From Hobby To Hustle: How To Turn Your Passion Into Profit In 8 Months
5 Things I Wish I Has Known Earlier about Building a Side Hustle
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I built a 1600+ subscribers newsletter over the past eight months.
It all started as an experiment. One morning, I got a random paid subscriber. And I decided to give it a try. But I never thought I could reach that many people in such a short time.
So, how did I do it?
Today, I will share how I successfully transformed my hobby into a side hustle. So, if you have a passion and want to turn it into a profit, keep reading!
How to Get From Hobby to Side Hustle
Side hustles have become incredibly common over the past few years.
People get rich by talking about their passions and sharing their thoughts online. And the creator economy grows bigger every day.
Building a side hustle has become the desire of many nowadays. But it’s not that simple.
When I started, I had many doubts about what to talk about, how to do it, and where. And I changed my mind many times.
But starting and failing is better than not doing anything. So, start your side hustle today. Don’t wait anymore. Or you will never be the next rising star.
How to Turn Your Passion into Profit
Starting is the first step. And the sooner you do it, the better.
You will have more chances to fail and learn your lessons.
And you will have more time to study your audience.
However, you must consider a few things if you want to monetize your passion fast. Here are five activities I wish I had known about building a side hustle from a hobby.
1 – You must choose your content format carefully.
When I started The Challenge, I would have loved creating videos or podcasts to discuss these topics. But I am not a native English speaker – I am not that fluent. And I don’t always pick the correct words when speaking.
You may be a great orator. Or you may love writing. You may want to talk without showing your face. Whatever you want to do, you must pick it from the start and stick to it.
Once you build a big audience, you may experiment with different content formats. But people must recognize you for one type of content in the beginning.
Also, here are a few statistics on content marketing you might want to read before picking one.
2 – You must research your hobby.
Once you know what you want to do, you must understand how. And this implies two things:
research what people say about your hobby
and research how people talk about it.
Find the topics and trends other creators use.
The topics give you information on what people search online for a specific niche.
The trends show which type of content works and will expose you to a bigger audience.
3 – You must find your unique value.
Last year, I attended a design class because I wanted to become better with infographics. However, the course focused a lot on branding. And one thing I learned is that you must have a unique value proposition (UVP) to catch the correct audience.
A UVP is a short sentence that describes your product or brand. And it shows your clients your unique offer.
For The Challenge, for example, the tracking infographic I share at the end of each issue is the unique value that attracts subscribers.
So, what’s yours?
Creating a successful UVP is a challenge. But if you make it specific, benefit-oriented, credible, and emotional, you will hit the mark.
4 – You must share your expertise and ignorance.
No matter how good you are, there are only two categories of topics you can discuss online:
Topics you know, and you can teach people how to do them.
And topics you ignore, and you can show people what you discovered.
You don’t need much more. And these two categories will give you different advantages.
You will build authority when you share your expertise and achievements.
And you will connect with people who share your struggles when you show them your failures. Here, storytelling helps a lot.
5 - You must connect and interact with people.
Showing your expertise and personality is a good strategy to build a side hustle with your hobby. But there’s something that works even better and will make you succeed – networking.
Connections are the basics of social media marketing. And you have to promote your side hustle if you want to get anywhere.
Unfortunately, I’ve discovered it too late. And now, my newsletter is bigger than my social media followers, so it’s harder to grow.
But if you focus on it from the beginning, you can grow your social media presence and side hustle together.
The Challenge of The Week
Think about your best hobby – have you ever tried to build a side hustle out of it?
How would that look?
What would be your content?
And how would you differentiate from competitors?
Answer these questions to change your mindset and get from a hobby to a side hustle. But remember – if you don’t try, you will never succeed.
Before You Go
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Stay consistent and stay strong.
Cosmin.