Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - How To Take Your Side-Hustle Full-Time with Morgan DeBaun

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Today Nicole and Morgan DeBaun (founder, CEO and Chairman of Blavity Inc.) break down everything side hustlers need to know— whether you have a side gig you’re looking to turn into your main gig, or you have a side-hustle twinkle in your eye that you want to turn into something real. Plus, Morgan gives some advice on buying a house as an entrepreneur that any self-employed Money Rehabber needs to hear. For more Morgan, listen to her podcast "The Journey," wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Brokerage services for alternative assets are offered by Dalmore Group, LLC, member FINRA & SIPC. Brokerage services for treasury accounts offering 6-month T-Bills are offered by Jiko Securities, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Banking services are offered by Jiko Bank, a division of Mid-Central National Bank. Securities investments: Not FDIC Insured; No Bank Guarantee; May Lose Value.  Brokerage services for Regulation A securities are offered through Dalmore Group, LLC, member FINRA & SIPC. Risks at public.com/disclosures/alts-risk-and-conflict-of-interest-disclosure See public.com/#disclosures-main for more information.

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start, or even too complicated, if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full-time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you.

I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no

maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.

It's time for some money rehab. Today, I'm talking to the one, the only Morgan DeBond. Morgan is the founder, CEO, and chairman of Blavity, and she's the queen of turning your hobby into a jobby. Today, she gives her advice to all the side hustlers, whether you have a side gig that you're looking to turn into your main gig, or you have a side hustle twinkle in your eye that you might want to turn into something real. Plus, Morgan gives us advice that is gold on buying a house as an entrepreneur that any self-employed money rehabber needs to hear. So let's get into it. Morgan Debon, welcome to Money Rehab. Nicole, thank you for having me. It's great to see you again. We did a panel

over the pandemic, which like what is time feels like 100,000 years ago. But I loved talking to you and I really want to dig back into the side hustle era with you. I mean, I think we can all agree it's easier now than ever before to monetize your hobby. You can do it from the couch. You can sell products online. You don't need a storefront. Truly, wherever you are, whatever you're good at, you can make money doing it. And typically, millionaires have seven streams of income, as you know, and we're all about that side hustle life, making millionaires here on Money Rehab. And I know you're about this life too. A hundred percent. I'm always a fan of don't quit your day job.

Right. And that's an important part of this narrative because there is no shame in feeding your family and paying your bills. And you hear a lot of entrepreneurial experts on Instagram saying like, go out and just burn your corporate bra, YOLO, FOMO, whatever yo. And if your side hustle takes off, you got to make this choice ultimately. Do you go full-time with your side hustle? Do you keep it on the side? So this brings me to your story. You did the thing that so many people want to do. You left a big company to take a bet on yourself and your business, Blavity. So I want to unpack that moment and help anyone listening who's wondering if this path is right for them. Yeah, let's do it.

anyone listening who's wondering if this path is right for them. Yeah, let's do it. So let's zoom into that moment. You were working at Intuit, right? Full-time, but you were working on Blavity. When you started Blavity, were you actively planning for it to become your full-time job? No. I knew that I wanted to, at some point, have a startup because I was living in San Francisco at the time. And I was surrounded by so many incredible innovators and thinkers. This was 10 years ago when SF was like the epicenter of startup land. But I wasn't quite sure what that meant for me. And so as I was working my day job, I would spend nights, weekends, and early mornings because I was in Pacific time.

So I could get away with a couple of meetings in the morning, working on Blavity and building it. But it wasn't like an immediate, okay, this is going to be this huge empire and I'm going to quit my job to pursue this. So it was something that you just enjoyed doing, right? What was the catalyst for then ultimately making the leap? Yeah, there's a few things. I started it with my co-founders who I went to college with. So friends from school, we had launched a minimum viable product and MVP that summer. So this is 2014.

So July 2014. And it was doing okay. People were reading things, watching things on the site. And then Mike Brown was killed in August. And that's when I said, okay, there is a unique place for me in the world. And this is something I'm really, really passionate about. And I knew I wasn't. I'm 4'11".

So I knew I wasn't going to go pound the pavement and be in the streets, like protesting and like, that wasn't going to be my contribution. But what I knew was technology. And I knew how to build platforms and I knew how to build platforms with black culture in mind. And so that was the beginning of saying like, okay, I need to now build a pathway to quit. I did not quit immediately. I waited a couple more months. And I even took on a consulting gig so that I could quit my day job by picking up actually a side hustle to pay the bills. That is so interesting. I mean, you talk so much about the financial journey of founders, and I'm so glad you do because this is a pivotal moment in a financial journey, right? You have, like, I'm assuming, a really nice salary into it,

like six figures. Yeah, it wasn't bad. It wasn't quite six figures 10 years ago, but the equivalent of six figures today. So you left that reliable salary. Did you have savings that you could fall back on? I did have some savings. I was an early investor in the stock market when I was growing up. So I did have some savings and some stocks that I could liquidate if I needed to. But I wasn't planning on dipping into my savings. I didn't want to do that because I needed to both finance the business and finance my life. I would have been double dipping, which at one point during early Blavity years, I did start to double dipping, which at one point during early blabity years, I did start to double dip, but I wanted to figure out how I could make enough

income to offset my rent in downtown San Francisco and my day-to-day lifestyle, which really was very frugal. It was still boiled eggs and oatmeal and public transportation. I get it. I had brown rice and beans because it felt fancier than ramen back when I was doing the same thing. You never had to liquidate your stocks or did you? I had it in the back of my pocket. I think during year three or four, I might have liquidated a little bit when we had like some cash constraints, but not in the initial bootstrapping phase. Are there any business milestones or markers that you would recommend somebody to have under their belt or financial resources before they commit to a business full

time? You know, I think that even when you are committing to doing a business full time, there's different phases of it, right? I needed to buy my time back. So having a nine to five, going into an office every day, you're really time constrained. You have to be there. You have to be sitting there. And that was preventing my ability to actually grow the business because I could only work on it for so many hours. So then I got a side hustle and a consulting gig where I had more flexibility, more time to batch my work and only work a couple hours a week or 10 hours a day, one day a week. And that gave me way more time to work on Blavity as my main hustle. I was making about the same as my salary with the consulting gig.

That was step two. And then from there, I kept that consulting gig and that side hustle for three years while I was building Blavity, even after I had raised our initial round of funding, because I wanted to really make sure that every penny that we were making in the business was going back into the business and not paying my cost of living and my bills. So you went from a full-time gig at that salary to a part-time gig at the same salary. So you were essentially giving yourself more time to make Blavity where you were, I'm assuming, making $0 at that point. Negative, yep. Negative dollars, yep. And then so you essentially then scooted one source of income to another, but you gave yourself more time to work on Blavity and

hopefully get it out from the red. That's exactly right. Did you give yourself a timeline to make Blavity work? If it wasn't going to make money in six months, a year, two years, you said a few years, it was in the negative, would you go back to corporate? No, I'm not made for corporate living. I kind of knew that. So I don't know that I had it wasn't like if Blabity doesn't work out, I'm going to go get a job. It was like if Blabity doesn't work out, then maybe I do more consulting. Maybe I join somebody else's startup. My worst case scenario was living in my parents basement, but it wasn't to necessarily go get another job. When you were raising money, did

they know that you had a consulting gig? Oh, absolutely not. I definitely didn't tell people that. And I didn't even tell my employees. So there would just be a time block on my calendar where it was just like, I don't know where she went. And I would be working and taking calls from my consulting gig. And I also had to travel for it. So there would be like days I would be gone. And I really just didn't want people to feel like I wasn't committed to Blavity by the fact that I had a side hustle. That was really important to me. Well, where did they think the money was coming from? I don't think people ever think about that. I mean, I don't think my employees to this day. How do you think this all works?

So did they ever find out? I told them after the fact. I mean, as we were getting bigger, you know, I told them that I do this consulting thing. But no, I mean, I didn't that for probably about two years. So similar question. Did you give yourself a maximum amount of money that you would invest in Blavity? If you hadn't turned a profit after, say, investing 10 grand, would you cut your losses? Did you have a cap? Yes, I did. There was definitely a cap on how much was I willing to be flat. All the money I was

making, I was spending. At some point, you have to stop treading water. And that was about a year and a half after I started the company. And that's what actually then made me say, I need to raise a bit of funding, actually. And so my first round of funding was about $500,000, which to me was like everything. The most money in the world ever. The most money in those. Oh, society has given me $500,000. Oh my God. And so that was that threshold. And then from there, I actually hired a sales team.

That was my first set of hires because I knew that I wanted us to be revenue generating really quickly so that we could at least have Blavity sustain itself. Still wasn't paying myself income, but the business was taken care of. At what point did you pay yourself income? Oh, man. I paid myself, I think year three or four when I switched off the consulting gig. I think that's when I paid myself a salary. But I knew that paying myself a salary wasn't going to change my work ethic. I had the privilege of being really young. I started at 24. It's around 26, 27. I don't have any kids. I wasn't married. I didn't have that much debt. So I had that

privilege, but I wanted to keep as much cash as possible in the business so we could grow it. What was your first salary? Do you remember? Maybe $110,000. I mean, nothing relative. Right. For sure. Also Also after not taking a salary. And spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money. Well, so that was my question. Did you tally it up? How much did you put in as the seed money, essentially? Seed was probably around $200,000. And then there was a time in year four or five where I loaned the business another tranche of money because our

cashflow was getting weird because we were growing, but we weren't getting our accounts receivable on time. So I did pay myself back from the loan. I never paid myself back that initial couple hundred thousand dollars. It's okay. I'm doing okay now. I'm doing okay. All right. So what does your budget look like now? I talk a lot about this on the other podcasts that I co-host with Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. It's called Help Wanted. It's a career and advice podcast.

As you know, as a founder, your budget looks different, right? Like you're not just budgeting for groceries and rent. You have to budget for expenses from the business. And sometimes it comes out of the same portal. Mine comes out of the same portal. So what advice would you give to others making sure that they have enough money to cover life and business expenses, even if it's coming out of one portal? Yeah.

I have basically two businesses, Blavity Inc. And then I have a personal business, which is called Dubon & Co., which has all my speaking engagements and all my seven streams of income is in that business. And I think from a payment perspective, I used to not pay myself first because, again, I didn't think that paying myself first resulted in the growth of the business that I was looking for. I wanted to grow really fast. I knew that I didn't want to just have a lifestyle business from the beginning. I knew I wanted to get it really big. Once I started to sell some of my company and I was not owning 51% or more of the company, so I became an employee from a mindset perspective, I said, uh-uh. What

we're not going to do is make all these other people really, really rich and not pay the CEO as the top salary, the top earner in the company. So that was one of the constraints that I had from building a business. So if someone is taking on investors, that's something to consider. If you're 100% owner, then I think it depends on the ability to take that asset and leverage the asset that you have. If you have a business where you can go into a bank and you're looking to get a loan for a mortgage, or you're looking to get a loan for your business,

and they're looking at the totality of your income and your assets, and it's all connected because it's all co-mingled because you're the only owner, you want to be in a position of power. You don't want people to look at your stuff and say, I can't give you this million-dollar loan because it doesn't look right. So I always think about money as a tool to get to the next step, as opposed to like some sort of imaginary or arbitrary number that's going to make me happy. It's more of what can I do to leverage this so that I can go fulfill my vision

or my life or my lifestyle. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you

don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host, so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future

and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN.

Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bank Corp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in Spot me and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime dotcom slash disclosures for details. And now for some more money rehab. And it's hard to get a mortgage as an entrepreneur too. It sounds like you're using that example because you have some experience. Oh, it was terrible. I bought a house two years ago. You know, it was over a million dollar house and I thought I was good. Like my side hustles

make plenty of money. So I was like, I could just pay for this house with my side hustle money. You don't even have to worry about my W-2. I was wrong. Actually, they looked at the debt to income ratio, including the debt and the loans that Blavity had. And so it looked like I was quite broke, even though I wasn't. And I cried for a couple of months there trying to figure out how to get the financing to buy this house. It was a really weird experience. It's really weird as an entrepreneur to go through the mortgage process. So the debt to income ratio for Blavity, they were looking at the funding as debt? That's correct.

So what would you tell other entrepreneurs going through this process that you wish you knew to show that you had enough money to buy a house? I mean, cash is king, right? Queen. Yeah, cash is queen, even better. So the fact that I did have some stocks and I had some cash was really what they were able to do the loan based off of, if not my income, which I thought was fascinating. I was like, wait, tell me more about that. I know because of the debt to income ratio was so far off. Let's say my debt was $10 million for Blavity and my income was a million and a half through my side hustle, my W-2. The debt to income ratio is still so far off that you're not going to get the deal based off of

that. So the fact that I had to get the deal based off of that. So the fact that I had cash in the bank, had stocks that I could liquidate and things like that actually helped me a lot more than I thought it would have. I thought my income was more than enough to qualify for this type of house. It wasn't. Because they were looking at the whole shebang. They were looking at the whole shebang. And so it took you a year, over a year?

It took me about three months. But again, I thought I could walk in and get it done. I'm like, what are you talking about? A year and a half of my salary or my income buys this whole house in cash. This shouldn't be a problem. I was wrong. I had no idea. You have to go through it to find out.

It's a humbling experience for sure. So how did it end up working? Where did they find the value to approve you? I actually wound up going with a mortgage broker. I had to really work with somebody and I had an advisor who helped me through it and helped vouch for me on my behalf. They didn't underwrite anything, but someone else needed to explain to these regional banks what this type of wealth profile looks like, I needed somebody else to speak for me. Now, let me say the obvious. I am a woman. I am single and I am Black and I'm in the

state of Tennessee. So I probably also had other factors that were challenging for me to get a mortgage in this type of country. But ultimately, I think having an advisor who could speak on my behalf and walk somebody else through the financials was helpful. And I would recommend that to people. It's like, there are resources. There are people who do this every single day that you can pay some marginal fee to, but it makes it easier. And ultimately my mortgage rate was pretty darn good, especially compared to today's rates. That's what I was going to ask. Did you have to pay a little bit of the premium. No, I actually had to just move all my assets to the bank.

To that bank that you got your mortgage from. Gotcha. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the mortgage broker. We had my mortgage broker on the show and they are really creative. You don't have to pay them. They get paid through whatever deal they make. Exactly. And I think that's the hard part with financial advisors. Sometimes it's just intimidating because you're just like, well, why are you doing this for me for free? And it's like, no, it's a whole ecosystem. It works itself out on the back end. Yeah. So just to be clear, they get money or they get paid. They're not doing this out of the goodness of their heart, but through the organization or through the bank or financial services company that they are selling the mortgage to you from. Correct.

So you talk a lot about this wealthy versus rich mindset. Can you unpack that for somebody who is still eating ramen or boiled eggs or brown rice and beans or whatever, because their grocery money is going back into their business? Yeah. So I think one thing that is really circulated on social media, and you talk about this a lot, is just like this idea of these materialistic things as the goal. And actually, what I really want people to understand and what has really been important and critical to my success has been valuing my time over everything. And when you look at someone who's new money, fast money, get money quick, right?

It's like, okay, that person might be rich. They might have a lot of cash coming in, but are they really beholden to a certain constraint to their time? Do they have to show up every day to get that bag? Are they making money in their sleep? Probably not, right? A wealthy mindset is

like, I value my time over everything. And I know that I'm the moneymaker. My brain is the moneymaker. So even if this doesn't work, and this doesn't work, it doesn't matter because I can will always be okay, because it's coming from me. And therefore, I should protect my time, my peace, and my health as my primary source of wealth generation for myself and my family. And that means making decisions like, instead of walking late at night where you're going to be stressed out, maybe you take the Uber. Maybe instead of taking the Uber regular, you take the Uber Plus, go into the Uber black car, go into the airport because you know that you're going to get dropped off straight there versus having to go through the parking lot.

car going to the airport because you know that you're going to get dropped off straight there versus having to go through the parking lot. Maybe you're doing first class on the way from one part of the country to the other because you got to wake up and you got to get to that meeting and you want to be refreshed so you can close the deal for your business. So it's a lot of different choices, but the logic of it and the whole point that I want people to really understand is you have to value yourself as the asset. That is the key to unlocking your full potential. Yes. And you can always get more money.

You can't get more time. Ever, ever, ever, ever. When someone says, I want to do this, I want to do this. This is my revenue goal, or this is how much I want to have in my take home. And they start talking about all the expenses they're going to cut. I'm like, you can't cut down to zero, but you can figure out how to get more income. Yep. Always. And I think that you being your most valuable asset is totally true. I mean, investing in yourself pays more dividends later on, whether it is

spending a little bit extra now to buy back that time or to feel refreshed to ultimately make more money. Was there ever a time during the boiled egg period of your life or going through this mortgage process that your wealthy mindset faltered? Yeah. I think the mortgage process is a good example where I thought I should DIY it because I thought that's just what you did. I mean, I'd never really heard of mortgage brokers before. I didn't really know that there was a smarter option that would have resulted in a lower mortgage rate, less tears, you know,

and potentially a better outcome from being able to finance this house than I wanted. Instead, I was like Googling everything and like reading articles and podcasts and like trying to figure it out. I should have known, right? I should have taken my own advice and really looked for the expert in the room Googling everything and like reading articles and podcasts and like trying to figure it out. I should have known, right? I should have taken my own advice and really looked for the expert in the room and then understood their financial incentive, you know, which turned out to be actually in alignment with mine. How would you have known? You did the best you could at the time,

Organs. Stop it. Don't talk about my friend like that. This is why people listen to podcasts like this because they want to know the stuff they don't know, right? For sure. And especially in the financial world, I think that just because you know one area doesn't mean you know all the areas. Even when I was on CNBC, the equity folks wouldn't know about the bond folks. And my girlfriend who just sold her company for a gazillion dollars does not know about a CD, right? There are lanes lanes that you're in and you could be a total subject matter expert in one area, but it doesn't mean that that transfers into all areas of personal finance or business life. That's right. And I think wealthy me would have acknowledged that upfront and said, you know what? You're entering a world in which you're not the expert and you should go seek out

the experts. Well, now you know. Did you get a new mortgage since then? Heck no. My rate is fantastic. These rates are so high. I'm never leaving this house. Okay. Got it. Okay. So structurally, just nerdy wonky, how would you suggest to an entrepreneur who is taking their side hustle into their full-time hustle? Like what kind of structure would you suggest? It sounds like you have, I don't know, a C Corp or an S Corp or something for Blavity and then another entity

for an LLC for your own speaking and I guess brand deals or book deals. I mean, you tell me what's in there. That's exactly right. Brand deals, book deal, speaking engagements, and consulting people, advisory. I advise Fortune 100 companies or one-on-ones with entrepreneurs. My entire entrepreneur program is in that. Yeah, I think that actually would be one of my pieces of advice. As you are an entrepreneur and you're making that transition, don't commingle your funds. I think it is beneficial to have a separate bank account for your company and your side hustles. side hustle as your main gig, make sure you're separating those accounts because it will give you more visibility into how you're doing, you know, as you're making that transition.

And I, again, I'm a huge fan of keep your day job for as long as you can. I even tell my own employees, I mean, I would say 30, 40% of my employees have side hustles and I'm like rooting for them. You know, I'm like, I will buy your candle company. I will buy your... Yeah, absolutely. Because it's not... I think that this whole economy is messed up and I get it. But also there's no way necessarily where everything that you want to be in your life and who you are can be manifested in your work life. I mean, it's not even the case for me as a CEO. Yeah. You can't get all things in work. We've talked about this on Help Wanted a lot. You don't necessarily have to be passionate about your work. You have to optimize for making money. You can find passion and love and all the

other things in other areas, but you can't find money unless you're doing weird stuff in other areas. That's right. So optimize for money. It's really good advice. Would you give a certain number or a certain number of months for somebody to have in the bank or have access to before taking that leap? Yeah. You want to have three months of expenses. And as much as I say, don't cut your expenses, you should be mindful of your expenses. You should be frugal for a short period of time to offset the jump that you're about to make, just to give yourself some cushion and some mental security. I find that the reason most people don't make the jump is actually fear of instability. And the best way to fight fear is to have a plan and to make it really, really tangible.

So go ahead and write out your budget for the next three to six months. Make sure you have enough savings and build an if this, then that plan. If I'm not able to replace my salary with my side hustle within the next three months, then what am I going to do? Because then once you have that plan, if it happens, you're not emotionally paralyzed and unable to take action on what you know you need to do. paralyzed and unable to take action on like what you know you need to do. Yeah. And I was really surprised that a lot of women particularly don't open business bank accounts when they start a side hustle. Like they keep it all in their personal bank account. Did you just structurally, like, did you open a business bank account right away?

I didn't. And I learned that from my mistake. I didn't for the first two years because everything was coming out of my bank account anyways. So I didn't. And my taxes were a mess. I didn't get the tax benefits from having a business. There's a lot of benefits to that. I won't go into LLC Twitter. But yeah, so I think it is important to not commingle your funds, even if you're making negative money, which at the time, so for example, when I started my Debon and Co. and I had my consulting gig, I had to create that business and change my revenue that was coming in to go into that business. At one point, I started a skincare company that didn't do well, but I loaned myself from one account to the other so

that it was clear so that if it ever hit a certain threshold but I loaned myself from one account to the other so that it was clear so that if it ever hit a certain threshold, I could pay myself back. Right. So it's really important just from a mindset perspective and also to keep yourself honest and hold yourself accountable for how much am I really, am I hustling backwards here? Right. And it's also important. I just had this conversation with my accountant too. Like it's important from an accounting perspective. It's important from a tax perspective, right? That loan, you can do all sorts of things, but if you structure it in the right way. So if I peeked into Morgan's banking portal or whatever, I would find a personal checking account or savings account, I'm assuming, a Blavity account,

and then your consulting now side hustle. You'd have my personal account that my W-2 income comes into. You'd have my investment account, which comes from my W-2 account, or when I get a bonus, goes into my investing account. You'd have my Debon & Co company account. And then you'd have Blavity's account, which other people run. But yes. And would that be the advice that you would give entrepreneurs who are making the jump from side hustle to full hustle?

Absolutely. I think it's important to always have an investment account, something that's really for your future, that's for long, long-term outcomes. Even if it's just a couple hundred dollars or a couple thousand dollars, it's still important to invest in. The younger you are, the more compounding is in your favor. And then you need your spending account. Can I pay my rent? Yes. Can I pay for the Uber? Can I afford the Beyonce tickets or no? Yeah, you're right. Those four are great pillars to look to. And the investment account, it sounds like you have just your whatever, index funds, CDs, bonds, whatever's going on in there. Yeah.

All the boring stuff. That's boring, except it's making money for you while you're sleeping. Oh, I love those little dividend checks that get reinvested. I'm like, this is so lovely. The best. Okay. To close, Morgan, we ask all of our guests for one piece of money advice listeners can take straight to the bank.

What is yours? Yeah, I would say, you know, never be dependent on what somebody else will or will not give you. Always bet on yourself and investing in yourself. You can't underestimate investing in your skill set, investing in core capabilities and skill sets so that you can always make sure you can make an income. Thanks, Morgan. So great. Thank you. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin.

Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.