I've been talking to friends of Clark who are keen at business about how they started their own companies. The best piece of advice that I've gotten is that I should only consider starting a business if it encompasses my passion, and, no, making lots of money doesn't really count as a passion. It's a cliche, of course, "Follow your passion", but they are right. I keep thinking of business ideas that would be profitable, but make me wince when I think about all of the tedious programming I would have to do just to set up a proof of concept.

Still, at the end of my fantasy of building a successful software company, I always sell it for a high price and retire to making and selling little things with my hands. Maybe I should just skip to the fun part at the end.

So, just to see if I could take hours and hours of making little things, I decided to make something big for once and put it up for sale in my etsy shop. I recreated my penguin decoration set from my wedding, but instead of making everything over the course of a few weeks I did it over two days. I think I handled my repetitive task well, but it was only for a few hours at a time.

I don't think I will be quitting my job anytime soon, but it's a nice chance to make a little extra money and get some feedback on what I'm working on.

If you're interested in buying lots and lots and lots of penguins, the Etsy listing is here.

Labels: cute, polymer clay, projects, weddings

posted by Alison 9/15/2009 01:57:00 PM : (0) comments : splink