Follow the passion or the money?

I agree with this totally. Haha!

Hahaha nice reply

I think you have to be realistic, you have bills to pay, but if you can have your bill payer and your passion on the side building up, then maybe eventually the passion can be the bill payer and then your in a win win situation.

+1

Try creating content for a topic you couldn't care less about... you'll want to shoot yourself.

I made this mistake with one of my niche sites. It got slapped by google and I got to lazy too bring it back up.

Err -- well, you know, there's lots who would pay to watch some of that. Pictures, they want pictures. And videos.

LOL.

Kidding aside - yes, there is some level of logical thinking required to figure out how to monetize a passion or interest for those who want to like their work.

If you don't care if you "have passion" for your work, sufficient income can create incentive to develop a working interest in a profitable niche, too.

It's all opinion, really.

Not necessarily.

More accurately, if you follow your passion the money
may follow.

If I'm passionate about tiddlywinks, it doesn't necessarily
follow that the money will follow if I want to use my skills
to build an information business in that area.

You need to choose a market that meets pragmatic
criteria such as... it's big enough and the people in
it actually spend money regularly on the type of
products or services you want to offer.

If you're passionate about the area that's a bonus.

This is certainly something to watch out for.

Not everyone is suited to pursuing a passion-led business.

That said, why someone would choose to spend their life
building a passion-less doesn't make much sense to me -
but I know that most people do that. Different strokes
for different folks I guess.

What about enjoying the journey along the way by building
a business that gives you passion and freedom?

There are no certainties in life - and any one of us could
get hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow.

I'd prefer to get knocked over doing what I love.

Dedicated to mutual success,

Shaun

The best way is with passion.But there is so many times when it is not possible.

If you choose passion, you need to be sure your passion is also in line with what others will pay you for if you want to make money at it.

Example...In my town a woman wanted to own a restaurant. Passionately.

So she bought a location she thought would be good, had the old building torn down, erected a brand new building on the site that was the exact duplicate of the building she had torn down, but made it three times as big as the old one. Yea, I know what you're thinking, that's the same thought we all had...:rolleyes:

Anyway, her passion was to have this restaurant. To build it, to own it, to be a real restaurateur. But only on her terms.

So as construction was underway she created a website and documented with much pride all the activity and progress that was going on with her new restaurant. Pictures, stories, the whole nine yards.

There was just one problem...

When looking at her website, which was now the public face for her new venture it was obvious something was missing. That missing ingredient, unfortunately, was what was in it for her customers once the place was open for business. It was clear from the outset that her idea of owning a restaurant stopped at the physical building itself.

The website was all about her, her dream, and her building.

So when the time came for her to open up her new restaurant she did what a lot of people who are passionate about their dreams do...she sat back and bathed in the glory of her new building.

She didn't put up a "Grand Opening" sign. She didn't use press releases, or any form of marketing to let folks know she was now open. She must have figured we all watched her build it and knew it was there, so naturally we'd all come in droves.

And that didn't happen.

But here's what did happen...

The few folks that did eventually try her out generally went away with a feeling of disgust. The food was bland but overpriced, the service sucked, and the reputation of her new restaurant instantly tanked.

What went wrong?

Well, in a nutshell, her passion for owning a restaurant did not coincide with what the market's expectaions were.

Her idea of owning a restaurant was wrapped up in the building itself.

Not the customers, not the notion of serving the community, and certainly not in overdelivering on the experience. In short, the customers were just an after thought and apparently were never a focus to start with, just a pain in the ass that had to be dealt with.

So is there a lesson here? Perhaps...

If you truly believe that if you follow your passion then money will also be a natural part of the equation you could be fooling yourself. Dramatically.

The important lesson is to realize that you, your dreams, your aspirations mean nothing to the public at large. They will trade you dollars for things that improve their lives. Period.

Passion has it's place, that's for sure. And if you can align your passions with things that your market is hungry for, and will pay for, and you can deliver those things from a customer centric perspective, meaning your focus is on your customers, you may succeed.

Or you can build a fancy restaurant to satisfy your ego and go broke. Passionately broke.

~Bill

Passion for me. It turns out my passions are in markets where there is money. I agree, if there is no money in the passion, then I probably wouldn't choose it.

I tried niches for the money and simply couldn't get into it. I didn't have the drive to really dig in and learn it deeply. This of course resulted in not very good results.