[Alexx]

I didn't down vote you - but the way I always see it is a sliding scale:

[Lowest payout] Totally guaranteed money - [Highest payout] Risky very unlikely money

On the left you have a salaried job. On the right a shoot for the moon VC startup. In between you have the entire range from trying to build products for 'passive income' on the side, to going alone starting a small cash-positive business, or freelancing. Your level of risk is entirely up to you, and the reward will usually be fairly linear, within your own earning capacity and skill set (money is fairly efficient in that sense!).

Working more hours or quitting your job fits into that scale along with all the other factors. If your appetite for risk is on the lower end such you won't quit, then you will have a harder time competing with people who've positioned themselves with more risk.

There will always be the outliers who just break the model though.

[pdevr]

Thank you for the response. I agree, more or less. In this case, of course, I made the assumption that OP didn't want to quit his job. His skill sets are fairly common, based on what he posted. Considering that, I thought he will have a better chance of building something on the side, since getting high enough consulting rates for PHP work is hard, especially when you are trying to do it part-time. (As you said, there are outliers for this also. I assumed OP falls close to the mean/median when I wrote that.)