Deciding when to leave your full-time job and go all-in on your side hustle

Deciding when to leave your full-time job and go all-in on your side hustle or freelance gig in Singapore should not be made on a whim.

I caught up with Suffian Samat aka Ian Sam, 28, and Eshton Chua, 27, who turned their side hustle into their dream jobs in May this year.

They have been part of the flourishing gig economy in Singapore for some time before they founded Syne Studio back in early 2020.

Syne is a fashion label that restores old fabrics from Japan and recreates them into kimonos and other lifestyle products.

How they got together and started their Syne journey was serendipitous.

They had met at a footwear design competition in 2018 where Ian Sam came in first whilst Eshton, placed second. After the competition, they went on to train together. That experience gave them the opportunity to discover that they not only worked well together and had complementing skills, but they also shared a common love for art and design. After several more project collaborations, Syne was launched.

Did they ditch their full-time jobs and jump right into Syne after they started it? No.

The young seamsters had the sensibilities about them not to as that would have been suicidal from a financial standpoint.

They were careful and strategic with their business plan.

They knew to focus on brand-building and acquiring a clientele and a following for their products at the start; to test and determine if they had a place in the market which they did on the side while juggling work full-time.

They committed their weekends and days off to testing and experimenting on their creations and showcasing their products at fleas.

In their words, “Falling in love with an idea and believing that others would love something you do is really easy and tempting, but logically, we wanted to have the confidence to know that it could be something sustainable as a full-time job before we jumped into the deep end.”

So how did they know when to quit their full-time jobs to focus on Syne?

There was naturally the initial fear of the instability that came with giving up job security and steady income flow. However, they had been hustling for over a year and had established good connections and partnerships with a few reputable brands. T

Ian Sam and Eshton are indeed the epitomai of start-up entrepreneurs – visionary, self-motivated, hard-working, and disciplined.

They know that the toiling, suffering, and setbacks that they encounter today will all be worth their while in the future when they look back on how far they have come.

From Ian Sam and Eshton to anyone thinking of making that switch to self-employment, “Trust your guts and never let anything or anyone stop you from doing what you want to do.