

Ask HN: Starting a side business to support your startup? - keiferski

Have any HNers started a side business to support themselves during the startup process? I know of AirBnb’s selling of Obama and Mccain cereal; anyone else have a story to tell?<p>I’m in the process of learning how to program so that I can build an MVP for my startup idea. My runway is relatively short, as I’m a part-time college student with less than 6 months in savings. As such, I’m working a part time job to support myself. So, instead of relying on my current $7.25/hour job to pay the rent, I’m thinking about starting a separate side business.<p>I’ve already got the idea mapped out. It doesn’t require any technical skills, and after initial set up (approx. a week) I’ll only have to spend about 3 hours per customer. It's not a scalable business, and the pricing is relatively high, so I probably won't have the issue of too many customers. More importantly, the high price means I'll only need to attract a very low number of customers (&#60;10) to make more than the equivalent minimum wage position, at ~60 hours per month. Obviously I have to actually <i>get</i> those customers, but I'm fairly confident I can manage it.<p>The best plan seems to be: start the side business, and if it takes off, then quit the minimum wage job. Does this make sense, or would I be better off just trying to get my main project out the door?<p>Thanks a bunch.
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cheae
First one seems to be a better option.

Atleast meeting your day to day expenses won't be a factor in decision making
while you work on your main project.

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keiferski
Here's the story about AirBnb:

[http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/smallbusiness/1003/galle...](http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/smallbusiness/1003/gallery.startup_cash_now/index.html)

