In this video, Matt reacts to a popular clip from an 18-year-old entrepreneur sharing his advice for young people starting out in business. The core message? “Turn your hobby into a business.” While that sounds appealing, Matt offers a more grounded take—what works for one person may not work for everyone. Learn the risks, realities, and alternatives when choosing a business model.
There are tons of people out on social media giving business advice. Some of it is good advice, but most of it isn’t good. In this series watch CapForge’s owner react to different advice videos. He’s an expert in all things business and has 20+ years of experience under his belt. Some of the things he reacts to might even surprise you!
Video Transcript:
Business Advice Video:
I’m 18 years old now, I’ve been around business and entrepreneurs, my entire life. The most common question I get is from people around my age and they ask what the best business model to start is, whether it’s dropshipping or SMA or Amazon FBA. What I tell all of them is there’s no such thing as the best business model to start, there’s only the best business model for you. If you just chase something because you saw it on TikTok and you see someone else succeeding in it, you’ll most likely hate what you do.But if you take one of your hobbies, write down 10 ways you can make money from it, pick one that stands out to you and execute on it, you’ll enjoy what you do, and you’ll make money from it. That’s exactly how I started my detailing business. I’ve always loved cars. I’ve always loved the loud, fancy Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and everything. So I started a detailing business to eventually be working with supercars and exotic cars on a daily basis, and I eventually worked my way there.
Matt’s Review:
I think it’s interesting, first off, that somebody who’s 18 years old says they’ve been around business their whole lives. I’m gonna have to think that you probably weren’t that interested in business at least until you were 12, 13, 14. So you’ve got maybe four or five years of business experience. Meantime, you’re also going to high school and doing other things. I don’t know if I’d call you a seasoned entrepreneur at 18, but good for you for getting something done, getting something started and being in business for yourself. But I’m gonna take issue with the advice in that I don’t think looking at your hobbies is necessarily the best way to find a business. You may come across something that works. In his case, he likes fancy cars, so he got into detailing so he’d be close to them. I guess that’s tangential to your hobby of liking fancy cars. But there’s just not a lot of hobbies that work this way that you can figure out a way to make money from. You can certainly start there, but don’t be discouraged if after you go through all your hobbies and come to find out there’s really nothing in there. Most businesses people run have nothing to do with their hobbies. They do their business during the day, they make money with that, they do the hobbies on the weekends and evenings. And honestly, a lot of times, I think if you really enjoy something, the last thing you wanna do is now co-mingle it with business. Now it becomes your work. And all the fun that you used to have doing that hobby is kind of sucked out of it because now it’s just what your work is. So maybe you love golf, you start a golf store, now you spend all your time behind the counter telling people about golf bags, and golf clubs, and golf shirts. And you never get to play golf, and now you’re just running a retail store. It’s related to your hobby but you’re not getting to actually go out and enjoy your hobby. You might be doing maybe better off doing something else and playing golf on the weekends with the money made from the business. Now it’s not good to hate the business you’re in but having a passion for it or liking it the same way like a hobby is a pretty high bar, and a lot of times that doesn’t lead to your best outcome. So I’d say you can certainly start with your hobbies and see if there’s some money to be made there in a way that you wouldn’t hate. But don’t feel like that’s the only way to do it or be discouraged if you don’t turn up something that’s great on your first pass.