I started my side hustle in 2020 and grew it to $500,000 in revenue by keeping passion out of my professional life.
I’ve heard entrepreneurs and celebrities say things like, “Follow your passion! The money will follow!”
When I was desperate to get out of my corporate job, I consumed all the entrepreneurial advice that I could about a strong devotion to your business as a guarantee for success. So, in 2016, I followed my passion for my first business, and founded a company to rent out special occasion attire to women. I thought I hit the jackpot because it combined so many things I felt passionate about at the time: sustainable fashion, personal styling and social events.
At The Beginning, It Felt Like A Dream Come True
For the first year, I was over the moon that I was actually getting paid to dress women in beautiful clothing for fun. But as the business expanded, so did the growing pains of managing a business — dealing with difficult customers, repairing damaged inventory, and being at the beck and call of fashion emergencies on late nights and weekends.
I didn’t expect that monetizing a hobby that once was a source of enjoyment would now have pressures that made it feel more like an obligation than an honor. Once it became a business, I still had to show up, even when I wasn’t in the mood to dress up.
You Have To Be Prepared For Possible Failure
Three years later, I had to do one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I closed down the business that was supposed to be my passion. It wasn’t generating enough money to help me reach my financial goals, and I had to finally admit that my passion wasn’t paying the bills.
Because I had wrapped up this business so closely to my personal identity, I took its demise as a reflection of my value as a human, and felt like I personally was a failure, too. The danger of running a business based on your passion is that it’s really hard to let it go, even if it’s unprofitable, or the right thing to do.
Solve A $10,000 Problem For 100 People On A Topic You Enjoy
In starting my second business, I decided to prioritize problem-solving over passion, and build an income stream around an issue people were willing to pay more for. I learned from my first business that the problem I was trying to solve — what to wear for a party — was too small to turn into a sustainable business.
I’ve always enjoyed teaching, and I had figured out how to pay off my student loans quickly. So, I started a financial education company — Crush Your Money Goals — to see if people were interested in me helping them pay down their debts.
I set out a goal of eliminating $1 million of debt and considered the range. I could help one million people pay off $1 of debt each, but that would be difficult and not much value to the individuals.
I could find one person who had $1 million of debt, but it would only help one person, and that wasn’t a problem I was interested in solving.
So I played with the numbers until I arrived at helping 100 women pay off $10,000 of debt each to total $1 million of debt.
The $10,000 problem felt meaty enough to create a higher priced service or product. Even if I charged $1,000 for my services, I resolved the customer would still get 10 times their investment. And it gave me a target of 100 customers, which felt a lot more reasonable than the indefinite goal of as many customers as possible.
It’s Okay To Keep Your Passions Personal
Now that I run a successful financial education company, people assume personal finance is my passion. Internalizing this assumption made feel guilty or lazy on days where I’m not feeling energized at my job.
Counterintuitively, I’ve been able to scale to $500,000 in revenue since 2020 by keeping a healthy separation between my personal and professional lives — the same way I teach women to not confuse their net worth with their self-worth.
I definitely like and enjoy teaching people how to manage money, but I am not devoted to it the same way I have an affection for travel, volleyball, live music and deep, meaningful relationships. Having passions to look forward to outside of work has encouraged me to be highly efficient with my working hours, preventing me from burning out the same way I did in my first business.
Now I only work 20 hours a week, while maintaining a six-figure income that has helped me become a debt-free millionaire, with time to spare. Sure, you can make monetize your passion, but you can also grow a successful side hustle, and even a full-time business, without making it your identity.
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