How to Launch Your Own Successful Online Business While Working Full-Time at a Bank – Without Getting Fired or Losing Your Mind
“My job sucks and it’s squeezing me dry. I should dump this gig and start a business of my own.”
If you’ve been working for a while, you’ll hear a variation of this one sooner or later. Who knows, you might have even entertained thoughts of quitting and launching something on your own already.
Unfortunately, more often than not, the same people who talk about their $100 million idea around the water cooler often end up going home and spending their time watching the latest episode of Modern Family instead.
Talk is cheap, while action costs time, effort and occasionally, money. It’s a lot easier to tell everyone you know about the new gadgets you’ll purchase after your new Doggy Top Hats line takes off.
Today, we bring you an interview with someone who actually backed up her words with action. This interviewee started an online retail business while working full time, juggling the demands of a busy work schedule with a burgeoning business – and as an added bonus, she didn’t even get caught by HR in the process.
Here’s how she did it, and how you can do the same:
How It All Began
“Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you’re just sitting still?”
- J. Paul Getty
Q: Tell us about your background – how did you get started running an online business, and what were you doing previously?
A: Well, I started my first job at a local airline carrier 4 years ago. I was a Human Resources executive dealing with manpower planning and strategic projects, taking care of both the operational and strategic sides of HR.
Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it – the job wasn’t particularly challenging and I ended up having a lot of free time on my hands. I decided to make full use of that free time, so I started Dressabelle, a fashion blogshop (Note: Yes, “blogshop” is just a combination blog and store, sort of like this site but for retail rather than online education) about 3 years ago.
Sometime after that, I left the airline carrier to become a management associate in an international bank. I did a few rotations before I decided to quit the corporate world to focus on my business full-time.
Strangely enough, it took me a while to realize that I was dedicating 16 hours a day, 7 days a week to my job and earning only about as much as my online business, which I pretty much left on auto-pilot so I could pursue my career.
Q: That’s pretty amazing actually. So you were neglecting your online business and it was still generating as much revenue as your day job?
Were there any reasons why you didn’t want to work on your online business full-time after leaving the airline carrier?
A: Yes, the business and the day job were about the same by that point. After a while, I just started wondering how much bigger I could grow my business if I actually used the long hours I was spending at my day job to work on my blogshop.
When I left the airline carrier 2 years ago, I still strongly believed that I was cut out to do extremely well in the corporate world. I had spent a lot of time and energy to get top-notch qualifications and the lure of the Management Associate position was just too great to resist!
Back then, I placed a little too much emphasis on the prestige attached to the position since it was a highly-coveted role at the bank. There were 1,500 applicants and eventually only 4 spots were awarded.
After going through the rigorous assessment centers and interviews, I felt obligated to at least give it a shot.
Airline Carriers vs. Banks and Beyond
Q: Maybe you can tell us about some of the differences between working in a local airline carrier and a global bank as you were making that transition?
A: I guess it wouldn’t be entirely fair for me to compare the cultures in both places as I was performing very different roles in the two companies.
Still, to answer your question, what I was doing in the airline carrier was generally not challenging and left me feeling a little unmotivated. I would say it wasn’t entirely a bad thing because it also gave me that push to start my own business on the side. I had both the time and capacity to work my full-time job and run my business at the same time.
Working at the bank was a completely different story. I was effectively holding 2 positions at the same time, since I had to meet the goals set by the department I was attached to, as well as separate, strategic, bank-wide projects that were conferred on the management associates.
My hours in the airline carrier were your everyday 9-5 grind but the hours I pulled at the bank got pretty ridiculous – I was working 16 hours per day, and sometimes even up to 20 hours every day of the week.
It got to the point that I had barely time to eat, let alone run a business on the side.
Q: It sounds like you were working investment banking hours, but without the bonuses – or the bottles.
So I take it that the work culture at the airline carrier was a lot less stressful?
A: Well, the bonuses I got as a management associate definitely weren’t too bad. But let’s leave it at that.
Again, I just want to stress that my roles in the 2 companies were very different and may have led to some bias on my part.
Because of the sheer amount of work in the bank, the culture was definitely a lot more political and cut-throat. You’d be working those grueling hours, constantly feeling that someone was out to get you – not exactly a pleasant feeling.
The atmosphere at the airline carrier was a lot more cordial, and there was never much tension in the air.
Q: I hope you weren’t creating conspiracy theories in your sleep-deprived state.
One last question regarding your working life before we move on – what were the recruiting processes for both jobs like? It seems like you went through the formal recruiting path for the MA role, but what about your job at the airline carrier?
A: It’s probably not as bad as it sounds. I imagine that, as with any ‘intense’ vocation, there’ll always be some backstabbing involved, but nothing that would make the cut in a soap opera.
As you mentioned, the recruiting process for the MA role was a formal, structured path. I went through verbal and numerical reasoning tests, various interviews and a final graduate assessment center.
Whereas I got the job at the airline carrier fresh out of university based on the strength of my grades.
That’s typical of most government-linked companies since there are a lot of positions to fill – it’s a less personal / rigorous process.
I had a relatively easy time recruiting so I’m sorry that I can’t give you that epic networking story that you’re probably fishing for.
Running an Online Business
Q: That’s okay. You’re just one of the lucky ones who didn’t have to hustle like someone from a non-target school with a 3.0 GPA to get a job.
Let’s move on. Why don’t you tell us a little more about your online business?
A: I thought you’d never ask! I run Dressabelle, a blogshop that caters to “the quiet girl next door with a quiet beauty and a whimsical personality.” How’s that for quality branding?!
In short, Dressabelle sells clothes to fashion-forward ladies who are looking to have a large variety of clothes to wear for work, dinner events and even school.
So if you’re a female looking to fill up your investment banking wardrobe, come check us out!
Q: Nothing for us fashion-forward guys? Some of us do care about style as well.
So what’s it like running an online enterprise? Tell us about some of the pros and cons of running your own blogshop vs. working in the corporate world and don’t leave out any of the juicy details.
A: It’s definitely not as easy as a lot of these ‘online gurus’ would have you believe. An online business, or any kind of business actually, requires hard work and perseverance to succeed.
I work all the time and I’ve never once had a 4-hour workweek. Sleeping at 4 in the morning has become the norm for me.
(Note/Rant from Brian: On this note, my testimonial in the second edition of The 4-Hour Workweek is misleading and outdated. I work way more than what is described there, but that’s a different rant for a different day, so moving on…)
Dressabelle launches 2 collections a week and each collection usually has about 25 new items. This means that we introduce approximately 200 designs to the market every month, rivaling even the high-street labels in terms of variety.
I have to handle these launches every week as well as every other aspect of the business – operations, social communications, customer service, marketing, photo-shoots, payment verification and invoicing. All of this has to be done manually. Basically, I’m like a human shopping cart crossed with an internet marketer.
Regarding the pros and cons, I’ll start off with the bad stuff first. Some of the things that come to mind include a ridiculous work load, unstable income, and a fuzzy line between work and personal space.
What’s great is that I get to manage my own time and that I determine my own salary. Effort usually translates to results, which eventually translates into cash in my pocket.
But by far the best part of running my own business is the job satisfaction. It’s great knowing that all your ideas can come to pass if you so decide – you’ll probably only really appreciate this if you’ve been working for some time, but it’s beautiful that red tape has become a thing of the past.
Q: You’ve got me totally convinced. I’m starting a blogshop first thing tomorrow!
Do you have any advice for someone looking to ‘switch careers’ and start their own online business as well?
A: Yes, don’t do it! All kidding aside, you need to have complete confidence in yourself and your abilities. It’s one thing to be running a business on the side while holding a full-time job, and another to run it full- time without a ‘stable’ source of income.
While most people dream of firing their boss, you really need to understand what it means not to have a backup plan.
There’s no longer a chance you can just wait for time to pass while still collecting your monthly salary. Business problems will crop up that frustrate you to the verge of tears and there’s nobody you can turn to solve these problems but yourself.
Most importantly, make sure you go in with the right expectations. Just like the finance industry, too many people also go the entrepreneurial route expecting immediate results and instant riches. Set reasonable short, medium and long term goals for yourself and know when it’s time to cut your losses.
Learn to let go and don’t hold onto your pet project so tightly that you stick around a little too long when things aren’t going anywhere. If I didn’t know how to cut my losses, I’d still be working for my local airline carrier!
Q: Ouch. On a related note, why did you decide to start the blogshop business while working full-time at the airline carrier? Did you have a strong interest in fashion that led you down this path?
A: To be perfectly honest, I didn’t start the business because I was interested in fashion. I had a passion for entrepreneurship and start-ups in general, and it just happened that the market conditions at the time were right for me to start off with a blogshop.
During my time at the airline carrier, the pay wasn’t desirable and I was generally quite unmotivated. I decided to start an online business to channel my creativity and ambitions as well as to get an extra source of income.
A blogshop was a logical step for a side business back then because there weren’t a lot of overhead expenses and it was relatively easy to enter the industry since there were very low barriers to entry. Blogging was becoming increasingly popular, and blogshopping was just beginning to catch on.
I guess you could say the stars were in alignment for me to open my blogshop.
Q: Your story is really inspirational and will probably be a source of motivation for some idealistic graduates looking to take their first steps into business.
Do you have any words of wisdom for the fresh graduates out there looking to become entrepreneurs?
A: My advice isn’t much different from what I would say to a ‘career-changer’. In my opinion, work experience doesn’t really have that much bearing on success in business.
The most important thing is to go in with your head straight and not expect the world from day one. Make sure you have a unique selling point in whatever industry you’re trying to break into and to always put the customer first.
Q: OK, one last question before we wrap things up. What were some of the difficulties you faced when starting the business and how did you deal with them?
A: Well, one of the major difficulties in the beginning was standing out from the thousands of blogshops that were online. The very low barriers to entry are both an advantage and a disadvantage – anyone can join the industry.
Since the internet is over-saturated with information, we had some trouble generating awareness amongst our target audience as well as differentiating ourselves from the other players in the industry.
We dealt with this by concentrating on branding our business. This is something that I wish I had done earlier since it paid enormous dividends. Establishing a brand identity really separates you from the rest of the pack.
Also, even though competition was tight, there was a relatively untapped pool of customers that you could access via various social media channels, such as online communities, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. This eventually came to be known as social commerce and we made good use of this platform to reach the people we wanted.
Q: It’s always interesting to hear from someone who successfully left the corporate world to start a business. Thanks for sharing your story!
A: No worries. Thanks for having me.
Shen Han Lee lives in Singapore, where he drank copious amounts of coffee and worked as a stock broker for 4 years before taking off on a whirlwind tour around the world, which you can read about on www.knackpacker.com.
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Inspirational interview but just a few questions:
1) what is a management associate
2) interview Brian?
Cheers
1) Sort of like product managers at normal companies – manage smaller pieces / teams of the company, report to senior execs.
2) Hah, maybe. I would rather interview other people who are actually in finance but we’ll see.
Brilliant, This is the article I’ve been waiting for. To Ms. Dressabelle, you mention not having a backup plan, what would you do if for some reason Dressabelle failed tomorrow?
Brian I hope you go into more detail about your own entrepreneurial experiences; the 4 Hour Work Week makes starting/running/managing an online business sound like paradise.
I’d love to be able to travel the world while working, how can I make it happen?
I’m sure she could go get a normal job or go to another start-up or something like that. If you spin it the right way, doing something on your own sounds impressive even if it doesn’t work out.
Getting started: find your market first (starting with the product = huge mistake). Make sure it’s a market filled with people who actually spend money on the topic (big 3 are health, wealth, and relationships). Then, find a unique angle / voice, and start building your presence online via guest posts, message boards, etc. the same way I did.
Thanks Brian.
When my business is a huge success bottles on me all night, you bring the models.
Haha I can probably help out more with the bottles side…
Is it lonely being an entrepreneur?
Will you still have friends to make comments like this http://twitter.com/#!/gselevator to?
It is to some extent, yes, especially if you do it all online like me because you’re working alone most of the day. The best way to deal with that (and get great ideas) is to meet other people in similar positions and network with them. It’s a little better if you have an office, employees, etc. but you’re still in an authority position so it’s not quite the same.
Josh,
The great thing about the Internet, is that it basically is THE FUTURE.
No longer will we need Retail Locations and such, when we can advertise, market and sell over the internet.
Sure, many people still prefer to be able to physically see the product and try it on; however with the coming generations a lot of that will change.
Maybe someone will create a virtual holographic device that can manifest the size of the clothe you are looking at into you.
Anyways, to answer your question, WHAT IS YOUR PASSION? Your interest? What do you have skills in and knowledge?
You can run the world with a computer.
I work for US Bank as a Universal Banker, however my dream is to become a published writer, even more to start up a MEDIA COMPANY.
Currently I am working on it, and building a team of creative, intelligent and imaginative people.
We will feature everything from music, to blogs to education.
Using a computer to work can mean anything, writing, selling, eaching.
You just neeed to establish a BRAND, and market it. EXPOSE it to the world.
Once you aquie the audience, you just need to keep them entertained, and interested,
Which is why sellign online while entertaining them with blogs, forums or videos relating to your product is a very good way to market an online business and make it succesful.
You may travel as you work, since all you will need is a laptop and some power. (Depending on what kind of business you will be running.)
Eventually the website will launch, and we can branch out into other ventures related to the media group, like music and film production. Once we start making some money, and the work becomes more demanding I will leave the bank.
However, i am still growing my career within, networking and learning. Should the plan fail I can always go into banking, However we have to remain not only hopeful, but willing and AFFIRM to ourselves that WE WILL SUCCEED.
This is an inspirational article. The point to be noted is self belief and the back up plan.
Congratulations on the success of Dressabelle.
This article inspires and motivates but more importantly it focusses on the 3 D’s that stand for Determination, Dedication and Devotion.
The path is not that easy as it appears to be over here.
A full time job and a part time business , then quitting the job and focussing entirely on business thereby eliminating a source of income is not everyone’s cup of tea.
But i still feel that work experience does count in some way or the other, maybe not in a technical way since it may be irrelevant to the business but socializing, organization behaviour, interacting with clients are some skills which are inculcated at work which might be handy while running a business.
Yup that is very true. Always helps to know an industry, know how people act, what they worry about, how to lead a team, and so on.
My question to the creater of Dressabelle and the creater of M&I
What advice do you have for me, I am a young man with very little capital starting an online media company.
At first we will have no source of income as we wont be selling anything, I am wondering how online websites make a profit, media and (blog) journal based ones specifically.
Advertisement I am guessing. What else.
You make money from either advertising or selling your own products/ referring people to other products and getting a commission. There are also other models such as subscriptions, donations, and so on, but it’s really direct sales and advertising for most sites.
For niche sites like this one, product sales beat advertising by about 1000x. If you get to a massive scale such as Google or Facebook, advertising starts to make more sense.
If you’re starting out with little capital, I would focus on becoming cash flow-positive as soon as possible – sell higher-priced products, keep your expenses low, and do as much as possible yourself at first.
While I can’t speak for the creator of Dressabelle, I would imagine that starting an online media company would be a completely different ballgame.
As you mentioned, advertising is one source of revenue…slap on some adsense and affiliate programs, analyze your data and tweak until you get the desired results.
Another source of revenue could come from selling your own digital products. While you mention that you won’t be selling anything, you’ll be surprised at the kooky stuff that sells on the internet.
A lot of blog based sites seem to concentrate on this, and you’ll probably want to start off with building an email list from the get go.
Hi Brian,
Fascinating post by Shen. Something that I have always wondered about.. Any reason you chose to keep M&I separate from BIWS? Wouldn’t it have been easier to have both sites under the same URL?
Thanks!
The main reason was for branding purposes – if we focus on selling more to institutions (schools and banks) in the future, it’s better to list the modeling courses as something separate from the normal site. Plus, it’s easier to track user behavior and conversions more effectively when the product site is separate from the lead generation site.
The main downside is that SEO is more difficult like this because now I have to split the traffic between the two sites and always debate where I should place content. So that’s not great, but also not a huge deal because we could just start producing modeling-focused content here and keep it all to one site.
Hi Brian, I’m going to Apply for a summer internship for Goldman Sachs and some other bulge bracket banks.
I currently have a 4.0 GPA from a non target school as well as leadership (officer) roles in 3 clubs for my college. However, my previous college record at a different institute (also a non target) carries a poor academic record (2.62 GPA) due to financial issues as well as being in a completely different field of study which I did not enjoy.
I’ll just say this, I’ve had a 2 year gap after that event, I currently have a 4.0 at my current college. Should I mention that old college on the applications or should I just leave it out? I’m sure they don’t have a way of checking correct?
You could leave it out though you’ll have to disclose the info if they ask; even if you were to leave the info in, it wouldn’t affect you so much because you have a good GPA at your current college
The Goldman application doesn’t say it’s required.
However, you mentioned how the current GPA wouldn’t affect me? Seeing that a 2.62 from a non-target is pretty much a toss in the dust bin, why would you think that banks will ignore such a red flag?
By the way, thank you for your help.
Leave in the college name and indicate that you transferred after a short while but do not list the GPA.
Same thing with me. I had a 4.0 GPA at my latest school and graduated with a 2.96 (or 2.86, can’t remember). I’m 2.5 years out of college and work at an investment banking analyst now (which I am doing very well in). I do not put the 4.0 GPA on my resume because I am afraid that firms will think I have tried to manipulate them once they see the other grade. As Sammy said, why would firms (buy/sell-side) ignore those grades?
Because you are 2.5 years out of college already – your work experience matters more
Sorry, supposed to be “graduated with a 4.0 GPA from my latest school and had a 2.96 (or 2.86, can’t remember exactly) from my previous school”
Hey guys,
a bit of an off topic question, but how does dispute/forensic services at a Big 4 look on a resume to try and eventually break into corporate development or a top B-School? I have failed at trying to land a Big 4 TAS job.
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GX/global/services/financial-advisory/forensic-dispute-services/index.htm
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/forensic-services/dispute-analysis.jhtml
http://www.ey.com/US/en/Services/Assurance/Fraud-Investigation—Dispute-Services/Assurance—FIDS—Dispute-Services
It helps, but obviously not quite as good as TAS. I would still take the offer and then try to transfer around internally to something more relevant once you’ve been there a while. Banks may view it as a little too close to back office or legal work.
Great to hear from you Brian, last question I promise! Just for all the people out there taking the big 4 route. As a general rule of thumb, is basically anything in advisory better than doing plain old audit?
Depends on your goal. I’d say so.
What are the steps, and best route to licensing your online business?