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Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

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

#51

Post by Helmut10001 »

a13n wrote: post #47
bdw5204 wrote: post #39

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".…

Eh, at the same time, I think the problem a lot of entrepreneurs have is that they overfocus on "what you are interested in" instead of "what the market wants", and therefore build something that nobody wants. If you can find a perfect intersection, that's beautiful, but probably uncommon. Some of the most lucrative businesses are stuff like (anti)fraud/security/payments that is pretty darn drab.

I see two conflicting motivations here and everyone has to decide for a tradeoff between these two: Being happy and being rich(er).

Do what the Market wants means making a tradeoff in favor of earning more (and becoming rich(er)).

Doing what you want to do means making a tradeoff in favor of your happiness. You will perhaps earn less, but what you do is more in tune with your values.

A tradeoff is not always required and both of these motivations may become synergies, but in the authors case, I think this is what happened.

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

#52

Post by peruvian »

irrational wrote: post #2

My hobby is board gaming. I often see people on board game forums asking questions about wanting to open up a board game store/cafe. My thought is always, "Do you want to hate board games? Because that is the path to hating board games."

That's when people who homebrew coffee talk about opening a coffee shop. When you open a shop, even if it's a shop about your favorite hobby, 80% of the work is unrelated to that hobby and is now about running a business.

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

#53

Post by slimsag »

a13n wrote: post #47
bdw5204 wrote: post #39

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".…

Eh, at the same time, I think the problem a lot of entrepreneurs have is that they overfocus on "what you are interested in" instead of "what the market wants", and therefore build something that nobody wants. If you can find a perfect intersection, that's beautiful, but probably uncommon. Some of the most lucrative businesses are stuff like (anti)fraud/security/payments that is pretty darn drab.

There's a reason those are lucrative businesses, regulation around them (correctly) prohibits new entrants. Probably not a great idea for a small team to try and enter those markets unless you genuinely have some secret sauce / niche.

I do agree 'what you are interested in' is often wrong, that's a good starting point for ideas but after that you need to see if there is an actual market there.

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

#54

Post by twodave »

kodah wrote: post #44

I think there's a way about going about these things that can make you hate it or enjoy it. I'll share some of my story as an example of how I compartmentalize my different activities. I code for myself, I have been since I was a kid. Often they're little utilities that I find fun, interesting, or useful. Sometimes they're tested, if for instance it's something running part of my house. Most of the time they're not b…

How do you prioritize your time?

I see a lot of similarities in us. I feel the same way about my main job, though at a smaller firm. I also consult with small businesses on the side and have had very similar experience.

What I don't have are any for-profit ventures (of my own or with friends), and I've almost totally stopped coding for myself. I used to write code for fun all the time, and would wonder that many of my classmates/coworkers didn't do this. But I'd like to recapture it. I'd also like to take a few risks without quitting my job. I can probably spend 10-15 hours/week between all side/personal ventures combined. Currently I have all of that going towards the same consulting project, and I've found it somewhat unpalatable to "spend" the opportunity cost of working for myself instead.

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

#55

Post by ranting-moth »

AlbertCory wrote: post #27

The person who said this article should have been titled "Started doing Marketing for My Passion and It Appeared I Don't Love Marketing" is right on. I've met musicians who were totally uninterested in going to see anyone who wasn't "happening." You can't blame them, since they're trying to make a living. I always thought about programming: "I like it OK. Sometimes I like it a lot, but it's a living. I don't do it at…

Marketing for me is a soul eroding process.

I can't help but quote Terry Pratchett in Equal Rites, where he's talking about the Zoon tribe, who genetically cannot tell a lie. Some Zoons figure out a way to twist the truth and they develop great respect for him.

"It must be understood that while the majority of Zoon cannot lie they have great respect for any Zoon who can say that the world is other than it is, and the Liar holds a position of considerable eminence. He represents his tribe in all his dealings with the outside world, which the average Zoon long ago gave up trying to understand. Zoon tribes are very proud of their Liars.

Other races get very annoyed about all this. They feel that the Zoon ought to have adopted more suitable titles, like “diplomat” or “public relations officer.” They feel they are poking fun at the whole thing."

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

#56

Post by nurbl »

bdw5204 wrote: post #39

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".…

I agree, but the problem is how to avoid this. Once your livelihood depends on the thing you do for fun, it seems quite likely that you will start thinking about how to make it sell better. And after a while this may start to infect your inspiration... is your artistic integrity so strong that you can choose to do things that hurt your income?

Of course the solution is to be financially independent already... but then you're not actually living off your art anyway.

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

#57

Post by version_five »

a13n wrote: post #47
bdw5204 wrote: post #39

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".…

Eh, at the same time, I think the problem a lot of entrepreneurs have is that they overfocus on "what you are interested in" instead of "what the market wants", and therefore build something that nobody wants. If you can find a perfect intersection, that's beautiful, but probably uncommon. Some of the most lucrative businesses are stuff like (anti)fraud/security/payments that is pretty darn drab.

There's something to be said for building out your vision and testing whether others are interested. It was refreshing to see the grandparent post because the usual startup advice seems to be to abandon your vision entirely and build some average SaaS thing that's a composite of other successful things. (a) I don't think that actually works and (b) if people want to do that, why not just get a job, if you're effectively going to be just as constrained. It's much more fun to try and take a risk, if entrepreneurship is the space you want to play in.

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

#58

Post by sshine »

> His formula was, in a nutshell: Create training courses and sell them to others, just as he was doing. And at least one of us made big money (hint, it wasn’t me).

There is something special about courses about getting rich by making training courses about anything non-self-referential that attracts a lot more suckers than the “real” training courses.

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

#59

Post by doubled112 »

sshine wrote: post #58

> His formula was, in a nutshell: Create training courses and sell them to others, just as he was doing. And at least one of us made big money (hint, it wasn’t me). There is something special about courses about getting rich by making training courses about anything non-self-referential that attracts a lot more suckers than the “real” training courses.

Any get rich quick scheme is probably a scam. If it was as easy as, say, follow this formula, wouldn't we all be rich?

Instead, to get rich quick, it is likely best to prey on people who are probably already broke and desperate, but we can't all be sociopaths.

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

#60

Post by slowmovintarget »

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.

How about this formulation:

"A lot of fun things end up sucking when you expect them to also make you money."

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