The $100 Startup

If it has ever crossed your mind that you might want to start making money online, Th $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau is a fantastic book to pick up.

Chris conducted hundreds of surveys and spent hours upon hours doing follow up interviews with people who have successfully built a living online.

He had some requirements, the people he surveyed had to make more than $50,000 a year in net income, and there were also limits on how much capital they had to start out.

Many people surveyed started their online micro-business with roughly $100.

According to Chris, we are living in the mirco-business revolution where all over the world, the traditional rules of earning a living are being re-written.

Here are my notes:

• Start with a list of what you want in life and figure out how to do it. Don’t look at your budget and then figure out what your options are.
• On freedom: “Once you see what it’s like on the inside, good luck ever following someone else’s rules again.”
• “The more you understand how your skills and knowledge can be useful to others, the more your odds of success will go up.”
• “Perhaps most important: the vital career question of what is risky and what is safe has changed permanently. The old choice was to work at a job or to take a big risk going out on your own. The new reality is that working at a job maybe the far riskier choice. Instead, take the safer road and go out on your own.”
• “The goal is not to get rich quickly, but to create something people will pay for.”
• Value: something desirable and of worth, created by exchange or effort. Simpler definition: helping people.
• Benefits are more important than features. Features are descriptive, benefits are emotional (and most purchases are emotional).
• “It’s always better to start where you are than to wait for everything to be perfect.”
• “Business opportunities are like buses. There’s always another one coming.” – Richard Branson
• “Most of us like to buy, but don’t like to be sold.”
• “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” – Peter Drucker
• “Get started quickly and see what happens. There’s nothing wrong with planning, but you can spend a lifetime making a plan that never turns into action. n the battle between planning and action, action wins.”
• All you need: a product or service, a group of customers, and a way to get paid.”
• Have a deadline: “I will launch this project into the world by ____
• What people want and what they say they want are often different. Airline customers always say they want more leg room, but airline companies know that what customers really want is lower fares.
• You should either offer an incredible guarantee on your product or no guarantee. A weak guarantee can hurt your credibility.
• “Always return to the all-important value question: how can you help people more?”
• In the beginning of your venture, you should say “yes” to every opportunity that comes your way. As you progress, you need to start saying “no” more often so you can focus. Follow the advice of Derek Sivers: “It’s either ‘H&%! Yeah!’ or ‘no.'”
• When promoting your project, think hustling first and paid advertising second.
• If you ever try to sell a product or service, inevitably someone will tell you it is too expensive. It might be too expensive for them, but only the market can decide if it is too expensive.
• Experimenting with higher pricing is the easiest way to increase revenue.
• Low-paying customers are not as high-quality as high paying customers. They want to only spend $10 and expect the world in return.
• The story is usually the same: entrepreneurs and freelancers are scared to death to raise their rates, but when they do it turns out not to be a big deal.
• A partnership generally makes sense if it makes 30% more than the sum of what both parties could have earned individually
• “Sometimes the best advice is none at all. If you know what you need to do, the next step is simply to do it. Stop waiting, Start taking action.”
• The quest for personal freedom lies in the pursuit of value for others.
• Borrowing money to start a business or going into debt at all is now completely optional.
• Focus relentlessly on the point of convergence between what you love to do and what people are willing to pay  for. Remember, most needs are emotional. People want to feel loved and affirmed.
• Action beats planning.
• “The biggest battle is against our own fear and inertia.”
• “The most important lesson in the whole book: don’t waste your time living someone else’s life.”

I really enjoyed this book. It’s great to read a book by someone who really did their homework and has tons of interesting examples to offer of people who started from nothing and replaced their income with little upfront investment.

I listened to the audiobook on this one and enjoyed, but I’m sure the physical book is great as well.

Overall, I think everyone should read this book. If you haven’t thought about how you can start your own thing online and gain you freedom before, right now is the time to start, and this book is a very solid choice to serve as your introduction to the possibilities. Plus it has a lot of helpful lessons that will be extremely practical to implement as you get going.

Get it below: