A Simple Acronym To Help You Choose Your Side-Hustle
Intro
I’ve recently been listening to “The Millionaire Fast Lane” (Using the associate link helps me out :P), and once you get past the slightly obnoxious title it makes for an interesting read. I particular found MJ Demarco’s idea of “money trees” interesting. One of the concepts introduced as part of planting a money tree is the “CENTS” acronym, which offers some simple premises for testing the veracity of a business idea from a “fast-lane” perspective. A fast-lane business is one that has the potential to create large cash in-flow within a short amount of time (5–10 years). While deciding on a side-project I found this helpful.
The CENTS acronym
Control — Could someone pull the rug out from underneath you, instantly killing your business? Are you dependent on an affiliate program that could be removed in single software update destroying your business? If so you have violated the principle of control.
Entry — Is everyone and their nan doing it. Yes, then chances are it’s not really a problem, if it’s easy it’s likely been done well. The harder something is, the less competition there is.
Need — Do people want the product? No, don’t make it. Have you created an awesome solution to a problem that doesn’t exist? Yes, nice, no one needs it. Try to solve problems that others have. Unfortunately just because you love doing something doesn’t mean people want it either (That doesn’t mean it can’t be something you still enjoy).
Time — Does one hour of work = £10. To become a millionaire you’re going to have to put in a lot of hours that way. DeMarco’s book heavily emphasises freeing your time from work so you can do what you wish. Ideally you want something that you can work on a few hours a day or even a week, and enjoy the rest of your time. There will still likely be long day’s and nights getting it off the ground but the business model should not directly equate your time to profit.
Scale — Can the product/system be replicated or sold to more people? Can you raise the price of the system? Yes! Excellent, you’ve got a scalable system.
Application Example
Becoming a millionaire blog writer on Medium — Medium violates the principle of control and entry. This is because as a Medium writer you are under the control of the Medium God’s, one day you could be banned for your hurtful thoughts on Penguins, and all of a sudden your business is gone. Secondly anyone can get onto medium, there’s loads of writers.
Le Fin
For more information I’d recommend checking out the millionaire fast lane forums or picking up “The Millionaire Fast-Lane” Book (Again affiliate link). Also the idea of the fast-lane may not be for everyone, these ideas are reflective of MJ DeMarco’s thoughts at the time of writing. I found the “CENTS” acronym to be useful recently hence the post. I’m in no way qualified to give business advice, so please don’t take this as such, I’ll leave the professionals like DeMarco to do that.
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