Do it for fun

In this video Eli the Computer Guy talks about something I’d love more people to understand. He explains that most people expect to get money out of their first business idea. But most people don’t see beyond that initial decision. We have to consider things like:

– Will people be interested in my solution/service or whatever I offer?

– If I can execute my idea successfully, will I like doing it all the time, for a prolonged time? In other words, will I still love doing it next year?

Wouldn’t it be much better to start something you love to do as a hobby, and then once you have an audience or a working product, go out and seek how to finance your project? A venture capitalist would for sure pay more attention to you if you tell her that you already have a lot of people using your product, or working with you as a functioning team, etc.

If you start doing it for the money right from the start you run into a lot of other issues too. For instance, people will come in with expectations which you don’t know yet if you’ll satisfy. And you will l have to worry about lots of bureaucracy implied in a business.

If you start out doing something as a hobby instead, once you do want to convert in in a business, you already know how much you will have to charge. How people are going to receive it, how much you expect to make, how to set expectations and lots of other nuances.

So instead of thinking wanting to make your idea your primary work only to end up being discouraged when you fail, try going out there and experiment. Start doing what you love, try different things, without making a business out of it. Do it just for the fun. Then once you get people interested in something you do, start thinking about how you can make money out of it.

And as Gary V. already said: You can’t put in the hours unless you love it.