in personal development, products / boostrapping

Make a living from what you love

You only live once. You work 5 days per week.

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE IF YOUR HOBBY WOULD BE YOUR JOB? OR DO YOU PREFER TO KEEP ON WORKING 5 DAYS A WEEK, 45 YEARS LONG, FOR SOMETHING THAT YOU ARE NOT PASSIONATE ABOUT?

My hobby (I have others too of course…): building, designing, growing, bootstrapping web and mobile software. I love to solve a particular problem using software. Making things simple for other people and solving peoples day to day problems via the use of the internet, hell yeah! After having worked for months on something, my head spins off its axis if people are using software I invented, wrote, designed and put on this world. That’s why I decided to make my living from this. On a daily basis, I’m paid to do my hobby. Ain’t that nice?!

Turn your hobby into a job” does sound so cliché. But clichés are often just plain truth. People who are occupied with something they like on a daily basis, are just more happy people. More joy of life, passion, they are happy to get up in the morning. They don’t have to, they want to.

Think about any of your interests/hobbies/passions. Horse riding, cooking, salsa dancing, programming, learning other languages. Anything. Now…imagine someone pays you for something related to your hobby/interest/passion. HOW FREAKING AWSOME WOULD THAT BE?!!!

Isn’t it silly to have to oblige yourself every morning to get up, brush your teeths, push yourself in your car, drive to work and watching the clock several times during the working day? Isn’t it insane to long for those ‘2 weeks vacation’ per year, and afterwards work again for a whole year, longing for the next vacations?

Not any hobby/interest/passion is OK to turn into a business though. Nobody will pay me for “watching Friends TV series” just because it’s my hobby. In short:

The best business to be into, is the common space between what you like, and what people are willing to pay for. There are many things that I love to do, but nobody will every pay me for it. There are many things that people want to pay for, but I don’t like them at all. But there are quite some things that I’m passionate about, and people are willing to pay me for that.

If you start a business, make sure your are passionate about it. Starting a business is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It takes time and persistence. You’ll go through difficult times, working on sunny sunday afternoons while everyone is BBQ-ing, earning fewer money then all of your friends. Without love for your business, it will be difficult to keep going.

What’s your hobby? Can you make a business around it? Are people willing to pay you for anything related?

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