When Is Quitting Your Job To Run an Online Business a Good Idea?… So I think I have created a monster. ?
I have been working online for probably about 15 years now with varying degrees of success. Mostly through eBay and Blogging. My nephew is 19 years younger than me and since he’s been a teenager has been involved in his own online business ventures.
I really don’t know whether to be proud or annoyed with him at times but I guess in some way he just wants to be like his uncle ? He’s seen me make money online since he’s been 7-8 years old and I think this is it.
Although, this has kind of backfired on me because now since he has left school and started working he already wants to quit to focus on his website and Youtube channel.
I mean I wish him all the best I really do but still, I get the feeling he is making a HUGE mistake. He is still so young and I can’t help but feel these could be valuable life skills he will be missing out on.
Like really I do believe in him but I don’t think he understands that having this experience and opportunity is only for his own benefit. It bugs me to think about the bad habits he could fall into without knowing what it means to actually have to work hard. I think everyone should really experience these moments if they want to be successful but then…
As much as I hate to admit it, he does make a valid point – if you want to run your own business ideally there must come a point where you stop helping other people run their businesses to focus on your own… So
Quitting Your Job To Run an Online Business
Table of Contents
Now, my nephew probably won’t like me writing this post about him. He is 17 years old and very set in his own ways. He’s been working at my friend’s restaurant for a few months now. Online he’s really tried all sorts;
- eBay,
- Youtube,
- Instagram,
- and blogging.
Plus other stuff (I think) but now he has it in his head that his sole focus should be on his online business.
He says that no one gets rich working a job. I kind of admire him in a way because to some degree he is right. For someone to climb higher up the ladder there must be a time when they give up their old job.
But, the harsh truth (I think) he needs to learn is that making a website or a Youtube channel successful can take years. Things are not just going to pay for themselves and for anyone reading this you must be practical.
As most importantly you need to take steps to finance your online activities. There are courses, hosting, domains, tools, and subscriptions to pay for. Amongst other things too, I am sure.
PLUS You may want to hire people to help move your project along a bit faster, and all these things will start to add up.
My outlook is why not do a bit of work to cover what you need to? Then at the same time actively take steps to make the money that will plug the gap that you will be missing from doing your job.
I mean I really do salute anyone that is ready to give up everything for their dreams. Many do not find success until they make this happen but When Is Quitting Your Job To Run an Online Business a Good Idea?
Surely, there is a time and place for everything but let’s consider this…
Is This Really As Good an Idea as You Think?
So the idea of making 6 figures online is a great feeling. Becoming a millionaire is a nice thought too but making enough money just to live comfortably for the next couple of years without doing anything else.
Who doesn’t want that?
And the fact that if you do want to work then you can and by doing so you can earn even more money.
It is ‘the perfect life’ ?
Exactly why I really kind of see my nephew’s point here. It kind of makes being broke for a year or two worthwhile but really is this all actually necessary? Sacrificing your livelihood in the hope that you can replicate this income elsewhere!
Sure there will be situations where this must be done to achieve further success but first, you must ask yourself…
Are You Already Making Decent Money Online?
I’d say this is fundamental to any decision you make about quitting your job to run an online business. Really take your time to go through the figures. Are You Able To Cover Your Outgoings?
Things like;
- Food shopping,
- Rent/Accommodation,
- Electricity/Gas,
- Internet,
- Online Subscriptions and
- Leisure Activities.
How much money is your online business making? Can you honestly say that you can begin to rely solely on your online business moving forward?
Really I would guess that the majority of people that do this for long enough will see some kind of results but these need to be regular.
So something like one of your blog posts should be making consistent affiliate commissions.
This is really the key – just getting to the stage where you are equally earning a good % of your wages. You could see if you can reduce your hours from here but mostly see if you can identify what it is that is working first.
It may very well be that you can rinse and repeat this formula to keep growing your online earnings. Perhaps this could be the point where you decide to go full-time working on your online business but definitely try to get to this point beforehand.
Because I really would not recommend quitting your job to run an online business otherwise. You should make sure all your bases are covered first but if you really do feel now is the right time whether you are earning from your online business or not there are some things you can try to do online to help fund your operations.
Other Ways To Subsidise Your Online Business
If you are running a website or any other operation that involves making money online, and you are not at the stage yet where you have a decent cash flow coming in there are options available to earn money online from elsewhere.
Of course, you could get another job like before. It honestly is not the worst idea as much as this might appear to be the case. As, when running a website for example new content can take time to rank. It may not be found organically for months even years. Social media is always an option to get found beforehand [R] but you never really know how long these things can take.
So don’t count your chickens before they hatch. ??
Although, if you need some ideas to help make a bit more money if you don’t have a job here are some that might help.
i.) Appen Connect
One thing I do as often as I can is complete the news relevance surveys on Appen. Newhalen I think is the one I do and I usually earn about $35 a month from doing this. I’ve recently begun trying to do this more often still waiting to see what difference this makes but this is really easy to do like 10 minutes a day.
I mean $35 is not a whole lot and I need to actually make $50 before I can make a withdrawal from Payoneer but it is helpful in the long run. Just this bit of money coming in basically covers me for my Getresponse and Canva Pro – 2 very important tools for me.
Also, this is nothing compared to what you can earn with Appen working on other tasks such as Search Engine Evaluation.
Click on the button under the image above to join. It might seem a bit complicated at first but you do get the hang of it.
ii.) User Testing
I have not actually tried User Testing myself but my nephew who I mentioned towards the beginning of this article did this for a while. Apparently, when he did this he used to make about £100 a month. I think he said that the main money was from doing online video interviews after he reviewed people’s work but still without doing this you can make £5-£10 a task.
>>>Sign Up For User Testing Here<<<
iii.) Freelancer
Another option for those of us that have certain skills in things like content development, web design, and social media marketing is freelancing. Freelancer is a great place to get started with working independently online although, in the beginning, you will have to accept low-paid work to build your feedback and reputation.
Really many tasks on Freelancer.com can be pretty time-consuming. Of course, time is a valuable commodity and there is only so much time you can sacrifice when you’re developing a business online. Especially in those early days.
Although people do make good money from Freelancer.com. If you have the right skill set you can see from what other freelancers make that just a few days of work a month can make you an easy couple of hundred pounds. If not more.
You also can get £20 worth of free credit for joining. Simply just click the banner above to find out more. ⏫
iV.) Fiverr
Another option if you are willing to trade some of your time working on your online business for extra cash is Fiverr. Many of the tasks that you need to do for your online business can be offered as a service to others. Really it can present the same issue as above with Freelancer but Fiverr is by far a lot more popular. You should find that like Freelancer once your feedback score begins to grow you can start charging more for your services to the point it actually makes decent money.
>>>Create an Account With Fiverr Here<<<
V.) eBay
My top tip to earn money online if you decide on Quitting Your Job To Run an Online Business I think will always be eBay.
We all have things about the house we can try and sell like books, clothes, and other clutter.
We can easily make £100 a week from eBay once enough good items are listed for sale. Although you will want to start looking at investing in items to sell. Yard sales, garage sales, and the Facebook marketplace are good examples to source new stock.
It doesn’t really have to take up too much time either – it can do (as it does for me) but definitely, my tip is to get yourself a 4 x 6″ Zebra Label Printer, weighing scales, and some mailing supplies. It is very easy to do from this point just print your labels off online, package your items up and take a walk down to the post office.
This really is another online business venture in itself but just remember why you are doing this all for. To help finance your existing online business until this itself is able to earn you a regular sustainable income.
In Conclusion
So when is Quitting Your Job To Run an Online Business a Good Idea? I would say when it is making you money already and enough of it but it depends I would say how much time your job is taking up of your day.
Like my nephew thinks working 15 hours a week is valuable time he could be spending on developing his online business. I would say that is an ideal situation. You get a base income and you have the best part of 153 hours a week to work on your business. Of course, there are 56 hours to sleep, but after this, you are left with 97 hours!
If you divide this by 2 this is 48.5 hours which is plenty of time.
You could even sacrifice 8.5 of these hours to work on some of the side hustles I mentioned above and that leaves you 40 hours to work on turning your website, youtube channel, email list, or whatever else into a money-making machine ⚙
Like, this is the standard working week for a lot of people and you can work more hours if you want to.
My answer is to try and reduce your offline work hours if you are doing more than 30 a week. Gradually get this number down as you start to make more money independently and I would say if you are earning money try and use some of this to hire virtual assistants and freelancers to help speed things along with getting your project off the ground.
You might even find that you can outsource most of your work eventually and this will go some way to achieving this.
Read More About This Here>>> Delegating For Tasks In Digital Marketing – Here Is How<<<
Final Word and Your Feedback
If you reading this I would expect that you have already started your own Online Business but if you have not one method of doing this I seriously recommend is Blogging and Affiliate Marketing.
It’s how I plan to travel the World and really it’s something that anyone can do old or young. I mostly recommend this program >>here<< as it offers training, tools, and web hosting and you can get started for free but as well check my post here to read how to set up your own website with other methods.
But Besides this…
I really hope this information is of some benefit to you and if you would like to leave me any feedback in relation to this or you have any questions feel free to drop us a comment below. It would be great to hear from you.
Please share if you know anyone that might like to read this and finally thanks for taking time out of your day to read this.
Best regards and #ToYourFutureSuccess;
Alex B. Chivers
iBusinessToday.com
Contact us at chivs86@ibusinesstoday.com
Hi Alex,
yes, leaving the normal 9-5 job is a dream that I hope to accomplish, too. But you´re right, I need to go about that the intelligent way. That´s why I work a 30 hour job and try to build my business besides that. I will also look into the tips you gave about money making on the side.
I wish you and your nephew much success on your journeys!
Thanks and take care!
Thimo
Hi Thimo, Thanks for commenting. Yes, I guess there is no right time really you just have to do it but I guess the more prepared you are the better. I think really if you want a business to succeed it is important to turn your ideas into actions. Really I think that becoming successful enough before you decide to quit your job is plausible. It might take longer but if you are earning money one benefit is you can (if you want to) use a small percentage of your earnings to invest in your website. I see one member of Wealthy Affiliate actually had a full-time job and a lot of his content he just outsourced. This is a good idea I think but yes time is definitely valuable hopefully my nephew will go some way to proving this.
Thanks for the comment
Best regards;
Alex
Hi, Alex!
You might don’t like my comment, but I agree with your nephew. No one gets rich working a job. I understand why you think it should be mandatory to have that experience when working for someone else, but nowadays it doesn’t have to be that way.
Unless he worked somewhere where he would have the opportunity to gain experience and absorb knowledge from people who are already doing what he wants to do, working for others is not really necessary.
I’m 11 years older than your nephew and I don’t have work experience longer than 6 months with one employer. I was constantly changing jobs until I finally realized and accepted that entrepreneurship was for me. You should not prevent him from choosing the entrepreneurship path right away if that is what he finds himself in. Especially now while he’s young and other people don’t depend on him.
It is much more difficult to give up a full-time job to go to entrepreneurship later. Moreover, later on, I don’t recommend quitting your job if you don’t have enough savings to cover 6 months of your life. In that case, you have to do both at the same time for a while.
If our generations wasted their time thinking it is best to work for others because it brings security (which is ok for some, but not for all), it does not mean that these newer generations have to go through the same thing. Especially if we consider that the online world offers too many options and the possibility to develop your online business with minimal or no investment.
It is a misconception that we have to work hard to earn money and appreciate it. Nobody has to. We are just taught that way.
Say hello to your nephew and wish him all the success in the world! The same goes for you.
Alisa.
Hi Alisa, Like I did with Gary’s post above I told my nephew to read your comment. I think Gary makes some good points but you also seem to be coming from his point of view more where actually sacrificing your income and knuckling down with all the more extra time on your hands can make things happen sooner rather than later. I mean honestly, I believe someone can quit their job and become a successful blogger living on the bare minimum till things really take off but they have to be very very active which I think is something that happens for those that don’t manage to crack the code sooner. In my new post, I write about this more if your interested [See Here}
When I went full-time into affiliate marketing, it was because my software contract had ended and I felt burned out in the corporate world. But I had a lot of savings to fall back on and support me while I tried out this new-fangled working online thing (this was back in 2004).
I don’t think anyone should quit their job, no matter how much they hate it, to build a business online. It’s something you need to transition into over time. If you’re not successful, and many are not, at least you still have income from your job to keep you going.
If money to support yourself is not an issue, then by all means give working online a go. All you have to lose is time and some money educating yourself.
What’s great about things today is that teenagers can build online businesses from their bedrooms before they even graduate from school or college. That kind of opportunity simply wasn’t there when I was that age.
But the problem with working online is that your business assets rely on various companies to keep them up and running. You need a webhost for blogs and websites. You need YouTube, Vimeo or TikTok to host your videos. You need Google to rank your websites. You need autoresponder services to host your list building and email marketing lists. You need Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Facebook ads and others to run your ads. And so it goes.
Any of these services/online tools could go out of business taking your business assets with them. The internet could go down for a long period if there are extended power outages.
In other words, you can never rely 100% on anything you use in your online business because things can always go wrong.
Covid wiped out a lot of businesses, even online ones, because clients couldn’t afford to pay fees, employees were laid off, etc. and many of those businesses never recovered.
So I think it’s a good idea to have a fallback skill or profession that is real-world based in case the proverbial hits the fan where the online world is concerned.
If someone has been lucky enough to earn good money from an online business, they should save a decent percentage of their income for that rainy day and not splash out on the Lambo, Mansion or other high-priced toys to make themselves look good to others.
As the saying goes, “life is what happens when you’ve made other plans”. Always have a contingency plan in case something bad happens.
But if you do build a successful online business that brings in at least as much as you job does, that is probably the time to think about leaving your 9-5.
Hi Gary, Appreciate for taking the time for you to write all this. Actually, I told my nephew to read your comment if he is serious about building a successful online business – I think it’s good advice really. A lot of people expect running a blog to be a lot easier than it is. This I’m pretty sure to be true because to make money even in drips and drabs can take many years and anyone even thinking about quitting their job to run an online business should be aware of this. Making enough money to support yourself being able to eat and keep a roof over your head is the main thing and once you can manage this then why not set something like this up on the side? I think blogging is a very big opportunity if done correctly but it needs to be sustainable so you can keep doing it till things work themselves out.
Hi Alex,
let’s be practical here. Sometimes, quitting a job to start up a business might not be a great idea. I knew someone who did this once and about six months down the line he regretted it because the business didn’t start. Now making money online is actually different from being a business owner in the real sense of it. As with most businesses including online ones, it takes lots of time and consistency. Even building a career path takes consistency. Every choice in life comes with a price. The question you should ask your nephew is is he willing to pay the price for his choice? He would definitely miss out on a lot of life skills by choosing this path. Does that mean he is wrong to have chosen that? No, i don’t think so! I encourage starting anything early and 17 is actually good- a young budding millionaire– I like that. But can he handle the pressure that comes with it? Can he create that balance he needs without giving in to peer pressure?
Hi Femi, Exactly I think there are 2 very strong sides to the argument here. The saying “the grass is not always greener on the other side” I think springs to mind. I know only too well about the commitment required to run an online business. It can be a very tough gig and it can take making some very big sacrifices to actually make things work. I kind of am not really sure what to think as my nephew has a new job now he has continued to work on his website https://legatiomen.com/ and it seems like he is committed to making it work. However, really I have not just written this post with him in mind. I think that many that become involved with running blogs and similar things will question whether there time is actually spent in the right way. I actually think that if your financial situation allows it than go for it – quit your job. If you are actually ready to commit to the hard work that running an online business involves than go for it ABSOLUTELY but otherwise you really must be able to finance what you are doing all adds up.