A different way of looking at the world
I was talking to a friend recently, and we started talking about work.
My friend mentioned wanting to move to another job, as it would probably be better-paid.
Making an extra million or two a year would make a huge difference, he said. Unfortunately his wife thought it was too risky, so he would probably stay in his current job.
I found the conversation a bit strange. After all, a couple of million a year is the extra revenue my wife’s school would make if we recruited 12 extra students, something that wouldn’t be particularly difficult to do.
This is the difference between being a salaried employee and working for yourself. As a salaried employee your pay scale is pretty much set. You are unlikely to greatly increase your salary, no matter how hard you work or how much value you provide.
On the other hand, as a freelancer or business owner, a couple of years of all-out effort could lead to very profitable results.
One of the best books I have read about entrepreneurship and the building a business is The Millionaire Fastlane. It’s a great read and really gets into the entrepreneurial mindset.
One of the great things about being alive at the moment is the sheer range of opportunities we have to create our own revenue streams by harnessing the power of the internet. Online advertising, product creation, and billing mean that individuals can now do things by themselves at very low cost that used to be restricted to multi-national corporations.
We don’t have to choose between the safety of a normal job and the potential of starting a business. It is possible to do both, working on pet projects in the morning, at night, or at the weekends while doing your job during working hours. It’s tough, but it can also be incredibly satisfying.
From renting out your house on AirBnB to writing ebooks or designing a new product, getting it manufactured in China, and having it shipped to customers by an order fulfillment agent, opportunities are everywhere.
How about you? Do you have a side hustle?
My new side hustle is Microstock photography.
Basically, photography has been a dear hobby for me for very long time, and thus I have accumulated a sizeable catalogue of various photos. Some of them may have commercial potential, thus I decided to start uploading them to Microstock sites.
As I have only started, the portfolio on sale is limited, and I get only 0.5€ / week revenue. It is a minuscule amount, but should be increase as I slowly build up the portfolio with about 10 new pictures a week.
The best thing is that after the photo is uploaded, it requires zero effort from that point on. The possible profit just rolls in… like compounding in investing 😉
That’s awesome, Tatu. I’m jealous! I would like to do the same thing with ebooks, but it’s hard getting motivated to write them 😉
Thanks for the encouragement, RT and SB.
The benefit of this hustle is that much of the work is already done (making the photos). The remaining work is captioning, keywording and uploading. I have tried to streamline this tedious part as much as possible, and now it takes about 30 min for the set of 10 pics… and I can do other things while the uploads are rolling.
The slow and late start means that most likely I will not see the level of revenue flow that Stockbeard is getting, but every little extra income helps and the amount should get multiplied through investing the photo profits. I think after a year of steady uploading, my monthly revenue would be only 100€ or even less. Luckily it should continue roll in even if I don’t have time to do the microstock thing anymore.
That’s the spirit, Tatu! when I started my own side gig, I think I made a total of 9’000 Yen the first year (about $1.5/week). With time and dedication it grows up 🙂
My side hustle is a website that has grown significantly since I created it 8 years ago. Revenue comes from a mix of advertising and affiliate sales. Today it represents a bit more than 20% of my income. The rest is my 9to5. The side hustle nowadays is way more gratifying than my corporate job, that’s for sure. I can see direct revenue improvements as a result of my efforts. Something that doesn’t happen in the corporate job.
I’ll have to talk to you about that, SB. This site has made approximately -$150 so far 😉
As a freelancer myself, I think not being a salaried worker greatly shifts the discussion on side hustles. Once you get paid by volume and have more work in your day job than you have hours in the day, side hustles really only make sense if they’re passive income. After all, while the distractions are nice, no side gig is realistically going to pay me more hourly than just doing more of my regular work, or else I’d just change jobs. I’ve thought of it, but I just always seem to come back to the fact that further optimizing my work process so I can do more work/increase rates is the best use of my time.
I totally agree with entrepreneurial thinking though. Anyone who’s self-employed should think of themselves as a business owner, and those who have less success tend to fail due to lack of business skill rather than lack of talent in their chosen profession. To take the photography example above, I’m sure there are lots of great photographers who just don’t know how/where to sell or need to make the right contacts.
Business skills like sales ability are universal, and we all have things left to learn.
I personally believe that, entrepreneurial ethos is a precise state of mind that acclimatizes human performance towards entrepreneurial ventures and follow-ups. If someone wants to become an entrepreneur, then first he has to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, because this is the most fundamental step that he should adhere in order to flourish at his profession. Well, different tycoons have different mindsets. So, it does not matter what kind of mindset you have, the matter is, you have to make sure about the fact i.e you have the right psyche that will elevate you to an imperceptible level. Thus, if you know how to develop entrepreneurial mindset, then it’s fine, else you should take the help of an affluent tycoon who will help in shaping your mind in the appropriate way.