How To Start A Side Business

September 25, 2022

We are living in the time of unlimited potential. In many years, we have never experienced such a huge growth of number of young entrepreneurs who began working for themselves. Many new freelancers have emerged and there is no shortage of people who are willing to take risks to have a self-employed career and start their own side business.

According to U.S Census’ Business Formation Statistics Report, more people have started new business in 2020 since the inception of the agency. According to Careerbuilder Poll conducted in 2017, about 1/3rd of all the American worker have some at least one side hustle or business.

Many people look for ways how to start a side business whether for extra cash, for a new challenge, or a side business idea that they want to turn it into a full time job.

Here are 10 tips on how to start a side business;

1. Find the perfect match

When you are working on starting a new side business idea, look for the things and side business ideas, you are good at and people would be willing to pay for it.

Ask yourself;

What am I good at?
What skills do I have that people would be willing to pay for?

When you will answer these questions, you will be able to know that what you are good at. What skills do you have, that you can employ and start a new side business. If you find out one skill set in yourself and that is in demand, that’s great.

But if you don’t you find a skill, then you have to take some time to learn it or you can hire someone who can do work on your behalf.

2. Commit yourself

When you have found out that what skills do you have that people can pay for. Commit yourself to that idea and start working on it. It will be difficult for you to cut some activities, or relationships for some time.

Note down all the activities you do in a week and how much time they consume. After noting them, you will be able to find out that how much time you spend on an activity and how much time you can cut from those activities. So you can focus on your new project.

When you will cut your time, you will be able to free up more time, and you will be able to start seeing results more quickly.

3. Take small steps to validate

Instead of going for a large scale business. Launch it on a smaller scale, in family and friends. This will help you in avoiding overspending or taking heavy loans to fund your idea of side business. They will help in identifying your weaknesses and strengths.

It is our thinking to think that our ideas are always great and they are going to pay off, it’s a human nature. But our ideas are not always great or useful. So, we need some validation or proper research.

You need to validate your business idea. Validation means to have some research and feedback from the potential customers of your business. Because it will help in finding out that whether there is a demand for the business you are going to do or not.

4. Set some goals

You should take all of your steps in the business before knowing where you will end up. Set some goals, both short term and long term. You can add weekly and monthly goals so you can track your progress against them.

Set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound). Without it, you will waste a lot of your time. It is best to set daily, weekly, monthly goals. You can start it by using small to-do-list and you can have a milestones set when you will be nearing to your business launch.

By setting your goals and milestones, you will be able to have a clear roadmap to when, how and what you are going to do things.

But there will be many things that will suddenly happen and you have to give response to them without proper plan. You should have plan A, B, C, D and beyond. Your problem solving and pressure handling ability will determine your success in your business.

5. Competitor Analysis

The idea begins with identifying the competitors and their products that they are offering in the similar market in which you want to enter. It takes some time to conduct competitor analysis but it will be extremely useful for your business in the future.

Try to find out competitive advantage you can take over your competitors. You can gain competitive advantage over your competitors on the basis of cost leadership, differentiation, focus, customer service and support, products offerings, or anything else.

6. Outsourcing

There are very limited things you can do best and on your own. You can be good in marketing, but may not be in managing your finance. For these types of activities, you need to trust someone who can do it for you. You should do what you are best in.

For example, if you don’t know how to develop a website? Then you will need a help in developing a website, so you will need a web developer for it. Or you need a manager who can manage your online marketing. You will need a service provider who can deliver your product to the customer.

7. Continuous feedback

Your goal should be that your product or service should satisfy the need of your customer and provide them the value. So, it is important to have a continuous feedback from the customers about the product or service.

This will help you in better understanding your customers. Customers will feel that they are heard, it will boost loyalty of the customer. It will enhance overall customer’s experience, it will help you in gaining new customers, and it will increase customer satisfaction.

Always take customer feedbacks from day one. This will also help you in maintaining your customer service and will give you an honest opinion about your brand.

8. Make sure you are enjoying doing it

Don’t put your job in danger all by going into your side business. Take both things separately. Don’t mix them but set some time for both of the activities. You can have morning job and then you can manage your business in the evening.

This will may cause a burn out by working round the clock, but you can avoid this by scheduling your day and know that why you have sacrificed many things for this side business. You need to create a balance between your job and side business.

9. Avoid conflict of interest

If you are under any clause like non-compete clause, assignment of invention clause, non-disclosure agreements. Then it will be better for you to consult an attorney for an advice in this regard.

Be honest in your efforts and don’t work on your side business during your job time even if you are free during it. Don’t use the company resources on your business like computer, software, subscriptions, or any other online tool.

10. Don’t quit your job until

Don’t quit your job until you start earning sufficient amount of money from that business. You know that now your business is mature and it can help me in becoming financially independent or your business needs time.

You can quit your job if you know that your business is doing well. Don’t quit your job if you think you can manage your business with the job.

Final Words

Here we conclude how to start a side business. You can do a side business with your job. It is difficult without a shadow of a doubt, but not impossible. There are as many ways to the entrepreneurship, as much as entrepreneurs are there.

Discover your skill set and idea, identify the target market, test that idea, identify your competitors and try to take competitive edge over them, outsource things you cannot do, launch your product or service and enjoy doing your own business and becoming financially independent.