Thread by @NeelBParekh

Quitting your job to start a biz full-time VS side hustling it. Which is better?

I side-hustled until my cleaning co reached $30K/mo in revenue in 2015. Then I quit my job and booked a one-way flight to South America.

/🧵on what I'd do differently and what you should do/

If I did it again...I'd still side-hustle it. Why? Bc I know myself and I'm naturally more risk-averse.

The big change I'd make is that I would funnel all income from my corporate job into my biz, which I did not do. I played it too safe and sacrificed growth. Bet on yourself.

Even though I didn’t go the quit-the-job route, I do think this sense of "security" from a job is totally false.

A full-time job is like a business with an exclusive contract with one client. If you lose that client, your business implodes. How secure is that?

A smarter move is to think of your "single client day job" as the seed VC money to grow. Use it to hire remote team or use vendors to plug any holes temporarily (like picking up phone calls).

Then when you're ready, take the leap and go full-time.

Where I should have allocated my "seed corporate money" to extend my runway:

1️⃣ First, I'd immediately hire people to pick up the phones. If I couldn't afford remote staff out the gate, I'd use a call answering service like ReceptionHQ, Ruby Reception, or a bunch of others

2️⃣ Next, I'd save up and get a remote team member ASAP who can do Operations. In our case, that would be handling same-day issues for cleaners and customers.

The goal of these early hires is to take anything urgent off your plate, so you can continue working.

3️⃣ Invest in medium to long term marketing. i.e. SEO, social organic, etc. These things cost MONEY and you won't see the ROI for months.

I should have used job earnings to invest in this ASAP. Instead, I only picked marketing tactics that had immediate ROI.

In short - I was worried about spending money...so I didn't. Even though I had a full-time job that could have funded my biz and exploded our growth.

Use your day job wisely and think about it the right way. Funnel 100% of what you can into your side hustle, invest early on.

The Case For Quitting and Going Full-Time Immediately:

My biz partner and owner of MaidThis Denver (our first franchisee) @David_Lahav is very much an all-or-nothing guy. He wants to give his biz his entire focus and a having a job at the same time would be torture to him.

In David's case, he would probably save as much money as he could from his corporate earning upfront, then quit and go all in. He'd use that saved up pile of cash to fund operations and grind it out.

Its matter of personal preference and how you want to operate.

The answer for everyone considering what to do: stop looking at others and instead ask yourself "what is my risk tolerance?". If you're risk averse and going to put yourself in a risky situation and suffer mentality, then side hustle it. If you value speed more, go full-time.

Examine:

- Your personality
- What you want
- How quickly you want it
- Your financial situation

Once you have all that written down, the path will be clear for you.

If you found this thread helpful, please:

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p.s. I'm actively looking for our next franchisee for MaidThis. If you know anyone who wants to work from anywhere in the world while running a local biz w/ my same playbook, please share/DM me ✌️