Why Every Entrepreneur should have a Hobby
Working on a project you love is both rewarding and challenging. Most of the time, it’s all you think about. Sometimes you forget to pay bills, tell your loved ones how much you care, and even occasionally skip a meal (or two). Occasionally (say at 3am), you just want to get away from it all and do something completely different to take your mind off the stress of work.
Some people will tell you to take a vacation. While enjoyable, vacations usually leave a sense of regret. “It’s over too fast” or “I wished it lasted longer” are usual statements that come to mind. I like vacations, but personally I’ve found my greatest stress reliever is getting into a hobby.
Why You Should Get a Hobby
There are some who would scoff at the idea. They simply don’t have the time or are embarrassed of failing. Instead of thinking of a hobby as a time waster and taking time and energy away from you or what you’re working on, think of it as an opportunity to grow as a person. Here’s a few reasons why you should take time and focus on a new hobby:
- Forces you to get out of your comfort zone.
- Allows you to see problems and ask questions from a different point of view (the novice approach).
- Challenges you to push through mental and/or physical barriers.
- Encourages you to grow skills that are dormant or you consider yourself weak in.
- Enables you to gain knowledge and become an expert in another area of interest.
- Enriches your life experiences!
Some people need help in choosing a particular hobby. Here’s a few parameters to decide on which hobby to select:
Have a Decent Learning Curve
Anyone can make “pet” rocks. Pick something that requires decent amount of patience and skill to become good. You’ll never grow your mental endurance and expand your ability to handle stress if the task is simple and has a low learning ability. As long as you make sure your being realistic in your time to learn the hobby and you’ll get there. Sprint Endurance is the keyword.
Unrelated to your Business or Daily Work
I know the easy choice is to pick something that will yield “complementary” skills, but I would discourage this. Here’s why – you will meet and know people outside your circle of expertise/influence that you can learn from and help you grow. At the very least, you’ll have more enjoyable stories to share with your friends and colleagues.
Enjoy the Activity
What’s the point of doing it if you aren’t having fun with the hobby. In the beginning, take a slow pace and balance the learning curve with small goals and achievements.
Some of life’s greatest satisfactions are from little surprises in life. If you keep your head down and focused too much energy in business, sooner or later your relationships and health will suffer. Take a break and find something daring, fun, sexy and exciting to do besides what you do daily. What’s the point of life if it’s not random and filled with experiences?
Read MoreCollect Payment Easily at a Farmer’s Market
I drove past a local farmers market today and noticed several shops and booths setup. There were some booths that were professional and others that were clearly just testing the waters. But what I was amazed at was how little technology was used to accept payments.
Some people were high tech enough to have credit card payment services setup on their laptops to accept payments and one person had a credit card terminal system. While nice, I would be very hawkish of anyone nearby of trying to hack into my laptop. But nonetheless, this was really the most sophisticated way people were performing transactions.
Going by, I can’t help but imagine how much easier a process it would be to whip out a Square or Paypal on their phone and to accept payment. With the technology that’s available, I would imagine it would be a less painful (maybe more secure) way of doing business for a booth large or small.
Read MoreThe Harbinger of Social Media
As I just finished watching Gary Vaynerchuck and Erick Schonfeld discuss The Thank You Economy and other things at TechCrunch, I had a couple comments come to mind as I watched him discuss Social and business.
People understand “The Thank You Economy” book, Companies Don’t…Yet
The reason why Crush It was so successful because it is a great 101 handbook on how to use the web, social, and provides online business success stories. On the other hand, The Thank You Economy is for a different audience; the “context” explanation that is really the theme of the book is geared directly towards middle and upper management, not the employees of those companies. While it helped bridge a gap in understanding for employees, it really drills the message home to executives that, hey you should actually care about the people you do business with.
Charlatans is Jester Clothing
Do I think Gary should tone down his message? No, actually I think he should continue to preach about being wary of the “social media clowns” that are out there. Too many people that jump into online take a course or two, start a blog, and moments later proclaim themselves to be guru’s or experts.
History will eventually show us who “get’s it right” when it comes to context and engagement. Gary’s definitely right about Social Media – a bubble will pop and a virtual summary execution of most of the social media “experts” will happen.
But still the question remains – how do you engage with people on contextual level when historically there is not a shining example of a business to copy?
Read MoreMicrosoft and Skype, Sitting in a Tree
By now, you’ve no doubt heard about Microsoft buying Skype for $8.5 Billion dollars. I’ll spare you the commentary on the acquisition price and the press release. I’ll get right to the meat of why I believe that this was a perfect match for both companies: It was never about the IPO, it was about the future of cheap video communication.
Let’s, be honest – Microsoft is in last place when it comes to video communication services. For a while, Microsoft has had no real strategy for competing with Apple FaceTime and Google Talk. With Skype, it immediately has a fighting chance not only with brand ownership, but long-term integration opportunities.
The Golden Mobile Threat
Mobile is exploding right now. With ownership of Skype, it immediately gets under the skin on both Android and iOS; probably the best opportunity it has right now in the short term. I believe this is the true reason why Microsoft overpaid so much; what better bedfellow than Skype than say, Twitter, Facebook, or Foursquare (all out of reach)?
Skype as a Mature Product
Arguably, Skype, while revenue and user base has been growing, has reached its market appeal. It’s already been integrated as best as possible on mobile and web, and devices. It’s exhausted all it could on its own (hence why it announced an IPO a while back). I think it has a lot more potential, but without a strong ownership and deep, deep integration in software and hardware, it’s been lingering at the finish line for a while.
The silver lining is that Microsoft has the potential to compete with the two juggernauts in video right now: Apple and Google. Skype is benefiting from Microsoft’s cash and software/hardware.
Unrivaled Integration (If Microsoft is Lucky)
If Microsoft spends the next 6 – 12 months integrating into Windows 8, Xbox Live, Microsoft Office, and especially, the Enterprise tools that are its bread and butter of revenue (which, by the way, Apple and Google are struggling to gain mindshare), it will be a major player as the default video service used worldwide.
My biggest fear is that Microsoft (and its noted infighting) will absorb Skype and the service will become a shell, a mere window dressing of its former self. If Skype is left alone and Microsoft speedily works on strengthening its offerings “with Skype built-in”, we’ll see Skype and Microsoft sitting happily in a tree, and, well, you know the rest.
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Chris Wyatt is a Atlanta area product thinker and entrepreneur. Recently, he's focused his efforts on his latest startup, FitBlaze.
