Most people are told to follow their passion. Varun Mayya, CEO of Avalon Labs and author of Pajama Profit, asks a sharper question: which of your passions can you actually turn into a business?
In this Builders Club water cooler conversation, he walks through his path from freelancing to startups to a Discord community that taught thousands of people, and what monetizing your passion really takes.
How do you monetize your passion? Varun Mayya’s core thesis
Varun’s answer is practical. Passion alone does not pay. You need a skill you can execute, and you need to spot a problem in the area you care about that you can solve for other people.
He pairs this with an audience strategy: tell a consistent origin story, own your community instead of renting it from a social platform, and charge where live mentorship and real projects add value.
- Passion needs skill. Stalking a topic is not a skill; being able to build and execute is.
- Solve a problem you know. His own example was understanding Discord’s weaknesses and building around them.
- Own your audience. Only a small share of followers on Instagram see your posts, so he moved his audience to Discord.
- Charge for live learning. Free recorded content brings people in; paid, project-based cohorts keep them learning.
What is Varun Mayya’s founder journey?
Varun told his mother in college that he did not want a job. She asked about money, so he set out to prove he could earn on his own through freelancing.
Once he felt skilled, he tried startups, which he describes as far harder than freelancing. He raised money, took his first company, Job Spire, to 4 million requests in 2016 while working with 1,500 recruiters, and sold it in early 2017 to a New York-based company.
- Freelancing first, to prove he could earn without a job.
- Job Spire: a recruiting product that was sold in 2017.
- Avalon Labs: a services company that built and grew products for others, scaling to about 50 people at its peak.
- Content and community: YouTube and Instagram led to a Discord server and paid learning programs.
Where do our passions come from, and can they pay?
Varun argues that most of our passions come from what we saw on TV and media when we were young. Today’s kids want to be YouTubers for the same reason.
Because we often end up in work that does not match those passions, many people feel stuck. His advice is to find the one passion with commercial potential and solve a real problem inside it.
Why skills matter more than interest
He is clear that you cannot monetize a passion without skills. The Avalon Pro Leagues taught finance, sales, marketing and game development so that members could execute.
His view is that people who master a craft are generally happier because they are using their hands, like craftsmen.
How do you market a community and build a personal brand?
The challenge is exposure. There are millions of communities, and people scroll past most of them, so you need consistent exposure with a story people connect to.
For Avalon, that story was the founders’ own struggle with the education system, told steadily on Instagram.
- Tell your origin: why you are solving this problem.
- Be consistent so people see you repeatedly.
- Lead with people, not logos.
Why personal brands beat company brands
Varun notes that people care about other people rather than fictional entities trying to sell to them. He points to OnePlus running ads through a creator’s account rather than only its own.
Some of Avalon’s personal-brand approach was accidental, and it was confirmed as early evidence came in.
Why did Varun move his audience to Discord?
He saw that on Instagram, out of every 100 followers only six or seven see your posts, so you are only renting your audience. After trying Telegram, he landed on Discord.
He then monetized the audience through educational services, and the audience itself was a smart one made up of people who wanted to build.
- Build an audience on social platforms.
- Move them to a space you control.
- Teach them skills in live cohorts.
- Let members meet each other and learn from peers.
What is Avalon Voices and how does it differ from Discord?
Varun describes Avalon Voices as a social media version of Discord. At the time it looked more like Clubhouse, with chat and forums coming.
The aim is a place where people can discover smart communities. He says Avalon has never been one community but a community of communities, and that Voices is the infrastructure layer for that.
- Real names, so members can build genuine connections.
- A cleaner interface.
- Separate stage and chat, rather than a voice room on a separate channel.
- Discovery, so communities need not rely on shared links alone.
How should you charge for a community, and what are the ways to monetize it?
Avalon Meta had 300 to 400 free pre-recorded episodes. Live Pro Leagues were paid because live sessions need trainers and teaching assistants, and projects need someone to guide them.
He says Avalon was the most affordable in cohort-based learning at roughly 15k, while others started around 70 to 80k. In his view, if people do not build projects they are being entertained, not learning.
- Teach your know-how to your community.
- Take a small fee on internal trade of goods and services.
- Run education programs around the community.
- Expect many more models to emerge.
What advice does Varun give community builders?
He recommends having rituals unique to your community, such as the admin debates in Avalon’s early days. He also advises hiring great moderators.
His warning is that a community that tries to be everything for everyone ends up wanted by nobody. Know your audience and do not stray far from it.
Further reading and sources
Frequently asked questions
How can I turn a passion into a business?
Varun’s view is to build a real skill first, then find a problem in your area of interest that you can solve for others. Passion without the ability to execute rarely becomes income. Pick the interest with the clearest commercial angle.
Is it better to build a community on Discord or Slack?
Varun said Discord is better than Slack partly because Slack charges, but the trade-off is anonymity. Avalon built Voices because members lacked real names on Discord. Choose based on whether voice, cost or real identities matter most to your members.
Should community content be free or paid?
Varun suggests free recorded basics to attract people, and paid live programs with mentors and projects. Paying covers trainers and teaching assistants and keeps people accountable. Price it so your audience can afford it.
Conclusion
Varun Mayya’s message to founders is simple: pair a passion with a skill, solve a real problem, and own the audience you build.
Pick one problem in your community this week and test whether people will pay for a live, project-based solution.
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