Costs of Running a Side Business: What Nobody Prices.
The costs of running a side business go far beyond tired evenings, and this chapter prices each one. First, you meet the contract paragraph that decides who owns what you build, and the engineer who lost his idea to it. Then you see how four countries answer that question differently. After that, you log a week in fifteen-minute blocks to find fifteen hours. Finally, you learn why, when two commitments compete, the business nobody waits on loses.
The unpriced costs of running a side business.
Chapter 10: What the double life costs
Who owns my side project: read the clause tonight.
If you ask who owns my side project, your employment contract often answers first. Many clauses claim anything you build during your employment, not just working hours. So check yours before the project becomes valuable, because that is when it gets enforced.
Employee Invention Laws by Country: Four Answers.
Employee invention laws by country vary far more than most people expect. Two people doing identical Sunday work can end up owning entirely different things. Therefore, you need to know which answer applies to you. Then read your clause with that answer in mind.
Weekly Time Audit: Find Your Fifteen Real Hours.
A weekly time audit means logging seven days in fifteen-minute blocks, in the moment, on your phone. Then you add up what is left after work, sleep and care. Finally, you name what stops when you take fifteen hours.
How to weigh the costs of running a side business.
Working 55 hours a week: why an end date matters.
Working 55 hours a week is exactly what a forty-hour job plus fifteen business hours adds up to. However, a 2021 study by the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization named fifty-five hours as the line where risk rises. So a bounded trial matters.
Does loving your job prevent burnout: the real answer.
Does loving your job prevent burnout? Only partly, because meaning changes how long hours feel, not what they do to your body. In short, passion helps the feeling but not the cardiovascular cost. So treat meaning and hours as two separate problems.
Attention residue: the two kinds of strain.
Attention residue is the part of you still in one job an hour after leaving it. It is one cost of running two things at once. However, the strain to worry about most is psychological and lasting, not the episodic kind.
Why side projects get abandoned: who is waiting.
Why side projects get abandoned comes down to who is waiting. When two commitments compete for the same hours, the one with external deadlines wins. So the business, which only you wait on, quietly slides. Then one week it is gone.
