âToday, in 10 minutes or less, youâll learn:
- đ¤ The critical financial milestone to hit before leaving your full-time job for a portfolio career
- đťď¸ Why perfecting your website might be the biggest waste of time when starting out
- đŻ The counterintuitive reason why having fewer service offerings can lead to more clients
FROM OUR CLASSROOM
đ Enrollment opens for waitlisters on Tuesday!
515 students have already joined the waitlist. đ¤Ż
I have earned 6-figures from my side hustles taking 10 hrs/wk, traveled to 10+ countries while doing it, and used my extra time to build businesses and see loved ones.
But hereâs the reality:
This took me years of trial and error and making costly mistakes.
Thatâs why I have taken everything I have learned and boiled it down into a simple system that others can useâwhile avoiding the mistakes I made.
Starting on October 1st, you can have this system.
Thatâs when I launch Remote Side Hustle Launchpad, my 6-week cohort program to help you go from zero to launching your consulting or coaching side hustleâwithout sacrificing your mental health.
This is the playbook that I wish I had when I first started.
Iâll show you exactly how to use my playbook to launch your side hustle through weekly live office hours, actionable lessons, and a supportive peer community.
Interested? Click the button below to get priority access to enrollment:
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đź 5 common mistakes when starting a portfolio career
Recently, readers have asked me about starting a portfolio career.
Whether itâs because they feel stuck in their job, lack of control over their time, or face burn outâmany are curious about this path.
Over the last year, I have featured thriving portfolio careerists, including:
- Eric Sims - Ex-UBS Managing Director with 2+ million Linkedin followers
- Karina Mikhli - Former Publishing Executive, now Fractional COO
- Fayzan Rab - Ex-Product Manager turned into Psychedelics Researcher and Executive Coach
- Aki Taha - Ex-Netflix, Google, and Uber Recruiter starting the TalentStories Newsletter
I have also written about my own decision to leave my last full-time role to start a portfolio career.Â
But as you and I know⌠this path is hard. Success is far from a given.
In this newsletter, Iâm going to walk through 5 common mistakes I have seen people make when starting a portfolio career (and what to do instead).
Letâs start with the first mistake:
â
Mistake #1: Quitting your job too early
âShould I quit my job?â
The reality is that many people vastly underestimate the amount of time it takes to build new income streams.
For example, Tiago Forte is now one of the top online educators, but he didnât make more than $81,009/year until his 5th year in business.
I have seen portfolio careerists hit a wall about 9 months into going full-time.
For some, their engines are purring. They have 2-3 income sources generating 6-figures of cashflow. Sustainability is within sight.
But for many people I know, they find themselves racked with anxiety, staring at a dwindling bank account balance. Signaling only 2 months of runway left.
Do you trudge onwards or start job hunting?
Ideally, you can avoid needing to make this decision.
My recommendation:
- Build a margin of safety first. I wrote about my decision to quit my job. I had 12+ mo runway, side income, supportive partner, and geoarbitrage giving me a strong buffer before I left.
- Achieve 3+ months of consistent income from your side hustle. Donât quit after only 1 month of income. This could just be a one-time spike. I had 3+ years of career coaching income before I left. I knew I could consistently generate more if needed.
â
Mistake #2: Working 2+ jobs at once
âShould I just grind as hard as possible on my side hustle?â
I have seen other people lean to the other extreme and punish themselves with 80 hours/week of work on their main hustle + side hustle.
For most people, this is a recipe for burn out.
Yes, this arrangement may be born out of economic necessity. But if you have the luxury of time to read this newsletter, this is unlikely your case.
Instead, I would question whatâs compelling you to do this?
Is it a genuine pursuit of curiosity and excitement?
Or is it your inner saboteur telling you to work harder to prove that youâre enough to yourself or others?
Whichever it is, the crux is youâre unlikely getting leverage out of your time.
My recommendation:
- Limit yourself to a 10 hours/week side hustle. The marginal hour spent is not worth the marginal mental health impact. Unless if you truly feel joy from the incremental time spent.
- Learn to leverage the value of your time spent. Most Americans can make $1,000 in 100 hours. But can do you it in 1 hour? Or 10 minutes? Parkinsonâs Law. Youâll get more done with a time constraint. Utilize your strengths.
â
Mistake #3: Believing you do not have anything worth sharing
âI donât have anything worth offering.â
Iâm always surprised when I hear this line.
If youâre a professional with 7+ years of experience in your craft, itâs safe to say you have accumulated valuable skills and network.
No, you may not be an expert in AI, climate tech, or the next hottest technology trendâbut you have built unique strengths in your line of work.
Take advantage of this.
With market validation and the right positioning, you can leverage this skillset to get what you want.
My recommendation:
- Discover your superpowers. You can do this through self-reflection or by asking your colleagues, friends and family, or peers. Take my mini-course to try a strengths exercise.
- Validate your niche against the market. Peter Park identified his niche of exporting Australian brands to Asia based on his strengths, but it took him 8 months of talking to overseas buyers in Korean & Chinese before making deals with export brands.
â
Mistake #4: Spending too much time on your website (and other forms of procrastination)
âI want my website to look good before I talk to potential clients.â
Spending lots of time and money on creating a dazzling website before you even have clients is the 21st century equivalent of burning cash on designing fancy business cards.
Honestly, I get the desire to put your best foot forward.
But the harsh truth is:
Your website is not the reason why you havenât closed your first clients.
If the client already knows, likes, and trusts youâŚ
⌠then you donât need a website to start serving them.
At some point, itâs just procrastination.
My recommendation:
- Sell without a website first. Share your services on socials or in calls and close your first few clients this way. This will save you lots of time. I use this method now and wish I used it when I first started.
- Only build a site AFTER clients request more info. Even then, a 1-pager describing your offer details is typically enough. (I suggest my students to create a free Notion site for this.)
â
Mistake #5: Starting out with too many offers
âI donât have enough offers that show what I can do for clients.â
Do you have 12+ offers listed on your website even though youâve been in business for only 1 month?
Chances are, youâre confusing your clients.
Clear positioning is hard.
If clients cannot understand what youâre offering, they cannot buy from you.
How do you know your offers are what clients want and need?
Without validation, youâre creating more noise than signal.
My recommendation:
- Focus on nailing 1 offer for 1 Ideal Client Profile (ICP). If you canât do this, donât let yourself expand to more offers or client segments until you nail it.
- Position your social media and website towards this 1 offer/1 ICP. Align the messaging across all your presences. This will help your offer feel more cohesive and clear to your clients. Goal is creating signal, not noise.
In Summary
Here are 5 common mistakes when starting a portfolio career:
- Quitting your job too early
- Working 2+ jobs at once
- Believing you do not have anything to offer
- Spending too much time on your website
- Starting out with too many offers
đ Beyond your borders
đ Is Nvidia Overvalued? The $3 Trillion Question (Nick Maggiulli)
đź The Minimum Investment Amount Where Work Becomes Optional (Financial Samurai)
đ˝ You can buy mansions in these Mediterranean countries for the price of a studio in New York (CNBC)
đ§ Social snippets
18 money rules I live my life by.
Sophie Syed went from onboarding hundreds of companies to Hubspot to earning $90k in the first 6 mo. of her side business.
I joined Kevin Prewett on Rising Tide podcast to talk about portfolio careers and startups (Apple, Spotify):
P.S. This is a new section featuring our recent popular content on socials. Reply if you enjoyed it (or not).