How to balance a big job with a big side hustle

From the time she sat down with Glossier founder Emily Weiss for a job interview, Roya Shariat told anyone who would listen that her dream was to write a cookbook. Five years later, while heading up social impact and partnerships for the makeup brand, Shariat made her dream come true. This week, her book, Maman & Me: Recipes from our Iranian American Family, which she coauthored with her mother Gita Sadeh, hits shelves nationwide. 

Shariat came on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about balancing a big job with a big side hustle. Here’s how she made it work, in her own words.

Start on social

“During COVID, while I was home, I started taking videos of my mom cooking and putting them on TikTok. I had no followers, and I didn’t tell anybody I was doing this. By the 10th video, I had 10,000 views. We kept creating and now we’re almost at 200,000. After that, I started an Instagram, and my audience kept growing. I struggle with [imposter syndrome] all the time. Even now I’m like, no one’s going to show up to the launch. No one is going to buy this book. But then I remember how many people followed my accounts or asked for these recipes on social media.”

Be upfront about it

“I feel like being upfront about your passions from the get go and not having that come as a surprise to your colleagues is also a way of building trust and credibility. I showed up to my Glossier interview with a five-slide presentation printed out in Glossier font. On the first page, I had a line about how my dream was to write a cookbook with my mom. I was really up front about it. I love my job, so to write the cookbook, I would use my nights and weekends. I was also a little ruthless with my time. Sometimes I would decide I’m not going to socialize this month, because I’ve got to work on this book proposal. I used my PTO to take every Friday off in June 2022 so that we could shoot recipe photos for the cookbook on Fridays and Saturdays. That was my hack, and I told my boss about it, who was supportive. I took this week off to promote my book, and on Slack I made my status a book emoji.”

Be realistic about your finances

“There’s a financial cost in terms of dollars, and then there’s a labor cost in terms of your time and energy. I think about all of the time I’ve spent figuring out how to edit and post content, for example. I’d say if I didn’t have a full-time job, I’d be a lot further along, because creators who post once or twice a day see exponential growth—when on a good week I’m posting once a week. There’s some sacrifices and some losses I accrue, but I need an income. I spent $250 on a Zoom cookbook proposal writing class with Julia Turshen. The photoshoot for the food also cost money. I just had to keep telling myself, this is an investment in my future. But right now my job is my means of income and my means of supporting my life. That may change at some point, but I don’t think this book is going to change that.”

Listen to Most Innovative Companies to hear more advice about pursuing a side hustle outside while maintaining a job, and to hear our conversation with Five Nights at Freddy’s director Emma Tammi.