None of Your Business: 3 Fundamental Reasons To Avoid Turning Your Passion or Side-Hustle into a Money Making Machine

I do not know who you are and what stage of life you are going through.

But if you are curious about startups (and something tells me you are, since you are reading it), you:

• either heard tons of stories of people turning their passion into a profitable business or a multi-billionaire corporate where everyone is dreaming to work in;
• thinking of changing your career from 9–5 to something more fulfilling. And you know that you always liked being creative, and people say your passion can make you good money;
• tired of freelancing, or not sure if you can continue as a freelancer for the rest of your life without a serious and reliable source of income like your own business.

But it doesn’t really matter which category you are in. I’m not going to give you tips on how to start your business. Quite the opposite.

You like writing? Start your own writing agency.

Love drawing? Start your own studio.

Made a few site for your friends and family? Start your own web-design agency.

Good with social media? Start your own digital or SMM agency.

I guess you have heard about it a few times.

It’s tempting. The idea of being your own boss, and the feeling of having something that belongs to you only, where you can decide what and when to do.

However, business — is not just a fancy word. Starting a business means you will have no holidays or weeks off, no commissions and benefits, and of course, nobody promises you will have a steady income for years ahead.

Here are 3 main things why you should not risk everything to start a new business on your passion or an outstanding skill of yours.

1. You like something as a hobby.

Before you tell me that this is the way all cool companies started, let me clarify something here. Your hobby — although can potentially be profitable and make a few extra bucks for Christmas presents — is not a business. You do not have to follow trends to get more customers, you do not have to think about marketing or how people actually react on your hobby.

Being a writer, for example, means not only write what you want, but also satisfy multiple publishers’ needs, be sure that what you write is possible to sell.

And, even before you get an agent and an offer, you will have to elbow your way through others — thousands and thousands — sometimes more talented writers from all over the world.

It’s not fun, it’s business. The business you expect to be profitable and the business, which will be pay your bills.

And it means that sometimes you will have to works with things you don’t want, please people you don’t like or write something you are not interested or passionate about.

It’s not a hobby anymore. It’s business. Do you really want this?

You can always keep your hobby as a side hustle or a nice time to wind up from your regular job, for example. Nobody stops you from writing a book or painting in your free time. Some amazing works were done by just hobbyists, who loved what they did and had all the freedom to create what they like without being hounded by fear of being poor or bills being due in two days.

2. You are not a keen player willing to risk everything.

This point comes from the previous one. If you love something as a hobby, there’s no reason to quit your job for pursuing your passion.

When you start a business, you have to know that it may not work out. You should know and understand, although you are striving for success, the failure is here, too.

It’s difficult to accept and obviously, there’s no reason to start something if you think it will flop. However, you should always know that every business is unpredictable.

You may have or have not a business plan. And fail, in both way. Or win, both ways. You may have the best business coaches, advisers and friends, yet flop. And have none of the above and win.

Starting a business is like buying a lottery ticket. But it’s not just about luck. In a lottery you either win or lose by a chance. In business a chance is one of the facilitators of your future success.

You should expect failure. And if you are not ready to just say no to everything you have right now in order to have a business, maybe it’s not the right time to start it.

You still have your hobby as a side hustle after all. Why risking it all? You should know that there will be no way back.

3. You do not want to wear multiple heats.

Let’s stick to the story where you want to be a published writer. Do you also want to be an accountant? Social media manager? Marketer? Literary agent? Illustrator? Editor? Sales person?

And you will have to. Unless you have tons of money to pay other people to do this stuff for you. Which is rarely a case if you start a business of your own.

When you start seeing what you do as business, you have to think of everything.

How to keep yourself on a budget, how to promote and market your book, how to illustrate it.

Where and who to sell.

In some cases, you will have to become a public speaker, talk about your book, convince people to buy it.

And, honestly, you will have to dedicate more time to this than to writing at the very beginning. If that sounds like something not appealing, and the only thing you want to do — and care about — is writing, then why bother yourself with it?

And it’s not like you can say that you are not going to do this or do not want to give talks or market your book. Your profit — and you as a business entity, a writer, who’s writing for profit — both, depend on your sales. And your commission from the sales.

Do not want to think about it?

Keep your passion as a hobby! You will be able to publish a book with money you’ve saved from your day job and even give them away to your friends and family without being afraid of not getting a profit.

You will be surprised and even pleased, when a book you published yourself on Kindle will earn a few bucks by the end of months. Isn’t that cool?

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Of course, you can still think that you want to risk. You want to try to be independent and spend all the time on Bali just getting payed on your international bank account six figure commissions from the sales of books you liked writing and published easily. It’s a nice and achievable goal. However, it’s just the finishing point.

When you think about something you want, you may miss out a few fundamental ideas and even reasons why you wanted to do something in the first place.

It’s amazing to have a cool goal in you life.

But it’s even cooler to know how much you will have to work for this goal to happen, and how much you really need something like it.

Maybe, it’s just another trend everyone is falling prey to?