Now, get ready...this would be the most unconventional business advise you will ever hear.
Passion is awesome when it is allowed to flare in the bedroom but bringing it into business ends in a disaster 8 out of every 10 cases. The cliché; turn your passion into a business has been so passed around that everybody now believes it. You hear stuffs like: "find your passion and what you are interested in and make money from it" - very dangerous advise.

I will tell you why

Now let's assume that your passion is the type that can be turned into a business; trust me, a lot of the things people have a passion for would make very terribly businesses.
But let's assume yours will make a good business - you jump into it burning with terribly hot passion? that's suicidal.
Now, this is why; business is not a game of passions, business is not a game of emotions. You don't open a business because you love it, it is not a love game - it is business, nothing personal. It is solely for making profits.

Now, slow down - I know you are shaking your head now and disagreeing with me.
There is nothing wrong with doing what you love but when you open a fish shop just because you love fish you will have that passion flying off the window the moment your first set of business wahala hits you.
Look at it this way; a lot of people say that the passion keeps you going - bullshit (Pardon that word). Passion blinds, when you do business solely on passion basis you only see the positive side of the venture you are going into (No matter what) and that's bad for business; you need to see everything - bad, good and the ugly. when you get hit by the first road block that passion go reduce so fast you sef go shock.
I have noticed, passion for a business is proportional to how successful it becomes. Brova and sister, a brova who hates driving will so love driving if it is making money for him.
What if people just don't need what you are passionate about. That's why you have to go into a business venture on the basis of how profitable it is rather than on how much you love the sector. Because you are passionate about it doesn't necessarily make it a good business idea. Because you love the idea so much does not mean people will pay for. There is no section in a business plan where you are supposed to write how passionate you are about the idea; investors know passion is not really that important or they would have asked you to squeeze it into the business plan. Business should be looked at without emotions - without passion, So if you jump into it just because you love it then breeze go carry you. I think the advise: "find a need and solve it" is more of a better business advise than "turn your passion into a business"...think about it.

Great advice! Absolutely brilliant. I have always wondered at the "Turn your passion into a business" cliche.

It's just like the op said. Find a need and solve it. Cest fini.

Great write up once again.

Well, the general idea is that if you are passionate enough about what you do, it doesn't really matter whether or not you are making enough money out of it.

The passion will keep you going and make you find better ways of doing it until you become the best at it.

The business angle to this is that if you become the best in whatever you do you will certainly get patronage no matter the situation of the economy.