Abstract
This paper examines the role hobbyist communities play as a non-commercial counterpart to entrepreneurial industries. Drawing on historical examples, we show that hobbyist communities often play important roles in entrepreneurship. The communities are not merely a collection of users and user-makers but tightly knit knowledge commons with self-organized norms. Similar to entrepreneurial industries, hobbyist communities provide entrepreneurial support structures such as conventions, expos, and newsletters. However, the focus on intrinsic motivations in hobbyist communities can help mitigate the risk of opportunistically overselling motivations to unsuitable entrepreneurs, a problem often encountered in entrepreneurial industries. In contrast, hobbyist communities' distinct entrepreneurial culture and motivation attract different types of entrepreneurs. Such communities' organic emergence and self-organization also factor in public entrepreneurship policy, highlighting the limits of top-down planning.