New Business

[Harold Mansfield]

Personally, I look at it in two ways because not everything I love can make any money.

There's the stuff I love, that I do and makes some money... and then there's stuff that I know how to do, and can get paid for, that I would like to grow into a larger business.

There's a big difference between what you have passion for, and what you have talent in. The talent is going to take you further, quicker and allow you to make some money while you are cultivating the passion.

[vangogh]

I'm going to disagree with you kind of. I do agree with the premise that your talent will take you further. However...

I have a passion for sports. As I type this I'm watching NFL Live on ESPN. I watched the exact same program a few hours ago. If it's on later tonight I'll watch it again. If you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I was a kid, I would have answered a professional athlete. Unfortunately I wasn't born the physical gifts to enable me to be a professional athlete. I'm not big enough, fast enough, strong enough, etc. I can hold my own well against the usual weekend athlete, but a professional athlete was never in my future.

Some careers I could have had around my passion for sports:

sports reporter
sports anchor
sports announcer
coach/manager
work in the front office for a team
write novels with a sports setting
produce sports documentaries
sports statistician
work for any of the professional sports leagues
sports agent
I could go on

I think you can make money around anything you feel passionate about. As long as there are other people who also are passionate about it or just have interest in it, there's a way to make money.

To amend the usual follow your passion advice

Find a way to combine your talents and your passions

We're all talented in some way or another and we all have passions for different things. There is usually way to combine the two.

[Harold Mansfield]

I can see it both ways. I guess there is a certain amount of passion in what you are talented in, or else you would have never become any good at it.
There are a few things that I am good at..even have been the best at times... and have been able to make a good living doing..but I'm not passionate about them anymore.
IOW, I don't want to make a living doing them anymore.

[vangogh]

And while I'm passionate about sports I don't work at any of the things I listed above. There are definitely things I'm passionate about that I have no interest in making careers.

My thinking is that you can make money in any field. As long as there's a market or you can create a market you can make money. I agree that talent trumps passion, but ideally you'll find the places where you can combine both.

I know it's common advice to say follow your passions when starting a business and it may sometimes seem like you can't make money from your passion. I think you always can if you look sideways at it and find something your good at and figure out how to make it work with your passion. The following your passion advice is mainly because you'll likely stay interested long enough to push through the early times when there isn't much money coming in.

[tmijs789]

Do you have money to invest? Do you want to operate the business yourself? Do you have the right skills? and the questions go on and on... The business must come from within.

Good luck on your ventured choice.