HobbyPreneur | making money making yourself happy

As I mentioned before, Tim Ferriss’ book inspired me to pull my thoughts together around hobbypreneurs after I became one myself. I didn’t just want to let go of all of the projects I was working on after I took a corporate gig. And while Tim’s idea of streamlining yourself out of a corporation might be attractive to many readers, I personally like showing up for work — I get a lot of energy from that environment.

From his own experience, Tim suggests that a really efficient entrepreneur can operate a profitable business in about four hours a week. In most cases, that requires taking an existing business and pruning down to the most important activities. For startups, this philosophy involves letting go of preconceived notions about more hours = more money. Tim emphasizes making smart investments of time and resources instead of merely slogging away with brute force.

Therefore, I looked at ways to trim the hedges on my side projects. Certainly, my paid freelance writing is still a “job” instead of a “hobby,” but I still had to get more efficient in that part of my life. The biggest area of opportunities came from my skunk-works projects, like standalone websites and side blogs.

My biggest takeaway from Tim’s book was to evaluate the ROI for each of the projects I’m involved in. Under my definition of being a hobbypreneur, something’s got to be a lot of fun for me to spend time on it if it’s not earning me as much money as my job or my paid writing projects. I let go of a lot of domains for projects I wanted to start, but hadn’t found the time for. Like sloughing off dead skin, the projects that meant the most to me came bubbling up to the surface.

I must admit that I tried using one of the virtual assistance agencies Tim listed, and didn’t have much success. The folks at the overseas agency were very helpful and exceedingly polite. However, when I tried to have them confirm appointments and make research calls for me, the folks on the other end of the line found them difficult to understand. (One vendor called me up right after a confirmation call and asked me if I was playing a prank on them.) Still, should I ever get back to the point where I need lots of help making calls, I won’t hesitate to use a domestic VA service.

Echoing the earlier work on Thomas Leonard, Farriss emphasizes eliminating the routines and tasks that don’t immediately get you closer to your goal. In my case, I’m not trying to pare my work life down to a total of four hours per week so I can go on travel adventures like Tim. Instead, I’m trying to balance a job I love with a personal life and with the projects that can earn me significant amounts of income from just a small investment each week.