Week 9: Grow Income, Tactic 3

What can you do this week?

Discover your why in pursuing a side project, then get to exploring your options:

• Side project/work for income now

  • These are more like extra jobs putting cash in your hand for immediate wealth building priorities.

  • The key with this tactic is using every dollar for actual wealth building, not lifestyle spending.

• Side project/work for indirect or longer term financial benefit

  • Call it a passion project or maybe it’s setting up your next act, a new business, or simply improving skills that boost your value at your day job.

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Why start a side project?

If you’re evaluating ways to grow income, a side project can satisfy that need or a desire for creativity and skill development while your at it.

• The prospect of leaving full time W-2 employment to be fully self-employed is a dream of many.

• The reality usually takes years of preparation and building a lengthy cash runway or reliance on a spouse or partner’s income.

• A side project allows you to safely test the waters, create more seed money for what’s next, or just create more financial security.

It can be another job that supplements current savings

• While not as aspirational in growth potential, you can build wealth by working in a number of self employed “gigs” that get you cash to invest now.

• If you’re smart about it, you can get these dollars working immediately in a solo-401k, Roth IRA, or a non-qualified brokerage investment account.

• At a minimum, you’ll build wealth towards an earlier retirement or financial independence.

  

  It can fund the start of a new business

• Of course you can choose to not solely invest in the stock market if your goal is to build up seed money for a new venture.

• You can use your regular job for supporting your needs now (ideally still providing necessary benefits and a healthy retirement savings margin of 10-20%).

  

• While it would not be responsible to expect the below happens with every side project or that you should want this outcome, many a side project has grown to more than was originally expected.

• Noah Kagan’s book, Million Dollar Weekend, is a fun dive into what is possible, written by someone who’s created 7, one million+ dollar businesses.

• When this occurs, the side project quickly dwarfs your other efforts until you eventually exit for a large liquidity event, transfer to a family member, go public, etc.

  

Your side project can be a career reenergizer

• You also don’t need to earn any income directly or build a business empire to make your side project worthwhile.

• You can teach yourself new skills that make you more valuable at work or in your field should you want to pursue other options in the future.

• Starting a low-cost, passion project, minimum viable product, service, pro-bono consulting, or obtaining extra certifications that will be relevant to future work, are some examples of ways to boost your own value with a side project, even if there is no immediate financial benefit.

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