I am very passionate and emotional.
An odd combination for a seemingly precise and overly logical tech founder, but emotion is what charges me, an undying need for competition & ambitiousness is what kicked off the journey that led to me beginning my own business.
You have passions, as do I, now to monetize them?
Where to begin? Is it possible to make money doing something you love?
Here’s how: collect your passions, use intuition to feel what charges you, and of course, include your hobbies, interests, and things that bring you joy. What makes you click with love in this world?
Now, after some introspection, you’ve found it, something that grasps deep into your soul & resonates with your character. Now, how can we bring this into a profitable business? One of my favorite aspects in this field is the breadth of endeavors you can choose to take, but how can we effectively monetize it?
There are many ways to monetize your interest, as the internet has paved the way for many business models to succeed. Your challenge now is to narrow down a profitable & sustainable business model that fits YOUR passion.
This is easier than it sounds. I am going to provide you with an example.
Let’s say, Plushies. Like the cute little toys from the department store. If I’m someone who likes plushies, here’s how I can simply monetize it. Are you a producer? Distributor? Then just sell them, obviously.
But I am not writing for the person who already has the resources to monetize children’s toymaking. What about the inexperienced? This is where I can give advice. Can you find your voice? Make content about plushies, build a community around it, and monetize the content. basic stuff. Now, making content about what you love is fundamental, basic advice. But we can push deeper.
Do you love plushies enough to dropship them? Build a branded e-commerce store selling products for others & funnel traffic through organic search to then scale with paid ads & media buying. You could even just dabble in affiliate marketing for an existing brand by making videos for them and earning your appropriate share of revenue. If you like making short-form content, TikTok Shop is right there with brands willing to pay novice creators to project their voices and sell for them
Now, what if I don’t want to build a website or make content? Your options become more limited, but you can always write about plushies, become the niche that you love, and give your thoughts & feelings to an audience.
Now, if you're even more creative & have more skill, build a plushy SaaS, let people create their own plushy through your program, and have it made-on-demand and delivered to them. You could manufacture large quantities of plushies for use at a department store, or create branded plushies with relevant creator partnerships.
Now, as you can see, there are so many ideas spawning from just the one topic of plushies, you must now find what path suits you. There is no one-size-fits-all, and you will find even more ways to monetize an audience as you grow as an entrepreneur.
Passion is a great backbone if you lack motivation to go all-in on your business, but remember, there will never be a replacement for cold-hard discipline; the work can never be replaced.
So what about my passions? How did I manage to leverage them?
I have always loved computers & software, naturally, I went into digital business.
I researched online money-making, saw through the hubris, and found somewhere I could contribute, first being ecommerce, then websites, and now dabbling into automations.
I loved problem-solving, so naturally, I solved problems for businesses.
I sold business to business, solving technical issues for nontechnical people.
I liked health, so I began building a supplement company.
Now known as Pickup, I am in the very early stages of building an athletic supplement company. I spoke about this during my video interview.
I liked gaming, so I streamed & made gaming videos.
I’ve gathered a small following on both Twitch and YouTube, seldom playing games with my friends. I no longer enjoy gaming as I used to; perhaps I will make content that takes a different route.
I liked writing, so I made a newsletter.
At the time of writing this article, this was referring to the now-defunct “EDE”. I am now the chief business development officer of techandbusiness.org, a project that has far surpassed my expectations and has succeeded my old newsletter. I feel there is much room for growth even still. I’ve gathered an excellent & passionate team and look forward to whoever else will be joining alongside us.
You will see that passion is a great tool in this field, but don’t attach to it. Sometimes, boring businesses are just better; solving the problems of rich people is what matters if you want to make the most money. But having the fallback of being able to do what you love is always nice.
Find what suits you, even just make AI write a business plan for you, find what works & cut out what doesn’t. You can most definitely make some money; all it requires is that you start. Because Ideas can’t make money, it’ll always be up to someone to build something, perhaps it is you who builds something electric, that captivates an audience, or perhaps not. Your idea can be developed in your head until the day you die, it’ll always be worth the time it takes to bring a genuinely great idea into this world, most never do, but you can always try.