Thoughts On Passion Economy
My thoughts on the creator economy as we build the GoSocial Creator Stack.
If you look at any coming-of-age film from the past 3 or 4 decades, you’ll find that the protagonist, a young adult, is in a dilemma wherein they have to choose between seemingly glib hobbies and serious professional work. This choice between “hobbies” and “work” has only dissolved with time, and with this blurring of boundaries has emerged the concept of Passion Economy.
Shift Towards Individuality
Passion economy is why your friend from school, who used to doodle on the back of notebooks, is now a successful graphic designer, or that one girl who was into handicrafts has her own resin jewelry business.
The concept of passion economy is built on the same foundation that underlies that of the gig economy or freelancing, that is, monetizing time and skills. However, there are certain differences, mostly in the form of a renewed emphasis on the creator’s individuality.
As a concept, Passion economy came into being with NPR podcast Planet Moneymaker, Adam Davidson’s eponymous book. In an interview, he explained the passion economy’s distinction from the gig economy. As Davidson explains, the gig economy lacks a focus on the individual. It stresses monetizing time and is highly competitive, leading to gig workers vying for the job by compromising their pay.
In passion economy, though, Davidson drives home the point that the focus is on monetizing skills and not time. While gig economy platforms “commoditized” the producer and worked in a mechanical manner by undermining the individual traits and personalized style of the creator, the passion economy provides the much-needed room to just be yourself, warts and all.
Interacting Directly With An Audience
There are no fixed plans in the passion economy. Since passion economy focuses on the creator’s individuality, people are bound to find huge variations in a single product or service. For instance, you must have noticed that there exists no individual face for a fast food-franchise like McDonald’s. That’s because there’s a blueprint for every burger that is followed and repeated down to the last T. On the other hand, every fine dining restaurant has a different head chef running the kitchen, adding a personal taste even to popular dishes served everywhere.
So, how do passion economy creators grow? Individuality brings with itself the opportunity to interact directly with the audience. When you’re adding a personal style to your work, the best person to explain it to the audience should not be a corporate head but the creator themselves.
Why Does it Work?
When Rachel indignantly asked Chandler, “Do you even know what off the rack means?” when the question of Monica’s wedding dress came up, it answered this question. Passion economy’s unique selling point is one thing, and that is intimacy.
There’s a very profound sense of affinity and care between the audience and a provider when the provider is closely working on a particular product or service for you. While this might seem like a novel concept, it has been obvious in the businesses of tailors who make bespoke dresses, or perhaps in hairstyling, where there’s a deeper connection between the creator and the patron. It extends and thrives mostly in the digital offerings and experiences. Individuality, both of the creator as well as the buyer, is reflected in the final product or service.
So, What Do You Need To Enter Into the Passion Economy?
Well, the obvious answer is passion. You must have a passion you’re completely dedicated to. It might seem that the passion economy is viable only for those creators who have already garnered a considerable following on social media platforms and the like. But that’s not so. You can start out with a small following too, and slowly build a community around your work.
You can look for communities or groups of people who are interested in a particular type of work. Niche groups are everywhere on social media blogging sites like Reddit and Pinterest. Instagram hashtags and Facebook groups could also provide you with the needed leads towards a ready-made consumer base. You could be passionate about photography, art, dog grooming, fitness, personal finance, or teaching online. To enter into the passion economy, you need to create content, talk about your interests and expertise, build a community around your niche, and charge your fans a small fee to access some of your offerings (experiences and content).
Aligning your Work
Focusing on individuality does not mean disregarding the specific requirements and wishes of the community. It means aligning your style and using it to create something of value both for your community base and yourself. Listening to the community is of utmost importance in this case. However, there have to be boundaries set in this process. You have to protect your creative integrity from being violated by others trying to direct your projects.
Creating Small, But Creating Good
You have to reconcile to the fact that you won’t be churning products or services out like a well-oiled conglomerate. Using your innate talents requires a great deal of concentration and consciousness. By initiate a large number of offerings and projects, you will only compromise your creativity, which, in turn, would only get you run-off-the-mill results.
Digital Work and Virtual Services
An overwhelming majority of passion economy products and services are digitally oriented. They work on the Software as a Service (SaaS) model like popular newsletter hosting service Substack. Not only newsletter, even interior designing, something which has traditionally not been attempted digitally, has also turned a corner with the help of the digital platform Havenly. An online presence allows the creator to widen their horizons and connect with a huge audience, something that a physical office or localized service would not allow.
In Conclusion
From widget and gig, the economy has now moved towards passion. This phenomenon, still new, has been in the making for quite some time now, with its preferred vehicle of growth being technology, especially social media, which connects the world these days. Gone are the days of mass creation.
Today, success has a new approach, that of growing a niche community built around the monetization of a passion. It could be anything, from digitized newsletters to handwritten poems or letters.
In the words of Li Jing, “The Passion Economy is the Future of Work.”
At GoSocial, we are building the stack of tools that any creator would need to turn their passion into money. Sign up for the creator stack by GoSocial here: https://about.gosocial.io/creators
