Should I stop working Mondays?

[KenDunlop]

I've been able to save up £18,000 from savings out of my paycheck over the two years of Covid. Each month I've reliably been able to save at least £500. This is great, but this year I don't want yet another year of saving and want to do something more radical. I'm considering working part-time so I don't have to work Mondays any more, then investing that time into my blog and business. This would still leave me at about £100 savings a month so I wouldn't be losing money.

In effect I'd be investing £400 a month into my business, trying to get a return on investment.
Have any of you done this? So far I haven't ever worked part time so I'd be interested in anyone's perspective in what it's like.

 

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[Mathuin]

Quit/ reduce your job when your business makes you quit/reduce your job.

Page 333 of TGRRE

 

[KenDunlop]

Quit/ reduce your job when your business makes you quit/reduce your job.

Page 333 of TGRRE

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, I'm looking at TGRRE now.
Thing is, MJ is talking about quitting your day job entirely, but I'm only going to reduce my working days per week by one. I'm less sure whether working part-time is a reckless decision or not, it seems like a valid way to change my strategy with my current situation.

 

[Speed112]

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, I'm looking at TGRRE now.
Thing is, MJ is talking about quitting your day job entirely, but I'm only going to reduce my working days per week by one. I'm less sure whether working part-time is a reckless decision or not, it seems like a valid way to change my strategy with my current situation.

Whether this is the right decision is up to you to decide.

Is investing time in your blog part of your long-term strategy?

Do you HAVE to lower your hours to afford the time you need to start your business?

These are questions that you have to answer for yourself, because the answer is entirely dependent on you and how much work you are able to put in.

Overwork can lead to burnout and having everything fall apart, but lowering your paid secure work hours prematurely could reduce the freedom you have to delegate and scale your business later.

"This would still leave me at about £100 savings a month so I wouldn't be losing money."

You are losing money. £400 per month. You are trading it for the extra time and energy that you can invest elsewhere. So the question you need to answer is "What is the most valuable thing I can do with my time?" ... ideally, you'd downscale all the low-value activities you can and reinvest into the high-value activities. What those are is up to your predilections.

Reckless would be quitting on the spot, burning your bridges, investing all your savings into a venture you've not adequately validated, and then praying. That's reckless. Lowering your workload by 25% so you can try other things is super prudent.

I say... don't be afraid. What's the worst that can happen? You downsize a bit, invest in your business, things don't work out, you learn a whole bunch of things, and then can go back to working more if you think that's better.

Test things out. See what works best for you. Then let us know how everything went.

Good luck.

 

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[KenDunlop]

Whether this is the right decision is up to you to decide.

Is investing time in your blog part of your long-term strategy?

Do you HAVE to lower your hours to afford the time you need to start your business?

These are questions that you have to answer for yourself, because the answer is entirely dependent on you and how much work you are able to put in.

Overwork can lead to burnout and having everything fall apart, but lowering your paid secure work hours prematurely could reduce the freedom you have to delegate and scale your business later.

"This would still leave me at about £100 savings a month so I wouldn't be losing money."

You are losing money. £400 per month. You are trading it for the extra time and energy that you can invest elsewhere. So the question you need to answer is "What is the most valuable thing I can do with my time?" ... ideally, you'd downscale all the low-value activities you can and reinvest into the high-value activities. What those are is up to your predilections.

Reckless would be quitting on the spot, burning your bridges, investing all your savings into a venture you've not adequately validated, and then praying. That's reckless. Lowering your workload by 25% so you can try other things is super prudent.

I say... don't be afraid. What's the worst that can happen? You downsize a bit, invest in your business, things don't work out, you learn a whole bunch of things, and then can go back to working more if you think that's better.

Test things out. See what works best for you. Then let us know how everything went.

Good luck.

Thanks Speed112, I think those are the right considerations.
Maybe I should try scaling my blog without the extra time to begin with, then if that doesn't work, go for the more 'drastic' option of cutting down my work-week.
I say this because work I did last year already did get me more readers and I'm wondering what more time invested would do. My blog got 10x the readers in 2021 that it got in 2020, all because of the work I put in. All I did was put an hour aside most mornings to work on marketing.

 

[woken]

Thanks Speed112, I think those are the right considerations.
Maybe I should try scaling my blog without the extra time to begin with, then if that doesn't work, go for the more 'drastic' option of cutting down my work-week.
I say this because work I did last year already did get me more readers and I'm wondering what more time invested would do. My blog got 10x the readers in 2021 that it got in 2020, all because of the work I put in. All I did was put an hour aside most mornings to work on marketing.

Is your blog generating anything at all?
Have you looked into other ideas ?

 

[KenDunlop]

Is your blog generating anything at all?
Have you looked into other ideas ?

No. The plan is for the blog to lead people to wishlist my game, which is availble to be wishlisted now. I don't have much data on how many wishlists I've gotten yet, either, I just know that more readers = more wishlists.

 

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[woken]

No. The plan is for the blog to lead people to wishlist my game, which is availble to be wishlisted now. I don't have much data on how many wishlists I've gotten yet, either, I just know that more readers = more wishlists.

So you use the blog for leads then. You could have said so.


Will the game be free/ paid?
How’s it coming along? What kind of game?

Anyways, do you want me to keep asking questions or you would rather give more details yourself?

 

[Speed112]

No. The plan is for the blog to lead people to wishlist my game, which is availble to be wishlisted now. I don't have much data on how many wishlists I've gotten yet, either, I just know that more readers = more wishlists.

You should probably start tracking these things and aiming for measurable results. Blogs can be a good source of long-term growth, but it sounds like you don't know for sure.

If you've been growing fine with a 1-hour investment here and there (10x in a year is great!) then will a few extra hours of investment each week bring even better growth? Perhaps, but if you're not monetizing that growth and tracking your numbers, then it's almost impossible to tell by how much and whether it's worth it.

You're looking for wishlists. Does this mean you haven't launched yet?

 

[KenDunlop]

You should probably start tracking these things and aiming for measurable results. Blogs can be a good source of long-term growth, but it sounds like you don't know for sure.

If you've been growing fine with a 1-hour investment here and there (10x in a year is great!) then will a few extra hours of investment each week bring even better growth? Perhaps, but if you're not monetizing that growth and tracking your numbers, then it's almost impossible to tell by how much and whether it's worth it.

You're looking for wishlists. Does this mean you haven't launched yet?

Yeah, the game hasn't launched yet. It's a paid game I plan to charge £30 for, but I expect another year of development at least.
If anything it seems that games being made are more interesting than games that are finished, so I'm in no hurry to release. I know there won't be a rush of sales when it's released, so I'm more interested in growing its following while I'm still making it.

 

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[Speed112]

Yeah, the game hasn't launched yet. It's a paid game I plan to charge £30 for, but I expect another year of development at least.
If anything it seems that games being made are more interesting than games that are finished, so I'm in no hurry to release. I know there won't be a rush of sales when it's released, so I'm more interested in growing its following while I'm still making it.

Oh that's cool. I'm currently exploring a venture with a developer to help monetize mods and support modding in general.

Do you plan to have mod support in the game?

Also it might be a good idea to set up not just a wishlist, but a crowdfunding system as well. You can be open about your challenges and obstacles and let your followers support some of these expenses ahead of time. If you need to purchase sprites or software or whatever.

You can then give the early supporters past a certain threshold the game for free when you launch, whether in early access, or your alpha/beta versions, since you'll probably need testing too. Building a community around it can be done pre-launch as well.

Anyway hopefully things work out good luck.

 

[KenDunlop]

Oh that's cool. I'm currently exploring a venture with a developer to help monetize mods and support modding in general.

Do you plan to have mod support in the game?

Also it might be a good idea to set up not just a wishlist, but a crowdfunding system as well. You can be open about your challenges and obstacles and let your followers support some of these expenses ahead of time. If you need to purchase sprites or software or whatever.

You can then give the early supporters past a certain threshold the game for free when you launch, whether in early access, or your alpha/beta versions, since you'll probably need testing too. Building a community around it can be done pre-launch as well.

Anyway hopefully things work out good luck.

Good idea, I can check it out when I'm working on the blog. I already have a Patreon page but haven't done anything with it yet.
What I like about these forums is that there's no naysayers telling me video games are too 'competitive' or whatever, just people trying to find solutions.

 

[Speed112]

Good idea, I can check it out when I'm working on the blog. I already have a Patreon page but haven't done anything with it yet.
What I like about these forums is that there's no naysayers telling me video games are too 'competitive' or whatever, just people trying to find solutions.

I don't believe in saturated markets. That's loser mentality

You can always outcompete people and carve a niche for yourself through value skew and comparative advantages. But hey, people usually want the quick and easy way and that rarely means high-performance.

Monopolies are a myth. (Edit: except monopolies on violence)

 

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[Ing]

When you make a game, you could make a game token, if you want.
For founding and for earning later. Game tokens are a hype actually.

 

[vitalij24]

Is your blog generating anything at all?
Have you looked into other ideas ?

No. The plan is for the blog to lead people to wishlist my game, which is availble to be wishlisted now. I don't have much data on how many wishlists I've gotten yet, either, I just know that more readers = more wishlists.

What's your blog website could i see?

 

[KenDunlop]

What's your blog website could i see?

This is my blog:

Kenneth Dunlop's Game Dev Blog

Welcome to the blog. I'm Kenneth Dunlop, game designer and solo indie dev for Plasma Beam Games. My main game project is Super Space Galaxy, an open-world game that lets you fly wherever you want, when you want. It's based around the idea of freedom and player self-expression. There's a new blog...

plasmabeamgames.wordpress.com

I've made a decision anyhow: I'll continue to work full time but do extra work in the mornings on the blog. If that doesn't work, then I can go for the more 'drastic' solution.

 

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[Johnny boy]

Think bigger.

If your monday-friday sucks, replace all of it.

Bust a$$ at first, get your business to "independent" levels, then be free, set your goals to scaling up after that.

Celebrate after each time you bump up a level (only after level 1, anything before is false hope) Obviously not a hard and fast rule but I feel like it sorta works like this:

level 0: working a job (no freedom, little money, little time)
level 1: got a business going as well (little freedom, no money, no time)
level 2: no job, working on business full time (more freedom, little money, little time)
level 3: scaling business and buying back time (more freedom, some money, some time)
level 4: aftermath of the scaling up (tons of freedom, tons of money, tons of time)

Notice for a period you have to hold your breath. You go backwards with time and money for a minute (usually). But once you've had any success in business you don't care at all about that natural progression of an idea or business model. Once you're through you realize the ratio of "suffer" to "heaven" is like 1:50.

If you think "pfftt, I work a job and make tons of money. I make a hundred grand a year I'm not at level 0"...imagine what you're making your company. You don't make much. The game starts when you own it. You're just passing go collecting your $200, never building houses or hotels. By no means am I a big dog compared to some people on this forum. But you need to think bigger! Bigger than just "a blog".