HOBBIES AS A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Accelerate your business with these expert tips on "Hobbies as a business opportunity". Analyse and discover this TIP!

The phenomenon of the "big resignation" shows that more and more people are choosing to engage in activities that are attractive to them. These entrepreneurs have managed to turn a hobby into a livelihood. More than 50 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021.

The phenomenon of great divide o big disclaimer was primarily a response to stagnating real wages, but many workers chose to leave as an escape from prolonged professional attrition.

Leaving their jobs allowed them to undertake a vital change that, for many of them, has led them to the path of entrepreneurship:

• More than 5 million new businesses were born last year in the United States.

Circumstances arising from the pandemic have had a catalytic effect in this regard. The confinements gave everyone plenty of time to rediscover their hobbies and explore new interests.

Jesús de las Casas. Madrid

For some, it was an opportunity to develop what the Anglo-Saxons call side hustle:

An additional job outside their main job allows them to supplement their income and is often a more attractive and interesting activity for the professional. Turning a hobby into a livelihood is a dream for most people, but the leap from hobby to business is a real challenge.

As a result, more and more people are trying out the adventure of entrepreneurship through part-time activities, keeping their day jobs until they feel they have the security they need to do the rest.

Technology and digital platforms multiply the possibilities for these projects. This is far from being the case in Spain, where only 5% of the population considers leaving their job before finding another one, according to a survey published by Adecco in February.

Despite this, there are also numerous success stories in the national ecosystem of professionals who made a radical career change in order to become entrepreneurs.

A change for environmental health

While working as a civil engineer in the public administration, Carles Surià had several close experiences that led him to become aware of the real importance of chronic diseases linked to environmental pollution in homes and workplaces.

For this reason, it began to form:

First out of curiosity, on issues such as indoor air toxics, the composition of house dust and electromagnetic radiation, he says.

Although he had already been working on projects related to environmental quality and sustainability for more than 10 years, Surià decided to turn his life around in mid-2017:

• He left his job and founded healthy environment to devote himself to what was already becoming a passion: "the in-depth and detailed analysis of interior spaces".

This initiative helps to address the discomfort of conditions that may be experienced by those most vulnerable to these risks, i.e. problems caused by invisible agents. "There was no prior market research: I wanted to give myself the opportunity to delve into a world in which I was very interested," says Carles Surià. Although this passion has been the "common thread", he acknowledges that "this can generate some counterproductive effects such as the neglect of balance sheets".

Carles Suri à, founder of Hábitat Saludable

Can you make a living doing something you are passionate about?

Angi and Javi were a couple of graphic designers preparing their own wedding. They needed invitations and other items for the event, but couldn't find any that they really liked, so they opted to do it themselves with a very personal touch. His friends liked his designs so much that they decided to share them on the Internet.

The good reception encouraged them to do small jobs in their spare time to earn extra money, but the demand grew so much that they decided to quit their jobs and focus on this project.

And they got it right! That business, which they called MR. Wonderful, has become, years later, a resounding success with an annual turnover of 30 million euros.

Turning a hobby into a profession is a very attractive option, but not all hobbies have the potential to become a viable business. For this reason, it is essential to go through a phase of reflection and testing to understand whether the idea has real potential. Sometimes, passion for a particular activity can lead to a lack of perspective and a gap between the entrepreneur's personal perception and that of the target market.

Even if the project is viable, entrepreneurship involves significant difficulty and sacrifice, along with a high probability of failure. The founder of a company must be prepared to develop a business plan and manage resources, always with the mindset that starting a business is a long-distance race in which there will be many critical moments.

These aspects make it clear that making the leap from "hobby" to business is not a bed of roses, but it does have some notable benefits.

Firstly, having extensive knowledge of the activity to be undertaken is a significant competitive advantage, insofar as the environment and the competition are known in advance. Moreover, taking a project that could be a hobby forward is a dream scenario for the dream of the founder of any "startup (+)

• Pioneers of improvised rap:

Asier Fernández and his friends from La Rioja have loved rap since they were kids. In particular, their attention was drawn to "freestyle", a variant of hip hop culture that challenges participants to improvise rhymes against an opponent on a musical base.

A decade ago, the popularity of this discipline was already growing among the Spanish-speaking community thanks to the competitions organised by Red Bull.

TOGETHER WITH TWO OTHER PARTNERS, THEY CAME UP WITH AN IDEA THAT HAD NOT OCCURRED TO ANYONE ELSE AT THE TIME:

• To turn this activity into a sport by creating a professional circuit and a league.

They presented the idea to the advertising agency where they worked, Publicis, which saw no potential in the project. They went on their own and founded Urban RoostersThis proposal convinced Lanzadera, which "accelerated" the idea and helped them to focus and obtain funding.

The competition they created "Freestyle Master Series is a league in which the best in the country compete against each other in successive rounds.

"We consider what is a mental sport: hThe goal is that the new Eminem doesn't have to go into music, but can make a living from it", says the CEO and co-founder of the startup from Logroño.

With all of its events streamed live online, its most viewed videos on YouTube (+) have more than 20 million views. The success of the formula has allowed the company to expand, launching competitions in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, and even an international league that pits the best on the planet against each other.

• A benchmark for cyclists:

Alejandro Pons and Ismael Labrador met at the end of 2014 at the Demium Startups incubation programme. Passionate about sport and cycling, both knew well how uncomfortable and uncertain it was to buy a bike through second-hand websites and apps, which did not control the condition of the products or manage the payment and shipping operations.

They talked to more than 300 cyclists and saw that it was a widespread problem, so they decided to create a platform to solve it: Tuvalum.

THE VALENCIAN STARTUP IS RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING THE NECESSARY STEPS TO PROVIDE TOTAL SECURITY FOR THE OPERATION:

• Processes collections and payments.
• Collects and sends bicycles door-to-door, checks them to certify their condition.

"The more you know about the dynamics of an activity, the sooner you will be able to detect problems and generate solutions.

But care must be taken: you may think that all customers are like you, and maybe the answer you see fit doesn't add value to them," says co-founder Ismael Labrador.

It stresses the importance of talking to users to understand their concerns and problems to be solved. Tuvalum, which registers 65% of its sales to Spain, is in a very positive moment. It had a turnover of 8 million euros in 2021 and plans to double its turnover this year.

Labrador warns that "hobbies" and business are two very different things and it is important to be clear about the differences. Otherwise, your "hobby" can turn into your biggest nightmare.

• Passion for reforms:

Six years ago, Irene Echeverría was living in Birmingham (UK) and working for the multinational company Aecom. This civil engineer from Navarre started doing small renovations as a "hobby" in her friends' rented flats.

They were, above all, transformations without building work, through changes in decoration. When Brexit exploded, a friend of hers decided to sell the house she had bought, fearing a crash in the real estate sector. Echeverría thought that if he invested some money in improving the decoration, it would sell much better.

"I convinced her to do it and the result was impressive: the sale price exceeded her expectations. That clicked in my head," she recalls. He started sharing the "before and after" photos on Instagram and, seeing that people liked them, he set up Blanco Metro, a content creation business for networks and "home staging" - a strategy for revaluing real estate without building work.

Now, she already has more than 66,000 followers on Instagram and an exclusive agreement with the real estate company DDC. "I know it's a strange hobby but since I was a teenager I've always loved looking at real estate ads, and I was always surprised that houses sold so badly.

This experience, together with my passion for decoration and DIY, has given me an important competitive advantage," says the founder of Blanco Metro.

ADVICE FOR SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO TURN THEIR "HOBBY" INTO A BUSINESS?

Irene Echeverría is clear: "trust your intuition and ignore those who are pessimists with no rational basis but, at the same time, put pride aside to accept criticism that makes sense and focus on your business".

• The art of paper folding

Cristina was a lawyer and her sister Beatriz an architect. However, for years they have both been making paper handicrafts. The story goes back to 2012, when Beatriz discovered origami while searching for new architectural structures. He liked it so much that he started practising it and, as he learned, he saw how he was able to create more and more spectacular figures.

At that time it was a simple hobby, but he opened a blog called Anaquiños de Papel (little pieces of paper in Galician) to share his creations. Little by little, and without looking for it, commissions began to arrive from friends, family and even from individuals and companies, and he began to work for major brands such as Inditex, Cartier and Loewe. In view of this success, Cristina was also encouraged to practice, and the two sisters decided to take a risk and start a business.

"It's one thing to really like doing one thing and another thing to dedicate yourself professionally to making a living out of it. The artisan and professional sides have to be very well coordinated in order to be able to make a real living from your passion," explains Cristina Velasco.

With a particularly intense activity in the networks, the sisters focus on studying, designing and elaborating a multitude of elements with paper, as well as carrying out face-to-face and online origami workshops.

The co-founder of Anaquiños de Papel reveals that it was difficult to survive the first two years, but the business grew. "Our passion for our profession is what has made us never give up," stresses Cristina Velasco. Stresses the importance of making up the numbers: "It is not easy because they reflect reality and it is often hard, but it is better to face it as soon as possible.