You Don’t Have to Monetize Every Good Idea

I have a lot of ideas.

This is occasionally useful.

It is occasionally expensive.

Sometimes it's just inconvenient.

I'll be doing something unrelated and suddenly think, You know what would be useful? Then I make the mistake of writing it down.

Now the idea exists.

Once an idea exists, I start thinking about what it could become: a project, website, resource, event, series, workshop, service, or business.

This is where entrepreneurship can get a little weird.

Because once you've learned how to turn an idea into something people will pay for, it's easy to start asking of every idea:

How could I monetize this?

I'm increasingly convinced that sometimes the answer should be:

I don't.

The internet has made hobbies suspicious.

There is a particular kind of advice that appears whenever someone is good at something.

“You could sell these.”

“You should start a business.”

“You could make a course.”

Somewhere along the way, we've started treating monetization as the highest possible evolution of an interest.

Suddenly every enjoyable thing in your life is being asked to submit a business plan.

Sometimes turning an interest into a business is wonderful.

It can also fundamentally change your relationship with the thing.

Money changes the question.

When you're making something because you want it to exist, you get to ask: Is this interesting? Would this be useful? Do I want to do this?

When you're making something as a business, additional questions arrive. Will people pay for it? What will it cost to deliver? How long will it take? How do I market it? What happens if demand increases?

Why did I do this to myself?

The minute people pay you, there are expectations.

The thing that used to be your relaxing Saturday project may now have three customer emails waiting for an answer.

Congratulations on your successful hobby.

You have created a job.

Not every idea needs to scale.

What if something is good because it's small?

What if you like doing it four times a year?

What if a project is useful to one community and doesn't need to become a national platform?

Small does not automatically mean unsuccessful.

Sometimes small means appropriately sized.

Some things can exist because you care about them.

There are things worth doing that do not produce a clean financial return.

A resource can be valuable because it helps people. An event can be worthwhile because people enjoyed being there. A project can connect people. A piece of writing can make someone think.

Not every useful thing needs a revenue model attached to it.

That does not mean labor has no value.

Choosing to make something freely is different from someone else deciding your labor should be free.

The important word is choice.

I want some ideas to stay fun.

I love my work. I also know what happens when something becomes part of my work. There are deadlines, expectations, deliverables, emails, and administration.

I don't want every interesting part of my life to become a deliverable.

I want room to experiment badly. I want to learn things I'm not planning to sell. I want to occasionally do something wildly inefficient because I enjoy doing it that way.

Not everything needs optimization.

Not everything needs a funnel.

Sometimes the return is that I had a good time.

Of course, some ideas probably should become businesses.

I'm not abandoning capitalism and moving into the woods.

I just don't want every idea to immediately become responsible for earning its keep.

Some ideas can just be ideas.