4 ms·

Thanks, this is insightful. Sounds like the opportunity cost of a side business isn't worth it for you right?

scarface74 7y ago
If I worked on a side business now that wasn’t purely passive income, it would be doing side software gigs involving technology I was already good at. I’m not sacrificing my job (main source of income), my time working out, or my family. The only thing I could realistically give up would be filling in skills gap and learning more. So instead of in two years being able to command 50% to 100% more as a cloud consultant/architect, I would still only be able to make what I’m making now. I will be spending a lot of time building instead of sharpening my axe. Even worse, I risk being further behind technically in two or three years and not even being able to find a job in development in the then hot technology. It’s like the difference between deciding to go to work right out of high school and postponing starting your career and going to college.
daveslash 7y ago
to;dr -- Never devalue your personal time. If you can, monetize your hobbies that you'd be doing anyway. I don't have a side-hustle yet, but I'm working on one. As you pointed out, there's an opportunity cost to a side-business. I'm working on a scheme to monetize a hobby; make money off something I'd be doing anyway. I'm just over 10 years into my career, recently married with a teenage step-child. My family-time or my "down-time" is very precious to me. During our wedding, we got some beautiful wedding save-the-dates off Etsy. They were water-color paintings. But then we needed additional stationary: invitations, menus, seating charts, table signs, a gobo (wtf is a gobo??), etc.... I ended up using photoshop to make all of the other stationary and graphics myself based off the initial Etsy save-the-dates (it was important to me that the fonts & colors matched on everything). My wife loves to paint water-colors, and I'm into photography & graphic-design. I'm working on a side hustle to do wedding invites and similar stationary on Etsy based off her paintings and my photography & graphic-design skills. These are (mostly) activities we'll do anyway. So... make some stationary templates once, throw them up on Etsy, and if people buy them GREAT, if not then no loss.
- typeliftr03 7y ago
  For me, monetizing a hobby is a quick way to start hating it. Unless you really want as much money as you can get, you probably shouldn't monetize all of your hobbies.

If I worked on a side business now that wasn’t purely passive income, it would be doing side software gigs involving technology I was already good at. I’m not sacrificing my job (main source of income), my time working out, or my family. The only thing I could realistically give up would be filling in skills gap and learning more. So instead of in two years being able to command 50% to 100% more as a cloud consultant/architect, I would still only be able to make what I’m making now. I will be spending a lot of time building instead of sharpening my axe. Even worse, I risk being further behind technically in two or three years and not even being able to find a job in development in the then hot technology. It’s like the difference between deciding to go to work right out of high school and postponing starting your career and going to college.

daveslash 7y ago

to;dr -- Never devalue your personal time. If you can, monetize your hobbies that you'd be doing anyway. I don't have a side-hustle yet, but I'm working on one. As you pointed out, there's an opportunity cost to a side-business. I'm working on a scheme to monetize a hobby; make money off something I'd be doing anyway. I'm just over 10 years into my career, recently married with a teenage step-child. My family-time or my "down-time" is very precious to me. During our wedding, we got some beautiful wedding save-the-dates off Etsy. They were water-color paintings. But then we needed additional stationary: invitations, menus, seating charts, table signs, a gobo (wtf is a gobo??), etc.... I ended up using photoshop to make all of the other stationary and graphics myself based off the initial Etsy save-the-dates (it was important to me that the fonts & colors matched on everything). My wife loves to paint water-colors, and I'm into photography & graphic-design. I'm working on a side hustle to do wedding invites and similar stationary on Etsy based off her paintings and my photography & graphic-design skills. These are (mostly) activities we'll do anyway. So... make some stationary templates once, throw them up on Etsy, and if people buy them GREAT, if not then no loss.

typeliftr03 7y ago
For me, monetizing a hobby is a quick way to start hating it. Unless you really want as much money as you can get, you probably shouldn't monetize all of your hobbies.