The danger of freelancing

I've seen quite a few posts about advertising freelancing as sort of "side hustle" to make income - until your real business can fly on its own.

While this certainly is a strategy to make money and keep yourself afloat, there are some huge drawbacks - and believe me, I thought freelancing is the holy grail for building money for my "real" startup. Unfortunately it wasn't.

Let me get this out first: Yes, freelancing will make you money. Either in your professional networking or using one of the online freelancer sites - you will be able to get some good incomes from it. And even without too much of stress and struggles - freelancing is basically "chill" compared to other forms of entrepreneurship.

But what's the drawback and danger then you ask?

Well, exactly the point that you will get some good incomes - but not incredible ones. And even more you are selling your precious hours 1:1 for money. Like in a job. While this in itself is not bad (because if you have fun, and make money and that's all you want - go for it), it gets bad if you actually plan to work on your "real" business, like a product-based business, a SaaS company or a mobile game.

At first, your freelancing gig is seen as acquiring funds for your app/game/SaaS. However, I guarantee you the distraction of exactly this money will be enormous. Imagine, you have to chance to sell either another one of your hours for 100$ or more or work on this marketing campaign you should do for your app - which failed last time miserably. What are you going to choose? Most probably you will choose money over despair and lonely work on your product.

I was there - and it went on like this for a much longer time than I'm comfortable to admit. I had this dream of having a product-based business, of helping people with my product to be more secure and have easier access to certain options in their live.

However due to always having this carrot of freelance money in front of my face, I postponed it and postponed it and postponed it.

How to get out of this trap

So, I'm not saying to not do freelancing. Freelancing is indeed and without a doubt a good source of income when working on a potential live-changing main project.

To circumvent the issues posted above, I found a simple two-step strategy:

Only dedicate a certain amount of money to your private funds. Never use more. All ADDITIONAL money you make for freelancing is sitting in the bank. Period. The money is still there, but your brain will not directly benefit from it - therefore it's less taunting to sell more hours

Strictly limit your freelance work on your calendar. This is a must. Dedicate let's say 3 hours on Wednesday, 2 hours on Thursday and 5 hours on Friday for Freelancing. NOT MORE. If you can't finish the work - well that's an awkward conversation with your client - but this is one you need to take.

Since I follow these rules I was indeed able to proceed with my actual "dream" of providing meaningful products to the market. What do you think, or what are your experiences with freelancing beside working on your "main project"?