Can you be Risk-Averse AND an Entrepreneur? YES!

Something you may not know about me is that I’m actually pretty conservative and kind of risk-averse. And I’m not sure that that’s from a quality that we expect from a lot of entrepreneurs, a title which I have fully embraced at this point. But going back to that being risk-averse, I’m fairly conservative I do not recommend that my teachers go all in 100% on their business when they start. I do not want you to be in a position where you were putting your financial security or your family’s financial security at risk. I didn’t, and I don’t recommend that you do that either unless you have a considerable nest egg that you can live on while you build your business. 

I actually recommend that all of my teachers have some sort of side hustle or side or part-time job in addition to their business as they’re getting started. This is because it takes a couple of months to build up your client book and replace a full-time income. Here are some things that I recommend my teachers do as they are building their clientele and their student schedules:

• I encourage them to sub if they still feel comfortable in their schools or other schools. You can research which schools pay the best for subs. All the schools are hurting for subs. We know that so you shouldn’t have too much difficulty getting in there. And in my experience as a sub, you can pick what days you’re available which is great because then you could say OK, Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m gonna sub Monday, Wednesday Fridays I’m going to work on my business and that’s perfect and reasonable.   

• Another thing that I did was I worked part-time as a classroom aide. I learned a ton from the teachers I supported that I was able to use to teach the students in my business.  

• Another option is to work for somebody else like OutSchool or to include tutoring among your services if that something that you enjoy doing.   

The reason I refer to these part-time jobs as your side hustle is because your business is still going to be your business. If you’re anything like me, I had to leave my part-time job within about three months. I had to put in my notice because I had a wait list of students that I need to open up my schedule for, so I could be making more money seeing my own students then I was making at my part-time job.