If you have got a hobby you love, why not get paid for doing what you love? Turning your hobby into a profitable revenue stream isn’t difficult, especially in the digital world we live in because it is easy to market and showcase your products/services to the world. From painting and sketching to programming, there are so many options available to turn your hobbies into revenue streams and in these tough economic times, it makes sense to have an extra stream of income & turn your passion into something profitable.
The benefit of turning your hobby into a revenue stream is that you will find a job that you will love and you will get the opportunities to showcase your talents and skills to the world. Keep in mind that most hobbies aren’t lucrative enough to leave your job and dedicate your whole time to them but they can give you some spending extra money. So what do you have to do to turn your hobby into a source of income? Let’s find out!
Perform Market Research
This is the cornerstone of starting any business. Performing market research is very important to find out about the market trends, competition, and demand. If you have a particular hobby or skill in which you excel, you may want to get on the internet and perform thorough market research.
For instance, if you have a hobby of making pencil sketches and are quite skilled in sketching or you like making handmade jewelry, you should search on the internet for various marketplaces, and freelancing websites and see how other people are marketing such skills, what is the demand for your skills, and what are the prices at which these sketches or jewelry is being sold for.
All of these things will help you understand the market trends, analyze the competition, and it will also give you a rough estimate of your potential customer base along with the profit margin. Conducting market research will help you to refine your decision, whether you should start the journey of turning your hobby into a side hustle or not.
Make A Business Plan
After market research, you will have to make a business plan before proceeding further. A business plan is a crucial part of any business. In your business plan, you will have to specify and decide on a few things that are vital to start your side hustle.
You will have to decide how you will market your products, whether you will need a website or not, and how you will start getting orders. If your hobby is writing, you should decide on freelancing websites that you will be using to post your adverts. If you are into arts & crafts, you may want to start a store on Etsy or a page on Instagram.
Along with all of this, you will have to specify a few other things in your business plan such as how you will sell your product or services, what will be the starting price, how much budget you will need at the start, etc. A business plan is vital, especially when you are launching an online product like Scrabble Word Finder, being your own boss & starting a business, or working as a freelancer, like in this case.
Build Your Brand & Work On Marketing
The early stages of starting a business or side hustle are never easy. During the early days, your first real job is to convince people to believe in your products and services. And this isn’t an easy thing to accomplish.
People usually don’t trust new products or services because they don’t want to get a bad product or service. So in the early days of your side hustle, your focus should be on one thing and that is building a reputation for your brand. You will have to work on marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, advertising, and offer freebies to prove that your products and services are trustworthy.
Building a reputation for your brand isn’t easy. No matter how unique your product is like the Word Unscrambler, in the initial days, you will have to be patient and take small steps to build your brand & promote your product. You might have to market your products or services to your friends & family first and offer them freebies so they can try out your services. In the initial days, you should work on exposure. The more exposure your brand gets, the better your brand reputation will be.
Turn Your Skills Into A Career
If your hobby isn’t a product like a sketch or drawing but a skill then you might have to advertise your skills and offer them free of cost at the start. For instance, you may be a good gardener who can grow and cultivate vegetables and manage gardens on his own. You can take this passion for gardening and make a career out of it by working at a nursery, finding a job in horticulture, or offering freelance gardening services. It doesn’t matter if your hobby is building a product or a skill, you can turn it into a side hustle and earn some extra bucks.
