9–5 Chain: A Side Business Framework

As software developers, we create products that make life easier and automate business processes. We develop million-dollar products but struggle to earn millions. Why can't we make millions while creating million-dollar products?

It's because we aren't running our own businesses. I understand that running your own business while working a full-time job can be challenging. I'm trying to create a 'side business' myself, but I haven't been very successful in this endeavor so far. Running your own business and being successful at it requires acquiring and applying many skills.

Moreover, to follow this program successfully, you must be ready to make certain sacrifices. You might have to sleep less, socialize less, and while your friends are out enjoying their evenings, you'll be at your desk, coding, and striving to gain customers. It's precisely at this juncture that I made the decision to create the 9–5 Chain Framework, not only for myself but also for those willing to embrace these challenges. This framework aimed at assisting to you help you set up your own business in the time outside of your 9–5 job.

Primary Goal

The fundamental purpose of the 9–5 Chain Framework is to help you improve yourself while growing your business. Because when you develop yourself in areas where you're lacking, your business will also improve. Many programmers I've talked to have developed their own products in the past but abandoned them because they lacked users. As software developers, we are often good at product development but struggle with areas like marketing, sales, SEO, and product launches. With this framework, I aim to address these shortcomings.

Details of the 9–5 Chain Framework

Time Management

To maintain a consistent and steady pace of progress, the first essential step is to establish a system. Considering our standard job, where we work alongside others, typically consuming 40 hours each week, we should allocate a minimum of half of that time to our own business - targeting 20 hours per week. Our plan involves dedicating 2 hours each weekday, summing up to 10 hours, and another 10 hours over the weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday. For individuals who are married or have children, this commitment can be adjusted to 15 hours.

The weekly plan is as follows: On Mondays and Fridays, we will focus on sales-related activities. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays will be dedicated to marketing efforts. During the weekends, we will focus on product development, which involves coding and design. The existence or absence of the product is of secondary importance here because one of the biggest challenges is developing a product and then trying to find customers to buy it. This is the wrong approach; we need to test our idea before we launch the product.

Our competitors are quite strong, many of them have been in the industry for years. Therefore, we need to test our idea quickly. We should shift our focus to the short-term game because we need to generate income. Hence, our initial focus should be on sales.

Mondays and Fridays (Sales)

On these days, our focus should be on sales-related activities. To quickly reach potential customers, we use outbound marketing strategies. Our primary goal is to determine whether our product can be sold. Here are some superficial methods for example:

Google & Linkedin Ads:

This is a straightforward and fast method. First, we need to narrow down our target audience. Using filters like demographics, education, and job, we make sure our ads reach only our target audience. We also want to prevent people outside our potential customer base from seeing our ads, so we use negative targeting. We can run regular A/B tests with small budgets for our ads.

Cold Emails:

If we have created a waitlist and have potential customers on that list, we can try selling our product by introducing it via cold emails. If we don't have a waitlist, there are platforms where we can purchase the contact lists of potential customers, ensuring GDPR/KVK compliance. AI tools like ChatGPT can be used to create the content for cold emails, as these tools produce effective results.

Twitter & Linkedin DMs:

One of the most effective methods to validate our idea is to reach out to well-known individuals in the SaaS field via Twitter and Linkedin DMs, communicate with them, and have them try our product for free. Regularly applying this approach is important because it can help us reach our potential customer base and even potential investors.

These sales channels and methods can be diversified, but the main aim is to provide you with examples to encourage you to develop your own skills and focus on the sales process. You may not enjoy this part of the business, but it's something you must do.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays (Marketing)

We emphasized the need to focus on sales for short-term goals. However, we also need to invest in long-term goals. Our competitors have been in the industry for years, and we're behind them. But this shouldn't scare us; in fact, our lack of brand recognition may give us an opportunity to take more risks. For long-term success, we need to focus on content creation. This is likely to be one of the most challenging areas because regular content creation, topic selection, and design are complex processes. If you're running the business alone, AI tools can be your biggest helper in this regard.

Here are some superficial methods for example:

SEO:

SEO is one of the most important resources that many SaaS companies invest in to attract and acquire customers. Creating specific pages for our target audience and comparative content with our competitors are ideal strategies to generate traffic. Regularly adding blog content is important, and you can manage this process with freelancers from platforms like Upwork and Fiverr. In the initial stages, I believe that the quantity of content is more important than quality. So, initially, creating more blog content can be beneficial.

Personal Brand Building:

Today, people tend to follow leaders rather than products. Therefore, we need to build our personal brand. Your followers could become your most loyal customers. It's important to actively create content on various channels of social media. If you are skilled at writing, blogs and Twitter may be ideal options. If you enjoy creating visuals and videos, Instagram and TikTok are the most suitable platforms. But having a presence on at least one social media is essential for growing your network.

Instagram & Tiktok:

I'm keeping this section brief because it may not be applicable to every product. Instagram and TikTok are especially popular platforms among the younger generation. If you aim to create viral content, these platforms may be ideal for you.

Facebook, Reddit, and Discord

Platforms like Facebook, Reddit, and Discord groups are useful for joining communities where your target audience resides, creating topics, and making comments. Especially in the early stages, when you don't have any users yet, these platforms can help you acquire your first users.

Weekends (Product Development)

Most of you are skilled in product development, so I'll go through this section more quickly. However, what's especially important here is to establish a feedback system for our product. Our users are the most valuable source for improving our product. Without engaging in marketing and sales activities, we don't add any new features to our product. We regularly improve our product based on feedback from users.

To grow your business, you first need to improve yourself. The 9–5 Chain Framework can guide you in this challenging task. Success requires patience and continuous effort, so never give up on working. If you have any questions, you can reach me on Twitter. I wish you success in your business and personal development.