Undervalued At Your Day Job? Start A Digital Side Hustle

You’re awesome at your job.

In fact, you’re so brilliant that you’re making your bosses lots of money. You’re an asset. You’re smart, dependable, and valuable.

There is nothing wrong about being part of the corporate world. You have advancement options, a 401k, and you have job security. Or maybe you just think you have job security (but that’s a topic for another time)…

But you know you could do more.

You could be more.

  • You could be the boss.

If you feel that you’re undervalued at your current job and you have dreams for a better life, it’s time to start a side hustle. You don’t have to quit your day job (just yet!) because you’re going to work on your brilliant new business on the weekends.

You’re going to slowly build your business until it’s ready to be your full-time career.

And then one day, you’ll be ready to hand in your two-weeks notice, and say “Adios!” to your soul-crushing corporate job.

If you believe you want to start your own business – someday – here are a few reasons why you should start right now:

1. Digital Products are Amazing

For budding entrepreneurs, there has never been a better invention than “the digital product”.

It’s literally the perfect product. It’s easy to create, reproduce, sell, and market. There are never shipping issues to worry about because customers simply download the product. There are never inventory issues to worry about because there is no way to run out of digital copies.

Videos, eBooks, apps, and games can all be sold from eStores.

What type of digital product you sell is entirely up to you. You can create how-to videos, craft patterns, blueprints, an online course, an ultimate guide, or a mind-blowing app. The options are endless.

Yes, it will take some time to create something amazing. You can’t half-ass this. But living in the digital age gives us more business options than ever before.

You just have to be creative.

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2. You Can Sell Everywhere

The beauty of a digital business is that you can sell from multiple platforms.

You start by opening up an online shop (which can be done in under an hour). Once you have your eStore home base, you can then add sales widgets to a blog and add buying options on every blog post.

You can try Facebook ads, or sell from Google Play or Apple’s App Store.

You can even sell directly from your own YouTube videos.

It’s easy to add buying options into videos using an eCommerce platform like Selz:

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You can sell to your email list and customers can buy directly from their phones.

The idea is that the digital world is vast and growing in new ways every day.

3. Digital is Cheap

Let’s say you want to sell an eBook.

All you need is a PDF and a cover to upload to your eStore. You can make your cover for free using Canva, or YouZign, or another similar tool.

Or maybe you want to create how-to videos, so you’ll need video editing software (there are some free options, but quality editing software starts around $15) and a decent camera (some YouTubers just use their iPhones).

Or you can create a whiteboard video.

You can create a digital product using a little ingenuity and your laptop. While you may not be able to create a professional digital product without investing some money (like hiring an editor if you’re writing an eBook), it will probably be much cheaper than manufacturing a physical product.

Mark Harless, also known as Bleeblu, is a conceptual portrait photographer with a huge Instagram following. He has a variety of digital products, including an eBook, online workshops, and Lightroom presets. The idea is that as a digital entrepreneur you have a lot of choices and opportunities to sell online.

Harless says: “You’re going to fail a lot. I’ve had many brilliant ideas (well, I thought so) canceled or put on the back burner. Expect this to happen to you, but don’t let it drag you down.”

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4. You’ll Fail, Learn, and Grow

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Setting up an eStore is easy.

But growing a business is challenging.

You’ll fail on an epic level (everyone does). You may make something the entire world hates (or worse, ignores). You may spend money on stupid “get rich quick” marketing schemes. You’ll probably throw out your first digital product and try something else… hopefully something better.

The idea is not to be an overnight success. That rarely happens. The idea is to start small, make a ton of mistakes, and learn how to run your new business.

Better yet, you’ll learn what not to do (which is just as important).

Escaping the corporate world isn’t easy, so you need to make sure your backup plan will work. Your side hustle can be your ticket out of your secure (but unfulfilling) job. At the very least, it’s your way to start taking back control over your professional career and start heading down the path you’ve always wanted to take.

You have nothing to lose.

And everything to gain.

Let me know what steps you’ve taken to escape the corporate world. Share your experience in the comments below!

Like this post? Don’t forget to share it!

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Authored By
Liesha's a freelancer by day and Kyokushin Black Belt by night. A late-blooming academic, she's happiest teaching business and globalization at UoPeople. Her newest project is Work Mobly, an online magazine called which helps freelancers find freedom, happiness, and profit while working from anywhere. Get in touch with Liesha on Twitter

5 thoughts on “Undervalued At Your Day Job? Start A Digital Side Hustle”

  1. Ananya Walia

    A perfect post to start your business online which is indeed a hotly debated topic these days. But seriously the way it has been presented and portrayed about slowly building out your business into digital world and getting rid of your tiresome job is what you need to know and learn.

  2. Survey

    If you feel that you’re undervalued at your current job and you have dreams for a better life, it’s time to start a side hustle. You don’t have to quit your day job (just yet!) because you’re going to work on your brilliant new business on the weekends.

  3. usoro

    This is very true,it is better to start a digital business now because not only will it be profitable,digital products are now dominating every where and this might just be the ripe time to take hold of this lucrative opportunity.

  4. uthman Saheed

    Thanks for sharing this Liesha, there are thousand of people out there who want to get something done on the digital world but don’t even know where to start. This post will give them an hint on what digital hustle is all about.

  5. Nitesh

    Thanks for the insights Liesha, Am also trying one digital product. All we have to do is hustle a lot and keep trying.

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