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How can you work full time while growing your business ?

Everyman

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2- Workout after work and have good diet , this is also good, however usually I cannot go to exercise until late night .

I don't know your actual routine, so it might be bad advice/assessment from my side.

You can workout everywhere all the time. There are exercises that you can do everywhere that don't require weights etc... I'm stretching now in the office leaning against a radiator. I have a rubber band (pink, obviously). I have a grip exerciser for guitar players. And many many more.

You can also save time on eating - every 24hrs or even more etc etc etc.

Great you are making changes and progressing!

I'm working right now to take back my weekends, so far they've just been "recovering" (isn't that a bullsh*t concept?) from the workweek and, getting my mind out of a fugue state, and dosing with dread for the next week. If I can kick the sleep-in habit and keep up miracle mornings on sat+sunday, I just might start seeing some real change.

Yeah, 5+2 is the top ridiculous concept today, 9-5, and more and more. Like the time is separated, while it just flows continuously. We are doing it to ourselves.

If you maintain your routine of getting up early 5 days a week then you will do it on Sat+Sun no problem. Just don't drink late the night before and do what you do on the 5 days.

I think 8-12 days of working and then 4-5days 'weekend' could be much more productive. And 4-5hrs of working towards one goal (e.g. programming or working out), then switch.

You cannot even unwind in 2 days if you do something you hate. This is why it's important to do things you like daily. Not once a week 10hrs, once a day for 1.5hr.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Tagging @Greg R as he launched a business while working a full time job. And it's growing.

He might have some insight here.

Additionally, we're also having an INSIDERS conference call later this month with Greg to dig into it his process deeper. (Details here [INSIDERS subscription required]).

It can be done.

Some highlights we can expect on the call...

  1. Six figure purchase order from one of the worlds largest men's subscription boxes
  2. How he leveraged the purchase order to secure a six figure SBA loan (which would have been ten times less if he never had the purchase order).
  3. Landed one of the largest wholesale distributors in the industry and they have recently reordered!
  4. Products are now sold nation wide. Greg's lost count of the stores and can no longer keep track of who is selling his products.
  5. Have been able to get his products into four different subscription boxes
  6. Has done two trade shows both of which are really hard to get to booth space at and are among the largest trade shows in the United States.
  7. Amassed an Influencer network of around 40 Influencers with a total reach of 2 million+ people.
  8. Since buying the business, we've been able to grow the email list from 1,000 people to over 15,000.
  9. When he bought the business, he closed on it with lighting speed. From first phone call to when the inventory showed up at my storage unit was about 28 days.
  10. He also was able to convince the original owner to sell the business to me for 60% less than he was asking.
One of the biggest feats is that this all was done while having a full time job.
 

Process

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I am software developer who work typical 9-5 job + 2 hours commute daily, what I found is it is really hard to have desire to code more or do other business operations after a long work day. the only days I have energy for my personal projects are weekend or off days. other than that I find it hard to do any useful work .
My plan was to reach profit equal to my income but that look too far and require more dedication.
How do you guys do that? is it only software job that take all your attention and leave you have no desire to more work or what ?
quitting the job is not an option due to high expenses that might quickly eat all my saving .
I have tried to outsource, but they still require to be managed and followed by details .
any suggestions or opinions will be welcomed, however dont suggest to leave my day job without suggesting how to make up the financial dip that will be caused .

My experience in sales has taught me people always find the time and money for what they really want.

The same goes for entrepreneurs.
 

Greg R

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Really thought hard about this one to capture the true essence of what is going on.

I also work 9-10 hours per day with a 2-3 hour commute in what would be considered a stressful work environment.

Working on the business is not easy and then trying to balance health and family makes it harder. But you already knew that.

Chosing to eliminate CHOICE is what keeps me going. Meaning there is no other choice BUT to work on the business.
  1. The choice to work a job the rest of my life. Not going to do it.
  2. The choice to default on business payments. Not going to happen. Need to find a way to make more sales...
  3. The choice to break promises I made with my wife. Not a chance.
  4. The choice to work on the business or lose the business. My mind is made up.
  5. Letting down my Skype group... Get real.
@ZCP always told me that pressure makes diamonds and that really worked for me.

All of my big wins came when the pressure was on. And I mean really on. To the point where I would have failed on all five points above.

So maybe you need to create some added pressure for yourself to produce. Whether it is artificial pressure like accountability with friends or going all In financially.

Without knowing who you truly are it is hard to say if it will work. But it worked for me.
 
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The Abundant Man

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You work at your full time job and on the hours that you're not working your full time job you then work on your business.

Simple as that...
 

reedracer

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You can make a lot of progress with 15 hours a week dedicated to your business. A guy I know splits it up like...
3 hours – reading, studying, gathering new knowledge (20%)
5 hours – creating content – working on your book, courses, coaching packages , coding (33%)
4 hours – working directly with clients (27%)
3 hours – marketing efforts to build your brand and reputation (20%)
Obviously you would need to tailor it to your situation. What is important is that you dedicate a set amount of time to move yourself forward (8, 12, 15 hours a week) and you split up that time to feed your business appropriately. I'd spend all 15 doing research and study because that is what I like to do! Track the time and look for hidden pockets of time to exploit - waiting rooms, mass transit rides, commutes, dinner hour (eat in 20 minutes study and walk for 40), treadmill, wake up 1 hour earlier, etc.

My current time budget is 15 hours for the POD store I'm making with my daughter...
4 hours Knowledge gathering (Working through some courses on Udemy, theis Forum, etc)
3 hours Marketing (currently experimenting with FB Ads)
6 Hours product creation (Designs, ad copy, links and clickfunnel creation)
1 hour maintenance (Web sites old and new, my basement lab/lair)
1 hour vision work. I added this for meditating on my business, working on my vision board, and thinking about the possibilities)
I also tithe 2+ hours a week to help my fellow humans. (I'm adding this wonderfully instructive post to that so you better get some value from it!)
 
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bdb

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I am no expert in this but something as important as having the drive to work on your business is choosing the right type of business.

There are not that many types of businesses that we devs can do with 1 or 2 hours max per day of work.

I am also a developer by trade and I've tried doing apps, saas etc while working fulltime. For me personally it just didnt work as those type of projects need a LOT of time to polish. What happened is that after 6 months of working partime on my project I was burned because I just couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel so ended up shelving those apps. Have in mind that this was ~6 months of working 12 hours a day or so.

Software development is particularly hard because you don't get any kind of morale boost until your app or service is out there and this can take months or years.

I think we devs have a few options:

1) We cut expenses and quit our jobs, say move with parents or live in a car while working fulltime on our projects (not an option if you have a family)

2) We scale back our dreams and focus on a completely unrelated industry, say ecommerce, services etc

3) We use our money to hire people to build reasonably simple cheap products for us.
 

John F.

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I am in a similar situation when it comes to the number of hours available in my day to work on my business. Kids, wife, full time job, building the business, etc...

My current job is the first job that I haven't hated. It gives me no reason to want to hurry up and build my business so i can be free from corporate control. HOWEVER, I know that this will not last and a terrible job is just around the corner. It's past experience working hard to make other people rich that motivates me to use whatever time I can to build my business.

It takes SACRIFICES. In cases like ours, lots of them. Here is some of what I gave up to have the time to build my business.
  1. Partying/staying out late (more time and money for business)
  2. Eating out a lot. (reduces expenses)
  3. Sports coaching. This was a big one for me and very difficult to leave. I had coached sports for over 10 years and I was very good at it and loved every minute of it.
  4. Vacations (more time and money for business)
  5. TV/Entertainment (more time and brain power for business)
  6. Living in a nice house. I sold a nice house in a fantastic suburb. Moved into a crappy rundown house with only 1 bathroom for the 4 of us (3 girls....) just to reduce spending so I could invest more into the business. As the only male in the house, sharing a single bathroom with 3 girls puts you at the bottom of the priority list. It's all about sacrifices...
One thing I have learned from reading all of the great knowledge shared on this forum is that there will always be something that can be changed or sacrificed in order to reach your goals. Evaluate your day and figure out where you can improve the efficiency of your day.

You have to want it bad enough. You need to have your reasons for wanting to be free. Write them down. Print them out. Plaster them on your walls to remind you of WHY you need to build your own business.

My office and bedroom walls remind me why I'm doing this. My wife thought I was nuts when I started putting random stuff on our walls. Now we are about to launch our first product and she sees how important those things were to keep me going.

When it hurts bad enough, you will find a way to make it happen. Listen to "Unscripted " during your daily commute. That might get you thinking differently about the situation.
 

Andy Daniels

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Working on ANYTHING that has the promise to transform your own life should be way more stimulating than TV.

This! Totally true. When I'm off work for my day job, I remind myself of my goals, and where I want to be.

Truly, the thought of impressing the HECK out of my clients is what lights the fire under me. I consistently want to over-deliver. To do that, I need to not only work harder, but work smarter.

You'll repeat the processes enough to where you can build systems that (hopefully) automate most of it! Therefore freeing up your time!
 

luniac

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I am software developer who work typical 9-5 job + 2 hours commute daily, what I found is it is really hard to have desire to code more or do other business operations after a long work day. the only days I have energy for my personal projects are weekend or off days. other than that I find it hard to do any useful work .
My plan was to reach profit equal to my income but that look too far and require more dedication.
How do you guys do that? is it only software job that take all your attention and leave you have no desire to more work or what ?
quitting the job is not an option due to high expenses that might quickly eat all my saving .
I have tried to outsource, but they still require to be managed and followed by details .
any suggestions or opinions will be welcomed, however dont suggest to leave my day job without suggesting how to make up the financial dip that will be caused .

I wasn't a software developer but i was a litigation support analyst for 3.5 years, so i sat at a computer 8 hours a day and ate shitty city food too.

I started this job out of college, and my entire lifestyle changed drastically.
Before the job, I used to play sports for hours almost everyday.
Once i began my "career", i played sports maybe once every one or two weeks.

Relatively early on i realized this wasn't for me, and i began my fastlane journey to code my own apps.
I felt full of energy and in great physical fitness.
I worked my 8 hours shift and put in hours into coding.
I ate the shitty bacon egg and cheese on a croissant breakfast diet and barely did exercise.

Somehow I lived that life for well over a year. But I was killing my health and living on the borrowed afterglow of my physically active past, and i was starting to get burned out without quite realizing it.
Then the worst happened, i got transferred to the night shift which is notoriously unhealthy.
That sped up my burnout substantially, and i developed chronic fatigue.
I started sleeping 12 hours a day, wake up exhausted, trudge to the office for the night, come home and sleep.

My fastlane progress slowed to 0%, and i realized how i fuked myself up.
I put the fastlane dream on hold and started researching health.
Started the Wim Hof method, progressive calisthenics, cold showers, buteyko method,Intermittent fasting, High fat diet, tanning, standing meditation, and cardio until full body sweat.

All these things helped me bounce back health wise, but it took quite a while, id say it took over a year to feel relatively healthy, and the spiritual damage i think im still recovering from 3 years later, as pathetic as it sounds.

So point is, you can do it, but please take care of your health.
Maybe it won't be as bad for u as it was for me, i also suffered from porn addiction the entire time, and that can make you tired too lol.

But i dont regret starting the fastlane journey, its a way of life, good luck.
 
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biophase

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This might sound like an old dad talking to his kids...

But I have a memory of coming home from work and driving an hour through a snowstorm to get to the south side of Chicago where a real estate investor group was meeting back in 2002 just after I read RDPD just to learn about real estate investing.

I didn't realize it back then, but looking back it my actions now... from a more enlightened perspective... I definitely did what it took to get out of the rat race. From this perspective now, I can easily tell who has it and who does not about 2-3 months after meeting someone.

It's all about how you choose to spend your 6pm-12am time. You make the decision.
 
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AppMan

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Update:
So finally a mentor was assigned to me to help me in my startup, he is himself successful business man who own two companies with about 500 employee .
He think like fastliners and asked me to get up to the speed in my startup. However he also suggested to me to give my best hours (9 to 5) to my startup otherwise I ll have limited chances in converting this software to real business. I told him I need alternative income with at least 5K (after tax ) per month to be able to resign from my day job.
He suggested to get help from family and friends, but non of them have a technical or business knowlege to take some parts of this on their shoulders.
So my plan is the following :
Bring my web design business to the life again so that it can provide me with some side income, even though this by itself require work. Then dedicate my time to my startup.
Other thins I am doing :
Starting working on my startup software architecture .
Reading about executing and business operations.
Looking for partners for my web design business, although I have to give up some of the equity for them, but at least it will not die. I already found two partners interested but so far I am trying to evaluate what they can bring to the table beside the financial contribution.
 

softwareRules

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Software development is particularly hard because you don't get any kind of morale boost until your app or service is out there and this can take months or years.

...

2) We scale back our dreams and focus on a completely unrelated industry, say ecommerce, services etc

Exactly. This is why I started blogging years ago and it's evolved into content marketing for everything else. Usually a tech blog is a few bucks in the Amazon Affiliate account or a *great* point of interest for an interview (thankfully have a great job right now and don't have to deal with that), and a few times content marketing and tech blogging has gotten me enough cred to sell video courses and software developer training courses.

But! None of that is exactly software. It's usually prototypes that take a month at most to build out.

It's like @MJ DeMarco pointed out in the Fastlane book, there's 5 seedlings and if the day job is software, the other seedlings like content and distribution can work. The human resources one is tricky because even hiring a VA (virtual assistant) requires some time to track details and to delegate.
 

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