Small Business United Blog

Hobbies Lead to Small Businesses

by Steve King - July 6, 2009

Maker Faire is a cross between a county fair, trade show and science fair.  It was created by Make Magazine to “celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset.”

To better understand the role small businesses and entrepreneurs play in the growing DIY movement, we joined the over 100,000 people who attended the recent Maker Faire in San Mateo, California.  We surveyed and talked to exhibitors and attendees to find out how many see their DIY efforts as part of a small business or future small business.

We’ll have more on this in the near future, but the quick answer is most of the exhibitors and many of the attendees see their DIY efforts as part of a current or future small business.

In our interviews many “Makers” described a pattern we consistently see in our small business research - hobbies or passions that grow into part-time businesses (often to help pay for the hobby) and then into full-time small businesses.

The small business research firm Warrillow recently released some interesting data related to this.  They found that 29% of small businesses surveyed started part-time.  Warrillow also found that 81% of those businesses were part-time for more than a year.  And over 40% were part-time for more than 4 years.

We’re not suggesting that all or even most hobbyists end up with small businesses.  But with the costs of starting and operating a small business continuing to decline, we expect to see this happen more often in the coming years.

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