Should You Start A Side Project?

Don’t let the word ‘side’ trick you. Whatever it is, a side project or a side hustle will take up a significant time of your time and energy. It will be part of your story. It could make or break you. Give the decision the consideration it deserves. 

My definition of a side project is a venture of any kind, which is separate to your main line of work. This could be the decision to start a new business, begin an MBA, sit on a board or committee, become a non-exec director, write a novel or even begin investing. It’s anything that changes how you spend your time or adds another line to your bio.

For every side project that has gone amazingly well, there are countless others that caused nothing but a distraction. Here are the questions to consider when deciding if you should start a side project.

What if you put that energy into your main role?

Before considering the endless possibilities of side projects, think about what you could achieve if all your energy and enthusiasm were channeled into your current role; to grow your business or progress in your job. What if all you need is some motivation to do that? What if this compelling urge to start a side project is just an urge to learn more, progress or enjoy your work better. Could this go 100% into your main venture?

Businessman Warren Buffet is a big fan of focus, citing it as the single biggest reason for his success. He says “really successful people say no to almost everything”, they keep things simple and focus on fewer, higher quality bets. Jason Fried, the founder of Basecamp, proudly describes himself as a non-serial entrepreneur. He put all his eggs in one basket and that basket now has over 2 million customers [source]. Could you do less, but do it better? Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less summarises the impact of energy output in this diagram, comparing when it’s applied to one project or multiple:

Make a plan for what your main venture could look like if it had your undivided attention. You might be redirecting your attention prematurely. What about if you invested more, either time or cash? Put your all into it and see if you can take it from a plateau to a new level that makes you excited to work there. If, after doing this, you’re still not happy, perhaps it’s time to hand over, leave or sell your main project. You could follow the guidance of Tim Ferriss in 4-Hour Work Week and delegate, automate or eliminate processes to ensure your daily involvement is reduced, or you could find a buyer.

Why do you need a side project?

Perhaps your main venture is a job that you don’t see as a career job; perhaps it’s just there to pay the bills. Emma Jones, founder of small business network Enterprise Nation and author of Working 5-9 is an advocate of working on a side project between the hours of 5 and 9pm after you’re home from work. That way, you give it time and energy without taking any risks. The goal of this 5-9 is that one day it could overtake the 9-5 and become the main focus.

Are you considering a side project because you’re bored with your main venture? Perhaps you’re feeling demotivated or have stopped learning. Perhaps you feel like you’re coasting and you’re looking for a new challenge. Here’s where you shouldn’t underestimate how much energy it takes to coast! You might be putting more than you realize into just keeping matters stable. A side project could completely unsettle that.

If you’re in this lull, you have three options. One is ‘do nothing’, where you continue to coast without beginning a new project. Take life slower, live within your means and just chill out. You might even start to enjoy that lifestyle! Not convinced? The second option is to fall back in love with your main venture. The third is to begin a side project, which could take place straight away or after you’ve sufficiently tested and discounted coasting or growing as viable alternatives.

What gives?

When making any decision that affects how you spend your time, imagine a pie chart. Picture how your time is split across your day at the moment and then work out where this new side project fits in.

Eric Ries, the author of the Lean Startup, advocates the lean startup methodology, which enables you to test the viability of a project or idea, and the existence of a customer base, before fully committing. However, undertaking even this exercise for a side project is an outlay of time and energy.

The effort you give your side project; creating it, running it, thinking about it and marketing it, all has to come from somewhere. Will you forgo your downtime? Time spent with family and friends? Will it come from the time currently spent on your main venture? What’s the likely impact of that? Nothing happens in a vacuum. What are you prepared to give up, especially if you’re already too busy? Time and attention are your only finite resources.

Does it add or multiply?

In a recent conversation about side projects with Daniel Priestley, entrepreneur and author of several business books including Key Person of Influence, Priestley introduced the question “does it add or multiply?” If a side project adds, it adds work, adds learning, research and energy requirements that do not directly benefit your other ventures. If a side project multiplies, it serves to increase the value gleaned from existing projects.

In Priestley’s case, Key Person of Influence has associated courses and events with the same title, each contributing to sales of the other elements. Within the book, he outlines why entrepreneurs should write their own book, so it makes perfect sense that a more recent business of his is a book publishing company! If side projects add then you create distractions, hindrance and misdirected energy. If side projects multiply, you create an empire.

Rand Fishkin, author of Lost and Founder, started SaaS tool Moz as a search-engine optimization (SEO) blog designed to share expertise, as a side project, whilst he was running an agency in the same field. Moz (or SEOmoz, as it was formerly known) began as a forum for SEO professionals but the tool soon ended up overtaking the agency’s turnover. It was a natural progression for Rand to turn his full attention to his side project.

Be careful moving more than one iteration away from your current knowledge base, because that’s your competitive advantage. In the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, he repeatedly refers to the “10,000-Hour Rule”, relating to the hours required to become an expert in a field. Although the authors of the original study have since disputed Gladwell’s usage of the concept, it holds true that a certain time outlay is required in order to reach a level of proficiency in any field. 10,000 hours is equal to 6 hours per day, of perfect practice, for 4.5 years. No matter how fast you can learn or pick up a new skill, there’s little to be gained in starting at the bottom.

Is it part of a strategy?

The organization Free Code Camp, which helps people learn to code for free, regularly discusses side projects and why they are so important. Google employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their time on side projects. But the world of tech is a different beast. When developers play and experiment it often results in them creating new tools. A side project can be dreamt up, built and shipped very quickly, then become a success on its own after picking up initial traction. Even if it doesn’t, the experimenting and playing has benefits to the developer’s main project.

This all forms part of a strategy to create talented and resourceful coders and is an example of multiplying, not adding. It’s very different to learning and setting up a whole new, separate venture that requires day-to-day running.

If you’re considering a side project, don’t just ensure plan A fits with your overall strategy; consider the best-case scenario and the worst-case scenario. It’s easy to daydream about the best-case scenario, but if it all goes wrong, what will you have gained?

Do you just want to scratch an itch?

If you’ve worked on something for a while, achieved a certain level of success than reached a plateau, it’s common to begin looking around for new challenges to undertake. If this is the case, why not do your side project for fun rather than as a business venture?

Once someone pays you for a product or service, you’re the supplier and they’re the client. You have obligations. What if that takes the joy out of it? What if, instead, you saw your side project as a hobby? See if you can generate enough traction to prove the business model before the grind sets in. Look for the least-committal way of scratching that itch. You can then pick it up and drop it whenever you feel like it, before you buy that domain name!

Starting a side project might be the right decision for you, but the cost of getting it wrong is higher than you think. Take each question above into consideration before taking the leap.