Want To Be Your Own Boss? Here's How To Start A Side Hustle & Succeed

By Kibet Tobias
The best way to eventually become your own boss in Kenya is to start a side hustle and build your self-employed income while you still have the safety and security of your full-time job.
What’s more is that starting a side hustle can not only pad your income, but create career-changing opportunities that you wouldn’t have normally stumbled upon at your full-time job.
If you’re planning to start a side hustle, here are the steps that’ll help you start it quicker while you keep your day job and only source of dependable income.
Here’s How To Start A Side Hustle Job & Earn Extra Money
1. Prepare well
What you need to know is before you start a side hustle or any business for that matter, you need to ask yourself how badly you want to succeed.
You have come up with a great business idea but it doesn’t stop there. Is it a viable idea that is likely to work in the market? Let’s face it, if nobody is going to be interested in what you are selling, then it’s probably not the right time to venture out on your own.
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2. Identify Your Skills and Areas of Interest.
This is where the test of your passion comes into play. You don’t have to enter a battle ill-equipped for the challenges you’ll be facing.
Your business idea should be a viable idea that is likely to work in the market. Remember if nobody is going to be interested in what you are selling, then it’s probably not the right time to venture out on your own.
3. Look for a business partner
Launching a new business idea is a lot of stress which becomes even worse when you have a full-time job. This is the main reason why you should find yourself a co-founder. Whether it’s that friend you know you can trust or a family member, they will come in handy.
Business partners bring in new skills that may be what you need to launch a successful business not to mention making things easier for you to run a business and still concentrate on your job.
4. Get Your Priorities Straight
What do those priorities look like? Financial advisors recommend that you save at least 10 to 15 percent of your income every month.
You should also set aside money for emergency savings so you can use them to run the business.
5. Differentiate Yourself from your Competitors
As for your new product or service, you should know that you’re going to have competitors no matter what  you may think as weird as they can be.
These competitors may or may not be your friends but one thing you all can agree on, for sure, is that you are targeting the same audience with your own individual products or services and that can get difficult.
Instead take a moment to think what you might be putting up on the line whether that be your business’s reputation, your quality of the product/service, the long-term plan you devised by just going about imitating what your competitors are doing.
So to make sure this never happens, you must have your own unique competitive advantage.
6. Have clear goals
What’s the point of starting a business if you don’t have a clear goal of what you really want? It can be overwhelming to think about the process of bringing an idea to life. So many steps involved!
You have to start on one foot, learn the grips then work on your other feet and then take a few steps forward until you walk.
So what now?
Make sure to save this guide and give a second read through to really master it. Take your time and think for yourself what you can perfectly do to get extra cash.
The writer is a content writer at Career Point Kenya. Contact her via tobias@www.careerpointkenya.co.ke.