Web 2.0 Entrepreneur

Working on Internet business while having a full-time day job

• Posted by Tengku Zahasman on June 27th, 2007 filed in Thoughts, Entrepreneurship, Financing/funding


• (1,810 Views)

It is quite common nowadays for working citizens to do some kind of *side business* in order to add more value into their fixed monthly income. Thanks to all the financial gurus out there who introduced the mantra of “creating multiple-streams of income in achieving financial freedom”, we are seeing more and more of our people indulging themselves in businesses and entrepreneurship, albeit in many different ways. Some people do this by selling “curry puffs” in front of their houses every morning before they go off to work, some become part-time freelancers doing photography or video editing on weekends and on special events, some decided to do professional consultancy jobs, other more desperate people resort to MLM businesses, network marketings, direct sellings and pyramid schemes (no good!).

Web savvy users however are more likely to conduct part-time businesses online. Smart option. These people manage their own e-commerce sites and sell stuffs online, some managed to create high traffic online subscription portals, some do Internet Marketing, good writers write and sell e-books, more technical people provide Internet services like web hosting or web design, other less technical people simply write blogs and get the extra bucks out of Google AdSense, while the rest of us venture into the Web 2.0 industry providing Web services and develop social applications. The Internet business is so flexible that you can run it and manage it from anywhere as long as there’s Internet connection that it is quickly becoming a trend for people to adopt it as their side business.

Running Internet business part time…

I’ve had experience of running an Internet business without having a full-time job before (the few months after I graduated from university) and I also have the experience of running an Internet business while going off to a 9-5 work every weekdays (which is what I’m currently doing). Unless you’re very well funded, having a full-time job really helps a lot when it comes to stabilizing your finance. As a self-funded Web entrepreneur, I fund myself using the monthly salary I get out of working in an Internet security firm. My bills, loans, leisures, food and travels are all taken cared of using my salary. In fact I sometimes even use some of them for my business, I call it an “investment”. That means I don’t have to touch a single cent of my Internet income for my personal use. This is very effective for maximizing your business’ profit.

Before I had a full-time job, my business money were also my money. Separation of entities doesn’t work in this case because we also need to feed ourselves. It’s hard to grow your business this way because money will run out very fast, sometimes it’s just enough for you and your business to survive in that particular month. That’s very choking. By having a full-time job, business risk is also reduced because I know if something doesn’t turn out right with my Internet venture, at least I still have my monthly pay to back me up. Boy that’s a relief. That fact alone gives me the confidence to do risky things in my venture.. and that’s truly interesting.

The downside of having a full-time job is that you’ll be struggling to find “time” to focus on building your Internet business. Managing it is easy, but developing it is something that takes a lot of time and focus. Everyday and every weekends you’ll be pressured to allocate a few hours to focus on your Internet business, and in some situations that can be pretty frustrating.

So what happens next?

It’s every entrepreneur’s dream to start up their own company. I’m sure most entrepreneurs out there who are still working full-time have that intention of quitting their job one day to become their own boss. However, starting up a company needs capital, plan, experience, networks, and portfolio. These are the things you can gather while working on a full-time job and conducting an Internet business at the same time. People who jumpstart their company too soon always fail miserably. As I said before, unless you’re pretty well funded, don’t quit your job just because you have started an Internet business. Do that only after you can at least make a steady Internet cash flow three times larger than your monthly full-time job salary. Can you do that?