How to make money on your hobby: a comprehensive instruction

What a hobby can be turned into a business

Almost anything. For example, if you love making sweets, you can make them to order. If you knit well, create items for sale. If you are fond of architecture - take city tours. Love reading - blog about books or create a paid newsletter.

This is worth considering if you go to a job you hate every day and can't devote enough time to your hobbies. The plus is that you don't need to quit your job right away. Start with a part-time job, and if it works out, then quit your job and work for yourself. In Russia, 20 million people are on your own, so you will succeed.

Where to start your business

The first thing to do is come up with an idea. To do this, ask yourself the following questions:

What will I create?
What makes my offer unique?
How am I better than my competitors?
How will it benefit people?
Who will be my clients?

For example, you are knitting wool cardigans made from soft merino wool. They fit perfectly to the figure and do not lose their appearance after washing. In such a cardigan it is comfortable in any weather: it does not prick, retains its shape and does not look like cardigans from the mass market. Your clients are women 18-40 years old with above average earnings. They like quality items and are willing to pay for product exclusivity.

Your offer should evoke an emotional response from buyers. Something like, “Wow! So cool! I want it! You need to find your niche, which means that your offer should be different from other similar ones and be better in some way so that customers choose you. Lack of consumer demand is a major cause of business failure.

Large companies conduct focus group surveys before launching a new product or service. If you like a new product, they launch it, if the reaction is ambiguous, they either refine it or refuse it. So, if you come up with something new, check the viability of the idea on friends and acquaintances. Just let them not spare your feelings and answer honestly. How to do this is well described in Rob Fitzpatrick's Ask Mom. How to communicate with clients and prove the correctness of your business idea if everyone is lying around?"

For more objectivity, create an anonymous Google form with a description of the idea and a field for feedback. Send it to your friends, post it on forums and social networks.

How to write a business plan

Even if you just want to make homemade marshmallows, a business plan will show you how much you can make and if it's worth it.

A business plan consists of several parts. In short, it needs:

Describe the idea.
Study your competitors and your advantages. If you can show the difference between yourself and your competitors, you have a better chance of attracting customers and setting a higher price.
Define your target audience and ways to tell them about your product.
Draw up a production and financial plan: calculate the cost of goods or services, rental costs, advertising, shipping, taxes and all other costs, monthly profit, profit for the year and time to payback. When costs and expected profits are visible, you can adjust the numbers: find raw materials cheaper, raise the price, reduce advertising costs, deliver orders yourself.

To register an individual entrepreneur, you need to collect documents (passport, application and a check for payment of a fee of 800 rubles), submit them to the tax office and open a current account.

Now about taxes. You have to pay them, even if you are not an individual entrepreneur, but a hobby is just a part-time job. In this case, you will have to declare income from clients as an individual. To do this, at the end of the year, you need to submit a 3-NDFL declaration to the Federal Tax Service and pay 13% of the profit.

Profit is your margin. If you baked a cake for 1,000 rubles, where 600 rubles is food, and 400 rubles is your labor, you have to pay 13% only from 400 rubles. The cost of the products is. To prove this, keep receipts for the materials you bought for production.

So that you don't forget anything, here is a list of 10 points in order:

Come up with an idea.
Write a business plan.
Open an individual entrepreneur and a checking account (if necessary).
Find suppliers (if needed).
Come up with a name, logo and packaging.
Take pictures of the products and come up with a description for them.
Consider shipping and payment methods.
Create social media pages.
Run ads.
.

Bonus from Ecwid for Lifehacker readers: 70% discount on all tariff plans. If you haven't created your online store yet, it's time to give it a try.

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