Can start an online business and keep my full-time job ???

No, not something you want to do right now. Build your business up to the point that it's making almost or more than what you make at your day job and then you can think about leaving your day job. Until then don't do it!

It's best to keep your full time job until your business takes off.

Otherwise, you'll feel too much pressure and will make poor decisions.

Of course, everyone's situation is different. For example, you might have a lot of savings and a working spouse.

The cool thing about internet marketing is that you can start part time.

There are some people who make an income online that is considered a full time income yet they still work their regular job.

It all depends on what type of lifestyle you want and what your goals are.

@kaymalber

Will you be able to make enough money from your online business to pay your bills and necessaries?

Do you have an Emergency Fund that has at least 3 months of essential savings?

If you answered no to either one of those questions then you are not ready to leave your full time job.

When you have an online business (or any business for that matter) it is not guaranteed that you will make any profit from your business. That being said you have to be prepared in case you don't make any money or you don't make enough money to cover all of your needs so if you don't have an Emergency Fund you'll find yourself looking for a job in no time.

You should keep the full time job.

You have made a good start by actually being able
to sell some products. But you are still learning
and you need to scale up to begin to think of leaving
a good software job.

Work on the side and build up your income to approach
the level of the day job. Diversify your income so you
don't put all your eggs in one basket to guard against
any future reduction in sales in your main income
stream.

Hi Kamalbar,

Yes, definitely. You can start an online business while working full time.

But your growth may be slow as a newbie because you likely have a few hours daily to devote to your business. No need to be discouraged. Set aside 1-2 hours - or more - daily to learn the online business basics and start taking smart steps toward succeeding.

All of my blog readers who work full time jobs offline pull themselves through the discomfort of balancing their biz and job by remembering why they are doing the biz part time; freedom.

Ryan

Its always better to create your own strong portfolio online and do freelancing works before quitting your job, so that you can survive in longer term instead of few months only and setup your Business.

I would recommend first start yourt online business and keep working your full time job. Start developing online businnes, invest in website, content, social media . . . When you start making solid money then wuit job. I was struggling to make money online 5 yrs.

It would be a really bad move to quit your regular job at this stage.

Keep your full-time job and do Internet marketing part-time. This is my advice. Also, having a steady income allows you to invest money into your Internet business so it grows faster and starts earning you a income over time.

I was (previously) a software engineer and I did exactly what you are suggesting. I gave up my full time job to start internet marketing. However I did have savings to buffer me.


It took me 12 months to start earning anywhere near what I was earning in my full time job.


So I DO NOT advise anyone to do that, even with savings.


It makes much more sense to at least learn the basics, understand the various methods, network with other IMers (crucial). Understand exactly where and what you actuality want to do and can actually do to make money.


Personally I wouldn't focus on things like e-commerce stores, Affiliate marketing, content marketing etc. This is the route for most people starting out in IM.


You have programming skills right? So play to your strengths.


Everyone knows the old gold miners story. People selling the tools got rich while most miners just went broke.


Same thing here. Checkout the WSO section here, JVZoo and Warrior Plus products and see how many hugely successful software tools there are.


You will still need to learn and understand the basics of IM (SEO,ads, WordPress, Landing pages, opt-ins, email marketing, Video Marketing etc. So plenty to learn.


Then identify something you can automate, make easier, faster, prettier.
You can start of with simple stuff and work-up.


Look at WordPress plugins. Pretty easy to use the WordPress platform to build plugins to do pretty much anything you like.


The more you learn and look at the more ideas you will have.


Currently any video creation apps seem to be top sellers but also SEO, keyword research, landing page creation, lead generation, Facebook apps , and any way to automate traffic are popular.


If you really like e-commerce then maybe selling pre-populated e-commerce sites, or an app to populate e-commerce sites would make money faster than the time it takes to build up a customer base with an e-commerce site.


Food for thought.

I don't think it's a good decision. Please keep taking your full-time job while you can spend some hours/day for learning and creating a process (for affiliate, dropshipping or anything you want to make money from), then implement it, test it at a small scale. You can hire a Virtual Assistant from third-world countries to work on your process at low budget.
Then, if you get positive results, you can scale up and quit your current full-time job to focus your MMO.

The reality is that most fail to ever make enough money with internet marketing to make a living.

Keep your job until you consistently make enough to replace your current income.

Keep your job. Keep it until you've made as much money or more from the online business than what you make in salary...for six months.

Otherwise you haven't seen the consistency yet.

Think of getting a job as making a sale--a sale for them to hire you.

You make this kind of sale once and, assuming you're decent enough at it, it pays off for years.

Online sales...you have to make them again and again and again and again.

Much more "wobbly."

Don't base your stability on things that have wobbly characteristics, right?

You are just fine spending an hour or two or three on your business after work. The time spent does not matter nearly as much as the daily commitment. A little every day is far better than isolated 18 hour monster periods spent at your computer. THINKING about it every day is better than once in awhile.

Not If you like to eat.

Why is it one or the other?

What are you doing the other 16 hours a day?

Probably not a great idea to leave your job. As stated above, unless you have a lot of money in savings or a spouse who is willing to support you or a trust fund from your Aunt Geraldine.

Also, do you have others depending on you? A spouse, children?

What are your living expenses? Can you cut them down and live on a small amount while you build a business? Why not cut them down now while you have a job and use the extra money to invest in your business?

Have you thought about taxes? They are higher for a business owner than an employee.

When quitting your job don't just think about the salary. Do you have benefits such as health insurance? In some countries this might not matter. In the U.S. it does. As a diabetic it's extremely hard for me to get private insurance and it's in a constant state of confusion right now. If you're young and healthy this might not matter -- but if you are diagnosed while not having insurance it will probably be hard to get coverage in the future. Are your children on your plan? Will they lose coverage if you quit your job?

These are a few things I advise young people to think about -- things I didn't consider when I was younger.

Rose

Bad decision. I would go expand your ebay business but only to raise money to get established with a dedicated ecommerce platform that you own (not a third party vendor who can pull the plug at a moment's notice like ebay). Once you are established with PPC and your own platform and your business is consistent and you have a solid grasp on scaling it, then perhaps re-think about quiting.

The others here are right. Keep your full-time job so you can save more and invest more for your business. When you're earning more through your business than you are through your job, that's the time you should start considering focusing completely on your business. But if I were I'd prefer having different sources of income.

A lot of freelancers I've met and hired before are good at their jobs but apparently not with their choices. They quit their day jobs and focused completely on freelancing even though they didn't have any backup funds or savings.

As has been mentioned it really depends on your own personal circumstances. Going online full time is a journey and it involves a lot learning and mistakes will be made.

If you are completely dependent on your online income the mistakes and learning will lead to frustration and disappointment and eventually desperation will set in.

Working online part time when you are not completely dependent on the income is a more fulfilling and enjoyable experience and it can provide a nice little side income.

When you feel that you are ready to take the leap perhaps take some time off work and ramp up your efforts but try to leave the door open for your return just in case, or at the very least have a back up plan.

Do not quit your job!!

Been there, done that in your situation (started a game company in the 90s), quit my job, had no income coming in, put all types of pressure on me, not just business but personal life as well. My designs did get published, but it was so much harder than it needed to be.

You need money to live, your business will need money to test, survive, grow. If your business does not launch or turn into a source of income you will get discouraged and quit, and then look for a job again, putting yourself right back where you started (or worse).

If you really believe your online business has merit, do it alongside your job and it will eventually grow to supplant/replace your current income. You can also consider getting a job with a commerce company or industry related to what you are starting so you can learn the ins and outs of your business and get paid to do it.

I had the option to do that but I was too prideful to do it, and years later I wound up doing it anyway.

you need to have a stable business first in order to quit your job, or if you have money to invest you can but you need to be ready to some losts.