The rest of the article, however, is top notch, and particularly picking a business model that keeps working without your input. That’s a tough one in many fields, but a good one if you can pull it off.

I wrote up a little piece on this in my blog. If you got the time, feel free to check it out: http://www.emerslund.no/picking-your-business-picking-smart/

Jørgen Emerslund’s last blog post: Picking your business – picking smart

But it’s also a really tricky one, because how do you promote your side business without letting your full-time employer know about it? I mean, you make sure not to talk about it at work, but still in the era of Internet, everyone will be able to read your blog and find out what you are up to.

This is something I think about a lot, actually. Am I being too open about my side businesses on my blog? And do I make it clear enough that I don’t mean no harm to my full time job either?

It not only brings up a conflict issue, but makes your boss suspect that everything you do is benefitting your side job, even taking a sick day.

Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D.’s last blog post: Where Do You Draw the Line on Jobs?

But for me, at least, this principle has two major advantages:

1) It makes it much easier for me to separate my business from my job. This way the risk of hurting my employer becomes smaller with less stress. (I agree that it’s not the only way to avoid conflict: you can also try to be really careful in deciding the kind of projects you work on so that they are not considered competing against your employer. But I prefer to skip this part and do something completely different.)

2) It makes me think of my business as a business rather than another job. When I’m doing something I’m not quite that experienced in, it’s more natural to me to ask for help from others, outsource some parts of the work, and so on than if I do something I know perfectly.

Jarkko’s last blog post: Planning Your Life, Business and Everything

Regarding lawn-mowing, it’s actually a good business to be in. I did quite a bit of that during my teen years. What I found was that while I did reach an income limit*, the effort required was usually minimal. Plus I was able to listen to hundreds of hours of college-level courses while I worked!

* The income limit is higher than you’d think, though, especially if you’re willing to invest in quality equipment.

@graham: lawn mowing can be easy to start (except when it’s snowing, like today), but it has the major problem that to earn more from it you need to work harder – unless you hire some kids to do the work (which could actually make it a decent business…)