

Quda
387 posts

@JoinQuda
Unlocking 5 min insights from the world's best podcasts.



















How do you manage having a day job and building a side startup? Here’s an honest discussion I had with @StephZielinski at @inside about the trade-offs. Not easy but doable! What’s your experience managing this? Justin: I'm not going to give a rosy picture. It's really hard. I'm a father too and have a young family. With a busy day job I have to fit @JoinQuda into the evenings. I've cut back on sleep, but I found a way to manage it so long as I'm not going too far. I just try to keep a balance basically. And that's really important because you do not want to sacrifice mental health or your health in general. It's the most important thing. So if you are doing it, it’s possible but make sure you keep balance. I've written a bit about this online too that's got a lot of responses. One element that is helpful about keeping your day job is you don't have the financial worries and that's a huge thing. I have actually seen people I've known online give up their jobs only to struggle to get enough revenue to cover costs and then gone back to work. Some have succeeded with that strategy, but I think with startups, it's a high risk strategy if you've got no sure path to revenue because I think revenue generally takes longer than you think. So I would just say that if you can find a way to have work while pushing forward your idea, then for me, that's been the wisest choice. @StephZielinski: That's where the long term game that you were mentioning comes in. Your ingredients that you've put together in this recipe are, they all fit together for a reason. I see how your desire to stay with this project for a long time fits with that balance and maintaining mental health that you're describing. Justin: Yeah. Absolutely. But to your point about the day job I feel you don't want to be in a day job where you're not learning, right? So there will be ways to have synergy between your day job and your side hustle. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. They can assist each other for example with knowledge transfer. There can be ways that you can do both and enjoy both. It doesn't have to be like the day job is the demon, and then the startup is the fun. They don't have to be contradictory!
