The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future is a book by Chris Guillebeau a book for beginner Business Startup as the title suggest in $100 startup .Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and focused on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfilment .In this book Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick. Among Chris’s key principles: If you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish—sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.
ABOUT AUTHOR “Chris Guillebau”
Chris Guillebeau (born April 4, 1978) is an American author, entrepreneur, blogger, and speaker. He initially received attention for his entrepreneurship and travel blog, The Art of Non-Conformity, which led to the publication of a book of the same name in 2010. Since then, he has published six additional books including The $100 Startup (2012), Side Hustle (2017), and most recently, The Money Tree (2020), his first novel. He also organizes the annual World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon and hosts the daily podcast, Side Hustle School.
“This book is for:
those who take action
and
those who provide the inspiration“
THE $ 100 STARTUP BRIEF BOOK SUMMARY
Chris Guillebeau spent the past 10 years traveling the world, initially on a quest to visit every country (all 193!) and then on an extended journey of research for my book, The $100 Startup. Along the way, He often meet with entrepreneurs and small-business owners, seeking to understand how they’ve built their projects.
YOU ALREADY HAVE THE SKILLS YOU NEED – YOU JUST HAVE TO KNOW WHERE TO LOOK.
“The need for change bulldozed a road
down the center of my mind.”
—MAYA ANGELOU
Microbusinesses—businesses typically run by only one person—have been around since the beginning of commerce. What’s new, however, is how quickly someone can start a business and reach a group of customers. The building process is much faster and cheaper today than it has ever been. Going from idea to startup can now take less than a month and cost less than $100.
Convergence
Convergence represents the intersection between something you especially like to do or are good at doing (preferably both) and what other people are also interested in.
In the overlap between the two circles, where passion or skill meets usefulness, a microbusiness built on freedom and value can thrive.
Skill Transformation
To succeed in a business project, especially one you’re excited about, it helps to think carefully about all the skills you have that could be helpful to others and particularly about the combination of those skills.
The Magic Formula
Bringing the first two ideas together, here is the not-so-secret recipe for microbusiness alchemy:
Passion or skill + usefulness = success
KEY POINTS
1. Microbusinesses aren’t new; they’ve been around since the beginning of
commerce. What’s changed, however, is the ability to test, launch, and
scale your project quickly and on the cheap.
2.To start a business, you need three things: a product or service, a group of
people willing to pay for it, and a way to get paid. Everything else is
completely optional.
3.If you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at other things too.
Many projects begin through a process of “skill transformation,” in
which you apply your knowledge to a related topic.
4.Most important: merge your passion and skill with something that is useful
to other people.
Give Them the Fish
How to put happiness in a box and sell it.
“Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish, and you ruin
a wonderful business opportunity.”
—KARL MARX
As you begin to think like an entrepreneur, you’ll notice that business ideas can come from anywhere. While thinking like this, you’ll notice opportunities for microbusiness projects everywhere you go. Here are a few common sources of inspiration:
- An inefficiency in the marketplace.
- New technology or opportunity.
- A changing space.
- A spin-off or side project.
The basics of starting a business are very simple; you just need a product or service, a group of people willing to pay for it, and a way to get paid. This can be broken down as follows:
- Product or service: what you sell
- People willing to pay for it: your customers
- A way to get paid: how you’ll exchange a product or service for money
Ask three questions for every idea:
- How would I get paid with this idea?
- How much would I get paid from this idea?
- Is there a way I could get paid more than once?
Value
val-ue: something desirable and of worth, created through exchange or effort
In our context, an even easier way to think about it is: Value means helping people. If you’re trying to build a microbusiness and you begin your efforts by helping people, you’re on the right track.
Six steps for getting started right now
- Decide on your product or service.
- Set up a website, even a very basic one
- Develop an offer.
- Ensure you have a way to get paid (get a free PayPal account to start).
- Announce your offer to the world
- Learn from steps 1 through 5, then repeat.
Most people want more of some things (money, love, attention) and less of other things (stress, anxiety, debt). Always focus on what you can add or take away to improve someone’s life … and then prepare to get paid.
KEY POINTS
1.Value means “helping people.” Our unexpected entrepreneurs discovered
that when they focused on providing value above all else, their
businesses were successful.
2.Give people what they really want, not just what you think they should
have. Give them the fish!
3.The more you can market a core benefit instead of a list of features, the
easier it will be to profit from your idea. Core benefits usually relate to
emotional needs more than physical needs.
4.Most people want more of some things (money, love, attention) and less of
other things (stress, anxiety, debt). Always focus on what you can add or
take away to improve someone’s life … and then prepare to get paid.
Follow Your Passion … Maybe
GET PAID TO DO WHAT YOU LOVE BY MAKING SURE IT CONNECTS TO WHAT OTHER PEOPLE WANT.
“Passion, though a bad regulator,
is a powerful spring.”
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Get paid to do what you love by making sure it connects to what other people want.
Many follow-your-passion businesses are built on something indirectly related, not the passion or hobby itself. When considering an opportunity, ask: “Where is the business model?” Not every passion or hobby is worth building into a business, and not everyone will want to have a business that is based on a passion or hobby.
Instant Consultant Business
You can start a new business as a consultant in about one day, if not sooner. Follow these two basic rules:
- Pick something specific as opposed to something general. Don’t be a “business consultant” or a “life coach”—get specific about what you can really do for someone.
- No one values a $15-an-hour consultant, so do not underprice your service. Since you probably won’t have forty hours of billable work every week, charge at least $100 an hour or a comparable fixed rate for the benefit you provide.
The Rise of the Roaming Entrepreneur
“A desk is a dangerous place
from which to view the world.”
—JOHN LE CARRÉ
“Location, location, location” is overrated. Roaming entrepreneurs are everywhere these days. Many of them are quietly building significant (six figures or higher) businesses while living in paradise. But, just as not every passion leads to a good business model, a lot of people pursue the nomadic lifestyle for the wrong reasons. The best question to answer is: What do you want to do? There are many roads to location independence, but the business of information publishing is especially profitable. (And there’s more than one path to information publishing; it isn’t just about e-books.) Find the convergence between what you love and what other people are willing to buy, remember that you’re probably good at more than one thing, and combine passion and usefulness to build a real business—no matter where you end up living.
“Find the convergence between what you love and what other people are willing to buy.”
The New Demographics
“Business opportunities are like buses;
there’s always another one coming.”
—RICHARD BRANSON
Your customers all have something in common, but it has nothing to do with old-school categories.
- Strategy 1: Latch on to a Popular Hobby, Passion, or Craze
- Strategy 2: Sell What People Buy
As you learn more about your customers and what they want, you may find yourself overwhelmed with ideas. First, make sure you’re capturing all the ideas and writing them down, since you might want them later; second, find a way to evaluate competing ideas. Use surveys to understand customers and prospects. The more specific, the better. Ask: “What is the number one thing I can do for you?”.
First of all, keep in mind the most basic questions of any successful microbusiness:
- Does the project produce an obvious product or service?
- Do you know people who will want to buy it? (Or do you know where to find them?)
- Do you have a way to get paid?
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
“Plans are only good intentions unless
they immediately degenerate into hard work.”
—PETER F. DRUCKER
The One-Page Business Plan
“Nothing will work unless you do.”
—MAYA ANGELOU
If your mission statement is much longer than this sentence, it could be too long. There’s nothing wrong with planning, but you can spend a lifetime making a plan that never turns into action. In the battle between planning and action, action wins.
Test your market
- You need to care about the problem you are going to solve, and there has to be a sizable number of other people who also care.
- Make sure the market is big enough. Test the size by checking the number and relevancy of Google keywords—the same keywords you would use if you were trying to find your product.
- Focus on eliminating “blatant admitted pain.” The product needs to solve a problem that causes pain that the market knows it has.
- Almost everything that is being sold is for either a deep pain or a deep desire. You need to show people how you can help remove or reduce pain.
- Always think in terms of solutions. Make sure your solution is different and better.
- Ask others about the idea but make sure the people you ask are your potential target market.
- Create an outline for what you are doing and show it to a subgroup of your community. Ask them to test it for free in return for feedback and confidentiality.
The $100 Recap
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it
living someone else’s life.”
—STEVE JOBS
Before we close it out, let’s look back at the key lessons of this book. First and most important, the quest for personal freedom lies in the pursuit of value for others. Get this right from the beginning and the rest will be much easier.Always ask, “How can help people more?”Borrowing money to start a business, or going into debt at all, is now completely optional. Like many of the people you met in this book, you can start your own microbusiness for $100 or less.Focus relentlessly on the point of convergence between what you love to do and what other people are willing to pay for. Remember that most core needs are emotional: We want to be loved and affirmed. Relate your product or service to attractive benefits, not boring features. If you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else. Use the process of skill transformation to think about all the things you’re good at, not just the obvious ones.Find out what people want, and find a way to give it to them. Give them the fish!There is no consulting school. You can set up shop and charge for specialized help immediately. (Just remember to offer something specific and provide an easy way to get paid.)Some business models are easier than others to start on a budget. Unless you have a compelling reason to do something different, think about how you can participate in the knowledge economy. Action beats planning. Use the One-Page Business Plan and other quick-start guides to get under way without waiting.Crafting an offer, hustling, and producing a launch event will generate much greater results than simply releasing your product or service to the world with no fanfare. The first $1.26 is the hardest, so find a way to get your first sale as quickly as possible. Then work on improving the things that are working, while ignoring the things that aren’t. By “franchising yourself” through partnerships, outsourcing, or creating A different business, you can be in more than one place at the same time. Decide for yourself what kind of business you’d like to build. There’s nothing wrong with deliberately staying small (many of the subjects of our stories did exactly that) or scaling up in the right way. It only gets better as you go along.