How to Launch an Online Venture While Working a Full-Time Job
Is there anything more American than starting your own business? Entrepreneurship is woven into the very fabric of our country, and there’s arguably never been a better time to launch a company. What’s holding you back?
4 Tips for Making Both Work
The internet has opened the door for millions of people to pursue entrepreneurship – individuals who otherwise would have had no plausible avenue to pursue. And it can be a fairly lucrative path to business success. Online retail, for example, is expected to grow between 8 and 12 percent year-on-year, compared to just 4 percent for traditional retail.
As someone who already has a career, you’re probably wondering to yourself what it looks like to continue working a full-time job and launch an online venture at the same time. It’s different for everyone. However, plenty of ambitious people make it work. In order to do the same, you’ll have to plan ahead. Here are some suggestions:
1.Completely Buy In
This isn’t something you want to do if you’re half-hearted about making the online business work. This is going to be a really tough grind over the next few months (and possibly years). Before getting started, make sure you’re all in.
On a related note, it’s important that you commit to being fully present wherever you are. For example, if you’re in the office working for your employer, you need to be 100 percent focused on fulfilling your duty as an employee. And when you’re at home working on your online side hustle, you should be building the online business and not answering work emails. Not only will this prevent you from getting sloppy, but it could also prevent future legal issues.
2.Review Your Employer Contracts
“One thing you need to do is to make sure you are on solid legal ground so your employer can’t come after you when your startup is a raging success,” entrepreneur Rob Kornblum explains. “The easiest way to avoid any trouble is to be sure you are working on an idea that is unrelated to the business of your employer, and to work on it on your own time and with your own equipment.”
Aside from these basic rules, you’ll also need to review your employee agreement and any non-disclosure agreements that you’ve signed. Also, if you signed an assignment agreement, this will need to be analyzed as well. This document says that any ideas related to your employer’s business belong to the employer. An attorney can help you interpret all of these documents.
3.Rethink Your Vacation Days
When we say you need to be fully bought in and committed to the idea of doing two jobs at once, we mean it. As you grow up your online business, you’ll have to rethink the idea of vacation days, weekends, and holidays.
Instead of using your vacation days to take a trip to the beach or mountains, you may need to use your paid time off to plan a staycation where you work on your side hustle from home. Weekends will also prove to be valuable in your pursuit of growth.
4.Outsource and Offload
As your online business scales up and becomes more time-consuming, outsource and offload tasks that you can’t take on yourself. This will prevent the side hustle from interfering with your day job. Examples of tasks you may outsource include marketing, content writing, accounting, and customer service.
Choose Your Path
The beauty of online entrepreneurship is that you’re afforded enough flexibility to keep your primary job and pull double-duty. However, you don’t want to do this indefinitely. At some point, your online business will either prove to be unfruitful – at which point you’ll want to back out and refocus on your primary form of employment – or it’ll begin to scale up – at which point you may want to make it a full-time pursuit.
There’s nothing wrong with starting an online business while working a full-time job. But when the time comes to make a decision, you’re better off focusing your energy on one.
Choose your path wisely and pursue it with boldness and tenacity.
