Should You Have A Side Hustle?
Want to be an entrepreneur but afraid to leave the security of a regular job and paycheque? Maybe it’s time to start a “side hustle.”
A side hustle is a small business someone can start without giving up their day job. It’s a way to dip your toe in the waters of entrepreneurship without taking many of the risks that come with committing fully.
A side hustle can mean earning some extra cash, but for many people who take the plunge, it’s about more than that.
“Work full-time on your job, part-time on your passion,” says Rivers Corbett, a Fredericton entrepreneur who founded the Relish burger chain and was named by Profit magazine as one of Canada’s top 10 Mentor Rock Stars. “You don’t want to be at the end of your journey and say with regret, ’I wish I had.’”
The allure of the entrepreneurial life can be tempting. Being your own boss, setting your own schedule, building something – those are all things that many “wage slaves’ aspire to from a life inside the gloom of a corporate cubicle farm. But the flipside is the loss of a steady income, the stress of finding and keeping customers, endless paperwork hassles and responsibility for any staff you end up hiring.
Dr. Martin Wielemaker teaches entrepreneurship and management at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. He says that while some people are simply born with the characteristics that make good entrepreneurs, it is still something that can be learned.
“My advice to would-be entrepreneurs is to look into your own background, into problems and needs you have encountered, as sources for new venture ideas,” he says.
“To understand that it is helpful if you are a goal-oriented, persuasive, and persistent person as you will encounter many setbacks along the way. And to realize that there is much knowledge and mentorship out there about how best to go about starting a new business that you can learn and benefit from,” he says. “People are genuinely interested in helping others start up a business – make use of that.”
Here in the Maritimes, the culture of entrepreneurialism was often muted by the widespread cultural belief that the way to happiness was to find a “good job” with the government, phone company or power company. The kind of jobs with pension plans and good steady salaries. Of course, those kinds of “good jobs” aren’t what they used to be, and the idea of lifetime employment seems increasingly like a memory.
Now we are in a “gig economy” where jobs are measured in a short number of years, if you’re lucky, and months if you’re not. So a side hustle can be an income stream that helps you through the ups and downs of your increasingly variable day job.
Creating your own job also gives you the kind of security you won’t find anywhere else.
“The best form of security is the person in the mirror,” says Corbett.
The side hustle lets you get started as an entrepreneur and likely learn some valuable lessons about the business you are launching.
UNB’s Dr. Wielemaker says that the side hustle is a good way to manage the risk that comes with launching a new business. “An often mentioned entrepreneurial skill is being a risk-taker, but I prefer to think of entrepreneurs as risk-mitigators who operate in what are typically risk-prone endeavors,” he says. “Good entrepreneurs try to minimize the level of risk by testing and validating their assumptions before making a giant leap.”
Nicole Leblanc, a New Brunswick native who works with BDC Capital in Toronto, says a side hustle is a great way to validate a business idea. “Your Mom is not customer validation. You can get critical feedback and support from experienced entrepreneurs, potential customers and market experts to help you build a solid plan. Any decisions you make are then based on fact, not feeling.”
Most entrepreneurs will tell you that nothing ever quite rolls out like a business plan predicts.
“Things will not go according to plan. You will learn how to multi-task, how to adjust and how to survive in an unstructured environment,” cautions Leblanc.
But that‘s part of the fun part argues Rivers Corbett. “The most thrilling ride at the fair is the roller coaster. That’s the best way to describe the ride of entrepreneurship. Nobody walks away from the merry go round and says ‘wow that was fun.’”
So what types of businesses work best for a side hustle? Think about a problem you can solve that people will pay for – that could be strategic planning, meeting facilitation, management consulting and accounting, or creative work like graphic design, web development, music, photography or writing.
Of course, the Maritimes is a small market, and there is no shortage of firms or full time freelancers competing for that limited pool of work. Fortunately there are many online platforms like Upwork, Outsource or Fiverr that connect freelancers with clients that can dramatically expand the potential market.
“Maybe your idea will always be a side hustle. It can keep you satisfied so you don’t mind the regular 9 to 5 grind so much,” says BDC Capital’s LeBlanc.
Of course, your side hustle might also take off, forcing a new set of decisions.
“Once the venture is validated and has a proven business model with paying customers, growing the business, especially if there are outside investors involved, will likely require that the entrepreneur no longer treat the business as a side-hustle but fully commit to it,” says Dr. Wielemaker.