The Student Room Group

I make 1300 a month off digital marketing, could i realistically make this a career?

Okay so what started off as a joke 3 years ago, became my main side hustle and I have been lucky enough to not work a 9 to 5 and have this keep me affloat while at university.

So I currently run a my own digital marketing platform with over 500k followers, which has been generating me around 1k a month. I also make around 300 a month off of trading cryptocurrency.

I am expecting to scale this business to generate me more as the years go by, and I feel like with 1 year of effort I could be making over 2.5k a month potentially.

So my question is, would it be realistic to pursue this as a career outside of uni and make it my main job or should i get a 9-5?
Bunp
Bump*
Reply 3
Don't bump so quickly. Calm down lol. Someone, who is qualified to answer this, will come.
Original post by gtty123
Don't bump so quickly. Calm down lol. Someone, who is qualified to answer this, will come.

Lol, my bad didn’t really know how this TSR bump thing works.
Reply 5
I feel like it could be a good side career as if you make more with your main career you’ll have more money overall. Multiple streams of income
Reply 6
Original post by 31shotscrazy
Lol, my bad didn’t really know how this TSR bump thing works.

No worries.
Original post by Ten-Ten
I feel like it could be a good side career as if you make more with your main career you’ll have more money overall. Multiple streams of income

Fair enough, but the way I see it is that if I work on a normal career I would have MUCH less time to spend on the business so therefore it would suffer whereas if I put 100% of my time on it I could scale it further although would not earn me as much as a normal job + this.
Reply 8
Original post by 31shotscrazy
Fair enough, but the way I see it is that if I work on a normal career I would have MUCH less time to spend on the business so therefore it would suffer whereas if I put 100% of my time on it I could scale it further although would not earn me as much as a normal job + this.

That is also true
Original post by 31shotscrazy
Fair enough, but the way I see it is that if I work on a normal career I would have MUCH less time to spend on the business so therefore it would suffer whereas if I put 100% of my time on it I could scale it further although would not earn me as much as a normal job + this.

Although I lack experience in digital marketing, I think I am able to comment on a few things considering the knowledge I have on the subject.

Whilst you can scale, I think it would be classed more as an entrepreneurial venture, and with any venture of such sort, you will be taking on financial risks. I can't tell you when you should give up your job and focus on the business. It will ultimately be a judgement call.

When it comes to scaling, it would depend on what sort of services you provide and whether you can still scale whilst putting in little time in your venture. For example, a business that has productised and packaged their products and services in a way where there is little involvement or hands on management required may have an easier time scaling than in a business where a lot of the operations are very much hands on and require close inspection by management. You might want further advice on this from someone who have done something similar.

My question regarding the career is what do you intend to do if you didn't go into digital marketing? If it's something competitive and require a pristine CV, your self employment might raise issues regarding recent work references and experience.

The cryptocurrency thing is more or less speculation, and people who offer professional advice is very wary about advising on pure speculation.
Original post by MindMax2000
Although I lack experience in digital marketing, I think I am able to comment on a few things considering the knowledge I have on the subject.

Whilst you can scale, I think it would be classed more as an entrepreneurial venture, and with any venture of such sort, you will be taking on financial risks. I can't tell you when you should give up your job and focus on the business. It will ultimately be a judgement call.

When it comes to scaling, it would depend on what sort of services you provide and whether you can still scale whilst putting in little time in your venture. For example, a business that has productised and packaged their products and services in a way where there is little involvement or hands on management required may have an easier time scaling than in a business where a lot of the operations are very much hands on and require close inspection by management. You might want further advice on this from someone who have done something similar.

My question regarding the career is what do you intend to do if you didn't go into digital marketing? If it's something competitive and require a pristine CV, your self employment might raise issues regarding recent work references and experience.

The cryptocurrency thing is more or less speculation, and people who offer professional advice is very wary about advising on pure speculation.

It’s actually quite easily scalable as it’s only ran by two people and the business model for it is very simple, its not like a company that has many employees with alot of departments. All it is, is a platform where advertisers/marketing companies see fit and decide negotiate an exchange with us - we give them a platform, they pay us - simple. Now of course it could get a little complicated the higher it gets scaled.

In terms of career, I have no idea - I’m just really interested in online marketing and sales so I am quite flexible in regards to that, taking in of course factors like the salary, job satisfaction ect.
Original post by 31shotscrazy
It’s actually quite easily scalable as it’s only ran by two people and the business model for it is very simple, its not like a company that has many employees with alot of departments. All it is, is a platform where advertisers/marketing companies see fit and decide negotiate an exchange with us - we give them a platform, they pay us - simple. Now of course it could get a little complicated the higher it gets scaled.

In terms of career, I have no idea - I’m just really interested in online marketing and sales so I am quite flexible in regards to that, taking in of course factors like the salary, job satisfaction ect.

I take it the complications come in when you have to negotiate on the pricing. If that's the case, you might want to consider offering a set of pricing packages. If it's regarding customer service, you might want to look at outsourcing. Of course, you should get further advice on this first. I don't know at what stage you would think you need a manager or sales staff, or whether you think you would be able to outsource this as well. It's a bit of a judgement call as well.

If you're looking for a career in sales, I don't think you will have much of a problem if you're good at it. Online marketing, I don't think focusing on your venture would be a big issue. For anything else, you might have issues with e.g. accounting, legal, HR, traditional marketing, etc. The concern is that you could pigeonhole yourself into a field in doing this, especially if you want to go into something that's really competitive. You might want opinions from other people in various careers first though.