Why Do A Business From Your Hobby

The business model that I have followed has been pretty simple. I created a business out of my hobby. But with all the possible online business options out there, why do this?

I mean, you could go after the most popular or biggest ticket items and promote them instead. Wouldn’t that make more sense?

I guess it all depends on the quality of life that you are looking for. Let’s take a look at things from that perspective first.

One of my primary goals was to get out of the daily grind. We have to be realistic and understand that there isn’t some lightning in a bottle magic bullet that is going to make us rich overnight.

Work at Something You Love

Any thing we do whether it be an online business or an offline franchise is going to require work. I’m not going to blow smoke at you and tell you that the Internet is the key to never having to work again.

However, if you would like to work a lot LESS in the long run, then the Internet is the place to be. Now that we have established that whatever we do is going to require work, why not work at something you love.

My parents always instilled three basic principles in me when it came to owning my own business.

1) Work hard
2) Do something you love
3) Make as much money as you can doing it

Every day, I get up and am involved in the world of video games. Some days it might be playing Madden to test a new strategy. Other days it will be looking at different games to see what other potential revenue streams are out there.

A bad day playing video games beats a good day at work any day of the week. Surrounding yourself with things you love to me is the only way to fly.

Yes, with my knowledge of marketing on the Internet I could make a lot of money doing other things. But they wouldn’t be fun things. They wouldn’t give me a rush of excitement when I got up. It would just be working, without a big part of the reward.

Now that we have the touchy feely part of why doing your hobby as a business is cool, let’s look at some practical reasons.

Hobbies Are Niches

Hobbies make great niches. Now, I argue all the time with my friends up in Canada about how to pronounce the word niche. I say it so that it rhymes with witch. They pronounce it so that is rhymes with quiche (the breakfast food).

Either way that you choose to say it, it is the MOST important word in your Internet Marketing life. It will becomes a regular part of your vocabulary and a critical part of your life as well.

So practice saying it now: niche….niche….niche…..NICHE!

Webster’s Dictionary defines a niche as: A special area of demand for a product or service.

I like to define a niche as: a group of people that I am going to be able to target for the sale of a specific product or products that solves their problems.

If you have a hobby, then you are a part of this particular niche. Hobbies like woodworking, scrapbooking, video gaming and golfing are all niches.

People Spend Money on Their Hobbies

People that are involved in a hobby have several things typically in common:

1) It is their way of escape from the mundane tasks of day to day life
2) They are constantly seeking more information about their hobby
3) They are willing to invest money in their hobby

From a marketing standpoint, you can see how producing a quality product can quickly result in sales for you. Hobbyists want to know more, and they are willing to pay for that knowledge.

Think about your hobbies for a moment.

How have you invested in your hobby? Do you buy any magazines or books that relate to your hobby? Do you spend money on travel as part of your hobby? Does you hobby require any kind of special equipment or tools to take part in it?

If you have a hobby, then you have spent money to support it in one way or another.


We now have take a look at some of the intangible benefits of working in an area that you love. We have established that people are willing to spend their hard earned cash on their hobbies. But what other advantages does working within your hobby bring?

Passion for Your Niche

Well, for one thing you are most likely passionate about your hobby. This will come out in everything that you do with your business.

Internet Marketing is all about taking action. Testing new techniques, writing a new autoresponder…doing something. If what you are doing revolves around a hobby you are passionate about, then you are 100% more likely to follow through.

Your product will have your own passion for the niche breathed into it. Your sales copy, email promotions, blogs and more will also echo your passion.

This passion sells! It excites other people. It motivates them to take action and do something (buy your product, sign up for your newsletter).

It is much easier to convey passion about a subject that you yourself love. You don’t have to work it up, it just flows naturally.

I love video games and Madden especially. I don’t have to try to get excited about it. I’m naturally excited about it. Like it or not, when you enter the Internet World, you become a sales professional.

The best sales people are the ones that love their product. It just comes out of them in a way that isn’t even measurable. These are the people that make a killing in their markets.

Let’s do a very simple exercise. Take 5 minutes right now and make a list of all the things that you are interested in. What do you like to do with your spare time? What do people come and ask you for help with? What are you good at?

Once you make this list, you can move on to the next step….researching your niche.