Slowlane & Monogamy Decisions

[Saint]

Not sure if this is the right place, but I see a lot about goals and clarity here, and I'm trying to get clarity on this, so I figured I'd share it here.

I'm trying to decide (if a decision is even the right thing here) where to focus my time over the coming months. I see a few options centered around my job, the business my wife and I are starting (documenting that here) that's based on her own abilities (baking really tasty stuff), and a potential business I could start that's based on my own skills (I have experience working in data, and in sales, which, don't kill me, might translate to copywriting).

Some details - I have a full-time job in a technical field. My wife works on more like a teacher's salary, and I make 2-3x what she does. Together we can and do save 40-50% of our income. Both of our companies are somewhat fragile right now, but they're stable enough. I work remotely, have been a high performer, and therefore have it relatively easy in my work. I can work 35-40 hours a week and get more done than peers. I usually need to be close to the battle station for things that come up throughout the day, but I have a lot of flexibility to take calls or run errands (especially for the business!) as needed. My wife on the other hand has to commute and be at her desk for what ends up being a total of 11-12 hours a day when everything is factored in.

Right now, I'm holding the line at my job, and putting all my extra energy into helping get the baking business started. I see a clear path to replacing my wife's income by selling at farmer's markets. Eventually our goal is to outgrow the farmer's markets and make it Fastlane. Even if we didn't replace her income in the near term, she could leave her job, have far more time to work on accelerating the business, and we'd have more time together while still easily covering the bills and invest in the business. Seems like a no-brainer for her to leave soon to me (welcome any advice on that too)

For me though, I see 2 different paths I could take with my own attention and energy:

1. Decision 1 - Keep my job or leave it. We have 1-2 years of savings if we didn't make a dime off the business, and a lot more if I truly needed to dip beyond savings. Burn the ships and put 60 or whatever hours a week into leaving the rat race and going fastlane and see what we can do. I'm confident we could both get jobs in our fields again if we needed to. And again, we don't necessarily have to go a long time not making any money with the business we're starting. On the other hand, my job isn't too demanding, and it does give us money we can invest into the business, not to mention not having to worry about paying the bills.
2. Decision 2 - Split my time between freelancing and the baking business. I am seeing so much pro and anti-freelancing on this forum. Not sure what makes the most sense in my situation. The thing is, with the tech skills I have, I think freelancing could be a great way to get started learning to serve clients and make money on my own. I also think it's something I could start leveraging the value of my time with. Long-term I could see turning it into an agency/human resources system as some people suggest if I got good at selling work and could find other people to work on projects I win. On the other hand, putting everything into the one business would probably take it further faster, and the baking business could be quite a bit more passive than a human resources system could be.

Would love to hear folk's take on whether I should keep my job while working on entrepreneurship, and whether I should focus on the one business, or split my time working on my own freelance/agency/human resources thing while helping the baking business. My dream outcome would be to convert my current job into a part-time role, which they've done for other people. That would essentially make them my first client, then I could go all-in on either the baking business or a combo of that and getting more clients via freelancing.

 

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[circleme]

Hi Saint,

we are definitely not in the exact same situation, but I guess you can take something from the answers from my post (see MJs and Andy Black's response):

MINDSET - SLOWLANE - QUESTION - Need advice on decision making: Freelancer tries Fastlane approach

Hi guys thanks right away for the incredibly valuable input so far for me through this forum. I had another one of those nights today where I couldn't turn my brain off and the topic has been haunting me for a while now without me making a clear decision. Vlt. you can help me or it was already...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

I will go the split-route, where I invest a certain amount of time (2 days max per week) in my freelancing "business" in order to get my bills paid and the rest of the week in my fastlane business.

I hope that helped somehow.

 

[Kevin88660]

Not sure if this is the right place, but I see a lot about goals and clarity here, and I'm trying to get clarity on this, so I figured I'd share it here.

I'm trying to decide (if a decision is even the right thing here) where to focus my time over the coming months. I see a few options centered around my job, the business my wife and I are starting (documenting that here) that's based on her own abilities (baking really tasty stuff), and a potential business I could start that's based on my own skills (I have experience working in data, and in sales, which, don't kill me, might translate to copywriting).

Some details - I have a full-time job in a technical field. My wife works on more like a teacher's salary, and I make 2-3x what she does. Together we can and do save 40-50% of our income. Both of our companies are somewhat fragile right now, but they're stable enough. I work remotely, have been a high performer, and therefore have it relatively easy in my work. I can work 35-40 hours a week and get more done than peers. I usually need to be close to the battle station for things that come up throughout the day, but I have a lot of flexibility to take calls or run errands (especially for the business!) as needed. My wife on the other hand has to commute and be at her desk for what ends up being a total of 11-12 hours a day when everything is factored in.

Right now, I'm holding the line at my job, and putting all my extra energy into helping get the baking business started. I see a clear path to replacing my wife's income by selling at farmer's markets. Eventually our goal is to outgrow the farmer's markets and make it Fastlane. Even if we didn't replace her income in the near term, she could leave her job, have far more time to work on accelerating the business, and we'd have more time together while still easily covering the bills and invest in the business. Seems like a no-brainer for her to leave soon to me (welcome any advice on that too)

For me though, I see 2 different paths I could take with my own attention and energy:

1. Decision 1 - Keep my job or leave it. We have 1-2 years of savings if we didn't make a dime off the business, and a lot more if I truly needed to dip beyond savings. Burn the ships and put 60 or whatever hours a week into leaving the rat race and going fastlane and see what we can do. I'm confident we could both get jobs in our fields again if we needed to. And again, we don't necessarily have to go a long time not making any money with the business we're starting. On the other hand, my job isn't too demanding, and it does give us money we can invest into the business, not to mention not having to worry about paying the bills.
2. Decision 2 - Split my time between freelancing and the baking business. I am seeing so much pro and anti-freelancing on this forum. Not sure what makes the most sense in my situation. The thing is, with the tech skills I have, I think freelancing could be a great way to get started learning to serve clients and make money on my own. I also think it's something I could start leveraging the value of my time with. Long-term I could see turning it into an agency/human resources system as some people suggest if I got good at selling work and could find other people to work on projects I win. On the other hand, putting everything into the one business would probably take it further faster, and the baking business could be quite a bit more passive than a human resources system could be.

Would love to hear folk's take on whether I should keep my job while working on entrepreneurship, and whether I should focus on the one business, or split my time working on my own freelance/agency/human resources thing while helping the baking business. My dream outcome would be to convert my current job into a part-time role, which they've done for other people. That would essentially make them my first client, then I could go all-in on either the baking business or a combo of that and getting more clients via freelancing.

Your baking business is growing. Your salary is higher than your wife. The most obvious move seems to be your wife quitting the job to focus on the bakery business full time.

I don’t quite get why you would considering starting a new project on freelancing given that you have a potential winner here.

If you are new to freelancing you underestimate how much time you need to adjust to get the first group of paying customers.

 

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[Saint]

Your baking business is growing. Your salary is higher than your wife. The most obvious move seems to be your wife quitting the job to focus on the bakery business full time.

I don’t quite get why you would considering starting a new project on freelancing given that you have a potential winner here.

If you are new to freelancing you underestimate how much time you need to adjust to get the first group of paying customers.

Thanks for the advice! It's good to hear that our idea that quitting her job relatively soon sounds like the right call.

I guess I don't have as good of an understanding of what it takes to get freelancing going. It seems there is a ton of need for what I can do with data, but I know it will take a lot of to get that moving, and I do think it has a lot less potential to become Fastlane. I guess it still seems like we could be paying that bills with that faster than the baking business, and it could give me more flexibility to not have to be available at my desk during prime working hours.

Super helpful to get some perspective on what an effort and distraction it would be from what's probably a much more scalable business. Trying to do all 3 would probably just make the baking business suffer and stretch me too thin.

 

[Kevin88660]

Thanks for the advice! It's good to hear that our idea that quitting her job relatively soon sounds like the right call.

I guess I don't have as good of an understanding of what it takes to get freelancing going. It seems there is a ton of need for what I can do with data, but I know it will take a lot of to get that moving, and I do think it has a lot less potential to become Fastlane. I guess it still seems like we could be paying that bills with that faster than the baking business, and it could give me more flexibility to not have to be available at my desk during prime working hours.

Super helpful to get some perspective on what an effort and distraction it would be from what's probably a much more scalable business. Trying to do all 3 would probably just make the baking business suffer and stretch me too thin.

Given the information it seems that with you keeping your high paying job while your wife quitting hers could be a good middle way approach.

Your wife will devote more time to the baking business while you can still bring in the pay for the cashflow.

If both of you quit it is rather risky. It needs everything to work well or else both of you have to get back to the workforce real soon. You need to factor in the global recession risk. Having one person permanently working full time for the business is good for the business as well.

 

[Panos Daras]

Thanks for your thread! If both of you had no income, for how long would you be able to survive on your savings?

 

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[Saint]

Given the information it seems that with you keeping your high paying job while your wife quitting hers could be a good middle way approach.

Your wife will devote more time to the baking business while you can still bring in the pay for the cashflow.

If both of you quit it is rather risky. It needs everything to work well or else both of you have to get back to the workforce real soon. You need to factor in the global recession risk. Having one person permanently working full time for the business is good for the business as well.

Yeah that's what we're leaning strongly toward. And it just hit us that spring is really the big market season, so this is the time for her to do it. Between that, the poor ROI, and the lack of growth opportunities anyway at her company, this seems like the way to go. We're thinking as soon EOM.

And if she's home, we can collaborate throughout the day as needed since I'm home too and usually have a fairly light meeting schedule.

 

[Saint]

Pick one business and stick to it for a long enough time. Don't spread yourself too thin. Chase two rabbits and you will catch neither. There's a thread by mj on when you should quit your job

Appreciate the feedback...this thread has helped me get clarity on what to focus on, and that's what I'm going to do.

I read that thread from MJ a while back, and at the time I knew it wasn't the right time to quit, but I just revisited it:

Don’t quit your job (or drop college) unless you’ve got the following four guidelines met.

1. Existing sales with adequate profit margins. Are you repeatedly selling? Is there a nominal enough of a profit that can pay your bills, much less, change your life?
2. Do you have at least a six-month runway (cash flow) to pay your bills while adopting a frugal lifestyle? This can be reduced to three months pending the answer to #3 and scale.
3. Scale and growth potential. Can revenue 10X within the next twelve months? Is your job preventing you from 10X'n your revenues and profit? What systems need to be in place to go 10X?
4. Evidence of a productocracy. Are people recommending your business/service/product? Are people reordering? Have competitors entered the market and taken market share? Has your offer demonstrated longevity?

1. We have sales and a solid profit margin that could be improved as we scale. We just got another repeat customer who found us online too!
2. Yes, we have more than enough of this runway
3. Yes, but that just means going from ~$400 to $4K. Would still be awesome though. I think we could actually do that within a few months going full time and hitting 3-4 markets a week, and I don't see why 20 or 30x isn't possible in a year. Still not life-changing money, but it would be a real business paying our bills. And our jobs are 100% keeping us from that.
4. Yes, a high % of people who try our products love them, we've gotten repeat buys from online orders (and numerous repeat buys from word of mouth)

I don't think we're nearly at the point to justify me leaving my job, but on those factors, we're moving in the right direction. Given the ROI of her job, I do think it justifies my wife leaving hers and focusing on this full-time. And I'll skip focusing on freelancing.

 

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[Saint]

Hi Saint,

we are definitely not in the exact same situation, but I guess you can take something from the answers from my post (see MJs and Andy Black's response):

I will go the split-route, where I invest a certain amount of time (2 days max per week) in my freelancing "business" in order to get my bills paid and the rest of the week in my fastlane business.

I hope that helped somehow.

Thank you for sharing! That thread is super helpful. Like Arch posted, I look at you and am jealous that you're already serving clients independently.

Some kind of ramp-up like MJ suggested is how I've been thinking about it for sure. The problem is I have a lot less flexibility with my job than your freelancing. And trying to build a third line of business via developing a freelancing gig would probably stretch me too thin if I also kept the job and wanted to keep investing in the baking business. But maybe I'm just being soft by discounting the possibility of doing all three.

If i'm right that doing all three would spread me too thin, I guess the decision tree is 1.) keep the job or not 2.) If I don't keep the job, work on freelancing to pay bills while continuing to work on FL business. The freelancing effort here would take up a lot of time since I've never done it before, but it was also get me out of relying on a full-time job.

 

[Saint]

Thanks for your thread! If both of you had no income, for how long would you be able to survive on your savings?

Thanks for helping me think through it! Barring catastrophes, ignoring stuff like retirement accounts we'd have at least 12 months, maybe as much as a 24 if we really stretched it out. That's assuming no sales, and no other gigs to supplement in the meantime. So I feel pretty safe with her leaving her job, but obviously if I left mine we'd be less safe, but we'd have some runway.

I'm dying to focus on this and entrepreneurship generally full-time. I don't hate my job, but it's certainly annoying most days, and the opportunity cost frustrates me. I can stick it out for a while though until/if I'm really needed to go full-time on the business.

 

[Panos Daras]

Thanks for helping me think through it! Barring catastrophes, ignoring stuff like retirement accounts we'd have at least 12 months, maybe as much as a 24 if we really stretched it out. That's assuming no sales, and no other gigs to supplement in the meantime. So I feel pretty safe with her leaving her job, but obviously if I left mine we'd be less safe, but we'd have some runway.

I'm dying to focus on this and entrepreneurship generally full-time. I don't hate my job, but it's certainly annoying most days, and the opportunity cost frustrates me. I can stick it out for a while though until/if I'm really needed to go full-time on the business.

That is amazing! If you only focused on the side gigs what is the probability that you could sustain yourself and your family? Also, I don't know where you come from but for me in the Netherlands, we have freeish healthcare so that would not impact my decision. But what is your situation?

 

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[Saint]

That is amazing! If you only focused on the side gigs what is the probability that you could sustain yourself and your family? Also, I don't know where you come from but for me in the Netherlands, we have freeish healthcare so that would not impact my decision. But what is your situation?

Well I'd say there's a 0% chance we'd starve, and almost no chance we'd get evicted. And it's hard to imagine being unable to make enough to fill in the gaps to avoid other issues like being unable to pay basic bills. I think it's very likely we could find a way to support ourselves, even if we didn't save much. In poor-case scenarios it would suck to burn through our savings or not save anything for a long time.

We would have to factor in healthcare though...curious what other folks here in the U.S. who don't have it through an employer do. I did go a year without healthcare about 5 years ago and was fortunate to be able to get a free plan very easily, but I'm not sure what the best options would be currently. Another thing to research!

 

[savefox]

Pick one business and stick to it for a long enough time. Don't spread yourself too thin. Chase two rabbits and you will catch neither. There's a thread by mj on when you should quit your job