Kevin Kelly recently published a link to "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" which is about making a sustainable (but not massive) living from your hobbies.
Might be of interest to somebody: https://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf
Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
71–80 of 193 posts
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#72> As if the only value anything has is by how much dollars it makes.
Thanks for highlighting this corrosive attitude right up front.
The current US frenzy in this attitude started in the 1980s (remember Boesky, portrayed by Hollywood as Gordon Gekko: "Greed is Good") and went into overdrive over the last two decades. But it's certainly been popular in other times in US history, as well as elsewhere.
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#73I read a comment on hacker news that I cannot find now, but it resonated deeply with me. Don't try to answer the question "what do you want to be?", answer the question "what do you want to do?"
I answered the wrong question, I said "I want to be a musician". And what I did was teach music I didn't care for, perform music I didn't care for, work for people and gigs I didn't care for, made a salary I didn't care for. I had high skills and expertise that wasn't being used; I was never paid for playing one of Bach's lute suites, I made a lot of money off of really simple wedding music.
What do I want to do? Play music that I'm passionate about. Make enough money to not be uncomfortable. Work in a field where expertise and knowledge is useful on a regular basis. I'm very happy now to pick up gigs for free because I like the gig. And as a side gig, I'm a full time programmer.
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#74I love programming (not just playing with code) and making excellent things with code, and electronics and mechanisms. I get paid to be good at it and help others do so as well, and I love that, too. All that said, the author’s warning is well heeded. There are things I’ve built and run at my own expense. They could be commercialized, but that bit doesn’t seem like fun to me (I don’t need the money, so there isn’t a…
What do you do where you get paid to make things with code, electronics, and mechanisms? I've built puzzles for escape rooms but there's just not enough money in escape rooms for it to be worth it.
I rarely get to work at all three. I think that is a manifestation of my principles - when getting paid I don’t feel like what I want to do comes into play as much as what my employer needs. When they do, it’s awesome.
Right now it’s two of three (SaaS + embedded) and that’s cool with me.
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#75The article should be called: >Started doing Marketing for My Passion and It Appeared I Don't Love Marketing
Agreed. As soon as the post pivoted from doing the writing, to all of the other aspects associated with running a business, I lost interest. The author would do well to understand the power of delegation.
I'm not sure delegating would have saved him either. I think his boredom about marketing shows a missing essential curiosity about things. Boredom kills!
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#76Let's think about what it means to "make money". The phrase itself is already misleading because no one can make money, money is "made" by the central banks by changing some numbers in mainframe databases. These mainframes are connected to some local distribution banks like credit unions which then enable economic activity by business loans and other kinds of "investments", e.g. local government services like street…
> Most of the time people are just fighting over scraps and the best they can hope for is some steady source of income that pays their rent and affords them some basic luxuries like visiting Las Vegas and watching a few acrobatic shows. I'm sorry to react so strongly, but I think it's demeaning to suggest that the life condition you described is one of "fighting over scraps". It's also... (I'm struggling to find the…
Which part do you disagree with? Money is a way to control the masses and it has always been used that way. The technology currently exists to do away with all wealth disparities and achieve a true meritocracy wherein individual talents are developed to benefit everyone collectively but most people can not conceive of what such a world would look like so they chase money and end up miserable. In the grand scheme of things money is entirely meaningless, it's a bunch of numbers in databases.
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#77I firmly believe that if you follow your passion and create something that solves a problem you're passionate about, that no one else has solved yet (i.e. with the features you care about, at a price you can afford), you'll find others with the same passion who want what you're selling.
That's not the same as saying you can sell "anything", or that you can definitively strike it rich doing so.
My simple math is this. There are 8 billion people on the planet. If you can create something that appeals to just 1 out of 800,000 people (or 0.0000025% of the population), you should be able to attract 10,000 people who at least follow you online. It won't happen overnight, but if it's something you're passionate about, there are at least 10,000 other people who share that passion and are looking for what you're offering.
If you can't find a way to monetize 10,000 followers, you're doing something wrong.
But if you're not solving your own problems, and if you're not pursuing your own passion, there's no reason to assume others are passionate about the thing you're just doing for the money. Even if they are, they're likely to see through the facade.
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#78Earlier 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.
You're an outlier. Studies have shown repeatedly that monetary compensation undermines intrinsic motivation:
https://hbr.org/2013/04/does-money-really-affect-motiv
> The authors synthesized the results from 128 controlled experiments. The results highlighted consistent negative effects of incentives — from marshmallows to dollars — on intrinsic motivation. These effects were particularly strong when the tasks were interesting or enjoyable rather than boring or meaningless.
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
"a lot of fun things suck when they make you money" That has not been my experience...they become more fun.
There seems to be a virtuous cycle with making money doing something, where you learn to be passionate for things because they make money. The opposite seems to happen with passion projects trying to make money, and I wonder if it comes down to reality vs expecations and being on the wrong side of dissappointment. “I can’t believe what people are willing to pay for this” can be either a positive or negative statement…
I would say that the issue is really one of time. A lot of hobbies are leisurely, but running a business, meeting customer deadlines requires time management, and it doesn’t help that a lot of hobbies are labor intensive.
There is a difference between knitting a scarf for a Christmas gift and making enough scarves, all the time, so that you can afford the roof over your head. And even more so if you have clients anxious about timelines.
Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it
#80Where 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".…
> PASCAL: may I say something that I learned, without being too big?
>
> PASCAL: A guy goes out to eat in the evening...
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> PASCAL: after a long day in the office, whatever. Go ahead.
>
> PASCAL: He don't want on his plate...
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> PASCAL: something that he has to look and think, "What the fuck is this"?
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> PASCAL: What he want is steak. This is a steak.
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> PASCAL: I like steak, you know?
>
> PASCAL: Mmm, I'm happy!
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> PASCAL: Do you see what I mean?
>
> PASCAL: But don't get me wrong.
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> PASCAL: I think that your brother is good, goddamned chef.
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> PASCAL: Maybe the best I ever see.
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> SECONDO: He is the best.
> PASCAL: Yes, but,
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> PASCAL: this is what I have to say to you.
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> PASCAL: Give to people what they want.
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> PASCAL: Then later, you can give them what you want, eh?
>
- Big Night (1996)