Businesses born out of hobbies are quite common and some of the most successful. I think that part of the reason they succeed is that they are often born out of passion. I mean, our hobbies are stuff that we are very passionate about. The very things that we do excellently even though we don’t get paid for doing them. That becomes a major part of why businesses born out of hobbies succeed, the passion is evident. For many people, the transition from the hobby just being a hobby into becoming a business is gradual.

It sometimes takes a friend or close family member or co-worker taking interest in the outputs you produce out of this hobby and them making an offer to buy. Then before you know it, they have a friend who loved what you did and they then refer them to you and it expands until you have that light bulb moment that this could actually turn into a business or a ‘side hustle’.

However, there are several hurdles that many entrepreneurs who turned hobbies into business actually face. They are in this manner:

1. Too passionate about the product

Well, before you close this page. Yes! Being too passionate about the product or the hobby can be a problem. Hobby entrepreneurs, if we may call them,  can become too passionate about their hobbies and products that they are not willing to modify their offering to fit the market. What many entrepreneurs realize after turning their hobbies into a business is that they have to change some things about their offering in order to make it more appealing and sell-able to the market. In business, the markets dictate the direction you take.

The passion that one has can lead them to be rebel and not make the necessary modifications demanded by the market, and although there was growth potential, they go back to just having a hobby or not maximizing their market share.

2. The lack of business acumen.

This is quite common for hobby entrepreneurs. I was watching Dragons’ Den the other day, And this other company was presenting for funding about a product that was birthed out of a hobby. They did not get the funding, and as soon as they were denied funding, I concluded that it was because they lacked good business understanding and presentation skills. When the owners were reflecting, they confirmed my observation as they iterated that they think they were denied funding because of their lack of business acumen. This is true for many, after all, all they know is how to do this or that; not how to run a business. A solution to this could be to partner up with someone who is clued up on business.

3. Resistant to growth and change

This is quite an interesting one. Although the entrepreneur does want to scale up and make more profits, they become resistant to growth and change. This is because as the business grows, they will begin to lose control of some if not most processes of the business. Soon they are now stuck in the technicalities of running the business instead of doing what they love, this frightens many of these entrepreneurs. How do you overcome this? You could also partner with someone else so they become invested in the technicalities of running the business while you continue doing what you love and do best.

There are vast challenges that hobby entrepreneurs face, but the above are the most common. Should you be able to get through them, surely you can survive the others.