(Sophie Kahn and Bouchra Ezzahraoui, founders of AUrate New York, say starting a side business is just as hard as it sounds. Courtesy of Sophie Kahn and Bouchra Ezzahraoui)
In 2014, Sophie Kahn and Bouchra Ezzahraoui started their own company on top of their already demanding full-time jobs.
Kahn was working at Marc Jacobs after a stint at The Boston Consulting Group, and Ezzahraoui was an interest rate volatility trader at Goldman Sachs. They had met in 2009 as Princeton students, two of only a handful of women pursuing masters in finance degrees.
Inspired by the name-brand gold ring turning Kahn's finger green, the friends decided to start AUrate New York, a jewelry company that would provide affordable, fashionable, high-quality gold.
The duo spent 2014 setting up the company, taking classes at New York's Parsons School of Design and laying the groundwork for their business, then used 2015 as their test year. Would people buy their jewelry? Could they run a successful pop-up shop? They had begun with funding from their own savings, their families, and from friends, and they needed proof their concept would work. "We're very rational," said Kahn. "It has to work."
And so far, it has. Kahn left her corporate job in early 2016 to devote herself to AUrate full-time, but Ezzahraoui is still working full days at Goldman and nights at AUrate. When Business Insider asked Kahn and Ezzahraoui for their best advice for other entrepreneurs building a business as a side job, they shared the following:
Keep a to-do list. Maybe more than one.
"At all times, I had both a mental checklist for AUrate and for my personal life, and was constantly evaluating how the two priorities interacted with one another," Ezzahraoui said.
"It sounds simple, but I'm crazy with my to-do lists," said Kahn. "Telling yourself what tasks need to be done and then scheduling them and saying how many hours a certain task should take. I did this every day. Discuss your goals are: high level ones for the week, and then specific ones for the day. Especially if you have two jobs you're always going to feel like you haven't done everything, but you need to sleep. You get them written up and checked off and then you feel like you've done what you need to do."
If you have a business partner, communication is key.
"For the two of us, we had different types of day jobs with different schedules," Kahn said. "You have to discuss who does what when, and not get frustrated when one can't help out. You have to be independent in a way, and very flexible."
Be upfront with your day job.
It's important to be honest about your side gig with your day job, Kahn said. "You don't want to be doing something you're not supposed to. At Marc Jacobs they always knew about it. You always want to makes sure they're aware, so you don't feel guilty or like you're doing some kind of double agent thing."