The passion project, side hustle, or labor of love, call it what you will, it all means the same thing; the hobby in your life that you actually enjoy doing and not the job you do just to pay the bills.
One of the unexpected byproducts of the pandemic was the explosion of the passion project. The enforced downtime gave people the unexpected opportunity to explore an avenue they most know and love, as a result, more and more people are looking to up-scale their passion projects and transform them into something a little more permanent.
If that sounds all too familiar then read on for some tried and tested tips to up-scale your labor of love.
3 tips to grow your passion project
Passion isn’t enough
Although you certainly need passion to get your project off the ground, passion in isolation just will not be enough to make it a viable or successful venture. You will need a very generous dose of hard work to top up the passion you have
. You will need to be prepared to put in the extra hours, alongside your day job, your family commitments, and your other hobbies and interests if you want to see this passion project flourish. Just be mindful to allow yourself some downtime and self care too, otherwise, you risk facing burnout, which will only hamper your efforts.
Plan a strategy and timeline
It is a good idea to have a guideline of what it is you want to achieve, and you should always write this guide down. Create a list, brain dump, spreadsheet whatever it is that works for you, just be sure to write down some measurable goals and what exactly you want to achieve. How big do you want to grow? Do you want it to replace your day job? Do you want a specific turnover?
Once you have identified this you will want to try to work out a reasonable timeline for these goals, based on a realistic measure of how much time you can dedicate to your project, after all the biggest constraint you are likely to have is time.
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So be sure to factor this into your strategy and don’t be afraid to be flexible when it comes to your timeline. Being able to adapt and prepare for the unexpected is a key component of business and a skill that will serve you well.
Once your timeline is in place you need to work on what steps you need to take in order to realize those goals. As part of your timeline, work out the steps you need to take and when. Don’t be afraid to break them down into tiny child-sized steps if it is more manageable. If you over-commit you are likely to lose traction.
Become an authority
This should form part of your timeline and forward planning because it is an essential part of growth when it comes to business ownership. No business, no matter how small it is, will grow and succeed if it gets lost in the crowd.
In order for your passion project to take off, you need to try and work on it becoming an authority or go-to figure within its niche, in much the same way that Nova Science Publishers Inc or Coca-Cola are within their niche. You want to be the brand or business that people associate with your field.
