Practical Steps to Take your Side Hustle to a Full-Time Thing
Being Your Own Boss without the Neutraceuticals
I will say it is freeing to be my own boss, but the funny thing is that with customers/clients, it really means you're taking on a lot of small bosses.
If you are looking to take something you're passionate about and work towards doing that as a full-time thing, you have my endorsement. But it is important to know that you need to look at it as a business and a financial decision and boil all of the creativity into a repeatable process that you can use for financial gain.
Make It Legally Sound if you Can
With that being said, if you want to make this a full-time thing, you should try and make it legally sound if possible. So meet with a lawyer to draft boilerplate terms of service, refund policy, you name it.
And of course, before that, you should take the time to see if you are going to be a Sole Prop or an LLC. Some accountants will even tell you to be an S-Corp. If you are having a little trouble finding out what that is, I encourage you to review our article on it.
[Link To LLC and Business Types]
Once you've got all that settled, it's time to create a practical gameplan to bring your side hustle into a full-sized business.
Steps from Side Hustle To Full Business
1) Get a Support Structure
When I decided that I was going to this, I told my partner and my parents. They fit into the equation in different ways:
my partner was supportive throughout and was understanding and anticipated the financial strain of the endeavor.
My mother was there because she'd been with me through a lifetime of failure and knew how to handle dealing with me falling on my face repeatedly.
My father had more business experience than anyone else in the business and knew how to help me avoid pitfalls and get out of some poor situations.
Frankly, I'm a little too proud to lean on them as much as I could have, and the short-term success of my business probably suffered because of that. But it is a delicate balance to strike, and you don't want to shut anyone out or hurt their feelings if they aren't able to give you the help you want.
2) Don't Quit Anything
Countless businesses are not cash-positive until year 2 or 3. Depending on your industry, you might be taking on a lot of overhead to get up and running. So if you get the chance, you need to try and stay in a full-time or part-time job and do your work in the cracks of your days.
This will help you and the people around you stay afloat and not want to bail on a project before it's even gotten off the ground.
3) Set Your Hardened Business Hours
Striking the work/life balance is very hard to do when you are building a business (especially if the number above is still prevalent in your life.)
I worked a 9-5, so I made my business hours from 6-8 in the evenings (especially for admin work and the like) and chunked out 8-12 on Saturdays and Sundays. So I can squeeze in almost 20 hours a week without it completely taking away from my evenings or my weekends.
But this only works when you follow it to a T. If you aren't working on client stuff on a Saturday morning, do social media stuff, learn SEO, build a website, and begin networking.
4) Do the Jobs You Can Do [If Possible]
This is incredibly tricky. When you are starting a business, you are probably strapped for cash, racking up debt on the credit card, and second-guessing a lot of what you are doing. I read an article that explained it like going to sleep on a mattress in the middle of an ocean, and you're not sure if you will wake up above or below the tide.
Breathe.
If you can get the chance early to pass on jobs that would either push you too hard or out of the scope of your work, I would encourage you to do so. The problem is that reviews have an enormous impact on your business in the long-run and if you don't hit it out of the park in your first few jobs, you might not have the opportunity to fix your reviews in the long run and it might cast a hex on your business.
5) Act Like a Business
When customers/clients are looking at their options, they want to work with familiar and friendly people, but they still need to be the authority.
You have your set business hours; when you answer a business call, say your name and possibly the name of your business.
You invoice, you do work, you pay taxes, you stand by your work.
If you have any spec work that you can do on the cheap or for free, do it, but if you're giving a hand and they're taking an arm, let that person fall.
Set your boundaries and stick to them; no one deserves to get walked all over, especially a business that is just starting out.
6) Ask For Help/Fish For Reviews
Asking for and receiving help doesn't take away or lessen what you are doing.
If you have partners, people in similar industries that you know of, give them a call and ask for help. If you need insights, reach out. I use Quora, Reddit, and StackOverflow all the time in order to get answers to some of my questions.
Additionally, when you have clients and customers that you have worked with, give them a call a few days after the job is done, check in on it and see how well it's doing and casually bring up "If you could do me a favor and leave me a review on Google or Facebook, it would mean the world to me and could help me secure more business."
If people are happy with your work, it will make them happy to help you. A review takes about 5 minutes, and it can help push you over the edge for the next prospect.
7) Expect a Long Timeframe
Most people know the overnight success stories because there are like 10. But there are thousands of businesses in every state that are not overnight successes and are, in fact, failures a lot of the time.
Building a business is incredibly hard to do, and it takes time, which is why you should operate in a capacity you are comfortable with. Most businesses you go in on will take 10k to build, and you won't get that 10k back until 2-3 years later.
But you've got your friends, support structure, and a body of work that will follow behind you.