Ch. 6: Going full-time vs nights-and-weekends

Ch. 6: Going full-time vs nights-and-weekends

By month 8 my drone-review site made $900/mo and I was burning out building it after my 9-to-5. The tempting move: quit, go all-in, 'momentum.' The math said otherwise.

I calculated my runway: full-time meant 5x the output but Google's indexing and ranking lag meant revenue wouldn't 5x for 8-10 months. I'd burn $30k of savings waiting on a sandbox I couldn't speed up with more hours. So I stayed part-time and hired one writer with the profit instead — output up 60% for $1,100/mo, zero personal risk.

The site hit $4k/mo by month 20. I quit then, when the income covered rent, not on hope.

Lesson banked: more hours can't shorten Google's ranking lag. Going full-time early just lengthens your cash-burn runway. Hire from profit, quit from coverage — not from impatience.