I started my website as a hobby, based on a passion, a desire to help other people. I worked in a long term career in a field not even close to the topic of my website. I’d like to think that I still see my website as a hobby simply because it is something I love doing. After all, who could love “work” the way I love managing my website?
Hobby: (noun) An activity or interest pursued outside one’s regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure.
Based on this definition, my website is no longer my hobby, no matter how I feel about it, loving it the way I do. My website has become my regular occupation and somewhere along the way over the past decade I moved from hobbyist to business person.
I’ve had to become a business person.
I’ve had to learn about banking procedures and being a credit card merchant. I’ve had to learn to deal with vendors and negotiate billing cycles. I’ve become friends with my banker and learned to fill out financial worksheets daily to hand over to my CPA. I had to forage through the paperwork to sign a lease for my offices.
I’m not always comfortable with this notion of moving from hobby to business.
Posting at Earners Forum seems to underscore the idea that I’m in this for the money. I’m not. But I am. I have to be an earner in order to keep the website going. I do not want to offend the members or staff of my website as the business person, behind the scenes working on revenue opportunities to keep the website available for their needs. But, that is why I do what I do, balancing the management of the community and staff with the requirements of the business. I can’t lose track of either. Both hats are essential.
Yes, I could go back to my life’s career. But I’d rather not. I love what I do today and why I do it. And at the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the year and the end of my life, I’m proud of the work I do and the way I’ve managed to keep my eye on the ultimate mission of my website: helping others.
Its my business.
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 26th, 2007 at 7:20 am and is filed under Case Studies, Monetization, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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bobdebilder Says:
on June 4th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Hi there
I know where you are coming from but haven’t moved the full ‘bangshoot’ down to the business paperside yet (something I do not look forward to :)). I originally started developing my website to learn further web design skills as I needed to change career direction when moving to a new country. The country was not an English first language country, so I chose the internet as my new path as I was unable to establish things from my ‘first life’. Marriage does these things
I started a website in an area which I knew and understood and with very clear ideas of what I wanted to achieve.
Some years later now, the internet is our sole income and we are able to live anywhere as long as there is an internet connection
Through all of it, the original ‘hobby site’ is the integral part of all development as it is the most successful and can often be referred to what can be achieved.
I suppose passion was the key element