Most new businesses don’t start off with 40 hours of client work a week. When I left the day job to become a professional copywriter, I had one big client and potential projects for a couple more. The lack of actual project work seemed to interest my friends and family, who expressed concern about my ability to eat and started offering other types of work to help me make money.

Well-meaning friends and family starting making suggestions about other work — "Get a job
as a barista," my sister encouraged. "Did you check out the non-profit
employment classifieds?" another friend asked.   

I ended up keeping too many ties with my former company, doing some contract work for them here and there. And I started teaching a few computer classes for another company — not enough to cover my day rate but not insignificant to my bank account either.

The contract work I took on ended up being much more trouble than it was worth, both monetarily and in terms of the stress it added. I should have passed.

When you sit in front of your computer hour after hour, hoping that insight on how to make things happen strikes you like a lightening bolt, it can be tempting to take on other work to fill the hours and to pad the bank account.

Before you jump right in to selling fruit at a farmer’s market with your friend the apple grower, ask yourself this question: Are the short-term gains of doing side work going to outweigh the lost opportunities for my own business? You will probably be able to piece together enough money to make ends meet if you start doing odd jobs. But the true sustainability of your business will come from the effort you put into it up front — marketing your services, finding people who may need y
our services (even if it’s not today), establishing the infrastructure you need for when your services do take off.

I regret that I kept working for my former company. And, although I love teaching, I get behind each time I spend a full day out of my office. If I had put that time and effort into finding new leads to talk to, I think I would have benefited more.