Re:Turning My Passion/Hobby into a Business Made Me Hate It
by kelnos on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @04:24PM
(#36592072)
I think the calculus changes a bit when you're trying to build a business around a hobby. If the entire point is to see if your hobby is going to make a good business, then you will naturally start with "what you are interested in", and the goal of the exercise will be to see if that matches up with "what the market wants".
That feels like a reasonable approach to me, though -- as with anything -- you need to know to pull the plug as soon as you have some confidence that it's not going to work out, which might be harder to do for a hobby, since you presumably have some emotional attachment to it.
> Some of the most lucrative businesses are...
You don't really need to aim for "most lucrative". If you're trying to promote "hobby" to "business", I think you should just aim for "good enough to pay the bills and give me a comfortable lifestyle without working myself to the bone". Starting out with a goal like "I'm going to turn my hobby into a blockbuster business that gives me FU money in 10 years" is probably unrealistic, but that's ok. More modest goals are just fine.
That feels like a reasonable approach to me, though -- as with anything -- you need to know to pull the plug as soon as you have some confidence that it's not going to work out, which might be harder to do for a hobby, since you presumably have some emotional attachment to it.
> Some of the most lucrative businesses are...
You don't really need to aim for "most lucrative". If you're trying to promote "hobby" to "business", I think you should just aim for "good enough to pay the bills and give me a comfortable lifestyle without working myself to the bone". Starting out with a goal like "I'm going to turn my hobby into a blockbuster business that gives me FU money in 10 years" is probably unrealistic, but that's ok. More modest goals are just fine.