When Should I Quit My Job To Work Full Time Online?

questions and answersThis post is part of the Friday QA section. If you want to ask a question just send it via the contact form.

Sharninder Khera asks:

I have a tech tutorials blog and would want to make working on it my full time job. My question is when (and how) should I decide to do this? The blog makes me about 1/12th of my income right now, so what should be the level when I decide that I should leave my current job and work on the blog only and grow that?

Interesting question, and one that I think many people share.

The answer depends on your current situation. If you are young (e.g., up to 30 years old) and don’t have many financial responsibilities (e.g., no wife, no kids, no mortgages) then you could consider switching as soon as your website starts making half of your current income. Perhaps even less if you already know the ropes of Internet marketing and know your site has potential.

When I quit my full time job I was 22, and my sites were making only 10% of my salary, but I was completely sure the income would grow if I started putting more work on them. And in fact within the first year my sites were already making more than what I earned with my previous job.

If you have a wife, kids and other financial responsibilities, however, the picture changes. In this case I would recommend to wait until your website is making close to what you make with your regular job. On top of that I would also encourage you to diversify your income sources on the web.

For example, consider launching a new website on a different niche and with a different business model, or launch an email list and promote affiliate offers to your subscribers. Making money from a single website is a risky situation because things change very fast on the Internet. One day your traffic is booming, the other it might be gone.

Finally, it’s also a good idea to create a financial cushion before you make the switch. That is, save money to cover around one year of your expenses, so even if things go really wrong you’ll have one year to figure it out.

What about you guys, how much were you making when you jumped to work full time on the Internet (or how much are you planning to if you still need to do it)?

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4 Responses to “When Should I Quit My Job To Work Full Time Online?”

  1. I left my office job in late 2007 to travel around the world on savings, but after that was gone, I was back to a few grand in the bank, living with my parents.

    11 months later I left the US and returned to Colombia, supported solely from my 2 travel blogs and membership site. I’d earned about $2,000/month for the previous 6 months and knew that’d be enough to support me in South America.

    It felt like a huge risk, but my income rose steadily for the next 6 months after that. Definitely easier to do this kinda thing when you’re single.

  2. Interesting post Daniel!! Actually, after finished my college last year (October to be exact) i have no single doubt to take my path to become a blogger. I know that my blog hasn’t produced me such a tremendous amount of money right now, but i really love this job, and reading your blog here really opens up my mind even further and encourages me even stronger for not landing my foot to be an employee. Furthermore, i haven’t had any big responsibilities right now such as wife, mortgage, or anything.

    But what really makes me optimist for being a blogger is because my blog have helped me pay my college and buy me a netbook, so i’m really positive about my future to become a blogger.

    Daniel Likin

  3. I’ve written blog since 2007, and quit my job in 2009, though earning nearly nothing until 2010 Spring.

    During those without-incoming days, I had spent nearly all the money from my previous job, but luckily I get paid from the advertisement before I had to beg for life.

    It is a risk to quit a job and be a full-time blogger, just as you can see from Daniel’s suggestions, but it is also excited to have a try, that’s what I think.

  4. Thats a great advice Daniel.
    Also we need to think about backup and long term plan while switching to full time blogging.
    Especially when we have family responsibilities, whats the backup financial income if anything happens to me(blogger) or my websites?
    Current full time jobs will have some kind of insurance or retirement plans or Employment funds.
    We need to setup or save money for that too.

    I hope you will agree with my points.

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