Diversify!

Why you should have more than one job

Back in the year 1850

Imagine the following scenario: It is the year 1850. You are 15 years old and you have been very lucky to receive some kind of school education in your village or little town. 

What have you seen so far? How far did you travel? Most likely not more than 10 miles in each direction and back. 

Your grandparents lived in your village, too. Your whole family did. 

You started to take over "job responsibilities" at the age of 12 and earlier. As a girl you helped in the kitchen and you learned how to fix clothes or to work on the field and feed the animals. As a boy you learned how to work with kettle and feed them. You also learned how to improve your blacksmith skills while watching your grandpa or dad doing it. As a young samurai you watched your dad practicing with the beautiful sword his grandfather gave him etc. 

All in all you haven't had ANY choice to decide what you want to do. It wasn't because your parents didn't want to help you. It was simply because there was no alternative available. No school system or media teaching you how to learn other things. 

Time jump

Let′s jump in time: In the 1980s it feels that there was a big progress in this regard: School systems developed in many parts of the world and something like artificial barriers between different types of education started to be removed more and more.

This was great and a big improvement! Suddenly you didn't need to become a plumber if you didn't want to. Even though your dad was a plumber and his dad too. 

2019?

The choices and possibilities are endless. Endless to a point where portals like udemy and others make you feel like you are the dumbest person on planet earth. You see things on YouTube that prevent you to practice your sport because there are kids that are so much better than you that it is simply demotivating.

Girls look so beautiful and their travel blogs on Instagram are so flawlessly nice. Every day is a big party for Dan Bilzerian with the result that you feel only like a spectator and you don't seem to have any chance to take part in this life. Maybe you can buy a product from those "influencers" to pretend to take part in their life. The truth is: This won't help you, just them btw....

How to add a job/business and use all the information available to your advantage?

It is very difficult to get real inspiration about things you like to do and things you are good at! At let′s face it: Your learning curve would be really high if you learned more about the things you love to do up to a point where you can make money with it?

In their daily job many employees say they have all they need. Friendly colleagues, a decent pay, interesting work and a nice boss. But how can you measure without a scale?

Time has changed: How many of today′s employees will stay with their company for 30 years plus? My guess is 0-1%.

Diversity is the key

Every business owner knows it: you have to diversify. If you have 1 or 2 customers that make up for 80% of your revenues - go get more customers and diversify! You are selling just one product? Go add more products and diversify. You are offering a service? Go sell additional services - upsell - downsell = diversify!

But what about an employee? How can you diversify? Actually you can′t! You can learn new skills - you can become an expert in your field and learn, learn, learn - you can attend conferences - build a network - but still you haven’t diversified in the classical meaning. You think that your boss or company will need your skill etc.? I can tell you: This is a farytale. It is not true. If even Steve Jobs got kicked out of ?his“ Apple - everyone can be kicked out of everything.

What are “the better investors” doing? Right - they diversify as well. They even diversify in many directions - liquid to illiquid money - volatile and less volatile assets - spread around the globe in different currencies. Yes - if you are a small investor it is more difficult to diversify money - but still you can do it.

How does an average employee diversify his wealth?

• 90% allocated to his home he lives in
• 5% liquidity 
• 5% retirement/pension plan (whatever shape or form)

Is this good? No it isn’t….

How does a professional investor split his wealth?

• 2% in the house he lives in
• 10-15% liquidity (depending on market conditions)
• 20-30% bonds (different currencies and countries) 
• 20-30% equity investments (shares liquid or private equity as illiquid assets)

Rest are derivatives to hedge positions...

Looks different right?

So - How can an employee diversify now? 

A down sell of your abilities is what many employees are forced to do in some countries. They work at normal job and after that they work as a waiter/waitress just to be able to buy essential things or have a nice holiday. This is sad but true and definitely something that is a bad development.

The idea

Diversifying and opening up new income streams as an employee is possible through e.g. deep knowledge of the work you do on a daily basis. Is there something you always wanted to change? Everyone knows it. You work on something and you ask yourself ?why is no one developing a tool to make this work easier or better?“. This is the first step of becoming an entrepreneur! Go see what startups and founders are doing- it is really inspiring and it is not depending on age. New ideas - sometimes from business veterans 50+ years of age have an enormous potential! Many times young smart boys and girls between 20 and 30 years still in university or even school work on new ideas the world literally waited for! It is a trade-off between experience and a free spirit - both is good and necessary. Young people disrupt whole industries without knowing it. Veterans disrupt complex technical methodologies just with their experience and make things finally better.

Employees often fear the risk - will it work? How long can I bootstrap? When do I need to get funding the latest?

The better the availability of money and investors - the more startups will be founded. Here is where www.capmatcher.com shines - we connect promising startups with early stage investors. In doing so we support diversification in many ways and help young startups to grow.

by Boris Hardi