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Ask HN: What hobbies can easily be turned into one person business?

by gdfgjhs on 4/29/22, 3:30 PM with 5 comments

I am interested in so many things that I can never dedicate enough time to just one hobby to get really good at it. Only solution I see is that if I dedicate my free time to just one hobby for next few years until I turn it into business. Then I can quit my job and work on other hobbies while earning money from my business.

I don't hate jobs, programming is my hobby too, but I hate deadlines and meetings that I cannot decline.

So I am thinking of turning one of following casual hobbies into serious hobby.

1. Writing fiction

2. Blogging outdoors lifestyle

3. Photography - outdoors, underwater focused

4. Making and remixing music

5. Building webapps - too similar to work but highest likelihood of success

6. ???

What do you think?

  • by codingdave on 4/29/22, 5:00 PM

    The problem comes when you dedicate yourself to just one of those, and discover that you have enough talent to enjoy it but not enough to live off of it. You then would have spent a significant amount of time to learn that your chosen path won't work.

    I'd recommend doing them all, in small slices, with specific goals to determine if you have the talent to take it farther. Knock hobbies off the list if you don't hit your goals, and whittle it down to the one where you truly have the most talent.

  • by PaulHoule on 4/29/22, 4:02 PM

    My hot take is that underwater photography requires unusual equipment and you'd have less competition than the others. For webapps I'd want to see some clarification: do you want to fly your flag as a mercenary web developer? or do you want to develop web apps that make money for you directly?

    I would also look at teaming up with people.

    In the last year I've gotten interested in art projects such as interactive cards I print, persistence of vision displays, video game characters projected in a mirror, etc.

    I just ran into an old friend who showed me an art exhibit made by about 20 of her friends where you start out in a mad scientists lab (where there are some one-of-a-kind coin op video games) then you go into a "time blender" and get sent out various doors where you might go to a crystal cave, or the bottom of the sea, or a map room where there is a sand table that is scanned by a Kinect that has contour lines projected onto it.

    Then and there I realized I could accomplish a lot more as part of a group than I could myself.

  • by hacknewslogin on 4/29/22, 4:03 PM

    Canning/Fermented foods. I think I read about it in "Fermented Vegetables: Creative Recipes for Fermenting 64 Vegetables & Herbs in Krauts, Kimchis, Brined Pickles, Chutneys, Relishes & Pastes" by Christopher and Kristen Shokey. They mention that their food got so popular amongst their friends that they started selling it at farmer's markets. It took off from there. They started increasing the scale to higher production, but it was hard to find the space to do it. At some point the amount of work required to keep up with the demand became too much for them to handle, and they decided to stop. Great book 10/10 https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3116773919...

  • by paulpauper on 4/29/22, 3:34 PM

    Anything can be turned into a business. Whether it's a profitable one you can make a living off of, is another matter.

    none of those sound that good, imho. too much competition or not profitable. There is a reason why hobbies tend to be hobbies, but work is work.