If you enjoy technology, you could turn your fascination with gadgets into a small business venture.
You can monetize your technophilia — your love of technology — in many ways. For instance, you could share your personal experience with different types of technology, such as personal computers, software, mobile phones, and tablets. Or, you could fund your invention and build a business. Or, you could sell your knowledge online.
Let’s take a closer look at how you can turn your experience, knowledge, or expertise with popular technology into a part-time or full-time income.
Review Products and Services
Since many people would love to know what you know, share your experience about how you unbox, set up, and use a popular piece of tech.
When you put yourself out there, you don’t have to position yourself as an expert. All you have to do is use the technology well enough for others to learn from you.
If, for example, you’ve fallen in love with the Notion “all-in-one workspace” app, you don’t have to be an expert in database management. It’s enough to learn how to set up Kanban boards, calendars, life wikis, and other productivity enhancement systems.
How you present your information depends on the medium you use.
If you have an upbeat personality and enjoy talking into a camera, setting up a YouTube channel might be the easiest way to build a network of followers. The trick to winning over an audience is to translate technical ideas into plain English. The more you can simplify difficult concepts, the greater your chances of winning over a large audience.
Going back to our Notion example, you could shoot a video on YouTube that shows viewers how you set up your personal project management system. You might even want to share your template with links for people to join Notion and duplicate your system.
Fund Your Invention
Your love of tech might go beyond the user experience. If you’re skilled in making technology as a hobbyist, you could turn it into a profitable business. Your idea might be big enough to attract the venture capital funding you need. Take Joy, for example. This hardware startup managed to raise more than $2.5 million in capital from top investors like The Chernin Group (TCG) after it created a fascinating interactive photography frame called the Joy Album.
Sell Your Knowledge Online
Most people sell their time to earn a living, but you might find it far more enjoyable (and profitable) to sell your knowledge. The easiest, most efficient, and cost-effective way is to create content on an online platform. You could, for example, set up content on your own website or on a shared platform for videos or digital courses.
When you set up your business online, you only have to do the work once to get paid for it repeatedly. If, say, you’re selling your knowledge on your own YouTube channel, you only have to make a video about a product review once for it to consistently generate advertising revenue.
Another benefit to creating your business online is flexibility. You can work on your business in your spare time if you’re holding down a regular job.
What you might discover is that the money you make online will pay more than your job. When you reach a point where your steady job costs you money because you’d earn more if you spent your time creating online content, it may be time to just work from home.
In a nutshell, you can make money from your experience, knowledge, or expertise with technology once you decide on the most suitable business model. Think about it: when you do work that you love, you won’t have to stress about rush hour traffic, punch in a time clock, or deal with office politics all day long.
