I lost about $3k. But, I learned a lot from it and had a cute partner in crime.
It's funny, I think about this topic a lot. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that having a side hustle is the way to go. It can give you tremendous upside and often makes you more well rounded. The other day, I even heard another good argument from Tim Ferris where he said he likes working on 3 - 4 things at once, in order to diversify his emotional investments.
My goal is that by the time my second year in finance is done, my job income is matched by side venture cashflows, yet still live off only the job income. This may seem frugal to some, but the idea of having a years+ worth of reserves gives a feeling of freedom that is priceless.
And what might these side hustles you speak of entail? Lemonade stand? Distressed real estate venture? I'm just curious what kind of business a finance analyst has time to set up and run while working full time.
Been wondering the same thing
Start a little business. It could be anything. At a minimum, you'll learn a lot and have an extra thing to talk about in interviews. Best case scenario, you'll eventually make a shit-ton of money working for yourself.
Trade your own account. Write. Consulting. Poker. Seriously, there's endless possibilities...
I have spent a lot of time pondering this question as well. I have came to the conclusion that your time is best spent initially working on a few promotions. Usually for our fields that means extra time spent studying for designations (CFA, CFP, CPA, etc.) or entrance exames (GMAT) and going to business school. Once you reach mid-level you may not have to spend so much time studying, you will be brining home more money with which you can use on a side project and you may have attained some actual technical knowledge to start a side venture. Obviously the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world this is not the right philosophy but for me I believe it is.
i am a huge fan of side hustle
Fuck all that noise, when i'm off i'm off....but kudos to you motivated folk out there.
the name side hustle reminds me of this song for some reason
Big fan of the side hustle. So far it's just been getting myself a finance education but I'm about to start trading futures and eventually write a blog.
You have to be careful how you do it. I have some "side hustles," and the only ones that have really worked are real estate investments. I have tried developing a few websites, and two web startups on the side, and those types of projects are huge time sinks. What's worse is, when those projects go live, they are now living things that can demand your attention, not just sit at home and wait for you to develop them. If there are customer issues, they need to be resolved, if the site goes down, it needs to be brought back up, etc. I ended up partnering out of the websites by selling them to people I knew for 4 figure sums, while retaining 10% ownership just in case they blew up into the next Amazon or facebook.
There is a lot of trickiness involved, and you have to be careful- for the web startups, I made sure to go to my boss and tell him about my idea, and asked if he was willing to let me develop it at the firm. When he said no, I then made the firm sign an agreement saying that they can make no claims against the project and that they were aware that I was developing this on my own time. Somewhat surprisingly they signed off without issue.
My side hustle brought twice as much income as my job in Feb. Nothing to write home about in march, but I took most of march off to concentrate on my application
One of the top 10 distinctions between millionaires and the middle class:
"Millionaires have multiple sources of income. The middle class has only one or two."
I've got 2: internet business (initial investment: less than 2K) and real estate (initial investment: 20K). The internet biz is new and is just starting to turn a small profit, while RE is giving me an ulcer.
Pros: diversified and multiple income sources, low risk and high reward for the amount of time spent (if done right), anybody can do it and there is no reason to not at least try
Cons: usually cant rely on side-hustle as your only income stream, time consuming
Mind you, the key is not to be the next Facebook or Amazon. They key is to generate as much income in as little time as possible.
Just curious, do you know programming or do you hire someone to do the website building for you? Does your internet business sell a product or provide a service?
My partner in the internet biz is a programmer and is also the webmaster for the site. But we specifically set up the business to be easy to program/maintain, we anticipated that it would an issue going forward. We sell content and get additional income through affiliate marketing.
Im looking for something I can do on the side, right now I have no ideas that are realistly scaleable even in tiny amounts. Any one got any ideas?
I am also currently in development of one business close to launch- an online venture, am planning to start a (hopefully scalable) tutoring company with some friends back home over the summer, and just decided to launch my blog this week as a separate enterprise. If you have any free time to spare, then just look around you- the world is far from perfect and the risk-to-reward ratio has never been skewed more in favor for the smart and capable producers.
I find it hard to imagine a scenario 10 years from now where you look back and wish you had taken that extra 10-20 hours a week and put it into your analyst stint. Now you have to ask yourself whether you would wish you took that 10-20 hours a week and put it into a passion project you had when you were 23, at a time when its easier than ever to make your own results.
See Chappelle's Show -> World Series of Dice
the only way I would have a side hustle is if:
1) i had strong knowledge about the market i am entering 2) have a real strategy for getting customers/clients (not rely on obscure marketing or ISO methods) 3) actually be able to generate worthwhile profits
lots of people start businesses knowing nothing whatsoever about the market theyre getting into, ending up killing themselves building and maintaining websites that no one will ever see, and end up with nothing to show for it. dont start a business just for a sake of having a "side hustle". wait for the opportunity to arise ;)
Yeah, but how do you expect to learn about that industry/market and figure out what it takes to run a successful business? It's not just going to happen by being an employee and reading up on the industry (although these things can help). A lot of successful entrepreneurs didn't understand their industry when they first entered it (in fact, many didn't even know what product they were going to push). They found all this out by having the balls to try it. Sink or swim... Fly or die... FAIL. FOWARD. FAST!
Sweet side hustle idea: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/a-nyc-micro-economy-cigarette-arbitrage/
Favorite quote from Beckett's worstward ho: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
Thanks for that. SB for you. If you have anything else along these lines, please put it here: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/in-need-of-inspiration
Part time job (Originally Posted: 04/28/2011)
Should I keep my part time job after I start full time? I'm currently working at Abercrombie and would like to keep it after I start FT IBD analyst at a MM. I love the interactions I have with customers and it helps me relieve stress. Does anyone else have a part time job on top of their full time job?
If this is not a joke (probably is), than you won't have time for your Abercrombie gig after 90+ hour work weeks as an analyst.
I keep a part time job on top of my FT. It's called the CFA.
In all seriousness, I have a part time job doing financial projections and physical trading for a relative's small mining company. It's nice and it's fun to show my relatives what I do on a daily basis (and help them with my skills too).
Not a joke. I was thinking of working 4 hours on Sundays. Shouldn't be too hard to maintain right?
I wouldn't bother. A shift-oriented part time job will eventually fail if you do anything but work market hours in high finance.
Trust me when I say you'll want the sleep and may have to work those Sundays.
Why would you sacrifice whatever precious time you have (to sleep and beat) working at a place that smells like a low end strippers asshole?
Being a girl, I don't have the urge to beat it on my free time. I happen to like Fierce, and the fact that foreign guys with 6 pacs take off their shirts outside the fitting room is also a bonus.
Abercrombie is a kiddie store
abercrombie and to rich
is this a serious post? happypants is spot on, sleep, beat and grind....leave the A&F job to the 15 year old hs kids.
I cant walk by that store without a hazmat suit. Seriously whatever traces of oxygen are in the air are snuffed out by the few gallons of cologne they douse the store in every 30 minutes.
Side Jobs? (Originally Posted: 02/16/2012)
So last summer I worked an unpaid internship--I was a consulting intern for a firm that dealt with renewable energy in developing country, basically working on proposals, etc to bid for World Bank/USAID loans and that sort of field. I worked there for roughly 8 months (May 2012-December 2012). In addition, I started working at a mid-high end restaurant in May to make money as a server to pay living expenses and such.
The consulting job required 40hours/week, the server job was another 40hours a week for a total of 80 hours/week in the summer and about 15-20 during the Fall 2011 semester (still working a a server).
Is there an appropriate way to highlight the fact that I was putting in the time so I could work an unpaid internship for experience? Should I just list the server job as a bullet? It seems strange considering I am still working there on the side.
Any feedback is appreciated, thanks.
Dont put serving on your resume, but include it in the CV.
I would just mention it during an interview. You will often be asked if you can handle the hours or something like that. I just spoke to the fact that on top of a full credit load which is about 60hrs of work for an engineering major I also had two internships which together added another 20 hours to my weekly work load. The interviewers ate that up.
Also, a bit of a corollary to that, under 'interests' would 'wine' be acceptable? I'm interested in learning about wines at the job, what would be a good phrase to use/ is it even appropriate?
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