The six-figure sidehustle… and the 10-minute workweek [pt 1/2]
Lessons from Adam Stone: 21 year old serial entrepreneur shares how to outsource your job and make your time even more valuable.
I will show you how to put as much of your business on auto-pilot as possible so that you can spend more time concentrating on growing your business rather than operating it.
Time is the most valuable asset you can have, so spend time leveraging it rather than spending time doing one-off tasks.
Background
Some call me a serial entrepreneur. I have been running businesses since I was 12. But my most successful venture started when I was 14, which I got down to total auto-pilot. It ended up generating a 6-figure yearly profit and servicing 140,000 paying customers… try supporting all those customers, let alone getting it to a 10-minute workweek :)
Why did I do it?
Out of necessity. I was a full time high-school then finance- & law-school student while running my ecommerce business.
We succeeded in both SEO (300k uniques per month) and enterprise sales (securing a 6-figure contract with one of the top companies in the FT50 when I was 18). But the part I am most proud of, of course, is that it was all powered by completely streamlined operations and an operating manual 58 pages long… and of course thanks to my team, my amazing mentors (Dom, Dad, and the dozens of others who I have pestered throughout my relative cluelessness over the years).
As this will be a 3-part series (maybe more if you have any questions or wish for me to elaborate on any particular learning), this part will put it all into context and start off by explaining just how empowering it can be.
I was reading this Medium post yesterday by a dude named Nat who has “Built a 4-Hour Workweek” and isn’t sure “What the Hell [to] Do Now”. He starts by writing, “I have achieved the 4-Hour Workweek. But… this article isn’t to brag. It’s more a cautionary tale.”. A cautionary tale? For starting an autopilot business? Talk about first world problems… too much money and too much time. Imagine?! [it’s not all bad; he elaborates, and I even quote him at the end of this post :), but it did remind me…]
It reminds me of when I was speaking to an East Coast US investor last year; I was going through my background story as a part of the pitch for Speedlancer, and we got into a discussion about her peeve against Tim Ferriss, and how he was selfish for not working on something “more disruptive” and “meaningful”. It got me angry (not that I showed my anger), and I decided to clarify that sure, not every business has to be game-changing. I explained just how empowering it was to have an autopilot business, or ‘side hustle’, especially with the goal of using it as a launchpad to do something more disruptive in the future. After all, if I hadn’t had my previous business, I wouldn’t have been accepted into 500 Startups and I certainly wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be sitting with her in NYC and having the conversation to start with.
Startups are hard, the journeys can be slow and arduous (well at least all my businesses to date have been slow, albeit steady, to grow), and if you have to pay rent and support yourself in addition to supporting your startup, you are going to cannibalise your startup in the process (or give up way way sooner than you should).
It’s why I believe every entrepreneur should first just start something that makes money (read: build an ‘antistartup’), before trying to change the world. (unless of course you’re lucky with your first business being something that makes money + happens to be perfectly disruptive and scalable, in which case consider yourself awesomely lucky to have achieved something that a very small proportion of people in history have pulled off, let alone on their first attempt).
With my eCommerce site, I got bored (the pinnacle of fully systemising any business) and was itching to start something new… giving rise to the launch of my ‘side project’ (at the time, but now my ‘full time’) Speedlancer, in 2014. And to me, my case proves just how valuable a side hustle can be in giving room to explore something a whole lot riskier, but hopefully way more rewarding.
That is to say, if you really want to disrupt, you can; creating an autopilot business is not the end. In fact, I see it as the opposite.
Whether your side hustle helps you enjoy life, or get your degree, supplement your income, enjoy family time, or to go on and start something truly game changing… it is invariably an enabler. Not that you need to be convinced, but the main point I’m trying to get across is that it’s very hard to work on something truly disruptive if you can’t even support yourself. And a side hustle is the perfect way to do that.
I decided to use my extra time to do half a law degree and to finish my finance degree just a few weeks ago (hence this series of posts have been in the draft tray for the better part of 18 months, which I’m now editing on the flight from the Philippines where I met one of my key employees for the first time! He’s been working for me for 6 years). Speedlancer is now my key focus, and the eCommerce site I’ve been alluding to is in a dying industry (mobile phone unlocking), so is certainly no longer any focus.
… and that’s precisely the problem with autopilot businesses. If they were any good (read: if they were sustainable), you wouldn’t put them on autopilot. You’d dedicate your time to them. Which is why I’d (only) recommend them as great enablers, to do bigger and greater things.
Also worth noting, if you’re an employee (or a founder at a startup), you can also put your role on autopilot. Again, not so that you’ll have nothing to do, but rather enabling you to become a better manager and take on higher and higher levels of responsibility through truly leveraging your time. Don’t you owe it to your business to take on more responsibility?
TL;DR
Autopilot businesses (read: businesses that make money but are not disruptive) can be used as a springboard to launch something truly game changing… just as autopilot jobs/processes can be used as a springboard to greater responsibility/efficiency.
As Nat puts it:
What a passive-income lifestyle gives you is not complete freedom from work, but the freedom to work on whatever the hell you want. ~ Nat Eliason
I hope now you’re convinced.
In the next part, I’ll show you exactly the process I used to get my role to a 10-minute workweek, and how you can too… not so that you can sit back and do nothing but so that you can truly learn to leverage your time and work on something far greater.
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