From Part Time to Full Time Your part-time business is just itching to take up 100 percent of your time. Is the time right?

Jon Carmen did the safe thing. He kept his day job in thehigh-tech industry and started his online guitar string discountstore in his spare time. He built his Web site and filled orders onevenings and weekends. Then, what was just a fun hobby for twoyears turned into his sole support when Carmen, 33, was laid offfrom his day job in May 2001. Suddenly he was faced with a toughquestion: look for another job, or dare to take thisentrepreneurial gig full time?

Fortunately for guitar players roaming the Web, Carmen chose thelatter. But even with two years of business-building behind him, hefaced some serious challenges in taking his part-time hobby downthe full-time road. "[When it was part time,] I cared aboutit, but I wasn't trying to achieve something-it was justsomething fun," says Carmen, founder of String This! Inc."[I thought,] 'It would be fun if it turned intosomething, but if it doesn't I've got a full-time job.'But when [the business] was what I was living off of.itbecame a lot more stressful."

Those are just a few of the issues entrepreneurs deal with intaking a business full time, says Romanus Wolter, author ofKick Start Your Dream Business. Givingup the security of a steady paycheck for a life of selling can bedisconcerting at first, to say the least. Says Wolter,"It's like, 'OK, this is fun,' but every day youget up now, you're going to have to sell yourbusiness."