Your side business sounds great though, because it’s so closely related to your passion towards cycling and outdoor sports in general.

I still consider the cycling and outdoor gear search in beta but I was getting decent traffic until about a month ago when my host let the database server get overloaded but insisted nothing was wrong. I had plenty of evidence otherwise. I spent a bunch of effort making the switch to another host. My site went live on the new host over the weekend. Hopefully my traffic will come back now that the pages aren’t taking forever to load.

But the funny thing is that although I write about doing different things, and sometimes sound like the guy who keeps switching jobs all the time, I’m in fact one of the most long-time employees at my current employer. I guess the fact that I do my own things on the side has actually made me stick at my current job.

@Ultrarob: Good point! Actually, that’s the beauty of programming / software engineering. You can use it for pretty much anything. That’s why even if in the long run I end up not being a programmer, I don’t think I’ll ever regret learning the skill :)

What kind of programming do you do in your side job? Is it related to your blog?

It was boring. But just because of that it was also a great job because it let me think about my own ideas and projects while still being able to do my work well. Now I work in a more creative job as a programmer, so I can’t just do my work and think about other stuff while doing it – I actually need to concentrate to my work.

It’s true that doing creative work during the day (while not quite as creative as my own ideas) and on my own after work is not always the best solution – but then again, it lets me be creative for the whole day. And at least, the creativity needed for my day job is quite different from the creativity needed in my business.

@James: Wise words, man!

@Selene: I agree, “if you love what you do – why not do it for both jobs?” but to some people (like myself) it’s not that simple as they want to do more things.

Or maybe I just don’t love what I do enough… I’m not sure ;)

@Alfa: Good for you! I like the openness in your comment. When it comes to me, I’m not even sure if I’m pretending or not. I hope I’m not.

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I feel blessed that I am able to do the type of work that I enjoy for my day job – I couldn’t imagine spending 8 hours a day doing some type of work that I didn’t actually enjoy doing.

In my case, I guess both started simultaneously – I interned for an internet development company back in college, which turned into a full time job (going on 9 years at the same company!)

At the same time, I had always been doing sites for friends or family on my own time. So it was a fairly natural progression that this turned into designing web sites for referrals and other new clients.

I kind of wish I knew I’d go this route, because I certainly would have taken some business courses in college too. I’m actually surprised that I enjoy the business side of things, too! Maybe that helps keep the work fresh as well.

Anyway, if you love what you do – why not do it for both jobs?

In my case, what I do freelancing is still slightly different than at my day job. My day job now focuses more on the front-end development, and is not as creative as it initially was. On my side business, I’m the designer and developer (and my own boss, LOL) so I get to be as creative as I want to. I’m able to spend as much time as I want learning new techniques etc (wheras on the day job you can’t really take the time to create a learning experience for yourself as well).

Funny – now that I think about this more – yes, I’m a web designer/developer for both jobs, but my tasks are actually much different between the two. I guess that’s why I really don’t mind it, because I can work on different sides of the same job.

Thanks for the food for thought! :)

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