First, The Straits Times declared that 2023 is the year of the side hustle. A few days later, ChannelNewsAsia profiled 4 teenagers who used social media to launch their projects (okay, not side hustle but related). And now, I see that the BBC posted an article on the rise of the Gen Z side hustle. All this talk about making extra money on the side (or with the goal of making it your full-time job) leads me to wonder: what if your side hustle isn’t profitable?

Because let’s face it, if more people start an online business or some form of side hustle, competition in that area is going to increase and not everyone is going to be making significant amounts of money. I feel qualified to talk about this because none of my hobbies make me money (even though I tried for at least one):

1. Blogging – I pay for hosting and domain name, I make $0
2. Writing – I’ve made a few book sales, but definitely not enough to cover the cost of editing, marketing, etc
3. Tea Bar – My friend and I did a few tea bars, but I stopped when I did my MBA. She’s doing a great job of it solo now, but I have to admit my favourite part was always talking to customers to determine their favourite teas and not the actual tea bar part!

As you can see, I’ve successfully failed at monetising my “hobbies”. And because this has been taking place over several years, I’ve had the time to think about what to do if your “side hustle” fails and honestly, there are only three options:

1. Try a variant of what you’re doing now: write a new series (to market), try advertising on Instagram, try google ads – basically, you hustle harder
2. Pivot to a new side hustle
3. Quit trying to make money from your hustle

What you choose really depends on why you’re doing this side hustle. If you want to make money from what you love doing, even if it means you might have to do something you don’t like, you’ll choose option 1. If you just want to make money and the means don’t matter, you’ll choose option 2. If your enjoyment of your hustle is more important than making money, you’ll choose option 3.

I think all three options are valid. Depending on your circumstances, you may have the luxury of deciding that your hobbies can stay hobbies, or you may need to make as much spare cash as possible right now. What to do if your side hustle is failing/has failed is a decision that can only be made by yourself.

In my case, I went with option 3. I’m fortunate enough to have a day job that I don’t intend to quit, and so I can experiment a lot more. Right now, if I feel the urge to make something and I think it’s good, I’ll just put it on ko-fi so it’s there if anyone wants to look for it. If I ever feel like trying marketing tactics, I may try that one day. It’s liberating for me to put “making money” way down on the list of priorities when carrying out my hobbies and I hope that it will not have to change.

For now, I’m enjoying keeping my hobbies as my (money-sucking) hobbies. I have reframed things: my “side hustles” (I’m not sure if I want to continue using that word) have not failed, they have succeeded in enriching my life.