Said It Here

How to grow a side business while working a full-time job

Balancing a full-time job with a growing side business creates severe burnout and makes it difficult to decide where to invest time and money. When dealing with extreme exhaustion and competing priorities, people struggle to figure out what to focus on first without wasting funds on inventory or advertising.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Taking time off using savings
  2. 2
    Signing a contract for a new traditional job to secure income
  3. 3
    Starting small with a few sales through a resale app
  4. 4
    Growing organically through Reddit
  5. 5
    Participating in physical craft markets
  6. 6
    focus on learning and validating the clothing brand rather than trying to make everything perfect from the start
  7. 7
    keep your finances organized and separate business and personal money
  8. 8
    learn the basics yourself and pay for professionals when needed

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/smallbusiness3 people · September 2026

How do you guys find the time to manage social, educational and productive time?source ↗

Odd-Sir4143 · r/smallbusiness · 3 upvotes

The problem is now that I’ve realized how burned out I am and I’m dreading going back.source ↗

What I’m struggling with is whether I’d be stupid to keep spending money on inventory, putting time into the business, and doing all the other things that come with trying to grow while I’m working my regular job.source ↗

spooky-penguins · r/smallbusiness · 2 upvotes

I’ve recently started a tiny creative subscription business in the UK and I’m trying to work out how to grow it sensibly without throwing loads of money at advertising.source ↗

I currently have 10 paying subscribers, and I’m doing this alongside a full-time 9-5 job.source ↗

I’m trying to figure out what I should actually be prioritising at this stage.source ↗

Pretend-Pop3836 · r/smallbusiness · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised