As I mentioned in my first post of the year, I plan on reading a whole lot more in 2017. To create accountability, I’ve committed to writing and posting one book review per month for the whole year. Here is the first one. Let me know what you think! 

Title: The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future

Author: Chris Guillebeau | author website
Hardcover, 268 pages
Published May 8th 2012 by Crown Business
Genre: Business / Small business / Entrepreneurship
Goodreads rating: 3.84 stars / 5
Mel’s rating: 4 stars / 5

 

From Goodreads

In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau shows you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose – and earn a good living.

Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck.  Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.  [Read the rest]

My thoughts on this book

I must admit, I think I’ve started and stopped reading this book about 5 times at least. The problem, is not even a problem at all; it was so inspiring and so packed full of knowledge that I had to constantly stop to write down notes and explore ideas that were suddenly pouring into my head all the time.

For someone like me, who had always dreamed but had never taken the leap into entrepreneurship, the stories of unusual entrepreneurs that permeate this book served to change my mindset from “I could never do that” to “Holy crap! Maybe I CAN do this!”.

Possibility is a powerful thing, my friends.

Also, reading this book while listening to Chris Guillebeau’s new daily podcast Side Hustle School, makes for a double whammy of entrepreneurial inspiration. The reason I give this book 4 stars is because even though it provides all the inspiration and information, for someone like me who is currently working a full-time job, a single mom with a single income, I just can’t afford to quit my job and leap into starting a business from scratch. So I felt some frustration there. Side Hustle School is beginning to fill that gap for me, and so has really completed the package. Now I don’t have to stress about my business not building in the way I had initially wanted it to. I can feel great knowing that this is a side hustle and the smaller pieces of time that I have to give are enough. After all, just because I have a so-called full-time gig doesn’t mean I can’t also do what I’m passionate about and help people live happier, more fulfilling lives.

Seriously though, if you’ve ever thought of starting your own business, or have tried in the past and didn’t really quite make it (I’m talking to you beautiful Avon, Mary Kay, Arbonne, Party Lite and Tupperware people out there), this book will change your life.

Special lingo

Microbusiness: A business with a small number of employees (mostly just one – you!)

Hustling: The hard work part of launching a business. It’s a ton of work on the front end, but if you do it right, it takes off an everything else gets a lot easier.

What’s in the book

The $100 Startup is written in a series of easy Chapters with fun titles, split into three (3) sections:

Unexpected Entrepreneurs:

Designed to open your mind to a world of possibility, this section is filled with stories of people who either never intended to be entrepreneurs in the first place, or just broke all the rules and started with an idea and made into something profitable. The purpose of this section is to help you generate ideas.

Key takeaways / quotes:

1. “Where passion or skill meets usefulness, a microbusiness built on freedom and value can thrive.”

2. The art of skill transformation: If you’re good at something (i.e. you have a special skill), chances are, you’re good at something else that you can use to build a microbusiness.

3. To start a business, you need 3 things: (1) a product or service, (2) people willing to pay for it, and (3) a way for you to get paid.

4. Just because you’re passionate about something, doesn’t necessarily mean you should make a business around it; but that doesn’t mean it can’t be something related.

5. The demographics for your business can be radically different than what we’re used to. Age, gender, and location are no longer relevant. (ex. You could serve people who live on a ketogenic diet) Specialized communities are powerful.

Taking it to the Streets:

Once you’ve got your idea, this next section helps you figure out how to go about making a business out of it.

Key takeaways / quotes:

1. “Plan? What plan?” – stop planning. Just start. Start making money and figure the rest out as you go.

2. Keep costs low: invest time and sweat, and as little money as possible.

3. Get your first sale as quickly as possible: See point #1 above. It’s not about the money. The sale will show you that you can do this, blast your confidence into the stratosphere, and give you the motivation you need to make your thing, the best thing anyone has ever seen.

4. Over-deliver as much as possible: Nobody cares that you spent 10 hours making an infographic or editing a video. Giving people a ton of great valuable content tells people that you care about them (and hopefully they show reciprocity by buying your stuff/services)

5. There’s also tons of great “how to” pieces in there. (How to launch a product, how to do market testing, how to write great promotions)

Leverage and Next Steps:

This is a great section to answer the “Now what?” question that comes after you’ve gotten some initial momentum going. Basically, this is a “how to build your business without putting too much extra work into it” guide.

Key takeaways / quotes:

1. Increasing your income is a lot easier than you think. Hint: clients who are already paying for your services will often gladly continue to pay you once you increase your prices (because you’ve over-delivered at every turn, right?).

2. One product/service leads to more. Once you’ve got one main product or service built, it’s easier to build it into a series of other things that can generate income (ex. The book you wrote can turn into a talk and a workshop series – or vice versa!)

3. Once your business is running well, it’s actually possible to pursue new ideas! Find ways to automate as many of the processes as possible while you dive into building a new idea.

4. Don’t become a firefighter (i.e. don’t fall into the trap of spending all your time responding to requests and customer support issues). You want your business to always be moving forward. Spend 50% of your time building the next pieces of your business, and the other 50% on connecting with your clients/customers & running the day-to-day.

 

The most important lesson in the whole book: Don’t waste your time living someone else’s life.

Enjoy!