Why You Should Read The $100 Startup
The cover of my generous free copy of The $100 Startup reads:
Reinvent the way you make a living,
Do what you love,
and Create a new future.
If I had read those words even 2 years ago, they would have meant little to me. Reinvent it how? What does doing what I love have to do with making a living? And exactly what kind of “new future” are you talking about?
Today, I don’t have those questions anymore. I know the answers start with the right mindset. I feel them in my bones. I live them in my waking hours. My quest now is to show you that it can be done. Chris is talking about a new way of building that micro-business you’ve been dreaming about today. The technology and the resources enable you like never before. One would be foolish not to take advantage of it!
The $100 Start up is an inspiring and well-researched book that strikes a great balance between stories and actionable business advice.
My favorite parts of the book: The stories, especially the emotional ones that recount how unexpected and sometimes desperate situations led to creative actions. Why is it that our best comes out in the toughest situations? How do we reach within us to come up with brilliant solutions when the standard way of doing things stops being an option?
At the end of the world domination summit, Chris set a new bar on generosity by giving away a $100 to each attendee. He asked us to do something thoughtful with it. Invest it. Donate it to a good cause. Surprise someone. Start a project. I’ve put my Benjamin in my China cabinet and no idea seems to be good enough for it yet. A devilish part of me thought about rewarding myself by picking up a gorgeous bag from my newest favorite shop online: Radley London luxury bags, and I might still do that with another Benjamin but this one needs to find a good home, and I welcome your ideas and suggestions in the comments.
Top 10 Golden Nuggets for Micro-Business Owners
Well, I can’t do the stories justice; you must read them for yourself, but I have pulled my top 10 nuggets of business wisdom that filled me with renewed excitement. I love the business acumen, some of which I knew, most of which I needed to hear again, and all of which I found valuable, useful and thus worth sharing so listen up, you future fabulous business owner, this stuff is for you:
Lesson 1: Convergence is the intersection between something you like or love to do and what other people care about. In other words, success is the sum of your passions, skills (if you don’t have the skills, you can fill the gap or think of creatively relating your skills to your passion) and the usefulness of it to the world. Don’t forget the latter half! Your passion must merge with developing a skill to solve a problem that other people value and care about. Then you are onto something!
Lesson 2: Understanding the emotional needs that you can meet. Universally, people want more love, money, acceptance, and free time, Chris tells us. So help them get that and you have a business.
Lesson 3: Make an offer. Creating your stuff is the first part, but you gotta get comfortable and confident enough to make that offer. Chris defines an offer as “a combination of product or service plus the messaging that makes a case to potential buyers.”
Lesson 4: The power of value, which is defined by the measure of helping others. So when you get stuck in your business, ask yourself: How can you offer more value. I love how he puts it: “You can pursue freedom for yourself while providing value for others.”
Lesson 5: Most people want to buy but nobody wants to be sold. Focus on invitation rather than persuasion as your sales strategy. Remember that you are not selling to everyone, only to those who will find value in what you have to offer.
Lesson 6: For small business owners, the customer is often wrong – this one raised my eyebrow but as I read Chris’s reasoning, I agreed. You are building a micro business and you need to tend to the majority who resonate with you. You cannot please everyone so let the occasional bad lemon go!
Lesson 7: Understanding that what your customer wants and what they say they want aren’t the same thing and no, this is not a trick. You have to get your target market so well that you give them what they really want, and you show them that you know them better than they know themselves.
Lesson 8: You don’t want to pressure anybody into buying but you also want to instill a sense of urgency, hence the specific time period for a launch.
Lesson 9: The balance between creating and connecting in a business – and I always struggle because I love creating to bits and pieces. You must divide it up evenly the book tells us, and be constantly aware of it.
Lesson 10: The most important thing is to KEEP TAKING ACTION and don’t get in your own way. Create a new offer. Encourage referrals. Hold a contest, or many other ideas that Chris offers but remember, to not stay stuck. Keep moving forward. Keep testing. Keep believing.
My favorite advice comes from Chris’s interview with the one and only Naomi Dunford, and she says:
“There’s nothing wrong with having a hobby, but if you want to call it a business, you have to make money.”
Yeah! What Naomi said!
The Parting Messaging from The $100 Startup
The best takeaway from this book was this little known truth: Roaming entrepreneurs are quietly building successful and seriously profitable businesses everywhere around us today. They are ordinary people who have put their creativity, skills, passions and talents into extraordinary use.
In other words, they are no different than you – they are just doing something with what they already possess, they demand on a lifestyle that makes them happy and they have made a non-negotiable deal about the kind of work they intend to do with their time on this earth.
I signed the same contract when I resigned. I made the same non-negotiable deal with myself. I felt the same validation when I returned to the World Domination Summit 2.0. And someday, you may decide to do the same. If that day comes, read this book, talk to people who have done it and don’t let anything or anyone talk you out of it.
If you want to support someone who is already making waves with her $100 investment idea from WDS, check out Natalie Sisson’s $100 Change. Sign up and follow her, she’ll give you some killer business wisdom along the way.
Here’s a salute to micro-businesses that are changing the world, one small tiny step at a time and to the new world order of entrepreneurship! Are you playing this game yet? Do you want to play it and care to share your journey? Leave your stories in the comments below!
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{ 25 brilliant comments, Care to add another? }
Hey Farnoosh,
You have a really nice way of presenting things. Very personable and yet informative and helpful. Thanks for this review and interview!
You’re helping as I launch Critter Wisdom to get my voice heard. It takes a lot of patience and faith to put yourself out there when no one is listening, doesn’t it? You take the leap and yet the instinct is to immediately turn and grab for the ledge to scramble back “home” instead of trusting that those next invisible steps will materialize just in time.
Thanks!
Carmelo, how encouraging and kind you are. Thank you! I just checked Critter Wisdom again and must say, I love the name!
!
I wouldn’t say “no one is listening” because I had silent listeners for a long time, Carmelo, so I would say keep at it if you believe in what you are doing and try different new ways to get yourself out there.
And I love the way you put it – you understand the process more deeply than me, just listen to yourself
Thank you … my friend.
Hey Faroosh,
Great post! Your first point, about converging your passions with a problem you see in society is so spot on. That’s definitely how I am trying to live my life because I find I’m the happiest when I enjoy the work I’m doing.
Thanks for taking some time and sharing with us readers. I’ll be sure to check back in tomorrow.
Have an awesome day!
-Sean (Community Manager at Thankaday.com)
Hello dear Sean, welcome here, you are echoing my own heart’s words. Indeed for every word. Thanks much!
Farnoosh,
Well if you have a china cabinet then you must use china for special occasions. What time is Sunday dinner? I think I’ll be in your area;)
Nice review!
My china cabinet is Italian with unbelievably gorgeous glass – it was one of the European pieces of furniture I “had to have” way back when!
Come over anytime – you’ll be in such good hands you’ll never want to leave, Tess 
!
Way to go Chris on your new book! I love his creative and unexpected idea of giving everyone $100 (to invest it, not buy a luxury bag Farnoosh–haha)–that’s so cool.
No shoes or bags for me with the WDS Benjamin, I promise, Sean. How are you doing?
Hello Farnoosh
.
I heard about your site from Ellen Berg from The Hairy Edge. I am SO GLAD she shared it with me.
I read the $100 start up a few weeks ago. I have a question that I would be very interested in what you have to say. Chris says we must discover where our passion and value converge.
Here is my question: do you think if someone pursues their passion long enough that overtime someone will naturally discover where their passion and value converge?
I am not sure where I stand on this. In the book I feel like there was a huge emphasis on quickly finding where they converge and running with it. My concern is that most people do not fully understand their passion nor their potential within it. If overtime they continue to further explore it I believe options will open up. Though, maybe this is simply a naive thought. What do you think?
Hi Izzy, Ellen is a sweet heart, I am so glad you came over too.
As to your question: Excellent observation, Izzy. The time factor was a bit accelerated in Chris’s book and I read that book now, 3+ years after starting my blog and 1-2 years into my business so I have definitely had to FIND where my passion and the value converge and it’s still at the early stages. So YES, it will take time, and you are on the right track if you are pursuing the passion AND thinking/exploring ways to make it converge. Hope this helps? Don’t be in a hurry but don’t get complacent either, and just go with the passion – instead be vigilant and insist on the passion but see what else you could do with it for others to turn it into a viable business. Hope this helps, dear Izzy. Come back soon!
This helps immensely
.
These two lines in particular resonate with me.
“it will take time, and you are on the right track if you are pursuing the passion AND thinking/exploring ways to make it converge”
“Don’t be in a hurry but don’t get complacent either”
Thank you for taking the time to give me such an honest, well thought out response. It is very appreciated
.
Spoiler alert!
I’m currently listening to “The $100 Startup” during my morning walks. I purchased it from Audible.com last month after thinking I was already motivated enough after listening to “The BIG Goals System.” After two days without a motivational tape I realized how wrong I was. Motivation is an ongoing necessity. It’s a must in order to maintain my focus, especially since I’m the sole person in my upcoming business venture.
I have always said that if you attend a seminar, read a book, or talk with a mentor, and if you come away with only a single piece of information that inspires, then the time was not wasted.
I’m only into 45 minutes of the 8-hour “The $100 Startup” audio tape and I’ve already created many bookmarks that have inspired me to dream bigger and differently but still remain on the same path of working for myself.
I highly recommend this book also.
Tammy, how are you? Of course motivation is an ongoing necessity! It is like taking a shower – gotta renew ourselves every single day and it’s hard to do when we are not in the presence of all that inspiration. The $100 Startup has great ideas – I’ve incorporated a lot of them in my 1-2 years in business and they are all brilliant advice. I wish you heaps of success. What are you up to these days? Are you creating your own venture or business? Love to know more.
Fantastic review, Farnoosh. I’ve been wanting to read this book. Until I do, I’m so excited to have these 10 nuggets of business wisdom under my belt thanks to you. I really like Chris’ take on invitation rather than persuasion and I found the first point on convergence incredibly important.
Sandra, dear Sandra, thank you – it’s a great resource, and I am touched that you are going by my review until you read the book – I know that you can put some of these into use in your own business and feel very good about it. Hope things are going well for you…..
Hi Farnoosh,
Anyway, some day…
I am back from holidays and catching up on my favourite blogs
I am following Chris, too, and love his book. Still working on the convergence of doing something that I love & get paid for it
Nice review of the book. I read it too (of course) and enjoyed it a lot.
Nice you went to World Domination Summit. I hope to go too someday. But that is quite a distance from Germany.
Andrea
Welcome back from holidays, dearest Andrea, and I am so glad we share the love of Chris and his work! And change that someday to a specific date on the calendar, it will help you move forward faster and with more purpose. No “anyway” about it
!
Oh and we had people attend from all parts of the world instead of a friend of mine from Switzerland, another from Wellington NZ and a few from South Africa. Planes will bring you there. See you in 2013?
Okay, okay, you are right, lol. I’m working on my future RIGHT NOW!
My deal with myself is to earn enough with a little side business to attend WDS. 2013 is a great goal!
Hello, thank you for your review of the book and for your lovely blog. This book is the reason I have embarked on a new journey, bringing an idea that was, just an idea, into reality.
Like you, I spent quite a few years in the corporate IT world enjoying a large salary and the other perks that came along with that type of success.
A little over 2 years ago my world began to fall apart with illness and family issues and I continued to push myself to keep up with work. I suffered burn out and had to take some months off and realised then how much I hated what I was doing. After a few months, I returned to the same type of work as a consultant and it took everything to go as I still hated it.
My husband was laid off last year and still hasn’t found work, and I felt even more pressure to continue in a career that had become golden handcuffs. My last contract ended a couple of months ago and I can’t see myself ever going back.
After reading $100 Startup, I decided I would work on my idea and not look back. Someone I know was referred to in the book and his success helped me make that decision. It has only been a couple of months, and our savings is dwindling and it is very likely we will lose our home, but really, it feels like a relief if that did happen.
I am hopeful to make this happen as I have to. I don’t have a spouses steady income to rely on or anyone other than my self.
Dear Shirina, thanks so much for sharing your inspiration with Chris and also some of your current struggles – I really do hear you. I am so very sorry that you had to go through such a hard time with illness and your husband’s job loss. I really hope that you and your spouse can put your ideas together and just like the case studies in Chris’s book, come up with something that you both can do to generate income on your own. It can be a slow start but it can also be extremely liberating when it works. I would love to help you and I will drop you an email, Shirina, too. Take care and keep your spirits UP!
How interesting! I just got this book yesterday, and when I logged into email this morning, found your digest.
Great coincidence. I’ve been feeling a little restless and “wanna be startin’ somethin’”. Oh every thing is absolutely great, find, my clients love me, etc. etc. – but you know, that comfort zone is making me restless, again.
Your review is superb. I’ll be checking out Natalie’s link. I am loving Chris’ book already. As a matter of fact, I also got his book : “The Art of Non-Conformity”. What can I say, I am excited already. Thank you – such a great read, Farnoosh. Love, Vidya
Vidya, you can start many things, I am sure. It’s really fun to do our own thing and Chris has a great way of approaching the world of entrepreneurship and start-ups, so enjoy and let me know how you like the Art of Non-Conformity. Lovely seeing you here, thanks for dropping by.
As you know, I agree that this is a fantastic book – I really connected with it.
And I signed the same contract too. The ink is barely dry, and I’m super-excited about it!!!
-Bruce
Hi Bruce, you are a rock star for following your heart, and I am very excited for you too. Glad you enjoyed this book. It spoke so much truth in so small a book.