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💸 Should you quit your 9-5 for side hustle?

To build a product?

Nazuk Jain

Nazuk Jain

— 4 min read

TBH, I have thought about this question many times in my career. each time I have had this “crazy idea” that I got excited about for 3 days (you know those 🔥 ideas)… and sometimes months. I would contemplate, if I left my 9-5, how would my day look like.

We live in the age of polywork where people don’t want to be tied to one type of work i.e a standard 9-5 (work till 60 and retire situation)

Millennials started the wave and Genz is working hard to not be that 9-5 only type of work force or lifestyle. Our grandparents fought for the freedom of the land and basic rights and 2 generations later we are fighting for freedom of time and place. No one wants cubicle life for 40 years.

People want to explore passion projects/side hustles outside of their 9-5s for various reasons such as

➡️ Growth

➡️ Learning a new skill

➡️ Money

➡️ Passion

➡️ Finding new community/friends etc

All very valid reasons — but the question is should you quit your 9-5?

Before we can answer that I’d like to change the question and ask — whether your idea is worth quitting 9-5.

Naval Ravikant explains this is best in one of my favorite books - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant where he talked about the 4 different types of leverage:

  • Capital: You learn how to multiply your money, like Warren Buffet.
  • Labor: You have a human workforce that can build whatever you tell them to, like Henry Ford
  • Code: You create tech, like Larry Page
  • Media: You can create content, like Joe Rogan.

How most people got rich in the last few decades is mainly based on Capital and Labor.

But today, most of the newer billionaires get their wealth from Code and Media.

since most of us may not know to code, Media is a no-brainer, Ravikant says.

40 years ago, 30 years ago, we’d have to be lucky to get on TV, which is somebody else’s leverage.

They would have distorted the message and would have charged for it, also I’d be lucky to even get that kind of exposure.

Today, thanks to our devices, I just have to hit ‘record’ or even better hit ‘live’ and get connected to the world.

The bottom line is: If you have a WiFi connection, you have leverage - media or code.

If you don’t know to code, there is still no one stopping you from owning, and building a tech company.

Photo by Dave Weatherall on Unsplash

So, how can you put yourself in a position to quit your 9-5? Do you have leverage?

My response to that is — build a proven consistent income source and quit when you need to scale your idea.

Here is why —

Working on your passion project, side hustle, crazy idea whatever you want to call it is going to be really hard at first because there is a LOT to learn, and experiment, you will face challenges and going through a learning curve.

With that having “how am I going to make rent this month” is another level of stress you probably don’t want.

Your 9-5 gives you financial stability and cushion. We all have bills to pay.

Now, I am fully aware that I come from an immigrant mindset where ‘security’ is a natural instinct and a risk-taking environment nurtured. but I think I have found my balance between the two.

Here is how I got started with building and growing Product Career and built it to consistent income —

1️⃣ Experiment: I experimented a LOT to find things I liked. To be honest some of my projects ran for a good year + and then I grew out of it so clearly it wasn’t my passion.

When you find the thing you are passionate about you would want to go deep and learn all aspects of it. I won’t say you will absolutely love it always. But you want just go deep and learn more and more and that will keep you going.

2️⃣ Additional unique skills: For me, these turned out skills like Personal Branding, Building a product, Marketing, Video creation, copywriting, etc outside of my core expertise in product management (which is my bread 🥖 and butter 🧈).

3️⃣ “Effortless” distribution: well it will require some effort in the beginning but once you find your style it will be effortless.

In my case, my major distribution is in video format. I produce video content, mostly short form for now but it took me some time to master, and now it doesn’t feel like work to me.

4️⃣ Scale — work to scale your efforts. Automate what you can. Put growth strategies in place that work for you.

So with your “crazy idea” can you build a proven consistent income?

You want to build a tech company, find a problem to solve where people will pay you every month to get access and you can build a subscription-based business model and start earning MRR (monthly reoccurring revenue).

- -

if you enjoyed reading this post, I’d love to hear from you, I’d love to share my learnings in a more free-form style of writing where I can talk more about career, my perspective as a woman in a senior corporate role, and life lessons in general. So open to hearing from you.

Feel free to comment below or reply to this email.

-Nazuk

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