For most folks, focusing on doing your full time job well and getting promoted/finding a better paying job is _significantly_ less effort than starting a side hustle that pays you meaningful money.
That being said, if you feel like grinding and learning a lot about sales and marketing, consider launching an app in a marketplace (Shopify/Airtable/App store/Play store, etc) to get started (hell of a lot easier than starting a SaaS, ask me how I know).
Definitely. Think about it this way: it’s a lot easier to get a $12k/year promotion over the span of a couple years than to build a side hustle that earns $1k/month.
Money aside, there is still something to be said for doing a side project rather than a side hustle. At least for myself, I learn generalized “get it done” skills (which usually atrophy in a large company) that made me a stronger engineer in my opinion.
Can you write more about your experiences with both and things you'd wish you'd known? Thank you for sharing.
> For most folks, focusing on doing your full time job well and getting promoted/finding a better paying job is _significantly_ less effort than starting a side hustle that pays you meaningful money.
I agree that for most folks looking to maximize money, it is better to stay focused on doing their job well.
But not everyone is same. I have a friend who wanted more freedom and spend more time with his kid. He started ecommerce site as a side hustle. He quit his job when his side hustle was making enough money to cover his expenses.
After that he started more ecommerce sites in different niches. Right now, he may have 4 sites but he has tons in work, he doesn't talk about all of them until they are semi-successful. With all those sites, he still works less than 20 hours a week and makes close to what he can make as an engineer. One thing though his wife also works and they get insurance through her work.
I also wanted to do my own thing but I was focused on tech based side hustle. I thought that would be easier but now I think tech business on the side is harder especially with a family. If I do it again, it would be a low tech or old school side hustle.