We have all heard about how much passion matters in determining our happiness and success, but can we make money out of our passion? If you are still unsure of how to turn your hobbies into money-making ventures, take a few tips from Ivan Ho, one of the authors of the book Cool Cash.
Ivan is currently a final year NUS student. “I’ve been calling NUS Business School home for 4 years now,” he says, “and yes, you can already tell, my academic interests tend towards the business sides of things.”
The generous writer also dished out some useful tips on how to have a “hobby job”. A “hobby job”, according to Ivan, is a job in an area that you are passionate about and can be done during your free time.
TR: Which one is better: staying in our comfort zone or taking risks and doing what we love?
IH: Both options have their pros and cons. Yes, staying in our comfort zone has its advantages and it is what most people do instinctively–which to me is perfectly fine. However, if you want to reach another level in terms of job success and find happiness, you have got to take some risks in life. If possible, really find something that you love doing. I have friends in the banking industry that have put up with a job that they dislike for almost 10 years, and have not quit simply because the pay is decent and stable. Many of them have looked back at the 10 years and realized that they should have done something more fun and more meaningful, instead of letting something as trivial as a stable job be a dead anchor in their career paths.
Now finding something that you really love can be really hard for some people; sometimes we just do not know what we love, hence taking risks can do us some real good. If you learn to take some calculated risks in school, you tend to do that later on in life as well, so start taking some calculated risk now, as early as possible, come out of your comfort zone and try new things because you’ll never know what these new things might do for you.
TR: If someone has an uncommon hobby, could he/she make money from it? How?
IH: Definitely. My top 5 favourite hobby jobs are:
- Facebook content manager; turning your professional stalking into something creative
- Modelling
- Teaching people specialized dancing
- Speech coach
- Festive Arbitrageur
Follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1
It depends very much on whether that uncommon hobby has ‘value’ to it. Value here means that the hobby provides a useful service or product to people. Many of the hobby jobbers–people who managed to turn their hobbies into money-making ventures–whom I have interviewed over the past 2 years had very odd interests to begin with. Many of them did not make it into the book, because their business or small venture was not successful. This was due to the very fact that their product/service provided little or no value to consumers. I met a 35-year-old woman who had an odd hobby of collecting human and animal teeth and making miniature figurines out of them. The act of collecting teeth is, in my opinion, a bit gross. Hence, her blog shop did not work out so well.
You can create value in your hobby by investing a lot of time in it and/or finding a niche. People pay good buck if you’re really good at something that adds value to them.
Step 2
Plan. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. It’s as simple as that. In every business no matter how small, it’s good to have at least a vision for it.
Next, plan the steps you need to take in order to achieve that vision. Who among your network of friends can help you turn your hobby into a money-making venture? Do they have resources or their own network to help you? How much is your start-up capital? What is the cost of your monthly operation? How do you keep them low? The answers to all these questions require planning. For most hobby jobbers, it is not a must to have a strict, long, solid business plan before they launch their services. A simple one that includes vision, mission, objectives, and cost listing will do.
Step 3
Marketing. Now that you have ensured that your hobby has value to it and a good business plan to support it, the next step is marketing. To me, marketing is simply making people and potential customers aware of your existence and your hobby job. There are many books that can give a more detailed explanation on how to do market. But for some quick marketing tips designed for hobby jobbers, focus on cheaper options like social media, blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn or popular online forums like hardwarezone.com.
TR: Do you have any personal experiences in making money from your hobby? If yes, could you tell us more about that? What challenges did you face? How did you fare in it?
IH: Yes. During my polytechnic days, I taught swimming to working adults who were too shy to learn the skill in a public pool. I had to find a place that provided privacy to my customers; luckily my friend was kind enough to open his home pool for the fulfilment of my first hobby job.
My next hobby job was teaching the drums. I specialized in teaching children. I branded myself that way, because it was hard for any music school to take in any inexperienced and young music teacher such as myself. I marketed myself as having experience playing in church as a drummer and my CCA as a Japanese Daiko drummer in poly for 3 years. The private music school that hired me paid me quite well.
TR: If you had a chance to be anything, what or who would you like to be?
IH: I would like to be a successful stand-up comedian. Ellen DeGeneres, my all-time favourite comedian and TV talk host has taught me much through her popular TV shows and stand up comedies. My local favourite is Judee Tan from The Noose. Making people laugh, but not at the expense of others, is to me one of the hardest yet most fulfiling skills you can have. Laughing bring joy to people, adding value to them after a hard day of work. And to top it off, you get paid good bucks for it if you’re really good.
===========================
Short Bio:
Ivan Ho is currently a final year student pursuing honours and specializing in Finance in NUS Business School. Besides being an undergraduate, Ivan is also one of the owners of UrbanR, a small but fast growing family business in India that specializes in modifying cars. Besides spending hours studying for exams or finishing up projects, he likes to hunt for gems in the stock market and find companies that are undervalued to invest in. He also takes part in business competitions such as the next fund manager, CFA and SIM business simulation games, to keep the competitive spirit in him burning.