Why Your Side Hustle Delays Your Real Business

Transcription:

Coming up, I’m gonna tell you why your side hustle is actually delaying your real business and why if you’re a side hustler, you’re really not an entrepreneur. Stay tuned.

What is up, App Nation? It is Steve P Young, founder of appmasters.com, and in this video, I wanna share why if you’re doing a side hustle, then you’re not really an entrepreneur.

Look, if you listen back to episode 500 where I come on and share the presentation that I gave at Tradecraft, the talk I did at Tradecraft, it took me a really long time to admit that I was a wantrepreneur because I kept thinking that these side hustles made me a real entrepreneur, but I’m gonna tell you why that’s not the case. So, reason number one, your side business is not a real business, OK? You don’t feel the sense of urgency that you get, the sickness that you get when your real business is not going well that you do with your side business.

Look, it’s on the side for a reason. That’s why we call it a side business. If it fails, you don’t care, or else I didn’t care when I had side businesses. I didn’t care if they failed. I just moved on to the next side business. There is a good thing, though, about these side businesses.

I’ve got a stat here from the Academy of Management that says, I’m gonna read this to you. “Businesses that are launched while the founder “is still working at a day job “and later leave and make this side business “into their full time focus “are one third less likely to fail “than those that started out as a full time business.” So you’re more likely to succeed if you turn your side hustle into a real business, but it’s not a real business. You don’t have that urgency.

But the good news is if you finally get the courage, like I finally did, to make your side hustle into a real business, then you’re more likely to succeed, alright? Number two, it’s time consuming. Alright look, you’re kind of using the side business, you’re working a nine to five, probably, you’re using the nights and weekends for your side hustle, right? It’s time consuming. It’s probably affecting your mood, definitely affected my mood, back when I was doing this on the side hustle, and the productivity just falls off the face of the earth and you’re really not happy because you’re grouchy because you stayed up to late and then you had to go to your nine to five. It’s very much time consuming, and that’s not a real business.

Time is your friend. You need to actually, a real business, you’re using less of your time working on things that matter to you and you’re able to hire out, and that’s not a real business. A side hustle, you’re doing everything, and that’s why you have no time, and the fact is your side hustle, you do it when you have the time, but your real business, you make the time for it. Let me be clear, I’m gonna repeat that for you.

Your side business, you work on when you have the time. Your real business, you make the time for it because you’ve got to make the time for it, alright? And lastly, the most important things, it’s hard to scale that side business. I know very few, some, have done it, but it’s very rare because you’re doing everything because it’s still on the side.

You’re doing the marketing, you’re doing the design, you’re doing the writing, you’re doing the development, and you’re not putting your full on effort into it because again, it’s on the side. So it’s hard to scale. You know, why do you think that people like YC, people, investors, want you to go full time on these things? Yes, it’s OK to be on the side, but they want you to go full time on it so that your number one, your number one focus is this business, so it’s really hard to scale these side businesses.

And that’s where, I think, where like I was on this boat. I thought for the longest time that because I had all these side hustle business that I was an entrepreneur. Now I wanna talk to you, the person, who believes the same thing as I did. It took me a long time to think that. Took me three years, maybe two years, into my full time business, actually, let’s scratch that.

The first year, I knew that the side hustle stuff was not a real entrepreneurial stuff because I felt the pain, I felt the struggle, I felt the hurt in my stomach that I wasn’t, that I didn’t know where the money was gonna come from, and I had to stay up an extra hour to just figure it out, whereas a side hustle, I’m like,”You know what, I’ll get to this tomorrow. “I’ll get to this this weekend. “I’ll get to it when I get to it.” Maybe I never get to it, frankly, right?

And so I’m speaking to you, side hustler, if you really have this entrepreneurial spirit inside of you I want you to continue growing this side business, ’cause like I said, the stats are there. We’re more likely to succeed if we start it on the side and then we’ve turned that into a full business.

The stats are there, I’ve been able to prove it. I’m one of the stats that said, “Look, we’ve got a profitable, sustainable business, “because I started this on the side.” But you have to set a date. You have to have the courage to finally say, “This side business will replace my full time income, “will do it, and I’m gonna leave.” You have to take that leap, alright? And I’ll see you next week on the next video. Bye.