Working full time and running a business part time

Currently I work full time 37+ hours a week in a computing job and also run a business part time making websites. So what are the pros and cons of working in this way?

Pros:

• You get a regular salary from your job
• You can re-invest anything you make from your business as you don’t need to ‘live off the profits’
• You get pensions (if your employer pays into them) etc but really these aren’t really worth much unless you work for a long time (30+ years or something).
• Sick pay - if your sick you’ll get paid from work
• You’re not solely reliant on your job for income.  
• In your business you control everything
• What you learn at work can help your business and vice versa.
  

Cons:

• Not much spare time – Currently I get up at 6:50 am, go to work then finish work at around 5 o’clock. It takes me an hour to travel home. I grab something to eat then work for a few hours on my sites.  On weekends I tend to work on my sites as well.  This leaves me pretty tired.
• Not enough time to spend on your business. It’s hard to compete with other full time businesses when you are only working part time.
• Stress - you get it from work and also when you go home from your business for example the other week I found that all my servers were down and I needed to sort it out as soon as I got home even though I’d had a tough day at work.
• At work you tend to be a small part of everything

In summary I think that this is the best way to grow your business until it’s at a point where you’re making more than your full time job and need to quit it to grow your business further.

3 comments February 3rd, 2008