A third path to pay your bills- gems from NUS career advisor Zachary Zhou
Earlier this week, I spoke with Zachary Zhou. Zachary is currently part of the NUS career advisory team for School of Computing, and has spent the last 10 years at various startups and tech organizations.
I posted how I planned to pay my bills while working on my side projects- I wanted to know if there were options that I did not consider/unaware of. Zachary, to his credit, has provided a wealth of gems. I’ll share them here so that anyone who wishes to adopt a similar path can consider these options as well.
Zachary first highlighted 3 options to earn some income:
Full time work (whether at an established organisation or a startup)
Part time work
Freelancing
The first option of full time work is self-explanatory. Instead, I shall focus on options 2 and 3 as he gave some very good insights.
Part time work
Zachary specifically recommended to find a startup that fulfills the following criteria:
The founders are not first-time founders.
Part of the motivation for working at a startup is to learn the entrepreneurial skills necessary to develop a business and company. Zachary recommended against working for a startup that has first-time founders as they are highly likely to be unaware of what to do as well- so we end up with a situation of the blind leading the blind. Which is not to say that a first time founder will not succeed at the startup- they may, but the learning process for us as an employee there may be more convulted.In the sweet spot between just starting and hypergrowth.
A startup that has either just started or is in hypergrowth stage is likely to need full-time commitment from their employees. As such, it will not be a good fit if we wish to continue to have substantial time to work on our own startups/side projects. In addition, a startup that is already in hypergrowth stage tends to funnel the employees into specific roles. This prevents employees from taking on multiple hats and learning the multiple skills needed to grow a company at the very early stages.
Freelancing
Zachary also gave some of his thoughts on freelancing.
Going onto public marketplaces like UpWork is not a great idea as it is a race to the bottom on those platforms. Prices get depressed due to the global competition and cheaper labour.
The better solution is to cold email companies directly and state our offered service clearly. It will be even better if the person we contact is entrepreneurial as well, and they can understand our perspective of contract work while pursuing our side projects.
If we really insist on going onto public marketplaces, then we should position ourselves as a niche service/product. For example, I can state clearly that I come from South East Asia (SEA) and has clear understanding of the market. This allows us to price ourselves more competitively, since there is an unique offering.
What to write in the cold emails
Lastly, Zachary also gave very clear advice on what to include in the cold emails to ‘sweet spot’ startups. For my very specific case, I should clearly state:
I have already graduated (from what undergraduate program).
Also state clearly my expectations- part time role/arrangement, how much time/product I can commit a week.
Apply for a specific role. I should highlight the experience that I have for the role. In addition, *I should also clearly state other roles that I can fulfill*. This is highly important, since startups generally need their employees to wear multiple hats. As importantly, this allows us to develop certain skills that are highly beneficial for our own startups/projects (e.g. marketing, sales).
Conclusion
This was primarily what Zachary has shared with me, and I will post updates on the options I choose to take. A shoutout to Zachary again for offering such valuable advice!