Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it • Hacker News Board

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#31

Post by ilyt » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

shrug I turned one of my hobbies that I like into paying for other hobbies I like. The key thing I was relatively good at it so finding people to pay me to do it on good conditions was easy.

I might do that hobby far less in free time but it is far better than doing something I hate for a living.

So I guess key point here you need to also be relatively competent and the hobby has to be marketable. I'd be miserable if my ops jobs would just be managing someone's shitty Wordpress instances all day.

As article's author showed being mediocre in market with a lot of competition probably won't get you all that much money, passion or not.

Also, it is sometimes worth to leave the "business" part to someone else and just find a job. I absolutely hate anything around a business so it is fine tradeoff for me to have someone else manage majority of it, find customers etc. rather than be whole one man shop.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#32

Post by JimtheCoder » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

gymbeaux wrote: post #28

JimtheCoder wrote: post #9

While I somewhat agree with the premise of this post, I think it is exacerbated by the fact that the author was trying to turn something like fiction writing into a business. When I think of businesses that suck in terms of economics and chances of success, fiction writing is one of the first things that come to mind. In general, you like things more when they make you a lot of money. A lot of fun things suck when yo…

I think you have it reversed, a lot of fun things suck when they make you money.

"a lot of fun things suck when they make you money"

That has not been my experience...they become more fun.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#33

Post by keiferski » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

I wish more people would write about “subsidizing” your hobby business with a more reliable source of income. If you’re a remote worker with some schedule flexibility, for example, you can probably run a low-contact business like a bookstore or art gallery without much interruption to your work day.

Just set up a desk in your shop and take a break when the occasional person wanders in. Not having to worry about your hobby business being profitable enough to pay the bills immediately - or ever - seems like a nice way to maintain your interest in it.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#34

Post by ilyt » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

jdkoeck wrote: post #21

Mmh, the real reason the author came to hate his passion/hobby is that he could not make money from it. It’s that simple.

"people don't want to buy it therefore it is worthless, therefore my talent is worthless" is easy generalization to make

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#35

Post by jasonladuke0311 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

My hobby/passion became my day job. I'm no longer passionate about it, nor is it a hobby anymore. On the flipside - it's a great job, pays well, and I still find the work interesting (just not enough to spend my free time on it).

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#36

Post by analog31 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

I was passionate about music in high school, but went to college and majored in math and physics, while learning electronics and programming on my own. Now it turns out that those things are hobbies too. ;-)

I'm glad that I didn't pursue music as a career. I actually make money playing, but not enough to support myself. I also do a lot of programming, but on my own terms, not as a software developer.

One problem that I think doesn't get enough attention, is that most businesses fail. And most people hate working for failed businesses, especially ones that they can't escape from.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#37

Post by petabytes » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

I had a similar situation with programming, I wanted to make a ton of money with a successful game, but I ended up quitting halfway through. I hated it. Eventually I settled on making a niche wifi app, and ended up enjoying most it. Didn't really make a whole lot of money but I definitely learned a lot.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#38

Post by ilyt » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

lynx23 wrote: post #3

This is why I never attempted to find a programming job. I am the typical nerdy polyglot, having dabbled in a two-digit amount of programming languages. But I somehow always knew, if I had to do this 8 hours a day, for projects I am likely not intrinsically motivated to work on, I'd likely hate it after a few weeks. I envy those which managed to make this passion into a paying job without loosing the love for it.

So what's you work and do you enjoy it?

For me the key is just having other hobbies. I do less of that (which is vaguely defined ops work + some programming) as hobby because I do it at work, but it's not like I lack other hobbies.

I usually go back to it when the job takes me away from it (say we're speccing project for the client or other non-work that is required to get work later down the line).

It's essentially sacrificing one hobby for another. Sure I no longer tinker with penguins all day but I can afford stuff for my other hobbies and still not hate my job.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#39

Post by bdw5204 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

Where the author made a mistake was in trying to make "what the market wants" rather than just making stuff he/she actually wanted to make and trying to see if it was possible to make money from it. If you try to make "what the market wants" rather than what you want, you're going to make garbage and further saturate a market that is already filled with garbage that was designed to cash in on "what the market wants". And you're not going to be good at it because you're not a large corporation that has perfected a soulless formula so your work is just going to be a worse version of what the large corporations are doing (soon that stuff will probably be produced by AI rather than humans).

You don't turn a creative field into a career or a business until you know that what you want to make is going to be marketable or you are independently wealthy and don't need an income to live. And once you're successful in a creative field, resist the urge to pay attention to marketing data.

A creative who doesn't have the backing of a large corporation needs to lead (i.e. innovate, challenge conventions, etc.) not follow. That's because you can either be better, worse or different than the competition. If you're not different and you have a smaller budget, you will inevitably be worse. That applies to startups and even incumbent underdogs in any line of business.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#40

Post by tcbawo » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

JimtheCoder wrote: post #32

gymbeaux wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have it reversed, a lot of fun things suck when they make you money.

"a lot of fun things suck when they make you money" That has not been my experience...they become more fun.

Needing to extract money to live from hobbies that don’t pay is stressful and awful. If your hobby does that easily, good on you. Having agency — money to live and freedom/time to indulge in hobbies is the ideal.