Do you have a job or went full time on your dream?

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Hi everyone,

thank for all content. I hope I can get through the 30 days and build some amazing stuff.

My question is do still keep your job and build your dream/IM/company on side or just go full on your dream.

thank again
bbbyet
 
Most of us did the responsible thing and kept our jobs until we were sure our income was as stable as possible and we had enough savings on hand to weather a storm for a good year.

Reality doesn't care about your dreams and passions. It's not a magic ticket to success. It will chew you up and spit you out.

You need to fail a ton of times before you'll even have the scope to understand whether or not you have the skill to make this work as a real career. It's easy to fool yourself about how good you are in the beginning.
 
I went full-time into my dream straight out of college. Still working towards that dream!
 
I thought about starting a job, did freelance for a few firms and just ran with it. The funny thing is, full time freelance so far has been the opposite of what every site sells it as.
 
I tried to get a job, but I couldn't so.......no option for me right now.

And to make some money on-line it is not that easy, I hope it was.

I am not complain about! I would like to get some perspective.........

thanks
 
I thought about starting a job, did freelance for a few firms and just ran with it. The funny thing is, full time freelance so far has been the opposite of what every site sells it as.

Could you explain a little more to what you mean?
 
I have to have a job. I have too much financial responsibilities. One thing I can say about my job, it is the type of job that I could see a wealthy person doing if they were bored with traveling the world and laying up in their luxurious homes all day. I work with very low income seniors and the mentally disabled. I have my own office and I could literally run a business from my office. The big bosses are in other states and stressed out but I am in my little cubby hole doing my thing.The seniors and disabled that I work with wouldn't have a clue as to what I was doing as many of them can't read and don't know the first thing about computers or technology in general, and my boss on site is too busy and too stressed to even care. The pay sucks balls but the benefits are decent. I am trying to take advantage of this laid back autonomous environment to get my dreams off of the ground.
 
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I have to have a job. I have too much financial responsibilities. One thing I can say about my job, it is the type of job that I could see a wealthy person doing if they were bored with traveling the world and laying up in their luxurious homes all day. I work with very low income seniors and the mentally disabled. I have my own office and I could literally run a business from my office. The big bosses are in other states and stressed out but I am in my little cubby hole doing my thing.The seniors and disabled that I work with wouldn't have a clue as to what I was doing as many of them can't read and don't know the first thing about computers or technology in general, and my boss on site is too busy and too stressed to even care. The pay sucks balls but the benefits are decent. I am trying to take advantage of this laid back autonomous environment to get my dreams off of the ground.

Good option If you make a good money and need to pay your bills...
In my case as soon I get a job I wouldn't go for my business......but I wouldn't recommend anyone to do that.......so I don't have a job, but in this way I have to make money in some way
 
I have a part-time job. I was making some ok money up to the start of this year, working online with some guys building websites, creating multimedia bundles to give away in exchange for an email address. Built lists of 20k in 10 days and then sold them affiliate offers.

Unfortunately, it wasn't my business and things went wrong. I found myself out of a job and scratching around. We're making ends meet but it's not easy.

I hate working for other people and am doing everything possible to just stay in part-time work while I build this affiliate business. If I can get to $1000 pm in 8-12 months I'll be fine. It's amazing how even with low mortgage etc, the price of just living is SO high!!!
 
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Day jobber here.

Currently in the process of exploring my online business options and building up the nest egg for when I do leave.
 
Nice work @Jasper68
...maybe you could share more about that
What do you want to know?

It was actually a real pain in the butt for the most part. Building huge spreadsheets of people who had a book/course etc who might be interested in offering it as a freebie for added visibility etc. Then building the landing pages and download pages (not a big deal) ready for the launch.

Then... getting said contributors to sign up as affiliates and promote to their own audiences. 80/20 again, a few did, most didn't and you always felt like you were begging them.

Have to say, we did ok. One 10 day launch for writers got us 18k new subscribers. Another in the paleo diet/ancestral eating niche got 70k subscribers in 10 days, although one of the guys working with me had a LOT of buddies in that area, some with 400k lists of their own.

I liked the launches, the setting shit up, getting it ready, seeing the subscribers coming in.

Hated the feeling of begging for affiliates and contributors to get involved.

Kinda pleased that is all over, learned a lot but wouldn't say it was the best time of my life :-)
 
Hi @Jasper68 thanks for sharing.......

My first thought was......"Jesus I should replicate this and launch my offer or affiliate one"

I like the approach. It seems fast and measurable, but I guess the worst part is how to approach contributors. ( I can understand you pain, did similar thing offline)

I don't mind begging as long as I can make some money. I would rather beg contributors than google.
 
Hi @Jasper68 thanks for sharing.......

My first thought was......"Jesus I should replicate this and launch my offer or affiliate one"

I like the approach. It seems fast and measurable, but I guess the worst part is how to approach contributors. ( I can understand you pain, did similar thing offline)

I don't mind begging as long as I can make some money. I would rather beg contributors than google.

Yeah, it's probably no worse than outreach for guest posts etc, in fact, probably easier as the person you are contacting has more to gain, visibility, awareness of them from subscribers who are already interested or invested in the niche.

Problem is, if you are going to pay affiliates on a per subscriber basis, it's kinda hard to know what the lifetime, or even monthly revenue per subscriber is, unless you already have done some testing.

PLUS, subscribers who come for free books or courses are likely nowhere near as valuable as ones that come via other means. I was involved in the deep end with Buck Books, you may have heard of it, was quite big in it's day promoting 99 cent kindle books.

It was relatively easy to know the RPS you'd gain back in a month, 3 or 6 months, but we started some other sites, one did great, made almost $60k off 18000 subscribers in month 1, and then it went into a decline, but still did ok for a while.

The other site in the paleo diet niche sucked. 68k subscribers in 10 days, paying $2 per subscriber to affiliates. It all went to shit, the affiliates got paid in the end but the site never made any profit.

At $1 per subscriber to affiliates, it would have been fine, but the guy who was running the show wanted to pay $2, then started offering extra in an affiliate competition etc. Was a bad move and the repercussions were pretty miserable for everyone involved.

Still, it was a useful experience, building these mixed media bundles and doing outreach. Not sure I was very good at it, I hated the used car salesman approach which we were kinda forced to use.

So, yeah, definitely can work if you get it right and don't get too excited about giving affiliates too much.

Giveaways can work well too, even with prizes under $100, but one needs to cleanse one's list often, those peeps are often not worth a lot either, just people after free shit. LOL
 
For the past several years I have held day jobs in the analytics field. I enjoy it, and it's great for someone as risk averse as I am. In my spare time, I work on a pretty solid stream of ORM clients, some local SEO work, very lucrative content writing, and a good 12+ projects that I work on with a small army of VA's.

I'm 27 now. I figure if I work like crazy for the next five years while my wife completes her residency, by the time she is making that knock-down surgeon cash, I'll have enough of an automated business that I can quit the day job and go full-time. For now, though, I appreciate the consistency of a solid, steady paycheck. That plus the fact that I'm building up a stellar resume with two faces: Analytics/reporting and online stuff.

I actually recently turned down a role as Director of SEO for a mid-sized operation here in the city to avoid mixing the two. That, plus my current job paid more and had a nice 401k match.
 
I am full time online for many many years now. It"s all about ups and downs and how much you can motivate yourself to do something no boss told you to do :smile:
 
Right now, I'm just starting to move away from the job I created for myself online starting back around seven or eight years ago. I wouldn't be able to just quit my work to go "full-time on my dream" because I've got a family to take care of, but I hope to transition it over incrementally.
 
I had a job and started/worked on my business on the side. I did that for four years until I grew the business enough to support my family and I. That was four years ago. My business now makes about 2.5x what I was making with my old job.
 
Hybrid. Some wage work, but mostly working on projects. Currently hitting physical capacity (time/fatigue limits), and at current cash flow / burn rate will be broke in less than 6months unless my current project succeeds and I'm not beaten to the market by someone else (touch wood).

For this reason I'm going to be pulling back on my project work somewhat and trying to get more wage work to try and arrest the negative cash flow. But I'd consider taking a full time job a failure, and have no intention of doing so ever again.
 
Luckily for me I got into this stuff towards the beginning of college and got to test things while in school and didn't have much financial responsibilities. I got successful while still in school and was able to just go full time with it. I certainly recommend most people to continue working and only stop once they start making comparable to what they make at their job. Or at least enough to live off of.
 
Had a day job, 9 - 5. Used to hustle and put my heart and soul into the work, but I was under paid and never able to get anywhere, even though I showed results. Living pay check to pay check is frustrating and made me hungry and fueled my passion to become independent. I miss that rage!

Started side hustling while at work. Built a few clients to support my expenses. Eventually, got fired - the severance helped. I took all I had and invested it in MYSELF. I spent 2 months straight working non stop. Fast forward... I own my time now.
 
Hey guys,
I was doing SEO and PPC in-house and then at a large agency, but have been freelance for a number of years after building up my reputation. I'm launching a full-service agency in one of the largest markets in the world that caters to a specific industry. Never looking back :smile:
 
I tried both...

I first walked away from my old career to pursue my dream of becoming a health and wellness influencer. That quickly turned into paralysis by over analysis, and months of very little income.

Now, I'm working a 9 to 5 and trying to balance that with training private clients AND building web projects. It's tough, but I'm digging it.

I echo the advice of @Future State and so many others on this thread. But ultimately it's a very personal choice. I'm the type of person who needs to feel secure before he can feel creative. I need to have a job so basic expenses are always covered. But, I also know a couple people who went all-in on their dreams with their back against the wall. They needed to feel desperate in order to hustle.

Here's a test. Have you ever gotten into a confrontation (on the street, at a bar, etc) that made you feel like you were going to be physically attacked? If so, what was your immediate response? If it was to clench your fists and tuck your chin, you might just be the type of person who can leave their job to go all-in on their dream. But if you flinched or stuttered, even for a second, I'd recommend keeping your day job.

Just to clarify, there isn't anything wrong with the latter. I'm in that camp. I remember almost having a panic attack the first time I thought I was going to get into a legit bar fight (that I drunkenly instigated). And frankly, I think it's a sign that you're more cerebral than physical. And that will pay big dividends over the long run, as long as you know how to cultivate your sense of security.
 
How long between the start of that work-for-yourself and it paying your bills?

2 months of severance helped sustain me while I grew my client base and was getting some income from the clients I made while at work. First 2 - 3 months, I was covering expenses and sometimes having to use credit cards to go by. It was 5 months in when I started making more money than my company salary (which was little to start with) but I had PLENTY more time.
 
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