How to Start a Business While Working Full-Time

Starting a business while working full-time is totally doable, and it even has some unique advantages that, if leveraged properly, can make building your business enjoyable.

I’ve helped hundreds of people start their businesses while working full-time jobs, and in this guide, I’m going to share how you can do the same without over-working yourself.

Here’s what I’m going to cover:

• Why starting your business while working full-time is advantageous, and how to leverage the benefits of your day job to accelerate your business growth.
• A step-by-step process for growing your business with limited time.
• The #1 reason people fail to start a business while working full-time.

The Advantages of Starting a Business While Working Full-Time

Starting a side hustle may seem daunting because you’re probably busy. You may even think you’re at a disadvantage. But there are some pretty sweet benefits.

Personally, I quit my job before starting my first business. While this gave me a lot more time and energy to grow my business, it also made me realize that having a job can be a powerful tool if leveraged.

So before I walk you through the process of starting step-by-step, I’ll reveal how to leverage the advantages of your job to accelerate your business growth.

Advantage #1 – Cash flow

The first advantage is obvious: when you have a job, you have more money!

You’re forced to live off of your savings if you quit your job before starting. That means you have a tighter budget and less to invest in your business.

But if you continue to collect a paycheck, you can instead use your savings to grow your business.

That means you can do things like hire consultants and freelancers to help you get your business off the ground. You can also invest in online courses, mentorship, and other learning experiences to accelerate your success and make starting your business more enjoyable.

This can actually help you reach your goals faster than having more time because utilizing these resources can 10x your effectiveness. Four hours of informed and guided work can easily exceed 40 hours of guesswork.

I remember I had to bootstrap the whole process while starting my handyman business. Because of this, progress was slow, and I spent a lot of time learning things that I could have hired freelancers to do.

So when time is short, and cash is plentiful, use that money to accelerate your business growth. This can also make the process a lot more fun.

Advantage #2 – Low risk

There is minimal risk involved when starting a side business. Even if you spend $10K and things don’t work out, that’s a relatively small loss.

Compare that to quitting your job; you could easily blow through $10K in a couple of months on living expenses alone.

If you choose a proven business model like a home repair business or another type of service business, the risk of failure is even lower.

This limited risk relieves a lot of stress and pressure, allowing you to have a more zen approach to business and life. Lower stress can boost your creativity and help you grow your business more effectively.

The key to keeping stress low is to be OK with slower progress. Since you have a job, you will have less time to work on your business, and it will take longer to build. Accept that fact so you don’t burn yourself out by pushing beyond your limits.

Advantage #3 – Time is on your side

By keeping that full-time job, you’re also relieved of the time pressure. There’s no need to stress and worry about turning a profit immediately.

Because of this, you can think long-term. Instead of taking on customers or projects you don’t like because you need the money, you can afford to turn some jobs down and patiently build your business while only working for clients you enjoy.

You can also focus your time on building systems and marketing that form a foundation for a profitable and enjoyable business. Of course, you can do this whether you have a job or not, but it’s far more difficult to invest in activities that will make next year more profitable when you are struggling to pay the bills today.

So as you can see, there are some great advantages to starting a side hustle, and as long as you leverage these advantages, you can grow your business faster, easier, and with less stress than you can without your full-time job.

How to Start a Business While Working Full-time (Step-by-Step)

Step 1 – Conserve your energy.

Starting a business will take energy (and lots of it), so managing this limited resource is important. Don’t assume you can pack more activities on your plate without consequences. That’s how people burn out.

Since much of your energy is being taken by your current job, you’ll want to scale back your efforts. Give up the competitive-overachiever attitude and just do your job. Stop trying to impress your boss. Stop worrying about office politics. You’re not going for a promotion. You aren’t trying to get a raise. You’re trying to build a business. 

Now, I’m not saying to stop doing your job altogether. There’s no integrity in that. I’m just saying there’s no need to stay late or pick up that extra project. There’s no reason to worry about who’s getting promoted or if your boss is impressed with your work.

The moment you decide to start a business, you change the definition of success.

So just do your job, smile, and watch the stress lift away.

Not only will this help you conserve energy for working on your new business, but it can also make your job more tolerable.

Step 2 – Carve out time in your schedule (and protect it).

The most obvious challenge to growing your business is that you will have less time.

You’ll just have to make the time you have count. And one powerful method that can help here is to block out uninterrupted time in your schedule to focus on your next step.

Ideally, you’ll want to block out at least one hour of uninterrupted time a couple of times per week. More is better, but even working two hours per week adds up surprisingly fast when done consistently.

It’s absolutely critical that you schedule this time every week and stick to it. Nothing will kill a dream faster than losing momentum, and momentum is easy to lose.

If you need more help with staying consistent, read this article for more tips on getting yourself to take consistent action.

Step 3 – Choose a proven business model.

Starting an innovative and disruptive new company while working part-time is unrealistic. Sure, some people have pulled it off, but they are rare exceptions.

That’s like trying to be a star basketball player in the NBA while practicing less than everyone else. Unless you have a crazy amount of talent, it’ll never happen.

The best way to reliably build a successful business is to find something that’s already working and then duplicate that. Your best bet is a non-sexy service-based business, as I discuss here.

Even if you had all the time in the world, I still recommend starting a proven business because the odds of success are astronomically higher. However, this is even more critical when you have limited time.

Step 4 – Find a mentor.

If you want the highest chances of success, utilize the advice of those who have come before you. They’ve already solved the problems you’re working on.

Since they’ve already been where you are, they know the answers to questions you don’t even yet have. They can see a path in front of you that is unknowable to you.

Failing to utilize mentors’ experience, knowledge, and training is a waste of the most powerful resource you have available.

Remember, one of the advantages of starting a business while working full-time is that you have cash flow. Leverage that advantage by investing in mentorship and training.

Investing your time and money to learn from others will dramatically accelerate your startup timeline and help you make more money.

Step 5 – Turn down customers until you’ve built a solid foundation.

Let’s say you take my advice and start a proven service-based business such as a home repair business.

One thing many are tempted to do is try to find work right away. They want to skip all of the boring stuff like forming an LLC, building a website, or setting up scheduling, quoting, and invoicing systems so they can get straight to making money.

However, when you have such limited time, this is a huge mistake. You don’t have time to provide services and build your business. You need to be more strategic.

So instead, take it one step at a time. Set up your online marketing and the systems you need to run an efficient business before accepting side jobs. Turn down most customers until you’re ready to switch on the faucet.

Once your systems are in place, then focus on making money.

Turning down customers won’t hurt your reputation, either. Customers won’t give you bad reviews. In fact, the only downside is the money you miss out on in the short term, which will come back to you tenfold if you invest your time wisely.

Step 6 – Stay in Test Mode.

Since you still have the income from your day job, now is the time to test risky ideas – especially when it comes to pricing.

If you overbid a job and don’t get it, it’s no big deal.

If you try and promote a service that doesn’t resonate with customers, try something else. There is no rush or pressure.

Stay in the mindset that you are trying to replace your income. Only test ideas that support that reality.

For example, if your pricing model isn’t going to generate enough money to replace your current income, what’s the point of using it? Test a more profitable one. Instead of putting a cap on your income based on your own assumptions, test!

Use this opportunity to learn as much as possible so that when you quit your job, you have the skills, insight, and confidence to really dominate.

Avoiding Mistakes – Why People Fail to Start a Business While Working Full-time

The #1 biggest challenge you will face on this journey is the temptation to give up.

Starting a business is hard because you’ll inevitably run into roadblocks along the way. You’ll also be forced outside of your comfort zone. You have to put yourself in front of people. And you will be judged by your friends and family.

When you don’t have a compelling reason to push through that resistance, it’s easy to give up. The pain of continuing overwhelms the pleasure of pursuing your goal, you lose perspective, and you quit.

When I started my handyman business, I wanted to give up several times along the way. I would have given up, too, if I didn’t have a powerful reason to keep going. But, since I had already quit my job, I had to keep trying because I didn’t have a better option. When you have the safety of that full-time income, it’s much harder to keep going when things get tough.

The good news is this challenge has a solution.

To overcome the temptation to give up, you have several options. You can create self-imposed negative consequences for not following through, develop a visualization practice, or surround yourself with others who are already running a business you want to build.

I recommend all three if you can. At a minimum, create an accountability contract.

It might seem backward to focus on this, but success is an indirect result of your environment. If your current environment hasn’t led you where you want to go yet, it’s probably not going to. Craft your environment to pull you up instead of holding you down.

Your Next Step

If you are ready to start your business while working full-time, do this now. Schedule at least one hour within the next two days to work on your business.

In that block of time, your goal is to lock down a schedule that you can stick to and identify your next action step.

The amount of time you have matters less than how consistently and effectively you work. Don’t focus on everything you need to do; just focus on scheduling time to do something.

Knock down one task, then the next, then the next. Before you know it, you’ll have a profitable business you can be proud of.

If you’d like to follow a proven, step-by-step system for starting a profitable home repair business, check out Turn Your Skills Into Profit. You’d be surprised how profitable a simple home service business can be.

Now, listen to the podcast version of this article, which includes additional content and insights. Listen right here or on your favorite podcast app!

HS031 – How to Start a Business While Working Full-Time