Do you really want to start a business? Or just a creative project?

When I was 17, I got my first roommate— Carly was 19 to my 17, and therefore the sun which my planet orbited around. She had Botticelli-esque blonde curls, if Botticelli surfed. She was a surfer from Orange County, which might as well have been the moon from where I grew up in Northern California, much less the same state.

Carly’s room always smelled sort of vanilla-y, she had dark purple mottled pillar candles and an energy and presence that felt shockingly grounded and calming to my strung out teenage nervous system.

I remember cozying up on her duvet one day and seeing a pink index card taped to the wall next to her bed: “Create, not consume.” She’d written it in Sharpie, I can still picture the way her letters were shaped.

Damn, I thought. That’s really fucking profound.

I am 32 now, and I still think of Carly’s index card all. the. time.

It’s funny what sticks with you, isn’t it?

When I started my first business, I was creating, but in a universe where success was defined only as consumption (also known as revenue). It felt sticky to me, even at a young and naive 26 years old. On the one hand, creating this visual and written universe around Goldune felt like the best, purest thing I’d ever done in my life. When I was creating, I never felt more me, more in my purpose as a human.

On the other hand, benchmarking the “success” of that creation with numbers— how many likes, how many conversions, how many saves or shares— bled it dry of its purity.

That was back in 2020, and it feels fair to say that even more young people aspire towards founder-dom now— so many young adults want to be their own boss, despite being a generation who has statistically had less bosses at all than any who preceded them. (This is a bold estimate I am backing up with 0 data, all vibes.)

When I talk to early stage founders today, the first thought on my mind is usually: do you actually want to start a business? Or are you just looking for creative expression, to pour yourself into something that feels meaningful, that will give you purpose, that will get you out of bed each morning, that will give the shape of your day to day life a higher purpose or meaning beyond endless scrolling?

I know that sounds harsh. But there’s a big fat hole in American lives and societies where religion used to be, where an interdependent family structure used to be, where serving a community or neighborhood used to be. And I think a lot of young people today don’t know what else to fill it with but not… brands!?

I also want to say there is absolutely nothing wrong with realizing that what you thought might be a business might be a better passion project, hobby, or creative sprint. There are SO MANY talented creators who sell their wares on Etsy or at a farmer’s market who are not making a sole living off of the financial yield that their craft brings in— and there are also a lot who do, who are scraping by and starting to fucking hate what used to be their utmost passion.

Relying on something you love for income is a really fast way to make that thing you love into the thing you used to hate so much you monetized your passion… work.

Hell, I’ve written about how this newsletter changed when I monetized it. Nothing can resist change, no matter how much you love its sameness.

Here’s my framework for figuring out if you should monetize your creative passion— aka, is this a business? Or is just a creative project?

It’s a business if you can honestly check these “boxes”: