Ep: 2 Starting Your Side Hustle - 7 Tips to Start A Side Hustle During Your 9-5

Hello and welcome friends to another episode of the Brave Pivot Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm so grateful that you're here with me tuning in today. I wanna start by asking you a question. Are you contemplating starting a side hustle while still working? Do you daydream about what that might look like in the future for you? I know a lot about that myself, and I can certainly relate. It wasn't that long ago that I too used to think about launching my own side hustle, and I used to dream about what that looked like while working a nine to five. Now, after developing a plan and then executing against my plan, I was finally able to move forward with pursuing my side hustle full. If you are an inspiring entrepreneur and still working your nine to five and dreaming about starting and launching your side hustle, then this episode is for you. In this episode, I'll be starting by breaking down the benefits of having a side hustle, some factors to consider when starting. And lastly, I'll be providing some tips and strategies and how to start a side hustle while at your day job. Are you ready? Let's get started. In this episode, I'll be breaking down the benefits of having a side hustle, some factors to consider when starting. And lastly, I'll be providing some tips and strategies on how to start a side hustle while still at your day job. Are you ready? Let's get started. The first thing I wanna share with you are some benefits of having a side hustle. The first one's pretty obvious. It's increasing your financial security side. Hustles provide you with an extra income stream that's unrelated to your primary job. Having this extra cushion reduces reliance If something should happen and you experience maybe an unforeseen event, such as losing your. The next benefit is creating flexibility for yourself, and I love this one. If you're working a nine to five or any other job, the freedom from working on your side hustle can bring a warm and refreshing change to work for yourself. You'll have the ability to create different options for yourself, such as location, independence, maybe flexible working hours, and lastly, possibly creating a diversifying multiple revenue. Number three. The last benefit is learning a new skillset. You can take an opportunity to start a side hustle in a completely new industry, which enables you to broaden your skillset, increase your marketability, and keeps your mind sharp. Now, those are plenty of other benefits out there. These are just a few to get you familiar with some initial thoughts. The next topic I'll be covering are factors consider when starting your side hustle. The first factor to consider is to start a side hustle about something you're passionate about. Now, this might sound cliche to start a side hustle or business about something that you're passionate about, but hear me out. Some of the most successful female businesses have grown out of hobbies and. You know what they say. Find something that you love to do and figure out a way to get paid to do it, and you'll never have to work a day in your life. Now, I did a little bit of research on some successful female entrepreneurs that figured out a way to do just that. Now, here's a small disclaimer. The data that I'm referencing is as of this recording now listen in and see if there are any names that you may re. The first example is Debbie Fields. Now Mrs. Rose from Mrs. Fields's cookies, she turned her passion for making chocolate chip cookies into a thriving and successful business. Debbie and her first husband, Randy started selling her homemade chocolate cookies with one shop in Palo Alto, California back in 1977. And to date, the company has scaled to 390 locations across the us. With 4,000 employees. My next example are Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss from Rent through Runway. Just a little bit of background about Rent the Runway in case you're not familiar with the brand, Rent The Runway is the monthly subscription membership that runs out Designer Fashion and Accessories, and that ships straight to your door, thus making high end fashion accessible to the masses with many options to enjoy experience for flat free with zero commitments. Now that sounds enticing. Both Jenny and Jen as they go by were business schoolmates and they turned their passion for fashion into creating a very successful business. Their website was first and launched in 2009 and in five short years, they opened up their first brick and mortar store in 2014, and then finally in 2016, they added a monthly subscription model as part of their business, and that's impressive. Moving on to my third and final example. She's the fellow Latina, and her name is Jessica Alba. She is the co-founder of the Honest Company. In 2011, Jessica found the honest company born out of a passion to create clean and healthy environments for your parents and children. The Honest Company offers a monthly subscription service that includes diapers, wipes, cleaning supplies, health and wellness supplements, and Bath and body products, which I just started using myself. I love that she co-founded this company with such a noble cause to provide clean product options to families. Now, all three of these examples of these very successful female entrepreneurs are very successful and inspiring. If you want to learn more about these companies, I'll link their website information in the show notes for your reference. Now, moving on to the second. The second factor is to start your business while you're employed. Now, this one might seem obvious as this is the topic we're talking about, but I wanna expand on this and share some additional thoughts. As with any new business, it's going to take some time to get established. It's highly likely that your business may take a while to start seeing profits and having a steady flow of revenue. Starting a business while employed means you don't have that added pressure because you have money coming in and drawing in. Therefore reducing a negative impact on yours and your family's financial wellbeing. Now also being employed while starting your side hustle will give you a peace of mind and ample runway time to test out your business idea without added stress. And I'm always here for less stress. Moving on to the third and final factor to consider, which is commitment and time. Now side hustles take a lot of time and commit. I worked my side hustle after working hours late in the evening, on the weekends, and even on my vacation. Now listen here, that was a deliberate and intentional, slow and steady process. This might not be you. It took some time and a lot of commitment to keep it moving forward. It's always growing and evolving. Before starting a side hustle, you need to be honest with yourself and assess how much time you're willing and able to commit. And then you also need to take the time to understand what that's gonna look like for you, your family, and maybe even your friends. And determine if there's any impacts. If you discover that there are some impacts, then you might wanna have some honest and meaningful conversations around what that would look like. By having those conversations, you can collectively develop a plan that will work for you and your family. The last thing I wanna share with you today are some tips and strategies for starting your side hustle while working your nine to five. Number one, know your why. Knowing your why will help you determine what side hustles are best for. And your lifestyle. Number two, do your research. Once you have some ideas on some potential side hustles, it's important that you do your research to see if you can meet a need, solve a problem, and identify your target market. Take some extra time in doing your research to ensure you've covered all aspects of your potential business side hassle idea. This will save you time and headache down the road when you're testing the viability of your business idea. Number three, writing a business plan. A solid business plan should be a blueprint for a successful business. For those of you who may or may not be familiar with the business plan, a business plan is a document that communicates your goals and ambitions along with the timeline, finances and methods needed to achieve'em. Entrepreneurs create an update business plan. She uses a guide to check in against their goals and other metricses as their new businesses progress. Additionally, if you're considering attracting events investors to your business, they're gonna wanna see your business plan. So you want to ensure that you've conducted extensive research and you've clarified your vision as clearly and concisely as you can before you provide your plan to potential investors. Number four, plan for taxes. Now, with the traditional job, you and your employer set up your tax structure and money is taken out of your paycheck. But when you have your own side hustle, that responsibility falls solely on you. Make sure you set aside a percentage of your profit so you're not left to scramble when it comes time for you to pay. Number five, stay organized. Here's something that you wanna think about as it relates to taxes. Tax time can be very stressful if you didn't stay organized throughout the year. You wanna ensure you have a good system in place to keep important records for your business, such as transaction receipts, income and expenses, just to name a few. A good practice is to keep your records in two different places just in case for backup purposes. Number six, get professional help. Now, you don't have to go it alone. Starting a business can sometimes feel lonely and isolated if you don't have a support system to help you along the way. Here are a few options for you. Number one, you can seek mentors. Look into your own personal and professional networks. Maybe you know a former colleague, boss or friend that started his or home business. Reach out to those contacts and set up a meeting and ask if they would consider mentoring. Number two, if you're in the United States, reach out to your local small business administration. Maybe they have context that they can provide to mentor you. Additionally, they can provide you with valuable tools, communities, and resources as well. Now, the last option is to hire a business coach. Business coaches are a great resource to help you get started. They've gone before you and they figured out some of the kinks so they can save you some time, frustration in some cases even money. Number seven. This is along the lines of get professional help. Get the legal and tax issues addressed at the start of your business. I'm gonna add a disclaimer here. I'm not a CPA, nor a lawyer. So I'm not providing any advice here. However, I would suggest that you seek the council of both professionals as early as you can when starting your side hustle to avoid any unforeseen issues and potential out of pocket expenses. Nobody likes those kind of surprises. These professionals can help answer questions and help you get on the right track at the start of your side hustle endeavor. As you know, being a former project manager, it's in my DNA that I'm risk averse, and any time there's an opportunity to proactively mitigate risk, that I take action to do so, and in this case, that means seeking help from experienced professionals, then I'm open and willing to do that Now. We covered a lot of information today. Before we wrap up, let's have a recap of what I shared as part of today's episode. I started this episode by providing the benefits of starting a side hustle. Then I moved on to factors to consider when starting a side hustle, and then I provided seven chips and strategies on how to start a side hustle while still working at your nine to five. The fact is everyone has different reasons and motivations for starting a side hustle. Whatever your reasons are, there is no right or wrong. The most important thing is that you get started, and I believe there's no better time to start than now. If and when you do start your side hustle, I would love to know because I wanna be rooting for you and cheering for you every step of the way. Thank you so much for joining me on the Brave Pivot Podcast. I hope this information was helpful. If something I shared today resonated with you, please tag me@cindymarie.co Instagram. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave an honest five star review. When you do, it helps us to grow this podcast and it helps others to find us as well, and I would certainly appreciate it! Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you know when new episodes are being released. You can subscribe right from the app that you're using to listen to this podcast, or you can sign up for email alerts@cindymarie.co. Lastly, if there's something you'd like to hear about in the future episode or if you just wanna stop by and say hello, please feel free to DM me. Thanks again for listening to The Brave Pivot Podcast. And I'll see you next time.