Jesper's tweet struck a chord with me, mostly because it captures several very complex concepts: the shifting landscape of companies, shrinking non-profits, and the dissonance of working on what one loves having a negative effect.

In the follow-up tweet, Jesper posits "we're in a weird space of commercializing hobbies and pass times" a sentiment with which I tend to agree. I see a lot more companies focusing on things that, when we look at the world as a whole, don't matter except to a small few. They may not be making an impact to the majority of the world, but rather they may be making a huge impact to their audience.

Is this an inherently good or bad thing? Is this a new trend? How does this affect your decisions about what to work on?

I should start by mentioning that my family is constructed around startup culture so I'm complicit in all the best and worst that it has to offer.

The advent of great channels like Kickstarter for entrepreneurs has enabled anyone to start a company with a reasonably merit-based chance of finding sufficient funds and audience to make it work. This is a good thing.

The counter-point, however, is the burden of founding. Can we afford get too interested in our hobbies before there's an obligation to commercializing them? My hobbies soothe me and makes it easier to cope with the stress of working and yet I feel compelled to think of it as a business that's yet to be founded.

What's the new line between craft and nascent business?

I feel like part of this might be caused by the inherent mindshare required to really get deeply involved in one's hobbies. If one wants to "master" their hobbies, it can take many years of time investment, especially if the 10,000 rule holds true for the hobby. Many of the entrepreneurial sort likely see the fact that this time investment could be served as a dual-purpose, allowing them to master their hobby and create something (new|better|profitable|unique) that would allow them to further invest in their hobby.

We can see this trend especially in people who are in the Indie Game industry. The documentary "Indie Game: The Movie" [ imdb.com ] does a great job of showing people who are commercializing their hobby.

As a side note, outside of the tech and gaming industries, you can see this happening a lot more with things like homebrew beers leading to small craft beer breweries, sewing/knitting leading to custom clothing lines on Etsy, and cooking specialty foods leading to specialty food trucks.

My home-brewing was an example I cut out my first post, but a great example of a hobby work hard to avoid entreneurial ambitions of - for fear of changing my relationship with it. Working as I do on public products, I deal with the anxiety of public acceptance of my work daily - it's nice to have something that only has an audience of myself and my trusted friends. This feels like a good thing, if somewhat contrary to our emerging always-public identities.

I'm also concerned with a growing cult of founding that comes out of that. A belief that holding the vision is more important than executing the plan. Work means less than ownership now - which starts to get into noxious Randian notions of makers vs. takers that I'm not altogether happy about.

Why should excellent engeineers (or more generally, craftsman of all types) not be venerated even if they don't have the entrepreneurial urge. We can't all own the means to production, can we?

I like the idea of having a job that's connected to your hobbies. The founders of Vimeo are a great example. They love making and watching videos and they're talented at making websites. They're able to go to work every day and do something that makes it even more rewarding to make videos. Or Stephen Wolfram. He really loves math and information. So he made software for researching math.

You want the energy you spend in your "free time" and the energy you spend "at work" to amplify each other and feel connected. I think if on a good day, the way you've spent your time makes sense to you, you're doing pretty good.

When I started okcancel.com way back, the motivation wasn't to make a name in UX (that term didn't even exist) nor to build an audience; it was to force myself to draw weekly because I was out of practice. The fact that it became 20k/year for a once a week comic was a huge lesson but it changed my relationship with it. Even the business part was an extension of the fun and even encouraged me to be more committed to my hobby.

It depends on what the original intent is. The environment now is that we can follow a passion and maybe inadvertently find a business, but it's only tainting if you set out that way.

Another example: RVIP Lounge.

Also, I agree with Jesper: Founding for the sake of founding, rather than doing, is a bad trend.

@Chad I'm not against that scenario - in fact I think that hobbies are the best basis for professions. But hobbies are also the best basis for hobbies. I'm against the burden of feeling like one SHOULD turn one's hobby into a company. Hobbies are fantastic for their own sake.

I feel like in startup culture any effort that's not directly behind a commercial activity is frowned upon, which is a real problem for someone like me that spends all their evenings writing code that will never, ever, make any money, even if it hopefully makes someone happy.

@kevin's example is perfect. I hope everyone who creates value gets money in exchange. It's the ideal situation. I just prefer versions like Kevin's where the passion preceded the money.

I think it's in some areas of the country it a fad. To bea founder, to hang out at meetups, to know lean methodology or build a little widget, or have no idea what or who you are selling to... This fad, these people spend more time hanging out with each other, talk the social game, talk UI as if they have any idea what they are talking about...

For me startups is all about 99% perspiration, 1% vision, and mostly staying up all night thinking how will I find the customers or more pointedly how will they find us.

After building both large tech and consumer company, I have reached one conclusion, all process fail, the only thing that is worth is persistence and a dogged determination... And sometimes that is also misplaced.

i think I just needed a platform to vent my frustration!

@Jesper What I was trying to say was that it's cool if your job is related to your hobby, but still a separate activity. Making a website for uploading videos is different from making videos. Being a 3D animator for games is different from being a gamer. Making a website about beer is different from brewing beer. Etc. I think this kind of path can reinforce and enrich your hobbies without turning them into jobs.