How to turn hobby into a business

You have been asking yourself the same question.

How can I turn my hobby into a small business? The other question is why ? Why would you ! The answer is very simple. To turn a personal expense in a business expense. And yes, it is perfectly legal, in most country. Check with your own legal department if you are not sure. I know in the U.S. and Canada it is legal.

Make your hobby work for you.

If you take a minute and think about how much time you devote to your hobby, you will probably be surprised. So why not make some of this time and effort worth more than just personal satisfaction. Make it work for you, make it make you money.

You see, you probably don’t realize that your hobby, if you are serious about it, makes you a very knowledgeable person about a specific topic, a niche many of us call. You are a pro, sort of speak, about your particular subject, your hobby, your passion.

You were a neophyte, you learned it over time and there was probably not the internet to help you in those days, if you are about my age, you know what I mean.

Which makes you a pro in your niche, a specific subject, your hobby and many people would like to benefit from your knowledge, your expertise.

When I say people, I don’t just mean the friends at your local bar. I mean around your region, your country, the world.

There is a way to reach them, the old mighty internet.

Pretty much all of us now turn to the internet for everything. We use the internet for information, for divertissement, for keeping in touch with our friends, for learning and the list goes on.

The learning part is huge. For me, it simplified my life big time. You see I like to repair stuff. Probably because I’m cheap or just can’t afford to by a new one, just kidding. I often say why buy a new one when I can repair this one.

When I was a kid I used to take everything apart. I needed to know how it was made. The only thing, sometimes it took me a long time to figure out how to do it or I just couldn’t. That’s when I feel in love with the internet. It is a mega encyclopedia at your fingers and you don’t even need a bookshelf that is the size of your entire leaving room wall.

But the internet is here now and it helps thousands of people. It helps me a lot. I do a lot of research online.

You’re spending money

We all work hard for our money and most of us live on a tight budget. We need to reward ourselves at the end of the day and I call this our spending money. You need to find a way to have spending if you want to have fun in life. But how ?

The only problem is that the economy plays trick with me.

You will relate to this example I’m sure.

My wife and I work hard and our family income is not bad, in my opinion. We are able to pay our bills and by a few extra sometimes. Here’s where it gets interesting. Our salary increase is about 0.5% to 1.5% a year for the past 10 to 15 years. Just in the last 5 years my salary increased by 4.5%. Our economy in Canada (http://www.in2013dollars.com/2015-CAD-in-2018?amount=1), close to 7%. I’m at a lost of 2.5% as you can see.

A more concrete example:

This year my insurance went up by $38.50 a month. My salary, $42.00. You say, that’s good it covers it. But wait, it is just my insurance. The rest went up to, fuel, electricity, food and more. My buying power keeps going down every year. How do we make it work, but dipping into our spending money or our savings. Just like you probably have to do to.

What happens then ?

You don’t have a choice. It is the luxury items that goes first. You decrease the number of outings to the restaurant, theater, etc. You cut your holidays short or cancel all together. At the end your hobbies, why, because they cost a lot.

My hobby is camping and fishing. I used to go about seven to ten times a year. Then two or three if I was lucky.

I needed to find a way

That’s why I turned my hobby into a business

But starting a business is expensive you think ?

Yes and No

It all depends on what your hobby is and what you would like to do as a business. If your passion is coffee beans and you have always dreamed of having your own coffee shop, like a Tim Horton, then your right, it will be expensive. On the upside, you don’t have to work that hard to get customer. You will, on the other hand, have to spend many hours at your franchise dealing with your employees and the big one, dealing with customers. Some people do it, they like it and it is ok. You will make profit after a few years.

I can guaranty one thing, the amount of hours spend at your franchise, what ever it is, is going to be huge. That means your objective is not met. Yes you will have more spending money but, in revenge, you will have less time to enjoy it. That’s why I want to recommend the online way.

It will cost you very little to start or nothing at all. It depends on you, and the seriousness you want to put into it.

Start your own online business. I’m finally getting there.

You probably get the picture by now that I think starting an online business is the best way for many of us. The big upside to this is the minimum cost, therefore the risk.

I hear all the time: I would like to but……… don’t have the time or the money.

In this case, an online business cover both comments. It doesn’t cost anything, or very little at first, and you put the amount of time you want in it.

The seriousness you will put into your business it will make the difference on how long it will take you to turn a profit.

Take me for example

I started with no cost and now it cost me about $30 a month. Some weeks I invest fifteen hours and others very little. It depends on how busy my day job is. Did I forget to mention, I’m a full time teacher. This business is for my play money remember !

Anyway

You probably get it by now that I strongly recommend starting your own online business. You can sell your own product or be an affiliate, like me, if you don’t have one. It doesn’t matter.

The object of this article was not to sell you any particular product to start your business, but more to make you think that you can do it and do it with no knowledge of the online world at all.