Ray Chan, co-founder and chief executive officer of 9GAG, attends the Day 3 of the RISE Conference 2018 at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on July 12, 2018 in Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

When launching a business, one of the biggest questions for entrepreneurs can be when to take the leap and quit your day job. For some, it's all about jumping right in with a "carpe diem" approach, while others prefer to dip their toes in more slowly. But for Ray Chan to take the plunge and go full-time with his website, 9GAG, it was all about making sure he'd crossed a very symbolic milestone first. The 34-year-old Hong Kong businessman and his four co-founders ran the viral site as a side gig for four years until the point that they could match the salaries they were earning in their day jobs. “We earned some money, but we still worked at our day jobs until the moment (we realized) we can kind of cover the basic salary of our existing jobs," said Chan, 9GAG's CEO, who was working as a product manager at aNobii, an online platform for book lovers, when he first started the company in 2008.

Over the years since, the site, which is known as a platform for internet memes, has amassed more than 100 million global fans across Facebook and Instagram, generating income through banner advertisements. "We believed that, hey, maybe if we can work full-time on 9GAG then it will have a better growth. That’s the moment that we (went) all-in," Chan told CNBC’s Uptin Saiidi during an episode of “Life Hack’s Live” at Hong Kong’s RISE tech conference. Even then, however, Chan and his four fellow co-founders went one-by-one. His younger brother, Chris, who was working at a fast-food chain at the time, went full-time at 9GAG first, followed by Chan himself. 9GAG’s three other co-founders, Derek Chan, Marco Fung and Brian Ya, joined incrementally afterward. Chan acknowledged that their path was more “conservative” than some other entrepreneurs. He said that was partly a result of his “humble” family background. Growing up in a working class family on a housing estate in Hong Kong, Chan said his parents had always taught him he should focus on finding a “stable job.” But he also said that gradual approach allowed the founders to try out different ideas and evolve in line with the industry — something especially important for 9GAG, which started when social media and internet memes were only just gaining mainstream momentum.

Don't necessarily follow his path