From side hustler to entrepreneur
The journey from being a side hustler with a full-time day job to being a successful entrepreneur is a well-trodden path.
18 April 2023 • 4 minute read
While largely a symptom of hard times, the rise of the side job has one silver lining, it presents an opportunity to bring more entrepreneurs into the startup community as individuals try to find creative ways to make additional income.
It should not be forgotten many of the most successful tech businesses of all time started as a side hustle or hobby. Facebook started as a university side project. The founders of Apple, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, were working at Hewlett Packard and Atari, respectively; in their spare time, they worked on developing a computer in the garage out of Atari parts. As we all know, they revolutionised the tech industry in the following decades.
Closer to home, Innocent Drinks started in 1998 when several university graduates made healthy smoothies on the side while in full-time jobs, which they quit only after setting up a stall at a festival. Customers were invited to drop their empty bottles into one of two bins labelled 'yes' or 'no' under a sign asking, "Do you think we should give up our day jobs to make these smoothies?". And the rest is history. In 2013 Coca-Cola bought up the company for an estimated $320 million.
Then there is the story of Gymshark. In 2011, Ben Francis, founder and CEO, was only 19, balancing university and pizza delivery when he devised the Gymshark brand in his bedroom. In 2020, the company rose to unicorn status, becoming just one of only two UK brands to do so with no external funding.
But the list goes on, Etzy, Under Armour, Twitter and Slack all started as the side projects of creative and motivated people.
Taking the leap
The critical question for any startup conceived as a side hustle is deciding to commit and ditch the day-job. Shardai Cosgrove, CEO and founder of Fintellity, a fintech startup, commenced the business as a side hustle while on notice of redundancy as an employee in another fintech.
"Our biggest milestone was getting our FCA licence," she says. The team decided to manage the process on their own to save money, which from start to finish took a year, and funded the FCA capital requirement themselves, while they all worked full-time jobs. That was a catalytic moment for Shardai to commit all her energies to the business.
"Generally, if you're small but have a repeatable service where what you're doing is getting recommendations and referrals, that's a good sign. When you have people approaching you because they've heard it through the grapevine, that's encouraging because you're not doing any marketing; your clients are marketing you."
"It's at that point you're thinking 'I've got people coming to me and I'm not even really trying, imagine what I could do if I went and got some investment and marketed this properly?"
Another indicator is that you have customers coming back to you over and again. "And if financially things are stacking up too, then maybe it's time to cut ties with the day job and do this full time." Critically, it's a mix of these things, but Shardai adds, "And if it's all you can think about, and it excites you, and you enjoy it. Then it's 'bye-bye day job'."
If financially things are stacking up… And if it's all you can think about, and it excites you, and you enjoy it. Then it's 'bye-bye day job'.
Building a business as a side hustle first is demanding, but it can help founders build confidence and get through some of the earlier hurdles. But it also can indicate to those individuals that they have the drive and time management skills critical to building a growth business.
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