Turn Your Hobby Into A Business

If you want to do meaningful work and change your career, you should maybe consider starting with your hobby.

According to an article in Monster.Com, if you intend to turn your hobby into a business, you must first be sure that your hobby has commercial potential - being passionate about something is not enough. You can begin by researching job / career sites to see if there are any jobs that relate to your hobby.

Then, you must consider whether you would be happy working in it as a business. Remember that doing something as a hobby is different than doing something as a business.

"When your hobby becomes your work, it may not be the same," says Bevington. "This change can take the fun out of what you are doing. In addition to making the product or providing the service, you now have to think about pricing, deadlines, doing it someone else's way, etc." said Nancy Hayes Bevington, a management consultant.

Bevington also stated that your personal experience won't necessarily be transferable professionally. "The workplace will look at you as someone who comes in with no professional experience, even if you have done this for years" on a personal level, she said.

You must be willing to start from the bottom again, to gain experience doing your "hobby" on a professional basis. You can do this by working for a small outfit, first.

Curt Rosengren, a career consultant advised not to quit your day job, yet. He suggested that you "continue to do what you are doing to bring in revenue, while taking a parallel path to help make the transition" to your hobby job.

Read the full story here.

Related post - Are you fed up with your job ?

Please let me know your views on this.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some hobby not suitable for market in malaysia.
Maybe for oversea market ok.

Angie Tan said...

Interesting...

Yeap, some hobbies are pretty profitable, if you're good, i.e. cooking?

Wonder if there is a career out there which caters for the PSP gamer? hehehe.. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Hmm.. my hobby is web design(and web programming).

Made some money creating some sites for companies but has stopped doing that now as I prefer creating and running my own sites (and that's already taking much of my free time) :D

Anonymous said...

i like to sleep and watch DVDs. do you think i can make some money doing that ?

The Malaysian Life said...

I for one, do not have a specific hobby. Im still on a lookout for something meaningful to do. LOL


tan - Of course it isn't. Firstly, Malaysia has a relatively small population and secondly, "bread and butter" issues are more important as it is still a developing country.

Angie - Yes cooking can be profitable.

Vincent - There are lots of potential for people like you to make a lot of money.

Anonymous - You can make a lot of money if you're not very selective on who you sleep with and can find a way to charge for it.

As for watching DVDs, you should look into being a retailer instead of a consumer, to make any money in it. :)

Anonymous said...

i like fishing, its my hobby. i know that there is demand for fishing equipment, trips etc but too much supply. sigh :(

The Malaysian Life said...

steve - Thats the problem between no demand and too much supply.

Post a Comment

Please include your name or a pseudonym when you post a comment. Anonymous comments will be deleted.