Data on more small businesses popping up

Yeah, sourdough starter. And I think that people really need to be careful because I don't think you should plunder through your savings and your retirement plan. You really have to know what it is that this thing is going to be, and can it replace what you might be losing? And I think this is important. When you have a full-time job, you might forget about this because it doesn't pop up to you, but health insurance, life, disability insurance, a retirement plan, maybe a match, consistent income. These are important. So by having a side hustle, you might say, this does work. It's great. I can make up for all the things I'm losing. But if you just jump in without testing it, I think that that is a recipe for failure. CO-HOST: Yeah, no, that's completely fair. Chase your dream but in a planned way with logic. Yes, absolutely. What types of businesses are you seeing people start, and how can, how are people monetizing their skill sets? OK, so I love this. I interviewed a guy a while back. His name is Chris Guillebeau. He wrote a book called Side Hustle. And one of the things he did is he went and he interviewed tons of people. And one of the reasons people have these side streams of income usually is because the job market can be unstable. So often after a big recession, you'll see people say, I'm going to start a business. But what we've learned is a lot of people just like having an extra stream of business, stream of revenue, because it helps pay for things like higher gas costs. So what we're seeing is a lot of people are frustrated by the job market right now. If you have a job, you don't feel like you can advance. If you don't have a job, it's hard to find one. So the jobs, the businesses that are being created are ones that can really benefit from AI adoption and technology. So just think about this-- professional services, things that are repetitive, that use repetitive actions. You think about accounting. You think about professional services. You think about anything around AI adoption. These are really interesting places where you might say, hey, I can start, and it's not as time-intensive to get that thing, that business up and running because of the technology I can bring to it. But, Jill, what about-- believe it or not, I've actually thought about owning a business myself, and I thought about recession-proof businesses. I don't care about AI. People still need to do laundry. I thought about coin-operated laundromats in New York City. Parking garages. Or parking garages. Or somebody once told me, car wash, dude, in the suburbs. People need to wash their car. Well, I'll tell you what the issue is with a lot of those types of businesses. They're not exactly recession-proof, because what did we learn in COVID is that when people were working from home, they didn't need to actually do their dry cleaning as much. They weren't caring about their car. OK, but putting that aside, a once-in-a-century pandemic, we can put aside. The businesses that you're talking about are really capital-intensive. This is the real challenge because if you think about it, same thing with a restaurant. Anything that involves brick and mortar, you got to go out and raise money. And so maybe you've got a rich uncle-- amazing, happy for you with you and your rich uncle or your rich aunt. But for a lot of people, especially someone starting out, the cost of entry is too high for those industries. And one of the things that we used to laugh about-- I mean, you'll appreciate this. It used to be the best business you could be in was to own taxi medallions in New York City.

Yes, of course. And then they plunged after rideshare came in. So almost like any industry can transform under your feet, I think what's really good to do, as I said, testing the concept, but also understanding that owning your own business, even if you have no employees, it means you're out there being the rainmaker. You've got to bring the business in. This is why I do like owning a business. This is like, I think, for me, someone like me, I like creating things out of nothing. That's great. But the friends that I have, even-- let's think about media. It's a consolidating industry. People are like, I'm going to go out and start my own business. Who is monetizing that? Who is your advertiser? Are you comfortable selling that person your concept? Without those skills, it is hard to make a living. So I always laugh about this because I remember when I first graduated from college, somebody said, who's going into trading, who's going into investment banking, and then who's going into sales, and nobody raised their hand. And this guy who came to speak to us said, everyone's in sales. You better learn how to sell, or else you're not going to get ahead in life.

Good advice. Jill Schlesinger with that good advice and analysis, as always, my friend, thank you very much.

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