One highly quoted saying reads: “Find three hobbies you love: One to make you money, one to keep you in shape and one to be creative.” It is completely possible to turn your hobby into a side hustle or a business idea, but before you get excited, take note that not all hobbies are profitable. So think carefully.
Research Your Hobby’s Profitability
When you want to turn your hobby into a side hustle, start by determining what you are good at and you can turn into a side business. Some ideas include:
- Crafts, such as creating jewellery, crocheting/knitting, or painting
- Social media
- Photography
- Writing and editing, including blogs
- Taking care of pets
- Cooking or making drinks
- Fitness
You can then investigate how to earn an income such as selling your crafts, and photos, helping to manage another business’s social media accounts, writing product reviews and blogs, pet sitting, catering or being a fitness instructor.
Price Your Product Correctly
If you are going to use your hobby to generate an income, you must understand that your aims are changing. Previously, your hobby might have been a creative outlet or a way of relaxing, however, a side hustle will require consistency and profitability.
Start by understanding what your financial goal is. Don’t be afraid to add a number, be it R 1 000 or R 10 000. From there, you can calculate your overall expenses per product. Take the expenses and add the income you would like to achieve. Next, divide this number by the number of products you can create from the inputs used to calculate your expenses.
Marketing Hour New Side Hustle
Marketing your product or service means showing your potential customers why they want your product or service. But you cannot just shoot blindly into the dark – You must market your product to the right audience.
Research the market by seeing where similar products or services are being sold. Is it one social media platform above another? Is it in e-commerce shops like Etsy or Takealot?
Align your marketing strategy to reach these audiences. You can also exhibit at markets, weekend expos or other similar shops to generate more interest and awareness for your products and services.
Selling Your Hobby
Living in the digital age means that you need to target both online and offline markets – people still shop brick and mortar stores.
Online Selling
Online selling mostly targets online marketplaces such as Takealot, Amazon or your own e-commerce store. You can also use social media shops to make your products available.
In the case of a service, you can sell your freelance service on Fiverr or LinkedIn.
Offline Selling
Offline selling will entail live events such as markets and expos where you can exhibit your product. Networking and industry events are also great ways to use personal selling to generate sales for your business.
Set Up Your Business
If you are going to make your hobby a legitimate business, you must comply with legal requirements. This includes registering your business, setting up your business accounts, registering for VAT, doing your taxes and keeping a record of all your financial transactions.
You can also look into the type of legal business structure.
There are affordable bookkeeping and accounting software that you can also use to keep track of the income and expenses of your business.
Stay Motivated
Don’t be scared to take the leap of faith and start your side hustle business. As long as you do your research well, and find your market, you can start building your business step by step. You can expect your products to start selling slowly, so don’t feel discouraged when you don’t immediately gain traction.
It is a good idea to share your goals with a friend or family member who can help you stay motivated. They can encourage you to keep going when you need it, or act as a sounding board when you feel an idea might not be working.
Be Realistic
Because your hobby is now a side business, you need to be realistic about how much time you have to spend on it, as well as how much time you need to create inventory to sell enough to reach your financial goals.
Create a schedule that takes your day job into consideration as well. It is vital that you follow a schedule to help you be consistent.
Follow the above-outlined steps and turn your hobby into a side hustle in no time.
