I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t empathize with them. I’ve had side hustles ever since I started secondary school, whether it was freelance web development, dropshipping or affiliate marketing.
While I was at college, a couple of older grads approached me with their idea to make a social app to connect travelers crossing paths on their trips. It sounded like a cool idea, so we joined forces and started a company.
We built an awesome product, did a lot of marketing and had acquired thousands of monthly active users. Unfortunately, things wound down as we ran out of money, my co-founders wanted to get other jobs and the investors were keen to get tax relief on their “failed” investment.
Soon after that I started another company with a friend — an app to book photographers on-demand. We built an awesome product, did a lot of marketing, acquired repeat paying customers and generated thousands of pounds in revenue. We even got a $10,000 grant . But in the end, we both decided that we weren’t passionate enough about the idea to leave our jobs for it. And we weren’t ready to pivot into something completely different.
Why start up at all? listen and find out.