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

Description

Lead a life of adventure, meaning and purpose—and earn a good living.

“Thoughtful, funny, and compulsively readable, this guide shows how ordinary people can build solid livings, with independence and purpose, on their own terms.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project

Still in his early thirties, Chris Guillebeau completed a tour of every country on earth 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.

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 fulfillment.

Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment. It’s all about finding the intersection between your “expertise”—even if you don’t consider it such—and what other people will pay for.  You don’t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees. All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.

Not content to talk in generalities, 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.

In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold. Today, we know that it’s up to us to change our lives. And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs. This remarkable book will start you on your way.

Table of Contents

1. Prologue: Manifesto
2. A short guide to everything you want xiii
3. Part I Unexpected Entrepreneurs
   1. Renaissance: You already have the skills you need- you just have to know where to look. 2
   2. Give Them the Fish: How to put happiness in a box and sell it 22
   3. Follow Your Passion … Maybe: Get paid to do what you love by making sure it connects to what other people want 40
   4. The Rise of the Roaming Entrepreneur: “Location, location, location” is overrated. 56
   5. The New Demographics: Your customers all have something in common, but it has nothing to do with old-school categories. 74
4. Part II Taking it to the Streets
   1. The One-Page Business Plan: If your mission statement is much longer than this sentence, it could be too long. 92
   2. An Offer You Can’t Refuse: The step-by-step guide to creating a killer offer. 108
   3. Launch!: A trip to Hollywood from your living room or the corner coffee shop. 126
   4. Hustling: The Gentle Art of Self-Promotion: Advertising is like sex: Only losers pay for it. 146
   5. Show Me the Money: Unconventional fundraising from Kickstarter to unlikely car loans. 162
5. Part III Leverage and Next Steps
   1. Moving On Up: Tweaking your way to the bank: How small actions create big increases in income. 184
   2. How to Franchise Yourself: Instructions on cloning yourself for fun and profit. 202
   3. Going Long: Become as big as you want to be (and no bigger). 228
   4. But What If I Fail?: How to succeed even if your roof caves in on you. 244
   5. Coda 261
   6. Disclosures and Interesting Facts 265
   7. But Wait, There’s More! 267
6. Fish Stories Appendix: Twenty-Five Selected Case Studies 269
7. Gratitude 273
8. Rockstars from the $100 Startup 275
9. Index 279

Reviews

The money you have is enough. Chris makes it crystal clear: there are no excuses left. START. Start now, not later. Hurry — Seth Godin, New York Times bestselling author

Thoughtful, funny and compulsively readable, this guide shows how ordinary people can build solid livings, with independence and purpose, on their own terms — Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project

Author Biography

Chris Guillebeau is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The $100 Startup and The Happiness of Pursuit, and the Wall Street Journalbestseller Born for This. He is creator and host of the annual World Domination Summit, a gathering of cultural creatives that attracts such speakers as Susan Cain, Brené Brown, and Gretchen Rubin. Guillebeau speaks at dozens of events, companies, and universities, including Google, Facebook, SXSW, Evernote, LeWeb, and more. He recently completed a personal quest to visit every country in the world (193/193)