The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future Read Online Free Page B
Author: Chris Guillebeau
landed her first client within a month and figured it out. Four years later, her firm employs five people and operates in London, Berlin, New York, and China. Kat was a great waitress and learned to apply similar “people skills” to publicizing her clients, creating a business that was more profitable, sustainable, and fun than working for someone else and endlessly repeating the list of daily specials.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, success in entrepreneurship isn’t necessarily related to being the best at any particular activity. Scott Adams, the creator of the
Dilbert
comic series, explains his success this way:
I succeeded as a cartoonist with negligible art talent, some basic writing skills, an ordinary sense of humor and a bit of experience in the business world. The “Dilbert” comic is a combination of all four skills. The world has plenty of better artists, smarter writers, funnier humorists and more experienced business people. The rare part is that each of those modest skills is collected in one person. That’s how value is created. †
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.
Lesson 3: The Magic Formula
Bringing the first two ideas together, here is the not-so-secret recipe for microbusiness alchemy:
Passion or skill + usefulness = success
Throughout the book, we’ll examine case studies by referring to this formula. Jaden Hair forged a career as the host of
Steamy Kitchen
, a cooking show and website featuring Asian cuisine. From an initial investment of $200, cookbooks, TV offers, and corporate sponsorship have all come her way due to the merging of passion and usefulness. The recipes Jaden shares with a large community on a daily basis are easy, healthy, and very popular—when I met her at an event she was hosting in Austin, I could barely get through the throngs of admirers to say hi. (Read more of Jaden’s story in Chapter 2 .)
Elsewhere, Brandon Pearce was a piano teacher struggling to keep up with the administrative side of his work. A programming hobbyist, he created software to help track his students, scheduling, and payment. “I did the whole project with no intention of making it into a business,” he said. “But then other teachers started showing interest, and I thought maybe I could make a few extra bucks with it.” The few extra bucks turned into a full-time income and more, with current income in excess of $30,000 a month. A native of Utah, Brandon now lives with his family at their second home inCosta Rica when they aren’t exploring the rest of the world. (Read more of Brandon’s story in Chapter 4 .)
The Road Ahead: What We’ll Learn
In the quest for freedom, we’ll look at the nuts and bolts of building a microbusiness through the lens of those who have done it. The basics of starting a business are very simple; you don’t need an MBA (keep the $60,000 tuition), venture capital, or even a detailed plan. 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:
1. Product or service: what you sell
2. People willing to pay for it: your customers
3. A way to get paid: how you’ll exchange a product or service for money
If you have a group of interested people but nothing to sell, you don’t have a business. If you have something to sell but no one willing to buy it, you don’t have a business. In both cases, without a clear and easy way for customers to pay for what you offer, you don’t have a business. Put the three together, and congratulations—you’re now an entrepreneur.
These are the bare bones of any project; there’s no need to overcomplicate things. But to look at it more closely, it helps to have an
offer
: a combination of product or service
plus
the messaging that
Contrary to conventional wisdom, success in entrepreneurship isn’t necessarily related to being the best at any particular activity. Scott Adams, the creator of the
Dilbert
comic series, explains his success this way:
I succeeded as a cartoonist with negligible art talent, some basic writing skills, an ordinary sense of humor and a bit of experience in the business world. The “Dilbert” comic is a combination of all four skills. The world has plenty of better artists, smarter writers, funnier humorists and more experienced business people. The rare part is that each of those modest skills is collected in one person. That’s how value is created. †
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.
Lesson 3: The Magic Formula
Bringing the first two ideas together, here is the not-so-secret recipe for microbusiness alchemy:
Passion or skill + usefulness = success
Throughout the book, we’ll examine case studies by referring to this formula. Jaden Hair forged a career as the host of
Steamy Kitchen
, a cooking show and website featuring Asian cuisine. From an initial investment of $200, cookbooks, TV offers, and corporate sponsorship have all come her way due to the merging of passion and usefulness. The recipes Jaden shares with a large community on a daily basis are easy, healthy, and very popular—when I met her at an event she was hosting in Austin, I could barely get through the throngs of admirers to say hi. (Read more of Jaden’s story in Chapter 2 .)
Elsewhere, Brandon Pearce was a piano teacher struggling to keep up with the administrative side of his work. A programming hobbyist, he created software to help track his students, scheduling, and payment. “I did the whole project with no intention of making it into a business,” he said. “But then other teachers started showing interest, and I thought maybe I could make a few extra bucks with it.” The few extra bucks turned into a full-time income and more, with current income in excess of $30,000 a month. A native of Utah, Brandon now lives with his family at their second home inCosta Rica when they aren’t exploring the rest of the world. (Read more of Brandon’s story in Chapter 4 .)
The Road Ahead: What We’ll Learn
In the quest for freedom, we’ll look at the nuts and bolts of building a microbusiness through the lens of those who have done it. The basics of starting a business are very simple; you don’t need an MBA (keep the $60,000 tuition), venture capital, or even a detailed plan. 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:
1. Product or service: what you sell
2. People willing to pay for it: your customers
3. A way to get paid: how you’ll exchange a product or service for money
If you have a group of interested people but nothing to sell, you don’t have a business. If you have something to sell but no one willing to buy it, you don’t have a business. In both cases, without a clear and easy way for customers to pay for what you offer, you don’t have a business. Put the three together, and congratulations—you’re now an entrepreneur.
These are the bare bones of any project; there’s no need to overcomplicate things. But to look at it more closely, it helps to have an
offer
: a combination of product or service
plus
the messaging that
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