Once upon a time, I was quite a fan of Robert Kiyosaki's 'RichDad philosophy' (not so much anymore, but that's a topic for another post).  I was introduced to the books by a coworker who refers to his day job, working for somebody else, as Plan B. Kiyosaki called Plan B 'the rat race' and the goal is to get through the end of each month; Plan A has a goal of financial independence and abundance.

For different people Plan A might be investing in real estate, starting or buying a business, developing an invention/product, or even writing a book and becoming a self-proclaimed financial guru so that you can live off speaking engagements and book royalties (but as I said, more on that in another post).  The key thing is to remember that Plan B is Plan B -- you're doing it because you have bills to pay.  But if you ever want to get beyond Plan B, you need to keep working on Plan A.

Signal vs. Noise observes the safety of developing Plan A quietly, aka Embracing Obscurity:

The beauty of starting a side business is that you can fail in obscurity. Many people worry that they’ll languish in obscurity. Don’t worry about having a great idea that no one knows about. Worry about having a bad idea that everyone knows about.

Some Plan As that started off small and fairly obscure: Yahoo, eBay, Craigslist, Google.  Perhaps you've heard of them.

[Via AdPulp: A Little Action On The Side]
Tags: side+business, startup, obscurity