One of the primary reasons why many individuals shy away from the entrepreneurship path is the uncertainty of a stable income stream. This is a primary reason why I advocate starting your business ventures as early as you possibly can. With age comes greater responsibilities, and as a byproduct, a higher cost of living. However, regardless of whether you are a fresh college graduate, or starting a business after a couple of years in the corporate world, a subsistence level of income is essential, to satisfy our basic needs and requirements. So what does it take to earn that subsistence level of income?

There are a few things that I have done personally, & seen my friends do as well :

1. I had a lot of friends who got trained as bartenders, or started waiting tables over weekends and a couple of hours a week too.

2. Getting a job doing data entry, filing, or other routine tasks for a couple of hours a week. The learning curve is very small and although it is not the most exciting of jobs , it is not that difficult either.

3. Some friends got trained as insurance or real estate agents and did sales on the side. You get a ton of exposure about the sales process in these roles, which is extremely useful when you start selling your own product.

4. If you have a skill such as programming, designing, speaking well etc, there are many small gigs that you could get your self into through the internet to make a side income.

5. Start a blog about something that you are truly passionate about, and do your best to monetize it. This is a tough one, but I have seen many people get to a decent traffic level and actually earn a little something off their blog.

These are just a couple of thoughts that came to mind. I would really like to hear from readers of this blog what they did to generate funds while their startup was just…. starting up.

Before closing there is a very important point that I would like to make here. In all the above cases, we should be spending just enough time every week to make $X (Where $X is the minimum we need to stay afloat). I do not believe that anyone can have a full time job, and just spend a few hours in the week working on their startup. This model just does not work very well. Starting a business needs you to go all out, and if you cannot, then it is better to stay on the sidelines until you can.