Have you ever been so engrossed in your hobby that you are too excited to notice the world around you? That, when it comes to going back to work or engaging with your household again or you can think about, is the hobby that you spent time on. No matter what your hobby may be. There are always going to be moments where you wish you were doing more with it.

 

There is a light bulb moment that comes as a hobbyist where you wonder why you haven’t tried to turn your hobby into something that could be sold.It doesn’t matter whether you are baking cookies or cakes or you are cleaning and love to clean, so therefore you want to turn that into a business. And it doesn’t even matter if you absolutely love to knit or sew. The point is, if you have a hobby that can be monetized, why wouldn’t you want to go ahead and do it if you love it so much? Some people stay away from monetizing their hobbies because they don’t want their downtime to turn into business time. And yet, if you know you’re good at something and you have a knack for something, why wouldn’t you want it to be profitable for you? So here’s how you can turn that hobby into a business.

 

 

• Write down the list of goals. So you want to turn your hobby into a paid business, but what are your goals for this business? What are you trying to achieve with it?It’s so hard to tackle your vision without a game plan, and that’s where you need a list of goals that you want to achieve. Don’t start updating your LinkedIn account and writing out business plans without those goals because you need to get your thoughts on paper. It’s very easy to run with an idea of ‘yay I can make money’, but if you aren’t thinking about this properly and mapping it out, it’s not going to be easy.
• Think about how you can do it. If you love to make clothes and they look beautiful, then could you sell them on Etsy? Do you need to upgrade to a new sewing machine so that you can do bigger and better patterns in a more powerful way? Are you able to design logos or print off digital art to sell at art shows? There are so many ways that you can monetize a hobby, but you need to consider all of them before you get going.This is where you need to sit with somebody who knows you and who understands business and you can map out those goals together.
• Think about the money .Not just the money coming in after you start selling your hobby, but the money is going to take to get started in the first place. For example, if you love to sew and you need to upgrade to a new sewing machine, then that’s going to cost money as an outlay. You also need to think about overhead costs, such as renting a space with utilities and insurance, manufacturing costs for making your products and shipping them to different locations. When you do this, you’re going to find that you need to really think more about the finances and the long term result here. Setting a budget and estimating your business expenses will give you an idea of what you need to be bringing in each month for your hobby to be monetised efficiently and effectively. After all, you don’t want to monetize something that doesn’t actually pay you a profit.
• Be very aware and open to the downsides. Starting a business is always going to have negatives as well as positives, and that means that you need to consider the hobby that you want to stop doing in the vast place. There’s always going to be downsides, including the fact that you are going to be spending your downtime effectively working, which is often some people’s concern. Some people are lucky enough to never really burnout, but it does happen frequently if you’re putting all of your mixed into a passion project. When your hobby cook comes to your business, you might end up dealing with picky clients or rude customers, or managing day-to-day operations. Marketing or selling your services or products and meeting deadlines is not easy, especially if you’ve never done it before. Always have somebody on board that can help you to manage the business side of things.

 

 

• Don’t quit your day job. It’s going to be difficult to balance a day job plus a hobby business, but you should never quit your day job until you start to have some traction with your hobby business. It’s very exciting for you to put your time and energy into a passion project, especially if that passion project is going to give you some cash. But if you quit your day job, you have no money coming in while you start working on this business. You need that money coming forward, otherwise you’re going to end up with nothing.
• Consider opening up a space for a business partner. No man is an island and neither is any woman, so opening up a space to have a business partner and potential investor is always a good idea. Surrounding yourself with a robust team of like minded people is a good way to help yourself to get your company off the ground. You’ll be able to find people with different strengths and weaknesses to help you and balance out your own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Starting your own business based on a hobby that you absolutely love is going to take some time, effort, and energy. If you’re not prepared to see it all the way through, don’t get started, because it could be a very costly mistake. If you do, think about why you enjoy your hobby and whether you do really think it can be monetized, and if so, go for it.