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

by Chris Guillebeau

it’s always better to start from where you are than to wait for everything to be perfect.

When all else fails, ask yourself how you can help people more.

Situations like these—an industry or movement with lots of lovers and haters—always present a good business opportunity.

Don’t think innovation; think usefulness

The difference between a good offer and a great offer is urgency (also known as timeliness):

If the launch is a week long, you’ll tend to see a strong response on the first and second days, followed by a significant downturn and then a big uptick right before the close. This further illustrates why you need a launch cycle: If you have no closing, you won’t see the uptick! If you just launch and move on, you’ll have no opportunity for growth.

Freely give, freely receive: It works.

Price your product or service in relation to the benefit it provides, not the cost of producing it.

Horizontal expansion involves going broader by serving more customers with different (usually related) interests; vertical expansion involves going deeper by serving the same customers with different levels of need.

business that is scalable is both teachable and valuable. If you ever want to sell your business, you’ll need to build teams and reduce owner dependency