At some point you have dedicated yourself to accumulating knowledge and helping others in the field of data science. You may not have realized it, but you are laying the foundation to have your own business. In addition to a traditional corporate gig you want to build a data science business. This can be profitable, educational, and believe it or not, fun. Think about it. You can pursue professional relationships that are actually meaningful to you.
The Ideal
You can solve problems and help people. Not just any people, but the people you choose to work with. You get to boldly display all of these technical skills that you have been building for all these years.
If you are diligent, you will at least generate enough cash flow to have some flexibility in your life. If you are careful with your budget and stash some cash away in investments, you can actually get to financial independence more quickly than your peers.
The Reality
When you build a business, it means to take a risk in terms of time and money to create something of value. It is not a hobby. Hobbies don’t create a profit. At some point, others need to recognize this value and present you with money (society’s IOU for work done) that exceeds the value of the amount of time and money you risked in the first place. When your value creation process is readily reproducible, you have a business. It means an independent source of income based upon ownership of the means of production. It could mean freelancing on Fivver and/or Upwork.
I think developing a small business based on technical skills is the smart way to hustle. This requires the curiosity to purposefully learn new things. Not everyone has that, and you have to do a gut check to ensure that you do. My gut check was when I attempted side hustles such as Uber Eats and even Air BnB with varying degrees of success. What I didn’t like about those apps is that almost anyone can do the tasks assigned. That sounds great from an egalitarian standpoint but not from a capitalist standpoint. That means that competition is fundamentally stiff and the wages are literally a “race to the bottom.” Who is going to do the simple task at the lowest price? OK, you, desperate person, are the lucky recipient of less than minimum wage then…
