A TikToker Earning 6 Figures Took 4 Methods Before Quitting Her Work

• Julie Sousa is an inside stylist who started off sharing TikToks of her dwelling room in October 2020.
• Right before quitting her W-2 advertising and marketing job, she produced guaranteed her facet-gig earnings matched her salary.
• In 2022, she’s by now produced a lot more than her old salary and is on observe to convey in substantially additional.

Julie Sousa’s inside-styling career commenced as a hobby. A marketer by working day, she commenced putting up TikToks in October 2020, documenting the way she styled her dwelling area and sharing updates about a condo she was making. “It was definitely just a interest, but about January or February [2021], I begun getting on customers,” Sousa informed Insider. 

In just a few months, what was a inventive outlet turned that and so significantly much more. She had a line of keen clientele wanting her to makeover their spaces and a cohort of brand names hoping to associate with her to sponsor articles throughout her TikTok and Instagram internet pages. It was not just prospects and other corporations that were being hungry for Sousa’s function, “I bought genuinely antsy for it,” she said. 

She wished to quit her day task and set up store as a comprehensive-time small business owner, inside stylist, and written content creator. Even now, that wish was not plenty of to carry her from the company globe to the entrepreneurial 1 she had to make strategic and useful decisions to establish that bridge. Most importantly, she experienced to get her funds in buy. 

Sousa’s company salary was $77,000, and in the to start with 12 months of her organization, she was in a position to earn a lot more than two times that sum, bringing in over $200,000. This calendar year she’s on keep track of to make even more. Her only regret was not performing this quicker. Under, she shares just what she did to make this transition achievable.

1. She labored equally her company career and her facet hustle till her money was the same from both 

The very first time someone paid out Sousa for her inside-styling get the job done, she could have taken that as a sign that there was money to be designed in the household-decor organization and put in her two weeks at her company posture. But that isn’t what she did. “I desired to hold out until eventually my salary fundamentally broke even,” she discussed. 

Even though Sousa did just take a leap, it wasn’t a leap of religion. By the time she remaining her promoting part, she understood she was generating the very same volume of income in her new organization as she’d beforehand manufactured in her W-2 work. “Due to the fact you happen to be so applied to the security of owning a wage, wellbeing insurance coverage, and all of that, leaving it appears genuinely scary,” Sousa said. “But figuring out that I was already assembly the very same income from my have small business undoubtedly provided a large amount of consolation.” 

She utilized (and carries on to use) Wix, a site platform, to encourage her enterprise and e-book clients, which permitted her to observe her revenue info from many angles. “I could glance at the past 30 times or the very last 7 days,” she explained. “And I would frequently glance at all those analytics.” Being aware of that self-used earnings can be much more sporadic, she figured out to examine the money from her business enterprise averaged throughout weeks or months, as a substitute of expecting to strike a specific amount of money each time interval. 

She suggests others keep track of their entrepreneurial revenue for at the very least three months to obtain sufficient financial information. “So at the very least within 90 times, you have a superior perception of how it could be,” she discussed. Sousa set in her two weeks in March 2021, about five months soon after starting off her social-media presence.

2. She tracked her profits a great deal more intently when she 1st begun functioning solely for herself

When Sousa had formally resigned from her full-time position, she tracked her self-employed money much much more intently. Because there was no set salary, she needed to make sure that she was even now bringing in the volume of funds she essential to cover her payments and other costs. 

“I just had to get employed to the new rhythm of matters,” she explained. Her objectives were not always just to make what she designed in her corporate task, but slowly and gradually develop as she turned additional accustomed to this new way of earning income. “Final month’s revenue turned the next month’s objective revenue,” she explained, detailing how she established economic objectives. Following placing a purpose, she would then break down weekly what she had to make to make that doable. “In the first pair of months, just attempting to glance at it weekly served me keep confident that it was going to function out.” 

3. She set up multiple bank accounts to improved regulate her entrepreneurial income 

Although Sousa manufactured confident she was earning similar dollars from her company as she was when she labored for an individual else, she swiftly understood that the means she managed that income desired to improve. 

To start off, she established up a business enterprise lender account wherever all of her profits from clientele and brands could movement through. This process also produced it considerably much easier for her to save money for taxes. Given that an employer was no for a longer period withholding money taxes on the front close, it turned Sousa’s accountability to take on that position. 

To assistance her do this, she immediately sets apart 40% of all of her cash flow in the small business financial institution account, which aids independent her funds from the cash that she eventually will never get to preserve. “It authorized me to understand what I experienced and failed to have,” she explained. 

Separating income like this is a trick she utilised when performing her corporate task, where she would have her immediate deposit split between a “expenses” account and a “enjoyment” account. Now the small business account aids fill that role.

4. She didn’t let each not known maintain her back 

Even though Sousa was strategic about her profession change, she failed to experience the need to have to have solutions for every little thing before creating the go. If she had, it may have taken her even longer to get started her business and stifled her earning possible. “I continue to have to figure out retirement, and which is manufacturer new for me,” she explained.

She’s also in the process of pinpointing what she’ll do for healthcare. For now, she’s enrolled in continuing protection by means of COBRA.

While these are two critical criteria when leaving a W-2 career, Sousa mentioned she didn’t allow them keep her back again from pursuing her enthusiasm. In the long run, she said, with the ideal monetary foundation in place, she realized she could deal with these other elements of self-employed perform as time went on. 

“For me, the financials have been the security net,” she claimed. “Because at the end of the day, that is actually what persons are scared of.”