Your Good Side
Don't quit your day job. Really, we mean it. Start a business on the side while you work full time for someone else.
You dream of the day you can quit your day job and start your
dream business. But you realize that in the real world, mortgages
and car payments have to be paid. So, instead of forgoing that
day-job paycheck just yet, you start your business part time.
"The biggest benefit of starting a business part time is
that it lowers the risk threshold," says Melvin Gravely II,
founder of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Thinking in
Cincinnati. "It makes business ownership viable to most
people." The benefits are many—you can start with the
cushion of your full-time job and test the waters to see whether
there's actually a market for your product or service.
Still, starting part time is not easy. "It's not a
hobby," Gravely says. "If it is a hobby, call it a hobby
[and don't try to make money at it]. But if it's a
business, call it a business." That means you'll have to
work during most of your free time, grow your business more slowly
than if you were running it full time and do whatever it takes to
get your start-up off the ground, from sending e-mails out to
customers at 2 a.m. to making deliveries with your car.
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Randy Cohen definitely got used to his car in the early days of
Ticketcity.com, his online ticket brokerage. In 1987,
this former computer sales associate started by delivering tickets
on street corners. "I would work out of the car while going to
sales calls [for my day job]," he recalls. "People would
call me on my mobile phone, and I'd meet them. I did that part
time until it got so busy, it was taking away from my normal
job."
Cohen, 37, recalls how difficult it was to present a
professional appearance when he was meeting people at fast-food
restaurants and on street corners. Still, he found that it was not
only the successes, but also the mistakes, that helped grow his
company. A few years into running Ticketcity.com, Cohen decided to
open satellite offices off-site. He quickly closed them because he
didn't have the right controls in place, and his online
business was generating more profit.
In 1990, the Austin, Texas, entrepreneur was finally able to
quit his computer sales job and take Ticketcity.com full time. With
more than $10 million in sales today, the business is still going
strong.
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