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Self employed or limited, plenty of information on both. Some start off as self employed and move to limited later. There are tax elements too - a self employed person all profits are their personal income, a limited company all profits belong to the company and are taxed at the company rate - which can be handy for those who would otherwise pay higher rate tax. Its a pretty common way of starting, running a business part time while working full time. Slower than jumping in both feet first but a lot safer and can experiment. Not all businesses pan out, not all turn out to be as good as expected from a personal point of view. Can be fun though.

It may seem obvious at first, but it seems like you're looking at the business from a birds-eye sort of view, an overarching expectation of how it's going to be like. Start simple first, and as a digital marketer, you can probably go ahead and ask yourself these questions:

1. Will I be providing a service or selling a product? (Or both?)
2. Will the business be completely digital or will it be mixed with a physical aspect? (Store, warehouse, etc)
3. Will the product/service I'm delivering be catered towards a specific audience? (Local, international, and other demographical data)
4. Do I know enough regarding this product/service that I can pitch it to customers without being anxious?
5. What other responsibilities do I have beyond the business and my full-time job?

A quick review of your answers to these questions will give you a far better insight into where you stand when it comes to calculating just how much time you'll be spending on the business.

An important aspect often overlooked is the impact of a business 'on the side' on your personal life.
Some  people realised that they were actually quite comfortable on the salary they were earning 9-5 and lacked the confidence to go full time with their business which hadn't earned anything serious - in fact in the main it had been losing money and equipment/software replacement or upgrade would be seriously denting finances.
Besides that many realised that evenings and weekends had invested a lot of time in the business to the detriment of their social and leisure time and their work/life balance had gone totally out of kilter.

tungkelly wrote:

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I appreciate the feedback - It's definitely something i've considered and it's also the main reason why i want to set up a business to run in the background for the moment, as opposed to leaving the 9-5 to invest in this fully. Ideally, I want the best of both worlds, but i know that isn't always possible.

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Whilst the business may run in the background the marketing won't.

The problem is you aren't the only seller. They may have hundreds, all promoting the product on social media, shoppee, lazada and any other tat bazaar they can find. You may want to rise above this and do email marketing, run adverts or whatever. Makes no difference, marketing will eat up all your spare time.

Someone I know sells artwork. It's a passive income because someone else does all the printing and packing but it took them over 5 years to get to the hands-off position. They now earn enough to pay someone to do all their marketing.

But now i know that with the right marketing tools & strategy you could achieve sales even faster. I went to roar point marketing & branding masterclass. They do highlights lot of marketing do and donts, what works and what not. If you want to compete with others in the same industry they also will guide u through that.

proflim wrote:

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Whilst the business may run in the background the marketing won't.

The problem is you aren't the only seller. They may have hundreds, all promoting the product on social media, shoppee, lazada and any other tat bazaar they can find. You may want to rise above this and do email marketing, run adverts or whatever. Makes no difference, marketing will eat up all your spare time.

Someone I know sells artwork. It's a passive income because someone else does all the printing and packing but it took them over 5 years to get to the hands-off position. They now earn enough to pay someone to do all their marketing.

But now i know that with the right marketing tools & strategy you could achieve sales even faster. I went to roar point marketing & branding masterclass. They do highlights lot of marketing do and donts, what works and what not. If you want to compete with others in the same industry they also will guide u through that.

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 Wow that would be really important if i can accelerate my business like that. Is the class still available?

I guess business is not so simple... which requires very meticulous planning. I probably need to find more on how to initiates things.

I can not offer any better advice than that all ready given above. Only to say the added advantage of already being in employment has to be it takes the stress and heat of not having to worry about how you are going to pay the next bill thats heading your way.
I note you say you will not be giving up your full time role but if you did (and I don't know your age) you may want to look at the pension implications especially if working in local government.