[HN Gopher] The modern trap of turning hobbies into hustles (2019)
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The modern trap of turning hobbies into hustles (2019)
Author : sdenton4
Score : 229 points
Date : 2021-06-06 16:26 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| jdhn wrote:
| Interesting how she talks about this being a big pressure in
| creative fields. I'm in the UX space, and it seems like people
| always like to talk about their side hustle, or getting a side
| hustle. This is especially true for connections on LinkedIn.
| Meanwhile, I couldn't care less about having a side hustle, and
| don't really want to have one as it seems that the people with
| side hustles are working all the time.
| mihaic wrote:
| I feel that we need to acknowledge that "work" is not something
| we need to aspire towards, but we often need "success" and
| "activity", and just have a hard time separating these concepts.
| All members of our society that need income compete with one
| another with how much work they're willing to put in, and we
| really need to figure out how we can stop competing against one
| another, as we're driving down the value of work.
| shannifin wrote:
| Basically the problem with turning hobbies into hustles is the
| addition of uninteresting (and sometimes frustrating) additional
| work that comes with managing time and caring about customer
| satisfaction. The extra work can take all the fun out of it.
|
| Feeling the need to be constantly "productive" is, I think,
| really a separate issue.
|
| I also differentiate between wanting to do something vs wanting
| to have done something. It's easy to want to have written a
| novel, to have learned to play piano, or to have painted
| something. But if you don't enjoy the _process_ (the actual
| writing, the practicing, etc), then you may just be torturing
| yourself for the sake of self-image. Find something enjoyable in
| the actual process and you won 't need to force yourself so much,
| you'll gravitate toward it naturally for its own sake, and you
| won't feel guilty if you decide to just watch TV or phone scroll
| instead. (Plenty of books and articles out there on forming new
| habits.)
| ublaze wrote:
| This resonates well. I have a hobby software podcast
| (https://softwareatscale.dev/) and the most common question I get
| asked is around how I'm planning to monetize it. I've had
| unsolicited offers from acquaintances to partner up to set up
| merch deals (?) and even NFTs to sell episodes.
| throwaaskjdfh wrote:
| Side-hustles are a thing because people think that if they have
| to hustle for someone, it might as well be themselves.
|
| But why hustle for anyone? We should establish a universal basic
| income for all, and leave hustling to people who are hustlers by
| nature.
| NewEntryHN wrote:
| I agree with the general sentiment, although the author seems to
| miss the point that many people trying to monetize their hobby
| aren't trying to win more money, but simply to replace the time
| working in a pay-the-bill job with time spent working on their
| hobby. There is a catch, which is that monetizing will require
| dealing with business duties, which comes with the risk of
| alienating the hobby. It's not clear how it compares to wasting
| your lifetime on a career you don't really care about.
| vmception wrote:
| > Like many millennials I was encouraged to view any of my
| interests or talents as a possible career.
|
| Fortunately for me, tax deductions are one of my favorite
| interests and talents.
|
| Almost every kind of consumptive spending can be filed as a
| business expense, when every kind of your hobby is also
| rationalized as a potential business.
|
| All the endorphins and dopamine of spending on things I like go
| to me, and none of the money goes to the government!
|
| Eventually you have to shift hobbies or stop deducting if you
| arent making a profit, after like half a decade. Not hard.
| jdhn wrote:
| If you can tell me how to apply this to making beer, I will be
| forever in your debt.
| ghaff wrote:
| See Untappd :-)
| jdhn wrote:
| So basically I write a review, and then tell the IRS that
| I'm a beer journalist, and that in order to do my job I
| need to deduct my beer costs? Brilliant!
| ghaff wrote:
| The big catch is that you basically have to earn money as
| a beer journalist--and, if you're at that level, you can
| probably get a lot of your beer paid for.
| vmception wrote:
| Not so far off, keep searching for actual tax advice
|
| In the mean time, understand that despite the popular
| understanding of taxes, the outcome is that the
| government is seeking to incentivize transactions.
|
| So from their perspective, its not really about revenue
| collection and people pulling a fast one on them. They
| _want you_ to spend in the economy. They want money
| flowing in the economy. The remainder of the hoarded
| money that isn't spent is being subject to tax, so the
| government can figure out how to keep it moving instead.
| Its up to you to find transactions that reduce your tax
| burden, but they don 't care if you choose the right or
| wrong transactions. They've set up a system to have a
| high velocity of funds flowing to all sectors of the
| economy without the state needing to steer it.
|
| Understanding that can help you understand why it isn't
| hard to create these deductions.
|
| People set up a business name and register it in a state
| and create a business bank account partially for separate
| accounting to make it simpler to pass an audit, and
| simpler to make it more convincing that an audit wasn't
| needed to begin with.
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, more, I'm making the possibly unwarranted
| assumption that at least one of the founders, who were
| obviously into craft beer, may have homebrewed as well.
| psychomugs wrote:
| I took advantage of the recent graduation season and hustled some
| photoshoots. It was a good experience where I met a lot of cool
| people and made enough to offset the cost of some new gear, but I
| probably wouldn't do it again unless I wasn't working a full-time
| schedule and could command a (much) higher rate.
|
| I already feel this encroachment in my main hustle; engineering
| is both a career and passion [1], but doing it as a living drains
| the reserves of wanting to do it outside of work.
|
| I recently watched an interview with Sofia Coppola right after
| Lost in Translation came out. She said that she made her living
| from her clothing company so that she could be artistically
| liberal in her filmmaking [2]. There's something about the truest
| "artist" being the one who can escape having to call themselves
| an "Artist."
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai [2]
| https://youtu.be/nsf7cMjPa2I?t=475
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| A common theme of the most successful people that come through a
| mentoring group that I'm part of is that they don't have side
| projects or side hustles. They focus their time and energy on
| doing one thing very well, whether it's education, their
| internship, or their job.
|
| Somewhere along the line, tech students got the idea that the key
| to success is to have many side projects and side hustles going
| at once. While it is true that in very narrow, specific cases
| something like a GitHub project could fill in gaps in a resume,
| it's rare that companies even look at GitHub work as the deciding
| factor in a hiring decision. It's too easy to let your energy,
| attention, and motivation get diluted across too many side
| projects. The problem is amplified when people start entering
| relationships and eventually having kids, further diluting their
| limited time and energy.
|
| Some of the worst offenders are things that don't necessarily
| feel like a side hustle but nevertheless drain inordinate amounts
| of time. Daytrading stocks and cryptocurrencies commonly traps
| people into constantly checking their phone, Twitter, and
| portfolio to avoid losing money or missing out on breaking news.
| The pocket change most people make (or lose) on day trading is
| lost in the noise relative to a successful tech career.
|
| The best advice I have for career success is to pick one thing at
| a time and focus intently on it. Use your off time to do anything
| else: Social activities, physical activities, or even simply
| relax and recharge for the next day.
|
| It's better to do one thing well (usually your job) rather
| accumulate a lot of half-finished side projects or side hustles
| that are constantly stealing attention.
| CosmicShadow wrote:
| To follow this advice, you have to: A) Be the type of person
| who can focus on only one thing B) Love not learning or doing
| other fun things because a career trumps all things in life C)
| Like putting all your eggs in one basket and hoping your career
| or skill is always relevant D) Love being the best you can be
| for the benefit of your boss E) Want to work in a career for
| the rest of your life
|
| Of course the most successful people you mentor are the ones
| who are only doing what you are guiding them to do and aren't
| distracted by life, it doesn't mean they are better.
|
| This sounds like propaganda given by the CEO to have more
| effective employees. There is no doubt that focus can help you
| improve and get there faster, but at what cost and with what
| life goals?
|
| Side hustles can be fun, profitable and life changing. We've
| got at least 3 that has allowed my partner to reduce her work
| hours to 4 days a week and generates half of her salary. We can
| buy fun stuff and business expense it and if we continue to
| improve we can gain more control and freedom.
|
| Original post was about having hobbies and not feeling guilty
| about not turning them into side businesses. It would be better
| if our culture was set as a default to say "that's awesome,
| it's so good you could sell it if you were so inclined, but
| feel no pressure to do so, I just want you to know it's that
| good", instead of saying "you should make a store/service to
| sell your hobby" and make people feel bad, even though it's
| just a compliment.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > To follow this advice, you have to: A) Be the type of
| person who can focus on only one thing B) Love not learning
| or doing other fun things because a career trumps all things
| in life C) Like putting all your eggs in one basket and
| hoping your career or skill is always relevant D) Love being
| the best you can be for the benefit of your boss E) Want to
| work in a career for the rest of your life
|
| Or, work toward finding a job and career that you enjoy.
|
| Doing occasional side projects for fun is fine. Doing side
| coding projects as a form of escapism because your job isn't
| aligned with what you actually want to be doing all day is a
| fool's errand. The time is better spent searching for a job
| that comes closer to what you want to do.
|
| > Side hustles can be fun, profitable and life changing.
| We've got at least 3 that has allowed my partner to reduce
| her work hours to 4 days a week and generates half of her
| salary. We can buy fun stuff and business expense it and if
| we continue to improve we can gain more control and freedom.
|
| Of course - If you're starting a small business then that's
| something else entirely.
|
| The vast majority of side projects that I see aren't
| profitable small businesses, though.
| allenu wrote:
| I think it really depends on how idealistic you are. I
| don't think I'll ever find a job that satisfies me
| completely. I just have too many creative ideas that don't
| fit neatly into a regular dev job. I've also found that
| "devoting" myself to my job itself can lead to burn out.
| There's only so much you can control within a job. Even
| trying to find a better job takes work and does not
| guarantee you'll be happier in the new role. There's always
| something that you won't like in it.
|
| In my opinion, it's better for your mental health to treat
| your job as a job and get as much as you can out of it in
| terms of money and improving your skills. I think with
| enough time in the industry, you eventually figure this
| out.
|
| There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing side projects
| as a form as escapism if your job isn't aligned to what you
| want to do. Life is what you make it. There's no "correct"
| way to live.
| void_mint wrote:
| Unrelated: How does one find a mentor/mentoring group? I've
| been thinking about it a lot lately, how for the first time in
| my career I'm without someone I would call a "mentor" and how
| that's probably not great for personal growth. It seems
| artificial to look for someone to call a mentor, as opposed to
| happening upon a person that you look up to and makes you feel
| inspired to grow. Can you shed some info on how a mentoring
| group works?
| bobcostas55 wrote:
| In other words, lobotomize yourself for work.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| When I'm interviewing, I love to hear about someone's
| homebrewing or swing dancing, or bread baking, or homeassistant
| setup, or whatever. Not because it's a "hustle" but just
| because it's a sign that they a) are an interesting person who
| gets into interesting stuff, and b) are someone capable of
| following through. Putting this stuff on your CV invites that
| conversation in the interview.
| jyriand wrote:
| Just a quote I like from Great at Work: "Do less, then obsess"
| atoav wrote:
| I am the polar opposite of this and I am going rather well with
| it. Which means: I am happy with what I am doing, I am happy
| with the money it produces, I am happy with the way customers
| interact with me.
|
| And quite frankly it would very likely bore me to focus one one
| thing only. I am not on this planet to get bored with my life
| or hunt for some mythical sunlit uplands by betting all my time
| and energy onto one thing, unable to keep a healthy distance
| riding it into a ditch because I want it to suceed too much. I
| want the things I create to be objectively good. For this I
| have to be able to keep a distance to them. Making them the
| sole center of my life would prevent me from that.
|
| Apart from that I am easily the most productive person in my
| social environment, parts of which are of the "only focusing on
| one thing"-crowd. However I don't think my approach works for
| everyone. There are types who _need_ these context switches and
| there are types who need that focus.
| zx2391 wrote:
| My personality seem not to allow me to just do one thing. Even
| today, I have a couple of jobs and I enjoy the variety of
| challenges. It's also risk management - basically any of my
| jobs could fail and it would not really affect me, which allows
| me to have a certain distance to each of the activities as
| well.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > It's also risk management - basically any of my jobs could
| fail and it would not really affect me, which allows me to
| have a certain distance to each of the activities as well.
|
| Yep, this is huge for me.
|
| My "real job" is as a software developer, like most of us
| here. My side hustles are many and varied: portrait
| photography, vinyl decals, custom garments, metalworking,
| leather working, drone stuff (photography, photogrammetry,
| volumetric, even FPV and racing), etc.
|
| I've had a few instances where I've found myself suddenly
| without employment for one reason or another. It's stressful,
| but it's not the emergency that it would be if not for all of
| my hobbies/hustles. I can spend a couple of days refreshing
| contacts and easily expect to be making enough money doing
| drone stuff alone to pay my bills and put food on my family's
| table.
| fastasucan wrote:
| This is Key, coming from someone who is guilty from this
| myself, but also are in a relationship with someone who us
| completely opposite and has a 100% focus on their work and
| academic field. For most of us, being really good at a job
| simply requires 100% focus. If that is your aim, then make sure
| the other things you do in life help you relativt and be ready
| for a new day.
|
| For me, I've realized that I dont have it in me to be 100%
| focused on one thing, which is great - then I can manage my
| expectations and goal, however I still try to be mindfull and
| not try to do to much.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| You are facing the right direction, but went off onto the wrong
| track with the day-trading stuff. The first part of your
| argument can be a _true_ distraction, as it is _avoidance_.
| It's the same as spending hours making a checklist of tasks,
| instead of doing the actual tasks.
|
| The second part of your argument is not the same. Trading
| stocks has nothing to do with programming, so much so that you
| can't even use it to lie to yourself that 'yes indeed, today I
| have chipped away at being a better programmer by trading these
| stocks'. It certainly can steal your attention, but it can
| never ever be used as a form of self manipulation (therefore,
| not a problem if you do it in moderation, like everything else
| in life).
|
| It's the first type of distraction that can destroy your soul
| if you indulge in it.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Just short all the btc pops. If above 36000 go short. There,
| I just gave away the winning strategy. All it does is fall
| evo wrote:
| I think there's always inherent tradeoffs to specialization vs.
| generalization, and side projects/side hustles are more of a
| generalization technique. It feels rather akin to the
| "exploration vs exploitation" tradeoff in AI; do you search the
| space for better opportunities, or maximally refine the
| opportunity you have?
|
| Specialization is great, if the specialty you choose ends up
| being important or highly in-demand. For example, everyone
| wants to be the Geoffrey Hinton of the 21st century, a luminary
| in deep learning. Not too many people want to be the Geoffrey
| Hinton of 1986, publishing back-propagation into an AI winter
| and subsequent decades-long disinterest. It's hard to know
| which one you'll be (or in the above, both!)
|
| Side projects and hustles allow you to broaden your toolbox and
| see potentially interesting crossovers. "It's like [X] for
| [Y]!" is a cliche startup pitch at this point, but it's true
| that a lot of cool ideas arise from applying principles of one
| field in a widely disparate area.
|
| I don't think that it's particularly wrong to choose one route
| or the other--I admire the specialists I know, even as I know
| that's not something I can replicate. I'm too enamored of the
| possibilities, and cognizant of the brevity of my lifespan, to
| be able to commit like that.
| machinehum wrote:
| Yup +1, I agree with you and the OP. If you work for a huge
| company your skill set may be extremely narrow. Buy having
| lots of side project will at the very least give you a
| talking point if you want to change to another company that
| might not have the exact position you were working at your
| current company
| xyzelement wrote:
| >> If you work for a huge company your skill set may be
| extremely narrow.
|
| In my experience working for a huge company makes it very
| easy to broaden your skills. You can change teams, take on
| mentorship and recruiting, lead teams, lead initiatives,
| switch from front- to backend at different times, and learn
| from a large number of people - all from the "comfort" of
| the company you are already in.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I think there's always inherent tradeoffs to specialization
| vs. generalization, and side projects/side hustles are more
| of a generalization technique.
|
| That's the theory behind side projects, but it's a false
| dichotomy.
|
| Side projects are, by definition, something you do on the
| side. Your primary day job requires attention whether or not
| you do any side projects. Side projects are additive on top
| of the work of your day job, but subtractive out of your pool
| of free time and energy.
|
| Side projects always start with good intentions of broadening
| horizons, but people generally realize that they only have so
| many intensely productive hours in a day. Do you allocate
| your most productive hours to your job? Or to a side project?
| It's tempting to say "both" but in practice that will spread
| someone's finite energy too thin across both domains.
|
| Students tend to go wrong when they think that side projects
| are the key to unlocking their next big job opportunity. When
| they start to burn out in their dayjob, they think they're
| just a couple of side projects away from qualifying for an
| opportunity that will make them happy. The trap is that being
| burned out at a dayjob and adding the additional work of side
| projects only worsens the burnout. They get stuck thinking
| they need to finish the side projects before they change
| jobs, but they can't complete the side projects because
| they're too burned out from jobs and a side project. In these
| cases, I encourage people to drop the side projects and just
| apply to jobs. It works better than most people expect.
| evo wrote:
| I agree with you 100% that "side projects as an antidote
| for burning out on your primary job" is a dangerous place
| to be, and I've been there several times in my career with
| deleterious effects. I agree with your recommendation to
| take that as a warning flag and instead change your job,
| that is the right call in that situation.
|
| On the other hand, I do find a lot of enjoyment in fields
| that, today, are dominated by "winner takes all" dynamics
| and extremely low probabilities of (financial) success
| (e.g. most creative fields). I don't mind diversifying my
| time between a primary job that, while not burnout-land, is
| also a bit boring and reliable, and a secondary that, while
| incredibly unlikely to "strike gold", is rejuvenating of my
| creative energies. I do have to be careful that it does not
| drift into the maladaption that you note though.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| And sometimes you want to actually write code every once in
| a while instead of scribing another three-hour quarterly
| planning meeting during mandatory training week. Being able
| to work on your own projects at your own pace and make
| something out of it is incredibly enjoyable, even if it
| takes some of your productive hours away from work.
|
| I guess what I'm saying is: hobbies are good, too.
| ghaff wrote:
| It depends on the nature of the side project (vs. side
| hustle), its relationship to your day job, and your
| employer's rules (and attitude). In my case I've done a
| number of tech-related books. My employer knew about (and
| encouraged) them. And we've had a tacit understanding
| that I wouldn't be doing these purely on my own time and
| I'd continue to work on my "day job." It was never a
| problem and worked out for both of us.
|
| I certainly know people who do similar things around open
| source projects.
| nostrademons wrote:
| "Your primary day job requires attention whether or not you
| do any side projects. Side projects are additive on top of
| the work of your day job, but subtractive out of your pool
| of free time and energy."
|
| For most people doing the side-hustle thing (and basically
| all of them doing it successfully), the calculus is "Put in
| the minimum amount of effort in my day job, get my R&R in
| the remaining time at work, and spend my
| mornings/nights/weekends working on the side hustle" vs.
| "Remain fully engaged mentally for the 8 hours I'm at work,
| relax when I come home, don't do the side hustle." That's
| why many employers hate side hustles.
|
| I can't say which one is a better strategy, because it
| depends on the circumstances. Certainly the bulk of _my_
| lifetime income & assets comes from giving my all to my
| projects at Google, delivering successfully on them, and
| getting promoted a couple times. But before then I worked
| at a couple of startups and there was basically zero
| opportunity for a raise or promotion, because the company
| wasn't growing and there was no money to be had. And I got
| the Google job in part because of side projects (non-
| monetizable, but they showed I knew my CS and could work
| with a modern tech stack) done after work.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > For most people doing the side-hustle thing (and
| basically all of them doing it successfully), the
| calculus is "Put in the minimum amount of effort in my
| day job, get my R&R in the remaining time at work, and
| spend my mornings/nights/weekends working on the side
| hustle"
|
| Yes, this is the real problem.
|
| Side projects for fun and learning is fine. Nothing wrong
| with exploring new ideas as long as you're having fun.
|
| But somehow side projects have become synonymous with
| compensating for misaligned careers. I see too many
| people working all day (or avoiding work all day) then
| coming home to work all evening and weekend. Then they
| wonder why they're burned out and not getting promotions
| at work.
|
| Side projects _can_ be a springboard to career
| advancement if executed carefully, but for every 1 side
| project success story I probably see 10 other people with
| side projects that never do anything other than drain
| their free time and add more mental work to their TODO
| list every day.
| rgbrgb wrote:
| I know it's all hypothetical, but do you think the
| startups would have grown if you had focused solely on
| growing them rather than the side projects? I know that
| the median case has bigcorp earnings outpacing startups
| but in my startup experience (main source of my assets)
| the early engineers who were super plugged in made an
| outsized impact on our outcomes that turned into a good
| financial outcome for them.
|
| Maybe the principle is different though (not startup can
| bigco)... I did a bunch of side projects in school and at
| bigco before concentrating focus, so in a way we both
| went broad then had success going deep.
|
| Just thinking out loud, I think we agree.
| nostrademons wrote:
| > do you think the startups would have grown if you had
| focused solely on growing them rather than the side
| projects?
|
| Nope. I actually developed two products for the second of
| the startups, which was the time period I was working on
| the side projects. The CEO (my boss) and I are still on
| good terms, and he knew about the side projects while I
| was working on them.
|
| Startups usually fail because nobody wants what they're
| building, i.e. the startup should never have been founded
| in the first place. Certainly this was the case for this
| one: we were doing a platform for hedge fund algorithmic
| trading, but hedge funds are usually very resistant to
| running their code on someone else's platform, both
| because of lock-in/competitive reasons and because their
| code & algorithms are their crown jewels and they're very
| sensitive about running that on other people's
| infrastructure.
| geodel wrote:
| It seems mixing cause and effects in many cases. It could also
| be that most successful people focus on only one thing because
| they are successful they can just afford to do only thing and
| reap exponential rewards. For people like me in mediocre career
| / jobs in mature industries, doing best at job just means
| writing even more half-assed CRUD micro services.
|
| The best possible thing that could happen by totally dedicated
| to job would at best be one more promotion to keep working on
| same mediocre stuff or manage a team doing that for few
| thousand dollars more. And it is not even blaming management as
| there are only limited opportunities in saturated industry and
| far more folks are chasing them.
|
| Even those half finished projects have given me more knowledge
| and experience than mind numbing "next generation technology"
| training that corporate got a great deal on by some discount
| instructors.
|
| Now it could all have been different if I joined a hyper-growth
| industry at right time. I might have gone far by just knowing
| one thing. At that point I could be proselytizing younger
| people that "you've got to focus on just one thing and you will
| make it big"
|
| I saw exact example of this by listening to a SVP in my office
| who apparently rose through ranks by "sheer hard work, grit and
| focus". However to me it was pretty clear he joined company
| just at the time when industry as a whole about to enter
| massive growth. Of course he isn't gonna say how stars were
| aligned and he just got massively lucky. It is for others to
| see what it really was.
| whall6 wrote:
| So essentially... work hard play hard?
| akudha wrote:
| I did my job very well for more than a handful of companies -
| all was great until it came to promotions and pay raises. It is
| possible that I suck at negotiating, but there is only so much
| of those that companies can/will give.
|
| I don't know if side hustles are the answer, but I know from
| experience however hard you work, there is a limit to awards at
| your job. Plus, employers do not care about their employees in
| general. Anyone who believes they care is just delusional.
|
| Focusing on one thing is good, the trick is picking the right
| thing to focus on.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| You're last sentence is totally accurate, but I think there's a
| balance with diversification and focus.
|
| Failure is likely, success can be huge, that means my emphasis
| is on learning and have as many at bats as possible. How I
| imagine the best strategy is:
|
| Try a lot of things learning as much as you can > prune what
| isn't working and focus on what is (more and more of your fixed
| pie of time dedicated to the best opportunity) > continue until
| you pass your goal of success > then diversify again to
| maintain that level of success
|
| You don't focus on something too much until it's proven itself,
| otherwise you're far more likely to waste too much time on
| failures. Once you "really have something validated" (this is
| its own conversation), then you focus more and more on it
| driving it to its potential.
|
| Diversification finds the potential winners and learns the
| fastest, focus makes that winner reach its potential.
| overgard wrote:
| Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) has this concept of a talent
| stack. The idea is you want to develop talents that are
| synergystic. So for example, web development might be one
| talent, which can get you in the door. But if you add database
| development, backend technologies, etc., now you can be a full
| stack developer. But if you go further afield and start
| developing public speaking skills, or people skills, now you're
| moving into a lot more possibilities. Point being, if all you
| did was focus on being really good at web development you
| plateau at "valuable employee". So I would say that developing
| talents outside of your core competencies is absolutely
| critical.
|
| I would say intense focus on one thing reaches a point of
| diminishing returns. The key is to recognize when you have
| mostly tapped that vein and develop something else. That
| doesn't have to be a github project, often you want something
| far afield, especially to avoid burnout. it can be speaking
| classes, or improv classes, or even fitness, or electronics, or
| whatever, anything that helps your stack.
| porlune wrote:
| I'd like if you expanded on how you found your mentoring group,
| thank you in advance!
| shoto_io wrote:
| I am not sure many people don't want to focus. Some of us
| simply can't because they need to feed their families. Thus,
| the question for me at least, is not if I want to focus, but
| when. When can my side hustle generate enough income so that I
| can stop having a day job? The other option is to get external
| funding, which has its own set of problems.
|
| By the way, many businesses have been built like that. Take
| Nike, for example. Phil Knight, the founder, worked as an
| accountant during the day for many years while building his
| shoe empire.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I always understood the side project thing as a way to develop
| skills that you don't develop at work. I'm never really going
| to improve writing simple python stuffor crud. I have no reason
| to get better once I'm at the point completing my job
| satisfactorily or even have opportunities to get out of my
| comfort zone as far as programing goes. I have no way of
| knowing what I don't know.
|
| When I was working on side stuff all the time, I was getting
| better rapidly, finding new ideas, solving problems in better
| ways and just always out of my comfort zone. I stopped because
| I did get burned out a bit. The focus was never resume filler
| though.
| [deleted]
| Benjammer wrote:
| I tend to think this is only true for activities where the
| enjoyment/experiential part of the activity is separated from the
| "meta business game" of the activity to a large enough degree.
| While this may be true for a lot of hobbies, I don't think it's
| always the case. If you love to play a sport, the meta game of
| being a pro athlete is very close to the part that a player
| loves, which is playing the actual sport. The sport itself is the
| main focus, everything else like coaching and contracts is window
| dressing compared to actual playing skills. If you love to cook
| elaborate dishes for your family from various world cuisines, you
| should probably consider the meta game before you try to become a
| chef or open your own diner or restaurant. Do you like thinking
| about ingredient prices versus dish prices? Marginal efficiency
| of how a dish is cooked and constructed? Seating layouts and
| service rotations? How to design, implement, maintain, and update
| a profitable menu, etc.
|
| If all you have is passion, and you're not able or willing to
| closely examine the step-by-step process for how your passion
| translates to cash, and how that cash makes its way to your bank
| account, then of course you won't enjoy a hobby as a career or
| business venture. You need to actually enjoy the business aspects
| directly if you want to be happy with a hobby-turned-career.
| gumby wrote:
| > those with passion careers can have just as much career
| anxiety...
|
| I think people have forgotten that the origin of the word
| "passion" is "suffering"
| riazrizvi wrote:
| As developers, the trap is that we overemphasize how much any
| real business depends on the creative/product stuff. So we
| daydream about CEO roles where we can design a business where the
| creative product builders have their 'rightful' place at the top
| of the pyramid. When the reality is that every business basically
| shakes down to the same functions, and that founding your own
| tech business ultimately results in a rebalancing of your role,
| where you end up doing mostly mid-management in sales, finance,
| operations, tech, design, etc leaving you almost no time for the
| creative stuff you spent your life becoming great at.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Hustle: INFORMAL/NORTH AMERICAN a fraud or swindle. "the hustles
| being used to avoid the draft"
|
| 'obtain by forceful action or persuasion'. "the brothers headed
| to New York to try and hustle a record deal"
|
| Why is the word hustle suddenly used all the time to describe
| work? I blame Gary Vaynerchuk, the born wealthy marketing hustler
| who was a big influence back in the days when 'social media' was
| cute and new. It just sounds shady and seedy to me, and not
| something I'd want anywhere near any of my interests or hobbies
| csa wrote:
| > I blame Gary Vaynerchuk, the born wealthy marketing hustler
|
| I'm not one to defend GV, but I don't think I would call being
| born in Soviet Belarus in 1975 and coming to the US in 1978 at
| the age of 3 as being "born wealthy".
|
| Maybe their family had some connections. Maybe his family
| turned those connections into a healthy (upper?) middle class
| life ($3m of sales at a discount liquor store in NJ is not
| "wealthy").
|
| Anyway, regardless of how one views GV, seeing what his family
| did and what he did ($3m to $60m annual sales in 5 years) is
| impressive.
|
| Let's give credit where credit is due.
| olivermarks wrote:
| I think Vaynerchuk is a pretty obnoxious, fake kind of person
| and his business does not have a healthy reputation amongst
| those who worked there.
| paulpauper wrote:
| I get used car salesman vibe from him, and him inheriting a
| wine business gave him a more solid footing starting out than
| most. He made a lot of $ from vc too. Does not take a genius
| to sink a couple k into Facebook and Uber and get rich. I
| would have too if the opptunity presented itself to me.
| graton wrote:
| There are 16 different definitions of hustle listed at:
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hustle
|
| You only listed one definition.
| olivermarks wrote:
| I listed the first two that came up in a brief search.
|
| 'The Hustler' is a good example of people making a buck out
| of their hobby https://youtu.be/bpc3TKhS6MU
| vmception wrote:
| You used an antiquated nearly obsolete definition. The
| current - also informal - use is derived from the fraud one
| but only in the clever nature involved, and isnt about
| fraud. Its closer to the sports meaning of perseverance.
| [deleted]
| WalterBright wrote:
| I have a bit of a different view. I enjoy it when other people
| use the programs I create, I enjoy it even more when they make
| money using them.
|
| Writing a program just for personal seems like just work. Those
| programs tend to be shoddy and barely function.
|
| I enjoyed a lot that Boeing made money off of the 757. I enjoy
| watching them fly, it's my favorite airplane to fly on. The
| newspaper once ran a photo of one being cut up for scrap, and it
| was like someone was cutting me up for scrap.
|
| I hate it when my employer would cancel a project I was working
| on, I didn't work on it just for the paycheck. When I work for
| myself, nobody cancels my project but me.
| papito wrote:
| It's very hard to be an effective hustler. It takes a very
| special mindset.
|
| Just finished Billion Dollar Loser about WeWork, and one extreme
| hustler that stuck in my head was Masayoshi Son (Masa).
|
| Have you ever seen any of his "300-year horizon vision" slides?
| They are _horrible_ : https://www.businessinsider.com/13-slides-
| softbanks-vision-f...
|
| If anyone else popped these slides out, they would be asked to go
| back to elementary school, while any designers in the room would
| pour acid in their eyes to unsee those.
|
| What I am saying is, some people are not particularly brilliant
| (and IMO, Masa is not), and even the analysts at SoftBank saw the
| WeWork pyramid con from 100 miles out. Masa is a special kind of
| nuts, however, deciding to come up with one implementable idea
| every day, when he was at UC Berkley. He is a breed of hustler
| with a nuclear motor up his butt that never stops running,
| throwing shit at the wall until something sticks.
|
| But again, very few people have the perseverance and the energy,
| so know yourself.
| darod wrote:
| The trap is the "business." If I love an activity and I love
| performing JUST that activity, as long as that's all I'm doing
| I'm happy. A business involves so much more -> financials,
| marketing, sales, employees, taxes, competition, strategy, etc.
| etc. etc. All these activities taking you farther and farther
| away from the hobby that you loved.
| crackinmalackin wrote:
| The tech industry is brutal in this regard. If programming and
| working on side projects isn't your main hobby, then you are
| falling behind in some regard. Everyone wants freedom to create
| things their own way, while making bank in the process
| stakkur wrote:
| It's surprising to me how often I read articles giving life
| advice (or admonitions) that are written by people who live
| inside the warm, shiny, not-very-representative bubble of
| California. I play a game with myself whenever I read articles
| like this, trying to guess if the story (a) Relies mainly on
| California anecdotes or (b)is written by someone living in
| California.
| nlh wrote:
| I hear (read) what you're saying, but I don't understand the
| relevance. What does the author's location have to do with the
| point she's making?
| stakkur wrote:
| What does the interface have to do with how the user sees the
| application?
| fab1an wrote:
| The key risk when turning hobbies into a business is that the
| core focus area of the hobbyist's expertise will likely have to
| shift dramatically, and it's often that shift that may cause a
| loss in enjoyment and fulfillment.
|
| A hobbyists can focus on extremely uneconomical aspects of a
| thing, precisely because they don't need to think economically
| about it - a business person doing so will likely fail at both
| their business, and tragically, their hobby...
|
| For anyone interested in a deeper exploration of this theme, I
| will shamelessly plug my podcast on deep, obsessive hobbies,
| "When The Work is Done": https://www.whentheworkisdone.com/
|
| Only managed to put up one episode yet (an interview with a very
| successful neuroscientists who spends almost all his spare time
| tailoring...), but am hoping to have many more episodes in the
| works soon.
| zaken wrote:
| Looks really cool! I'm listening to the neuroscience tailor one
| now. I've been itching for the past couple of years now (ever
| since having a kid) to dive back into some old hobbies that I
| haven't been able to make time for. Things like this are really
| inspiring. Looking forward to more episodes!
| edgarvaldes wrote:
| Nice idea for a podcast, will check it out.
| insickness wrote:
| I make electronic music. Last year I invested in learning
| promotion. I spent about $1500 and now I have about a thousand
| followers on Spotify. Every time I release a song, I get a couple
| hundred listens. I don't do it for the money. The return on a it
| is a meager. My 'day job' makes me pretty good money.
|
| But it got me thinking: what does it mean to me to have
| listeners? It's great when people 'like' my music, but in a lot
| of ways, it's just numbers on a screen. What difference would it
| make if I had 10,000 or 100,000 listeners instead of 1000? Maybe
| it would be cool if I were in a store and hear a song of mine
| playing on the radio or watching a movie and it was playing as a
| sound track. The validation I've felt from similar successes is
| great but it is fleeting. Ultimately, the most joy I get out of
| it is being able to sit down and create music that I myself enjoy
| and respect.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| I think part of it is being part of a community. You know there
| are people out there who are like you. In the sense that they
| like your music, and this connects everyone into some sort of
| asynchronous musical happening. You communicate something to
| them with your music (and lyrics).
| mjr00 wrote:
| I'm in the same boat, making electronic music as a hobby. I
| don't think there's anything wrong with wanting fans of your
| music, even if you have a day job and have no desire to make it
| a career. As fun as the creative process is, if you're making
| (good) music there will probably be things about it that you
| don't enjoy, whether that's sound design, tweaking effects
| chains to get something to sound right, banging your head
| trying to figure out why your track doesn't sound like your
| reference, mixing, mastering, etc. If you're putting in that
| effort, it _is_ nice to see some validation, even if it 's just
| in the form of "likes."
|
| Promotion is a different story, though... I don't think it
| makes sense to throw real money (aka more than like $20 on
| Submithub/Labelradar, which I consider more paid feedback than
| promotion) for a release unless you're planning to get an
| actual return on investment there. At which point it crosses
| the line into "hustle," for me.
| rgbrgb wrote:
| would love to check out your music and hear more of this story.
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| What about creating music so that the people who enjoy it will
| enjoy it? I don't create music but I appreciate the bands and
| songwriters that make the stuff I really like. That's not about
| self-validation for you, the author, that's about making
| someone else's life a little better.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Maybe when people start remixing your tracks. When your
| creative work spawns more creativity, then you've truly
| effected change into the world.
| vmception wrote:
| I've "beat" most platforms. Most recently instagram.
|
| Once you actually know how to get followers, engagement, and
| likes, the value of that currency decreases. Sure the dopamine
| is the same and you still have the chance to gauge how one
| piece of media performs against another. But there is no
| difference or point unless you are aiming to sell the profile
| (which is a decently sized market if you werent aware).
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| well, tell us a story of how to beat the platforms
| vmception wrote:
| buy a profile and rebrand it. that's it.
|
| okay that's not it. forget everything you think you know
| about instagram, especially anything about vanity, anything
| that bothers you about the pursuit of vanity or your
| assumptions about it. you'll also be re-assigning what you
| think you know about instagram follower growth systems.
|
| buying an instagram profile is more similar to a merger and
| acquisition deal, in the sense that you are actually buying
| all the direct messages (DMs) - the customer rolls. A
| popular profile does business through DMs (you also are
| buying the "og email account" to pass security measures, so
| if anyone emailed you get that too). They've done business
| with people that want to do promotions on their profile,
| business with entire networks of profile buyers and
| sellers. Buying a profile buys you that whole customer
| list. The customers are even the innocuous empty private
| accounts with 0 followers that are the point of contact for
| heavy traders. Things you may not have known existing. This
| is your way into a steady stream of unlisted accounts that
| are for sale. You can repeatedly just ask them what else
| they have.
|
| when you choose an account for rebranding, you are looking
| for something similar to what you will rebrand to with
| certain levels of engagement and reach, and ideally with
| similar demographics although it will already be heavily
| correlated. wealth and motivation can be rebranded to some
| playboy guy, women's fashion can be rebranded to baby
| stuff, rinse repeat.
|
| the general profile is targeting the whole world, so none
| of the "lets normalize this super progressive thing"
| matters at all. traditional gender roles are in vogue.
|
| congratulations you've skipped the rat race of growing a
| profile. all the apps and systems to grow a profile are
| more expensive and time consuming than just owning an
| already grown profile.
|
| you break even by doing promotions. promotions are people
| paying to be tagged in one of your posts for a few hours.
| then you delete or archive the post. or you do it on the
| story.
|
| now lets go back to the apps and systems that are targeted
| to people trying to "grow" instagram accounts. you can use
| them, but its only to offset the attrition. when you
| rebrand you lose followers when they notice they are
| following something they don't remember following and don't
| want to. your goal is to just _slow down_ the unfollowers,
| the banned, the deactivated, by having new followers
| replace them. But not to actually "make numba go up".
|
| Now back to gen pop. the general population likes popular
| shiny things. I was just at a party yesterday where an
| adult woman was fawning over this "famous" person who "is
| really famous" and "has, like, 25k followers on instagram".
| This is a nearly perfect currency that doesn't actually get
| spent. "Oh my god, someone has an advantage with women I
| hate this let me find something wrong with it, aha! fraud!"
| nope. Notice that these are real followers, real
| engagement, real views, less or different work. Brands,
| companies, anyone wanting promotion or attention actually
| do offer things for free or pay. Worry about the people
| that are doing less effective things. But if you must be
| bothered, selling an account is against
| Instagram/Facebook's terms of service, so you have that
| going for you. The terms of service.
|
| I've been aware of this, from sporadic participation, for
| half a decade now. Brand accounts, influencer accounts, you
| name it, just when you think its oversaturated and nobody
| will give them time of day, another year goes by and it
| still is interesting to people and the trading networks are
| more refined.
|
| With multiple profiles you can also more easily grow your
| other profiles. Basically giving yourself free promos, or
| anyone you like. They are real human followers, after all.
| whall6 wrote:
| What's your Spotify?
| riebschlager wrote:
| I think you nailed it in your last sentence. Hobbies are our
| chance to create without the baggage of external requirements
| or external validation.
|
| Being in that creative flow state is the _best_ feeling. If
| someone else appreciates what you made, that 's just the icing
| on an already tasty cake.
|
| I post my silly art projects on Instagram for 30 or 40 likes.
| Would I love more? Well, yeah. Endorphins and all that. But I
| can't stop making this stuff because I just really, really
| enjoy the moments of making it.
| okareaman wrote:
| My greatest wish, now that I am retired and learned a few new
| things, is that my fellow Americans (I can't speak to other
| cultures) would stop putting the focus on money. Money and the
| things it can buy are not that important in the larger scheme of
| things. If Americans didn't make life a competitive sport, then
| more would realize this. Near the end, it's all about what you do
| with time and doing what it takes to remain healthy to live
| longer and enjoy this time.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Easy to say when you are retired and have $. Everything is
| getting more expensive. Healthcare especially. having more
| money and the peace of mind that comes with it is important. I
| would rather err on the side of earning too much than run out
| and be stuck.
| anon9001 wrote:
| So true. I don't see how anyone could feel financially secure
| with less than a few million in net worth. Everyone else is
| one accident away from drifting down into poverty.
| tbihl wrote:
| Satire?
| ghaff wrote:
| Almost certainly not. A lot of people here seem to be
| convinced that, even if you can afford (admittedly
| expensive) health insurance, you're one slip on a banana
| peel away from bankruptcy. One can doubtless dredge up
| horror stories of one sort or another but they're
| circulating stories for a reason. (What is true is that
| people who can't work because of illness have an issue of
| income not coming in but that's somewhat separate from
| the healthcare costs themselves.)
| okareaman wrote:
| I'm living below the poverty level in Silicon Valley on a
| fixed social security income and I've never been happier.
| California Covered takes care of health insurance for
| almost no out of pocket money. I am healthy. I'm having fun
| exploring the online world, finding interesting things I
| never had time for before. I'm also exploring the Bay Area
| by throwing my bike on Bart or the Caltrans Train and
| getting around that way cheaply. I have almost no material
| things and no money anymore, but don't miss either. I
| realize a lot of people would be unhappy with no money, but
| I'm here to say I'm not. That's all.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I 'm living below the poverty level_
|
| No, you're not, because you are getting all kinds of
| benefits from living in a rich area of a rich country
| (you name a number of them in your post) that don't
| appear explicitly in your income but have a huge positive
| impact on your quality of life. Try living on the same
| income in a much poorer area or a much poorer country
| where none of those benefits are available and see how
| you like it.
| okareaman wrote:
| "Poverty level" is an official number used as a standard
| put out by the American federal govt. It's not based on
| quality of life, but only on income. I was referring to
| that.
|
| I've lived in areas of grinding poverty and hated it, but
| I'm more interested now in how William Gibson's quote
| "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed."
| Silicon Valley is the future. Those other areas of
| deprivation are in the past. In the future, many of our
| needs will be taken care of, freeing us up to be
| creative.
|
| You are right, I am lucky to live where I live.
|
| I am astonishingly rich compared to what people had 40
| years ago, within my own living memory. I have a
| supercomputer on my desk connected to the world's
| information. I have a device in my pocket that lets me
| communicate with anyone on the planet. Long-distance
| charges no longer apply. My local library has every
| magazine I'd ever want to read. I'm awash in free music
| from around the world. I can view University level
| courses, free of charge. Have an idea for a 3D design?
| Download Blender for free and 3D print it for very little
| cost. The device in my pocket is a phone, voice recorder,
| video camera, still camera, mapping system and much more.
|
| I tend to agree with Louis C.K. - "Everything is amazing,
| and no one is happy"
| pdonis wrote:
| _> "Poverty level" is an official number used as a
| standard put out by the American federal govt._
|
| I know that. I'm pointing out that it is often _not_ a
| good indicator of the actual amount of wealth you have
| access to. As you acknowledge, you have access to a huge
| amount of wealth that does not appear in your nominal
| income or your nominal net worth. Your real net worth
| includes your share of that huge amount of wealth. And
| the post you responded to with your comment about
| "poverty level" was talking about net worth, i.e., the
| actual wealth you have access to, not nominal income.
|
| _> In the future, many of our needs will be taken care
| of_
|
| How? By magic? No: by other people creating the wealth
| you make use of. You have access to all those wonderful
| benefits in your area because other people built those
| things. What about _their_ needs? Who is "taking care
| of" those? Answer: nobody except themselves.
|
| In short, this vision you have, where you can just have
| all your needs taken care of, only works for some
| fraction of people. If everybody takes that approach,
| nobody's needs will be taken care of, because nobody will
| be creating any of the wealth required to do that.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Money and the things it can buy are not that important in
| the larger scheme of things._
|
| Some things that money can buy _are_ important in the larger
| scheme of things. Money can buy you the ability to spend time
| in person with family and friends who live far away from you.
| Money can buy you the ability to change where you live if where
| you live now isn 't working for you. Money can buy you the
| ability to make some problems just go away instead of having to
| constantly worry about them. All of those things (and many
| other things money can buy you) can be huge improvements in
| your quality of life.
|
| In short, money is more choices, and more choices means more
| freedom. The fact that many people use the choices money gives
| them to do things you don't like does not mean _all_ choices
| that money gives you are bad or unimportant. Nor does the fact
| that some very important things can 't be bought with money
| detract from the value of many things that can.
| drooby wrote:
| I think this problem can be solved quite easily with the
| following mindset:
|
| Do something that might make you happy. If it doesn't make you
| happy, try something else. If it does make you happy, keep doing
| it. If the thing that made you happy no longer makes you happy,
| try something else.
|
| Oh, and, don't take advice on happiness from blog posts by
| strangers. Friends, maybe, given that they share a similar
| mindset to you, but not strangers. And yes I realize the irony of
| this.
| codingdave wrote:
| I've embraced having a hobby for its own sake, and it does add
| joy to your life. I'm trying to get a photo of all the different
| bird species I see. The photos are not high quality. The web site
| where I post them is nothing special - just the freebie portfolio
| site you get when you subscribe to lightroom. I'm not even an
| expert birder, but learning more is part of the fun. But I really
| enjoy going out, finding new locations to explore, and posting my
| photos, even the ones so bad that I'd delete them if they were
| not my first shot of a species.
|
| And when I spend a Saturday morning out doing what I enjoy, it
| truly does energize me for everything else going on in life. I
| doubt I'd get that energy if I started trying to figure out how
| to make this return monetary value.
| [deleted]
| throw737858 wrote:
| If you turn hobby into hustle, you can claim it as business
| expense and save on taxes.
|
| I personally love to paint on exotic beaches in summer. My
| company is barely profitable, there are travel expenses, but I
| have some regular buyers for my paintings.
|
| Edit: why downvotes? It is not a joke, that is how it works in
| real life. Author obviously does not understand business. If you
| love cooking, you do not have to open restaurant and loose money,
| but once month you can organize "promotion event". That is
| nothing illegal.
| LegitShady wrote:
| That's pretty awesome. I only know a few people who have
| managed to make any money at all on art, and very few who have
| regular buyers. Art these days has become so cheap and
| commodified. Even if you don't break even getting to travel on
| it and 'break even' is worth it.
|
| The questions is how did you arrive where you did? Did you
| paint for years without any return and then found patrons who
| buy your works regularly? Did you market and advertise? Did
| someone you knew send buyers your way?
|
| There are a trillion people on youtube trying to make money
| selling art, and feeding themselves on other things. There are
| a much smaller number regularly selling physical paintings.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| There are various ways.
|
| At the high end you relentlessly self-promote until a gallery
| takes you on in expectation of profiting from your work. You
| can make a lot of money at the high end - five, six, or seven
| figures for each item - but it's insanely hard to get into.
|
| This person does it by cross-dressing and being famous.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grayson_Perry
|
| Mid-end you need to find a niche and possibly a physical
| location. I know one artist who combined demo/live painting
| sessions for customers.
|
| The work took _minutes_ , but it was cheerful holiday art
| sold in a tourist location by someone with a good line in
| friendly and engaging self-promotion, and he could clear four
| figures a day during the tourist season.
|
| If you're selling online - that's a _much_ tougher sell, and
| you 'll need to create some kind of social media scene for
| yourself that isn't just "Here's me and my brushes".
| LegitShady wrote:
| I think you misunderstood my post. I understand the idea of
| hustling/advertising/etc to get social media following or a
| gallery spot or whatever. I also understand the art
| class/demo scene. None of that is interesting and it's a
| harder hustle than being an engineer for less in return.
| 99% of the people doing those will not succeed at making a
| living doing them, and those activities need huge time
| investments to see any sales at all.
|
| It also means you're trying to sell a particular kind of
| art. Galleries want a particular kind of art. Tourists want
| a particular kind of art. Art you can make in demo/classes
| is very limited.
|
| I don't have any interest in hawking my wares to tourists
| (because it limits you greatly on what you can offer, and
| how long you can spend on a painting), running classes (of
| which there are a million more qualified artists doing the
| same, all with competitive social media already), or
| praying that some art gallery will find my paintings
| interesting.
|
| This person said they have regular buyers (what I call
| patrons) for their choice of exotic beach landscapes, to
| the point that it subsidizes travel to exotic beaches. How
| did this person get patrons for their niche without the
| rest of it?
|
| That's what I want to know. Not generic ways of selling
| art. Are they selling to rich buddies? Is their mom really
| wealthy and supporting their hobby?
|
| I think its awesome they are doing what they love and it
| sort of pays for itself, I wish I could do the same, but
| there's a huge leap from 'I paint exotic beaches' to 'I
| have patrons for my exotic beach landscapes'.
| [deleted]
| Merad wrote:
| It sounds like (based on this comment and several of your other
| replies) that you get joy out of running a business and using
| them to play games to minimize your taxes. That's great, you do
| you, but to me it all sounds exhausting. If I wanted to learn
| painting, or play with 3d printing, or whatever, then _that's_
| what I want to put my time and effort into. I really don't care
| if I'm leaving a thousand dollars on the table in potential tax
| write-offs. That's a perfectly acceptable price to pay to just
| enjoy my hobby without having to spend any time thinking about
| managing a business or trying to optimize every single aspect
| of my life.
| clarkevans wrote:
| You're able to deduct expenses from revenue attributed to that
| activity.
| sombremesa wrote:
| This is provably incorrect.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| Downvoting usually means people don't understand your comment
| or don't like it, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
|
| I do the same with one caveat: my tax advisor always reminds me
| to document not only expenses, but also make sure there is some
| income, preferably each year, to avoid any problems from the
| IRS.
| ghaff wrote:
| And it's probably not worth it to show losses as opposed to a
| small profit. In the latter case you can _probably_ cruise
| under the radar so long as you 're not trying to deduct
| anything unreasonable in the context of the business. (A
| computer or office chair for a small software business is
| probably reasonable; a car is not.)
| gus_massa wrote:
| I agree. It looks like a joke, but I'm happy the GP has found
| a nice way to mix fun and work.
|
| A link to a gallery of the painting would have made clear
| it's not a joke. @GP: Can you post one? Perhaps you can get a
| few new fans.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| andrewzah wrote:
| Because not everything is about businesses or money. Nor should
| there be any expectation of monetizing our hobbies / personal
| time.
|
| There is a modern obsession with monetizing -everything- that
| one does, turning -everything- into a "hustle". Why can't
| people just do things in their spare time for fun without being
| bombarded about monetizing them?
| dudul wrote:
| Are you just disagreeing to disagree here? If they like
| painting on beaches and have a way to make a few bucks to
| finance these trips why wouldn't they?
|
| Maybe you have unlimited funds to finance your hobbies, but
| others sometimes need to be a bit creative to fund their
| passion.
| vmception wrote:
| Fortunately for me, tax deductions are one of my favorite
| interests and talents.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| Generally businesses have to eventually make money. At least,
| that's how it works in most of the world. If you constantly
| claim business expenses and only ever see losses, eventually
| you'll run afoul of the "expectations of profit".
|
| Most people's hobbies will never turn a profit -- that's why
| they are hobbies, after all.
| throw737858 wrote:
| Amazon did not made profit in 25 years. Most companies
| (Microsoft, Apple IKEA..) have subsidiaries that do not make
| any profits.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| If you lose money for 3 years out of the last 5, the IRS
| will put the onus on you to prove that your business is an
| actual business and not a hobby. If you're operating at
| Amazon scale and have lawyers and accountants on staff,
| maybe being audited isn't a big deal. But if you're a one
| person operation I imagine it's a lot more stressful
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| I'm curious how the IRS applies this to startups that may
| not be profitable until well after IPO.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| For businesses that don't make money in their first 3
| years, there's some more indepth criteria but they're
| less cut and dry than the "are you usually profitable"
| rule
|
| For example do you put a substantial amount of your own
| time into the business, is it normal to have large
| startup costs before coming profitable in your field, is
| the business your primary livelihood or just a side
| project,etc
| throw737858 wrote:
| I wrote "barely profitable", it makes a few dolars a
| year. If company has no money, it can not pay for
| anything. And it is outside USA, what IRS thinks is
| irrelevant. Some more paranoid people even start new
| company every year. It takes like $50 and 20 minutes.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| Which is why you don't make losses; you just don't make much
| of a taxable profit after costs. (I am not an accountant.) I
| did this for a number of years with a little side software
| business. The business paid for the expenses associated
| directly with the business, but also computer/office stuff I
| might have bought anyway. The business turned a profit every
| year. Just not much of one.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| But that's much, much easier said than done. What if your
| hobby is ceramics or 3d printing or painting or craft
| cocktails or homebrewing or repairing old cars or
| gardening...
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, yes, you have to make enough money off your hobby
| that you have revenue to offset costs against. Which may
| be possible with art of various kinds but, then, you may
| not care enough about the money to bother going through
| the effort of selling at craft fairs or whatever.
| throw737858 wrote:
| 3d printer is 10k. Out of pocket it would be $10k plus
| income tax $5k plus $1k VAT.
|
| So you form "3d printing shop" company and put some money
| in (loan, services...). Company purchases 3d printer, but
| does not pay any taxes on printer, it is an expense.
| After a few years 3d printer is out of warranty but still
| functional, can be purchased from company for $1.
|
| Difference $5999. Obviously this is not advice, consult
| your accountant first.
|
| In reality it is bit more complex. But this is rough
| picture.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > So you form "3d printing shop" company and put some
| money in (loan, services...). Company purchases 3d
| printer, but does not pay any taxes on printer, it is an
| expense.
|
| But you already paid the 5k in Income Tax, when you
| initially earned the 10k that you put in the company to
| buy the printer. How does that save 5k? I think the
| business needs revenue.
| mjh2539 wrote:
| Your net income is lower when you claim the 5k loss for
| the business.
| ghaff wrote:
| It depends on the structure of the business, etc. You're
| probably going to spend as much on accountants as the few
| hundred dollars you might save, assuming you don't get
| audited.
| mym1990 wrote:
| This was a bit ironic to me: "it's just to say that it's okay to
| love a hobby the same way you'd love a pet; for its ability to
| enrich your life without any expectation that it will help you
| pay the rent."
|
| Because I feel like a portion of people who get pets today expect
| to subsidize some of the cost with Instagram pages.
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