Turning a Hobby Into a Small Business

Shanks' next move was to take a class in the basics of running a business. She marketed the business and it became so popular that she was approached by a company that wanted her to run corporate team-building events based on cooking. That aspect of her business took off, and Shanks continued to build the company while getting an MBA, and found she was more focused on running the company rather than cooking.

"Somewhere along the line, there was a transformation from being a chef to being a businesswoman," Shanks said, saying the title of businesswoman was the last role she expected to end up in when she first thought of cooking for a living.

Shanks is now doing corporate team building events for a company called Sebastian's Interactive Test Kitchen.

Hank Miller had a different path, turning his hobby into a business after having worked in information technology for decades. Miller, who worked with computers and telecommunications systems in the Navy, the University of Rochester and Xerox Corp., left Xerox at the end of 2002 at the age of 55.

He went through outplacement counseling and was "looking for a job that didn't exist. I finally said, this is ridiculous, and I talked to my wife and said, 'let's start a business.'"

The business was Boom Towne Canine Center, which offers services for dogs including training, boarding, day care and grooming.

Miller and his wife Carole have shown and trained dogs for years, winning championship, agility and obedience titles. So when they considered starting a business, it was natural to want to work with dogs.

"The thing just grew and grew," Miller said. "We're in our second year of operation, and it keeps getting better and better."

But this clearly isn't a hobby anymore.

"We invested a lot of our retirement in it," Miller said, estimating that between the couple's own funds and loans, $1.6 million was poured into Boom Towne.