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Career and Work

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Can You Be an Entrepreneur in Your Spare Time?

by Flexo on July 28, 2008

in Career and Work

If anyone should be giving advice about how to become a successful entrepreneur, it would probably not be me. While I am earning money on my own outside of my day job, it’s not consistent or reliable. Part of the reason for this is that I never intended on becoming a business owner of this form. I’ve had a strong interest in computers since I was young and in web design and programming since 1994. While I decided I could see myself designing websites on the side, I never thought that writing would be the driver for the online business. Even when starting Consumerism Commentary five years ago, I didn’t start it with the intent of earning money.

I wouldn’t call my approach a “mistake” for me, but this approach is not the best for creating a successful business from scratch. Some of the best advice would be the opposite of my original thought process. Have clear goals, solicit social and financial support, be an expert in your field, research the market for your service or product, seek advice or mentoring from other similar, successful entrepreneurs, and don’t quit your day job.

The last piece of advice has been one that I have followed. At the end of last year, I decided that I would determine by the end of June 2008 whether I would be in a strong enough position to quit my moderately-supportive day job at a financial services company and give working for myself a try full-time. I decided not to quit.

There are strong arguments for maintaining a relatively secure job while laying the groundwork for your own business. With a stable income, you can fund your endeavors. With benefits from your day job, you don’t have to worry about making enough money from your side work to support you if you encounter medical emergencies.

On the other hand, there are some reasons why you can’t be a successful entrepreneur if all you can devote to the business is your spare time. The more aggressive your goals, the more risk you must be willing to take.

Abandon your day job. If “wild success” is an integral part of your goals, keeping a day job is a distraction. Yes, this means giving up your income. For driven individuals, this is strong motivation to develop the business to a point where it can support you as quickly as possible or to aggressively seek financial backing.

If I were to quit my day job, where I earn less in terms of gross pay than I earn from side projects in total, I would be able to focus on building my business with all of my effort rather than my “spare” effort at night and on weekends. Perhaps I’m not a risk taker, but I’m going to need a stronger sign of viability than what I’ve experienced so far. This is a risk a budding entrepreneur must take.

Don’t expect to have more time with your family. One of the main reasons people say they would like to become an “entrepreneur” is that it would allow them to spend more time with family. That may be fine if your intent is to sell products made by someone else on eBay but if you are trying to build a unique business that provides an original product or service or if you are trying to be the best at what you do, you will have less time for friends and family than you had when all you had to worry about was your day job.

All the other typical entrepreneurial advice still applies. It’ll take dedication and a detailed plan for a would-be entrepreneur to become successful. But that success requires sacrifices and risks. It’s easy to sell the idea that you can become rich “in your spare time” or in the “comfort of your own home” like the infomercials promise. A real entrepreneur, someone at the top of their niche, has no “spare time” and very little “comfort,” particularly when they are still building their business.

This article is part of the July MoneyBlogNetwork writing project. Here are more articles from around the web about entrepreneurship.

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The Four-Day Work Week: Is it a Good Idea?

by Flexo on July 10, 2008

in Career and Work

I’ve noticed a few public employers, like Howard County, Maryland, the Hobart, Indiana Police Department, the State of Oklahoma, and the Winston-Salem Housing Authority, are implementing or discussing the idea of moving to a four-day work week.

The most popular options seem to be replacing five eight-hour days with four ten-hour days and replacing ten eight-hour days with eight nine-hour days and one eight-hour day.

By shutting down non-essential services for one day every week or one day every two weeks, employees can save money on transportation, taking into account the rising cost of gasoline. This seems to be the biggest driver of these discussions and changes. The organizations that implement these changes also stand to reduce energy costs.

There are a number of additional benefits as well. Less time commuting means less pollution. A variety of commutation hours, or more flexibility in business hours, could reduce congestion. Less driving could decrease the frequency of road repairs. And of course, less time in vehicles lowers the demand for gasoline and the country’s reliance on oil, foreign or otherwise.

More time away from the office allows us to spend more time with family. But if a work week consisting of 40 hours is still the standard regardless of the number of days, employees will be spending longer days in the office. That could cause some problems with child care, whether the employee leaves the house earlier, returns later, or both.

Speaking for myself, when I work four-day weeks, I seem less stressed and fatigued by the end of the week. That might increase my productivity. But when I do so, I’m usually working only eight or so hours a day (usually a bit more), not ten, and taking a “vacation day.”

So far, it doesn’t appear that employer are trying to pay their employees 20% less for working four days each week rather than five. Might employers look to reducing salaries, even if the total number of hours worked is the same?

What are your thoughts on a four-day work week?

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Rich People Spend Their Time Stressed

by Flexo on June 24, 2008

in Career and Work

The American Dream in terms of being wealthy, is to work only four hours a week, outsource your tedious chores to those whose time is worth less than yours, and to put your feet up and relax while being pampered from all sides. With more money, you’ll get there, right?

It turns out that wealth is a predictor (i.e., not necessarily a cause or effect) that people will spend less time on pleasurable activities.

People who make less than $20,000 a year… spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure — watching television, for example. Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way — putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional. The richest people spent nearly twice as much time as the poorest people in leisure activities that were active, structured and often stressful — shopping, child care and exercise.

Commuting, traveling from affordable homes to well-paying jobs, is an activity of the wealthy, and those who are wealthier spend more time doing this than others. Is this what we have to look forward to as we work to increase income and net worth? More stress?

The study mentioned in this article indicates that people assume mistakenly that being wealthy involves playing leisurely sports (like golf, I would assume), watching television and movies on a large, flat-screen television, and receiving massages and other pampering. Is this a stereotypical misconception, or does the study not take into account differences between the wealthy and the ultrawealthy?

Is there a difference between the small company CEO, earning lots of money with lots of responsibility (including stress and commutation) and the very few multi-billionaires that let their money earn more money while they do other things? Is that perception a myth? Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are still quite busy running their foundations or businesses. Are there multi-billionaires relaxing on the coast of Mexico without a care in the world?

How Rich People Spend Their Time, Washington Post, June 23, 2008

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Guide to Starting Your First Job

by Flexo on June 17, 2008

in Career and Work

A reader was kind enough to forward to me a helpful article published by the New York Times, guiding new graduates in the right direction as they take on their first real full-time job. Many graduates have had experience in the work force before, but it’s not until graduation when they can truly begin focusing on their careers and the benefits they provide.

While I wrote yesterday about general financial tips for college graduates, the New York Times article hones in on that first job so those in this position know what to expect and can make some of the right decisions about benefits.

In fact, health insurance ranks at the top of the importance ladder.

Health insurance is expensive. Employers generally pay for some or most of it, but usually not all. You’ll probably pay your share of the cost in at least two ways. First, your employer will probably take some money out of your paycheck regularly. This is called the premium. Then, there’s something called a deductible, where each year you have to pay at least the first couple of hundred dollars toward many kinds of medical expenses…

Thinking back to my first job, no information about insurance was explained to me with clarity. Like many others, I was able to determine the definition of terms like “premium” and “deductible” as I went along, but I could have benefited from some of this basic financial information at the outset.

The article also provides basic information about payroll taxes, or why you never seem to take home as much as you think you’re earning. PaycheckCity is a helpful website recommended by the editors that provides several basic calculators, a walk-through of the W-4 form, and some additional features if you’re willing to pay.

What about retirement? This is an issue that are far from the minds of many freshly minted graduates, but when you’re right out of college is the best time to start thinking about the distant future. Even in the face of bills the likes of which you’ve never dealt with before, the article suggests taking advantage of your company’s 401(k). The article suggests making this process easy:

…[C]onsider investing in something called a lifecycle or target-date fund, which is fast becoming a standard offering in retirement plans. These funds will have names like the 2050 fund, which correspond to the year when you’ll probably be thinking about retiring. Managers allocate the money (mostly in stock mutual funds now, though the investments get more conservative over time), and all you have to do is shovel more in.

Regardless of investment, the best thing about many 401(k) plans is the employer match, as I’ve mentioned earlier. Anyone fresh out of college should recognize the value of “free” money. (Sometimes there’s a catch, such as you have to work for the company a certain amount of years before the money actually becomes yours, but everyone knows that there’s no such thing as truly free money.)

A Primer for Young People Starting Their First Job, Ron Lieber, New York Times, June 14, 2008.

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Question of the Day: How Much Vacation Time Do You Use?

by Flexo on June 9, 2008

in Career and Work

I’ve been at my current company for six years now. That’s quite an accomplishment as I intended to work for this company for a short time while seeking out something more meaningful. As I’ve stayed with the company while moving around to a variety of departments, I’ve accrued to privilege of taking an increasing number of vacation days.

Here is our policy, modified a little bit for sake of quasi-anonymity. Every third year of service, an employee receives three more days added to their pool, starting with the first full year of employment. During employment before the first full year, vacation days are awarded at a rate of 1 days per month for the last six months of the year and 1.5 days per month for the first six months. 6 “sick days” are added to these totals, but they’re similar to vacation days in all respects except one: Don’t take more than 6 unplanned sick days in any 12 month period.

Any unused vacation days can be carried over to the following year with a maximum of half the total allotted vacation days. I have 24 vacation days this year (not including 6 sick days), plus 4 carried over from last year.

Last year, I took 17 out of the 28 total vacation days available to me. I should take more, particularly due to the health benefits of two-week vacations. Several studies show that Americans take fewer vacation days than workers in other countries, and we are awarded fewer days than workers in Great Britain and France. In 137, paid vacation is mandated for employers, but not in the United States.

Do American workers have a responsibility to take as few vacation days as possible? How many vacation days, or how much of your “allotment” do you take?

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Passive Income: Real Estate? Blogging? I Don’t Think So

by Flexo on June 4, 2008

in Career and Work

There is a certain allure to the idea of “passive income.” After all, who wouldn’t want a continuous stream of income without having to trade your time or effort for it? But true passive income is quite elusive. True passive income can be defined, and is defined by the Internal Revenue Service, as “cash flow generated by activities in which the tax payer does not materially participate.” But outside of portfolio income, cash flow generated solely by appreciation of an asset like a stock (and liquidation of the earnings), there are few examples of true passive income.

Even Wikipedia gets it wrong.

Real estate: the classic example is false. Rent on a habitable property is generally called “passive income,” but it’s not. If you want to have tenants and consistently earn income from the property, it must be maintained. At the simplest level, as a landlord, you must interview prospective tenants, arrange background checks, respond to maintenance issues, keep the property attractive and in working condition, process rent payments, draw lease agreements, and maintain connections with plumbers, electricians, painters, and real estate agents (or do that work yourself). Even if you outsource management to an outside firm, you must develop the contract and oversee the management.

The more work you’re doing, and being a landlord is a lot of work, the less passive your income is. Outsourcing more of the work results in less income overall.

You won’t hear about this in the motivational books and seminars, but the only way to ensure high cash flow from real estate is by owning and renting out a lot of properties, and outsourcing the management of all of them. Incredibly high volume would hopefully make up for the thin margins due to outsourcing the management. But building this real estate empire takes the kind of time and effort that those with “passive income” written on their forehead with indelible ink may not understand or accept.

The allure of AdSense. Time and time again I hear from people who are excited and motivated to start a blog with the intent of throwing up some advertising to earn passive income, expecting almost immediate returns. Unless you plan on scraping other websites and stealing their content — and if you do, I hope those who provide the income will discover this tactic and stop providing the income to you — this concept is miles away from the idea of “passive income.” While there are always exceptions, for the most part you can’t just throw up a website, add advertising, and expect passive income to roll in.

If you want to really earn money online, you have to work. You must create lots of content, relevant content, and you must continue doing so. This is highly active income, not passive.

Like the real estate empire, you could simply register hundreds of domain names — there are programs that will do this for you, for a fee — and throw up one page on each full of advertisements. With incredible volume, you’ll make more from your thin profit margins. But what benefit does an empire of hundreds of websites devoid of content provide to the internet at large? It just creates more junk websites that are nuisances to anyone who is attempting to properly perform research on the internet.

This seems like a strange message coming from me. I’m earning a multiple of my day job’s salary by working with the web in my “spare time.” But this work is so far from what anyone could consider “passive income” that I’m almost insulted when I hear that. My strongest efforts wax and wane with the moon, and so does the resulting income. Consumerism Commentary won’t “run itself” and continue generating income for long.

In general, I have an option: either be a positive force, adding to the wealth of information online, even if the information is more interesting to me than to anyone else, or don’t do it at all.

When I read about the truth about earning money from real estate, like in The Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook by David Crook, rather than ambiguous, motivational bull (I won’t mention any specific authors, but you know who you are), I see that real estate management is not truly passive income, and success won’t come for most people who try, particularly those after a quick buck. I know from experience that the same holds true for earning money online.

Simply: If you want to earn income, you have to work for it; that is, income is active. The IRS may call certain things “passive income,” but the term itself is a lie.

Things are a little different from an investor’s point of view, and I’ll tackle that approach soon.

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Wall Street Journal Podcast: Professional Blogging

by Flexo on May 21, 2008

in Career and Work

Today, the Wall Street Journal’s Tech News Briefing podcast includes an interview with me about the growth or demise of professional blogging. Here are the Wall Street Journal’s podcasts and the RSS feed to subscribe to the Tech News Briefing.

My interview starts at about 7:40. I share some of my experiences with blogging particularly at Consumerism Commentary and my thoughts about earning money with blogs, non-professional blogging, professional blogging for the beginner, and bloggers earning over $100,000 from their websites.

Download the podcast here.

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Where Is the Place for Irreplaceableness in the Work Environment?

by Flexo on May 8, 2008

in Career and Work

Yes, irreplaceableness appears to be a legitimate word. Even if it weren’t, there’s a good chance you could infer its meaning without doubt. It wouldn’t matter if the word actually appears in a dictionary. Now that that’s out of the way…

My former boss was laid off last week. It had only been a matter of time. Some time after I left that department to work in my current location, her department was moved to another building to take advantage of efficiencies with another group that performed similar services for the company. The truth is that there was a lot of redundancy in this function around the entire company, and once the departments were combined, it made sense to streamline the management.

I feel horrible that someone I’ve known for many years has lost her job. The reason I left, however, was because she wasn’t a very good manager and I was not learning anything from her other than what not to do.

My current boss, K., gave me the news of the “rightsizing” of my former boss late last week. K. mentioned that this was a perfect example of how one must make one’s self irreplaceable. At first I agreed. Irreplaceableness means that one has job security. When times are tight for a company, and they must decide who to let go, they will start with anyone whose job is redundant, anyone who performs poorly, and anyone whose functions can be assumed somewhere else.

coworker replacementSome time after our initial conversation, I couldn’t get the idea of irreplaceableness out of my mind. Something didn’t sit right with me. I began thinking, and that can be dangerous. I contemplated how one must create the belief that one is irreplaceable.

To become irreplaceable one must drive against forces that help a team work efficiently and smoothly together. In my department, we cross-train as much as possible, so people are free to take vacations at almost any time. We work on enhancing our procedural documentation and process flowcharts so that at any time someone with moderate knowledge and training can step in and muddle through some of the more complex tasks (and so we can ensure the proper controls and quality reviews are in place). If someone were to disappear off the face of the planet, it might take some time, but the group would recover.

Here is one way I reduce my irreplaceableness for the benefit of the group. My skills with Microsoft Excel are above average in comparison to most of my coworkers. I was happy to present a few classes on some of the software’s more useful functions. These classes allowed my coworkers to rely on me less, reducing my irreplaceableness, yet this approach still seems like the right thing to do for my own worth.

To be irreplaceable in this environment would require keeping secrets about how I get my work done. Even if I’m quite good at my job, an expert with great personality and attitude, if I work as a team player I will always be replaceable. So will everyone I work with.

Recently, my company’s CEO, the head of this large corporation for the past couple of decades or so (and I realize I’m being ambiguous) decided to retire. His decision actually came several years ago, but it was more recently that he made specific plans and set an exit date. He was a well-admired and recognized CEO throughout our industry and led this company through some rough times (before I was an employee) and oversaw significant growth (after I became an employee, not that this fact is relevant). He succeeded with goals where previous CEOs of this company perhaps failed.

Yet, even he was replaceable. The Board of Directors decided the new CEO would be someone from within the company, and quickly put a succession plan into place for a smooth transition from one CEO to the next.

If even the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company can be replaced, it almost seems arrogant to think that I, or any other employee of this large company, could be irreplaceable. Even striving for such a goal would be antithetical to cultivating good working relationships with colleagues.

Photo credit: hagerman

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