Don’t Do What You Love, Do What You’re Good At (To Succeed As An Entrepreneur)

“Do what you love and you’ll never work another day in your life”.

Marc Anthony couldn’t have been more wrong.

The trouble is, if you’re doing what you love, you risk hating it after a while or when it goes wrong – and then what do you do? You’ve built a business on your passion that you now – passionately – dislike. Could you really keep going?

If you’re thinking of starting your own business, instead of doing what you love – consider doing what you’re good at.

Fall In Love With What You Do

It’s a common trait of entrepreneurs to become obsessed with their startup. That’s a good thing! (To a certain extent; sleep, eating, family, and friends are also important). It’s also very different trying to start a business with your favourite hobby: instead, your business becomes your hobby.

Reasons Why Doing What You Love Sets You Up For Failure

We don’t want to be pessimistic. In fact, we want to make sure you’re doing something that’ll make you super-duper-happy for many years to come.

Here’s why you need to do what you’re good at, instead of what you love:

1) There might not be money in it.

You could love making toilet roll cover dolls (do they even have a proper name?) but how many homes really need them?

If there’s no market for your passion, you’ll not make the money you need to live.

2) You can drive yourself crazy trying for perfection.

The trouble with a passion is the desire to be perfect. It’s not just the doing of it that matters. It has to be the best version of it.

When you’re launching a business, it’s more important to get to market. You can hone to product after your first customers land.

3) Your passions can change.

What did you want to be when you were younger? Is that what you do now?

We change as people. It’s what happens as we grow and learn from our experiences. We’re introduced to new ideas every day. How can you stay involved in a business built on passion when you’re now distracted by another favourite hobby?

4) You might not be good enough.

It’s a sad truth but your hobby could be that for a reason. Any imperfection in your presentation will affect your ability to run a business based on a passion.

Instead of doing what you love, get really good at what you do.

So how do you find out where to start? Ask yourself these questions…

What Comes Easily To You?

Are you really good at being organised? Do you find writing easy? Perhaps you’re great at numbers.

Find your number one business skill strength and use this as a base. Build from here to discover the best way to become an entrepreneur. If you’re good with numbers, look at freelance accounting; if you understand coding consider a career as a freelance web developer.

If you’re not sure what your strongest skill is, think about what makes you feel the best. This is often a sign that you’re operating in a comfort zone that’ll make it easy to transfer that skill to building a new business.

What’s Your Biggest Weakness?

If you’re not great at managing people, your business idea needs a co-founder. If you’re disorganised, you need to hire a virtual PA to help. If time management goes out the window on a daily basis, you should focus on product instead of service delivery.

If You Could Only Do One Thing For The Rest Of Your Life, What Would Pay The Bills?

This isn’t about doing what you adore for the rest of your life.

You need to think about the one skill you have that’ll pay the bills no matter what. It’s a dull approach, sure, but it’ll give you a solid grounding for a business.

If you know the service you provide will always be needed, you can add the personality in afterwards.

How To Set Up A Business With Your Best Skills

When you know what makes you strong in a business setting, it’s time to discover your startup potential. Take a look around the rest of the Startup Hub for tons more information!