How do I start my side business?

Here is what I recommend and exactly what I did and have done several times:

Spend 80% of your time doing your current job/business and 20% doing planning/researching your side business. Turn off tv, social media and all time-sucking temptations. You want to train yourself to have an intense laser-like focus. After hours and weekends, immerse yourself with your side business, become obsessed. After some time your side business will occupy more time (and hopefully be making more $$ than your main gig), that is the natural time to transition to your side business “full-time”.

This is exactly what I did when I launched business #6, 7 & 8 and they were very successful. I had started several businesses previously, so I had set my expectations accordingly. The process of starting a business will change you as a person into a more rigid disciplined person, you will start to notice being lazy/sloppy will cost you $$.

It took me roughly a year and a half working full-time on business A and working crazy hours on business B to transition to my side biz. I was doing “contract programming”, so it could accommodate alternate hours, this may or may not be the case with you. I would kiss my wife goodnight and then begin another 3–4 hours of work at night during the week and spend another 10–15 hours on the weekend.

The bottom line is that you need to be willing to do whatever it takes to make the side business successful and when you start out — early on — that “whatever it takes” is an open checkbook of your time. You have to ask yourself if you are willing to do that?