When Turning Your Passion Into a Business Is a Bad Idea 

You hear it so many times: if you want to succeed in business, you should have a passion for it. It’s the correct advice: you can only do so much robotic work. If you don’t feel even a tiny bit of passion or enthusiasm for your business, your decisions could be clouded by your disinterest. You won’t be as innovative, creative, and dedicated to making the business grow as you would if you loved what you were doing.

But having too much passion for your business can be bad, too. Specifically, turning something you are passionate about into a business venture can be bad for you, personally and financially. How? Here are three things that can go wrong with when your passion is the raison d’etre for your business.

Your passion could die out

There’s a short line in the movie, The Devil Wear’s Prada that has resonated with so many people. It’s Emily Blunt’s character muttering to herself like a mantra: “I love my job… I love my job.”

It’s a humorous but realistic take on how employees endure the difficult parts of their jobs, even convince themselves that they are absolutely in love with their work because they need to keep it. Here’s where the danger lies with making your passion your business: it can start feeling more like a job than a passion. When you’re faced with daily responsibilities and challenges, your perspective about your passion could change. It will start to excite you less; you might even resent or dread it. The worst part is when problems from the business side make it hard for you to find joy from this something that you were passionate about.

Related: Turning Your Passion Into a Career

You will be prone to biased decision-making

People who turn their passions into businesses face immense pressure to make things work. It’s embarrassing and hurts their pride when their passion businesses don’t end up doing so well.

On the one hand, the pressure is a good thing because business owners will work doubly hard to try to save the enterprise. They will use everything they have and do all that they can to solve the business’ problems. On the other, it’s catastrophic because business owners may not call it quits even when they should. Some will still try to float the business and keep pouring their resources into it. These people end up losing more than they would have if they closed the business while their losses were still minimal.

Some passions cannot generate substantial income

Not all passions and interests can be translated into a lucrative business that requires regular employees or sustains the needs of a growing family. The price points for arts and crafts, for example, is often too small to bring in substantial income. Hence, many arts and crafts sellers treat their online stores and commissions as a side-business and still keep a main job — at least until they become big and well-known enough to have a steady and sizable stream of customers.

It often takes a lot of luck and business savvy to turn a passion into a successful business. Not a lot of people might share your passion, after all; and if it is something that many people like, chances are there are already so many similar businesses that exist and thrive. Without these two, it will be tough work making a passion business successful.

Having a passion for your business is definitely an advantage, but putting all your eggs in that basket could be a risky move. It’s not passion that dictates a business’s success but market demand and smart management. There has to be a need for it, and its market should have promising growth in order for the business to last. Otherwise, pursuing a passion business could spell financial disaster.