How to start a side hustle while keeping your 9-5: My strategy

starting a side business can sound daunting you might think it's impossible alongside your day job that you don't have what it takes or that you're simply just not entrepreneurial but after speaking with some of the most successful entrepreneurs and turning my side business into a seven figure full-time business I've learned that getting started is simply a matter of following a step-by-step framework and by following the framework turning a side business dream into a reality becomes a lot more manageable hi if you're new here I'm Nisha I'm a qualified accountant and former investment banker and in

this video we're going to talk about the framework to start a side business whilst working a 9 to5 but before we get into it let's talk about the call for more this is a real thing I talk to people or come across people so often who have got their dream job one that they thought they've always wanted but once they've got there they feel like something's missing it's like they've climbed the mountain only to find that the view isn't quite what they expected they start craving more more fulfillment more freedom to make decisions more chances

to really utilize their talents and Passions and two years ago I was in exactly the same boat even with a decent paycheck and a stable job there was this snagging feeling that there's something more out there but at the same time quitting your day job to pursue this call for more can feel very risky especially if you have Financial Obligations or you have a family to support and that's where starting a side business alongside your main job can be the perfect compromise it's a way to explore new business ideas new passions and potential income streams

without immediately giving up the security of your full-time employment so if you're in this place and you have this urge to explore something new but you're unsure where to start and you're not quite ready to dive into full-time entrepreneurship without having a plan in place then this is the three-step framework that I used step one find the intersection you want to understand what your interests are your personality your expertise and you want to combine that with what you think there may be a genuine market for so one powerful framework for doing this is the Golden

Circle concept from Simon x b start with why the Golden Circle consists of three elements what this is the what of your side business the specific product or the service you plan to offer the thing that the market wants then you have how the unique approach the skills the process that you will use to deliver value and then you have the why and this is arguably the most important element is the articulation of who we are the deeper purpose the passion the interest or the causes that drive you to pursue this specific side business and

when you find something in the intersection of these three that's when you have a side business that has the potential to really take off while doing something purely for the love of it is great the goal with a side business is to make sure it's financially viable too so think about can I realistically turn this interest or passion of mine into a service or product that people will pay for is there proof of concept I.E are there other people already making money for this thing in a different way the key here is not just to

come up with one idea but a list of ideas that you can potentially try out it's almost guaranteed that the first side business that you try may not be successful because the beauty of starting a side hustle whilst you also have a full-time job is that you can take a lot more risks you could try out more things and you could get all the growing pains out the way whilst also having a stable paycheck coming in you can afford to make some early mistakes and learn from them without as much risk by the way if

you want to read the summary of the god of Zach or almost any other self-development book you can get a free trial using my short phone link this video isn't sponsored by them but it is a platform that I use almost every week to digest a lot of information in a really short amount of time the second thing which I'll do especially if this is my first business is try to avoid my self-interest and find ways to be of service and even offer my services for free because that would be a really good indicator as

to whether or not there's demand for this idea because if people AR signing up or willing to use your product for free it's going to be pretty hard to then get people to pay for it so there are a few ways you can do this you can use the done for you approach the done with you approach or the do-it-yourself approach the done for you approach is all about offering to directly do the thing that you're skilled at for someone else it's a onetoone service model so for example if you have a technical skill of

graphic design you can start a side business creating custom branding websites or marketing materials for clients so you can research industry leaders in your Niche reach out to them offer your services for free initially and if you do great work for them they like it then that could lead into a paid opportunity this is how I found most of the freelancing people that I work with someone would approach me via email provide a free sample of their product or service using my work and then it's then converted me into a paying customer the pros of

this approach is that it's pretty easy to start and it's slow cost generating income from your expertise from day one without having to build a large audience or a product Suite first and it's a more direct path to monetizing your skills the downside however with this done for your approach is that it still needs to trade your time for money unless you're hiring people to do it for you learning the good skills in the first place take time and it doesn't scale easily then you have the done with you approach and this involves more of

a Consulting SL coaching or teaching role so instead of doing the work for the client you're guiding them and helping them do it themselves so say you're helping people with their financial planning you wouldn't just go to the market and tell people to buy your Workshop or pay for your service instead you may offer something for free a free webinar or you'll give a talk at an event which has the customers that you're looking for or a free lead magnet and because it's free people are more likely to sign up for it and that way

you know who's interested in your product you've validated your idea and you know that there's demand for it and once you've tested the demand for your offerings and proven that your product or your service has value then you can look to scale through strategies like paid ads influencer Partnerships so partnering with other creators hiring them and leveraging your professional and personal Network to spread the word even further so the pose of this model is that it allows you to leverage your Knowledge and Skills to help people in more Hands-On way and it's often more scalable

than the done for you approach since you're not trading your onetoone time for money instead it's one to many the downside however is that there's a lot of competition there needs to be constant Evergreen marketing and it does require building some level of authority first plus once again your time is infinite so there's a cap to how much you can make finally you have the do-it-yourself approach and this is all about creating products and content that allow you to share your expertise with the world in a more passive way so this can mean starting a

YouTube channel where you teach your skills writing and self-publishing ebooks or building an online library of templates and of tools the advantage of this model is that once you've put in the initial effort to create these assets they can continue generating revenue for you without requiring your constant time and attention you can scale it well it can work without your physical presence it works really well if you've built your audience around your business and it buys back your time the downside however with this approach is that it needs a really big initial investment of time

and energy is also the approach that will likely take the longest to start making money from in contrast the first two approaches the done for you and the done with you approach these methods still require trading your time for money but you can make money from them faster than you can in the do-it-yourself approach and then this leaves us to step three of the framework this wouldn't be a personal finance Channel if we didn't talk about how to manage your finances around the side Mist so relatively early in your journey you want to ask yourself

the important money questions like is this something you want to eventually pursue full-time and if so how much do you need to make money from it to be comfortable with that transition so when planning my side business income trajectory I did a deep dive into what my fixed monthly expenses are things like my rent my mortgage my bill my loan payments all of that and once I knew the minimum amount that I needed to cover for those essential costs I knew how much income I'd need to generate from my side business to at least match

that Baseline and I told myself that I won't pursue a side business full-time until that side income was covering 100% of those fixed expenses that gave me the confidence and the financial Runway to really focus on growing the business and having something to aim for another question you want to ask yourself is how much can you realistically afford to invest into this new Venture without jeopardizing your financial stability and other life goals and this is why starting a side business and doing it part-time I think is really important because you can afford to make mistakes

along the way and you will make mistakes along the way you will lose money but you will have an income coming in to compensate for it and so another step I took was to calculate my discretionary income and identify areas where I could cut back to invest more into making this business work and just these really simple calculations will give you the financial confidence and the backing you need to really pursue a passion properly it really gives you Clarity on what you have to work with and what you need to aim for because without that

you kind of lose direction on where you're going if you want help in tracking these numbers I have a completely free resource that can help it's an intentional spending template that has been used by by over 100,000 people it breaks down your spending into your fixed costs which are your essential living costs your future costs I.E your savings and Investments and your fund cost which is a category of spending that you really want to analyze and see how you can reallocate that spending towards your side business it also comes with a video on how to

use it tips and tricks on managing your finances and a breakdown of what to include in each of these three bucket categories completely free a link is in the description so that's the three-step framework I used to approach starting a side business alongside a full-time job thank you for watching if you enjoy this video don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already there'll be a lot more similar videos coming up