Thinking about potentially setting up a “side” business to the day job, mainly for an outlet for creativity / relieve boredom / maybe make a go of something which could lead to working for yourself

Don’t have the ideas yet, just the want to do something, and a half decent network

Anyone with stories of success? Or failure?

Make sure you know how to do the job yourself first rather than rely on others too much to get the job done.

I remember very clearly until today of the lessons learned in the far east when I first started my my IT InterWeb BullShite Business in the mid 90s. I started the business by bringing my then recently made redundant software programming, web designer friends and colleagues by giving them a share of the business as partners. There were 3 of us in the business …

They did not have the ideas nor the balls to start a business but once they learned the trick of the trade they decided to ran away with the contract, ideas etc … sort of reverse take over.

They were all good software programmers but decided that I needed them more than they needed me so slowly pushed me out of the business by making higher demand and slowing down project …

Well, I saw them coming so decided that life would be a bitch if I let them step on me so gave them the business rather than fight so part company with them.

I left the country after a while once I got a job in the Toon as low ranking bureaucrat …

Now I earn peanuts but at least I ain’t no bitch to others … except ZMs …

😮

edit: Oh ya … they are all rather successful IT people in that country now earning good income while I am still a peanut munching ZM low ranking monkey in the toon.

edit edit: I intend to start my own business again if I can be motivated to become the Dear ZM to step on low ranking ZMs …

By all means do what you enjoy, but always have enough on the side to be able to afford to fail.

Don’t trust anyone when it comes to money.

Don’t let it take over

Six years in and fairly happy so far.
1, Don’t do it thinking theres a golden goose. There may be but it will be harder to reach than you think.
2, Staff: greatest asset and biggest headache combined.
3, Don’t get stressed, deadlines will sometimes be missed the world will still turn.
4, You must be consistent and able to motivate yourself, harder than you think believe me.

That’s my tuppence.

I did.
I paid myself nothing or national minimum wage for a couple of years, having invested a good few of my own pounds in there.
We bailed two years later, just at start of 2008, having walked into a job with main supplier but having lost all we invested and two years earnings in another job.
My mortgage 7 years later is much bigger than it would have been, and will be for a long time to come.

It was crap.

Interesting points about trust, got to say I’m worried about asking others to join my merry band, but if you never take a risk you’ll never know…. I’ll need the help of others to realise. I’d prefer a time based partnership model than contractual, especially as I won’t have significant capital.

Started out on my own in 2009, even though I knew the job backwards, I thought I had all the skills I needed and a few ready made customers and contacts after working in that industry for the best part of a decade I really sucked at it.

Even though I was working in asset finance in 2009 there was business to be done, I just couldn’t do it. A combination of lack of self motivation – I had a decent pile of cash to start the business from redundancy and when I should have been banging on doors and calling people for business I’d be out on my bike – it taken me a long time to admit I just can’t cold call, I can’t stand the rejection and rightly or wrongly I feel it’s below me – when I worked in a big firm I had people do that for me and I was very institutionalised, I expected people to take care of me, not take care of myself.

I’ve no intention of working for myself again, it just doesn’t suit me and I’m brace enough to admit it now. My current job gives me all the freedom I want, I still have to create a lot of profit to keep the lights on, but it’s not solely down to me and the buck stops with my boss, not me – at least now I’m better at fixing things myself.

Started in 2004 and it’s taken more than 10 years to get it into good shape and employs seven people – one observation is that a lot of people confuse working for themselves (self employed sub contractor stuff) with building a business that employs people and has some depth and this is very tough as you often have to go without money, holidays, bikes etc when everyone around you (including your employees) have all the above – I have always been happy to cold call and still do now as sometimes it’s all you can do, lastly it’s about people and we have a great team and the distribution of profit and ownership makes a real differance.

I am on startup number 2. Sold the first one after 7 years of hard work and a bit of luck. Made enough to reinvest in another idea doing something completely different. We are about to expand big time after another two years of graft.

Stress,risk and hours are off the scale. But we get to write our own code the way we want to in the absense of politics and HR bullshit. I am lucky as I have had 2 great business partners, but suffered badly with a third who could not hack it. TBH you have to have a huge appetite for risk and be incredibly resilient to make a business work. The comment about difference between being self employed is spot on.

I’ve had my own business since 1995, full time since 1998. I’m not sure I’ve got any really sensible advice, but here goes:

Every £1 you save by cutting costs, not buying silly stuff etc is several £ worth of business you don’t have to find.

Don’t go into business with friends.

Advertising is a waste of time and money.

Don’t undersell yourself. It’s very tempting when you’re starting out to think you’re not as good as people who have been in the business for years and mope sate by being cheaper. Don’t do that.

Work out how long you think it’ll take before you start turning a profit, and then plan for double that.

Find reliable people to be a stash house – older stable people, and single mums works well.

Own a few cheap cars, keep them in different locations, that way you can in theory move around the city without the same plates being flagged all the time.

Don’t be afraid to pay really good wages to your staff. Best investment you can make.

Work out how long you think it’ll take before you start turning a profit, and then plan for double that.

I joined a start up 15 years ago, still here, still not profitable (small +ve EBITDA). Spent over $100m of the VC’s money so far……

It the “other stuff”, HR, staff issues, pensions, HRMC, dealing with non-paying customers, dealing with suppliers, dealing with landlords, dealing with IT etc….. etc… that are the parts of the business that make it tough at times not the core business that you should know well and I run a +EBITA company. If you are not running a profit times all your hassles by x2 or x3.

I could write a book. Have had 5, no 6. First I took from 3 of us to 190 people then sold it, hadn’t paid myself for 3 years, incredibly exciting but stressful, loved every minute of it, great return. Started again 24 hours later with the 3 originals and did it again, sold that one after 6 years. In-between did a bunch of startups, some worked, some didn’t. Quite keen to ditch the current gig and start something up after a bit of time off.
Bottom line, decide if you have the energy, commit to it, expect nothing and work hard to get what you want out of it.

Don’t be fooled by bulshitters blowing smoke up your arse telling you that they have loads of work for you, almost without exception they are talking crap to make themselves look important. Banks are asshats and only look to make money out of you but are a necessary evil. good accountants are rare and you gave to look at it long term as there are no routes to get rich quick unless you are very lucky. apart from that its plain sailing…. 😉

Loads of common sense on here for any one thinking about starting a business – however a bit of naivety helps….

Did it in 2007 when I got made redundant. Spotted a gap in the market for what I do very well and was joined by a (more talented) business partner.

Had three for four amazing years earning lots of money but the market has shifted and our niche has shrunk, so now we’re effectively scraping by as freelances.

I wouldn’t do it again unless I could clearly see the same sort of opportunity and had the belief and understanding of the market to make it work.

But as a side project with (presumably) low overheads, why not?

Don’t have the ideas yet, just the want to do something, and a half decent network

If its a side thing and not the day job, so you’re not dependent on it to pay the bills, then you’re in a great position. Because you don’t have to nail it first time. It can develop organically. You can make mistakes (you will, believe me!). You can hopefully build it up until you hit the tipping point where it can become full time. Its worth pursuing. The point of a journey isn’t necessarily to arrive. The trick is to prioritise something you enjoy doing.

You say you want something creative? If I could give you any advice its to do something unique that nobody else is doing. Something distinctive, that people want, and will pay for. For example: The part of the world I live in is very beautiful, in a rugged type of way. So it draws in a lot of creative people. So if you wanted a picture of the landscape then you’ve a choice of fine photographers who can supply you with a stunning example. If you wanted say a traditional watercolour, you can get plenty of those too. But if you want a modern contemporary take on it, then there was nobody producing anything.

There is now.

I’m n the luxurious position where I can work as a traditional commercial graphic designer on a freelance basis, but work on my illustration work when i want. I’ve been doing it about 9 months and I’m as mystified as anyone else as to the success I’ve had. Its snowballed because of word of mouth. People have been very kind about my work for them, and I’ve been lucky in having a strong group of local small business owners, who are very supportive of each other. Oh… and my partner has been incredible. She’s backed me up, and believed in me 100%. Even when I didn’t myself. You WILL have moments of crippling self-doubt. Debs just thinks mine are absolutely hilarious. Which keeps me grounded.

At present I’m insanely busy, but very happy and satisfied, doing something I genuinely love. I’m still trying to balance the 2 jobs, but rapidly approaching the tipping point where the illustration will be my full time job, and I never again have to produce a press advert for double glazing or cookers 😀

If you want to drop me an email, I’ll give you some advice so you don’t make the mistakes I’ve made. You will go down blind alleys. You will look back at certain things and say to yourself ‘well that was a ****ing disaster!” (it may also be an expensive one). Its all part and parcel. But overall….

Stay focused, but open-minded. Don’t try and do it overnight. More than anything…. enjoy it!

Good luck!!!

Good to hear binners, I’d certainly buy one of your pretty pics if I was still enjoying my boom years!

Side jobs are different tbh… Mine (a little niche cottage industry and retail deal) basically costs me time and makes me money, there was a chunk of startup cost and some early losses with bad stock decisions, and it took a while to get the capital back out and get it self-sustaining, but it was always pretty obvious I’d turn a profit, only question was if it was worth the hassle. It’ll never be enough to quit the day job which is kind of quite nice.

I helped my brother set up as a sole trader, that was a pain in the arse. His sector is, essentially, one in which it’s hard to lose money as long as you’re happy to take the less fun jobs so it’s always been a balancing act of paying the bills, and doing what he wants- ie the reason he set up solo in the first place. But if you’re doing it from scratch there’s so many ways to screw up. I think the most important thing we learned was, have an emergency fund, and make it way bigger than you think it needs to be. Over a year or five he does great but sometimes over 3 months stuff can happen that’d drive him to the bank, beat up the business, or just plain bankrupt him. So a bit of reserves makes all the difference.

Oh and have a proper accountant.

I took voluntary redundancy 6 years ago from being in a 21 year job, which had turned to shit. Left a management role to go back on the tools working for myself. Fortunately, it is work that had me in profit from day 1, was stress free and doesn’t take up too time outside normal hours – ok, I graft hard and am away from home a lot. Turn over £80-120k normally and £55-60k of that is profit. Will smash that this year.

As a sideline, I set up an e-cig shop. For the first 6 months it made bugger all, for the next 18 months, made a tidy bit of pocket money, but then sales fell away to internet sellers that I couldn’t compete with due to low volume buying/people trying my stuff, then finding it cheaper. Sold the remaining stock 6 months ago to my shop worker. I think she’s struggling to be honest.

It was an interesting little venture though and I didn’t lose anything by trying

10 years in business in France with Madame. I had a day job too at the start. Good profits from the start but it was a lot of work so when it had paid for the things we wanted/needed and more besides we closed it and Madame used her “agrégation” to get a day job.

The early years were a real buzz, we got such a kick out of it it hardly felt like work. It was a sort of fun Monopoly game with real notes. When the buzz went it was hard work and stressful, and closing saved my sanity, I think.

Do it but know when to stop.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, food for thought for the festive break. For me it would like be some sort of mobile app or niche software as my background is dev / change. I’d love to be as creative as binners, maybe I’ll have a print in my personal office when I make it big 🙂

Obviously the other choice is the contracting route, but I don’t think that will scratch the itch of trying to have a go at my own ‘thing’. It would be great to tell my son the things I achieved (and potentially failed at) than just say, yea I worked in corporate it for 30years, occasionally rode some bikes and got fat.

See stuff like strava really motivates me, I wish I’d thought of that….I’d love to have been a part of its setup. No doubt hard work, but I’ve got no problem with that as long as it’s interesting.