The 5 to 9 tells the origin stories of businesses that started as side projects. Each one was built alongside a job or alongside studies, in the hours after the working day or between classes, before it became the founder’s main work.
What counts as a 5 to 9 story
A story qualifies by how the business started, not by how it ended. If the first version was built while the founder still had a job, a degree to finish or another business to run, it belongs here.
That includes companies that later raised venture capital, like Replit, and companies that never took a dollar from investors, like Chess.com. It includes businesses that were sold, businesses that are still independent and a few that went through hard years before they worked. The side-project start is the common thread.
How each story is written
Every story follows the same rules:
- Sources first. Each story is built from what the founders said and wrote themselves, in blog posts, interviews and talks, and from reporting by publications that covered the company at the time. The sources are listed at the end of every story.
- Numbers with a source. Revenue, prices and dates come from a named source. When sources disagree, the story says so instead of picking the most impressive figure.
- The start, in detail. Most coverage of famous companies starts when they were already successful. These stories spend most of their time on the first months and years: the day job, the first version, the first customer and the decision to go full time.
Who writes it
The stories are researched and written by Noah Reed. Noah has run several side hustles of his own, alongside a regular job, and runs the Let’s Get Rich – Side Hustle group on Facebook. He started The 5 to 9 because the most useful part of a founder story, the part where the business was still a side project, is usually the part that gets skipped.
The newsletter
The 5 to 9 is the website of Side Hustle Junkies, a newsletter of interviews with people building businesses on the side. You can join the waiting list to get it when it starts.
Get in touch
Corrections, sources we missed and story suggestions are welcome at [email protected]. If you founded one of the businesses we cover and something in your story is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
Read more about how we work in our editorial policy.