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November 26, 2017

Pride, Work and Necessity of Side Projects: Product Designer and Manager Caylee Betts’ Entrepreneurial Outlets in Realizing Swipies, Meetup group Moonlighters and More What are you working on—on the side?

I have a couple! For the last two years, I’ve manufactured and sold a reusable paper called Swipies. I sell them publicly online, but I also do custom-branded projects with customers like Airbnb, General Assembly and Moz. It’s a great side project because it’s a real business, but it doesn’t require my attention constantly. I need to ship orders a couple times a week, but other than that, I can improve and grow the business at my own pace. It’s also cool that it’s a physical product since my job is entirely digital. It’s really nice to get hands-on.

My second project is a memoir about my experience with anxiety, including a reusable guidebook (printed on Swipies!) for working through a panic attack or high anxiety situation. This is a huge project because of the amount of research and interviews I need to conduct. Once I have the content in order, I need to work with legal and medical professionals to review the book. And I have yet to even look into working with an agent, publisher and printer. One step at a time!

Lastly, I recently started a Meetup group called Moonlighters, and I am planning to run a couple side-project-accountability-and-support groups in 2018. I have lots of ideas I like to pursue outside work, so I felt that surrounding myself with others who do the same would benefit all of us and all of our projects. I’m really excited about it!

I try to avoid putting too much pressure on myself with side projects. So instead of creating specific timelines or deadlines for my side projects, I keep a long list of things I want to pursue and I pick them off as motivation or inspiration strikes. So, on a day when I am more in the mood for a mindless task that I can complete while catching up on TV, I’ll inspect the quality of a couple thousand sheets from a new Swipies shipment or I’ll edit a bunch of photos from a recent custom-branded project. On other days, I am feeling really creative and want to dig into branding or coding or creating something new, so I focus on that. I also let myself go through ruts. There are times I won’t work on a side project for a couple weeks at a time. And that’s ok. This isn’t a great format for running a business, but it’s a healthy way to run a side project, in my opinion.

Why have a side project?

Personally, I can’t not. I grew up in an entrepreneurial family, and I have that fire in me. I ran my own business for 5 years, and have helped other small businesses get off the ground as well. Since I am no longer doing my own thing full-time, I love having an entrepreneurial outlet. I love that I can flex tons of different muscles with side projects, and I can do something different than what I do at work. I also learn a ton in a practical way. I’ve taught myself a good chunk of my coding knowledge through side projects. If you’re interested in professional self-improvement, I highly recommend taking on a side project!


Diptych courtesy of Caylee Betts.


Read more about the joy of side projects.

