Today’s society glorifies startup life. Most see startup culture as acquiring VC funding, getting a fancy office, and rapidly scaling. The problem is that no one wants to talk about the grueling path every startup must endure before acquiring funding— this is the side hustle stage. This means you are still working your full-time job and starting a business on the side which will eventually become large enough to be your new full-time priority.

Marc Andreessen stated that the life of a startup could be divided into two phases: before product/market fit, and after. The latter is the fun part – when VCs and scaling the business come into the equation. This article is about the former, less glamorous part of building a business. The part that ...