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

by Chris Guillebeau

value is created when a person makes something useful and shares it with the world.

The new reality is that working at a job may be the far riskier choice. Instead, take the safe road and go out on your own.

Antifragile living

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.*2

Passion or skill + usefulness = success

Usefulness is key. I think a better formula is (Passion + Skill) * Usefulness = Success/Money/Value

You just need a product or service, a group of people willing to pay for it, and a way to get paid.

I call it the freely receive, freely give approach. When all else fails, ask yourself how you can help people more.

What do people really, really want? At the end of the day, they want to be happy, and businesses that help their customers be happy are well-positioned to succeed.

How is the business or poduct making people happy?

It’s usually easier to operate a business while roaming the world than it is to start one. Be sure to spend plenty of time getting set up before you hit the road. •

“Business opportunities are like buses; there’s always another one coming.” —RICHARD BRANSON

Quote. Get over FOMO, it's scarcity thinking.

First, make sure you’re capturing all the ideas and writing them down, since you might want them later; second, find a way to evaluate competing ideas. Creating a “possibilities list” helps you retain ideas for when you have more time to implement them.

A marketable idea doesn’t have to be a big, groundbreaking idea; it just has to provide a solution to a problem or be useful enough that other people are willing to pay for it.

MARKET BEFORE MANUFACTURING. It’s good to know if people want what you have to offer before you put a lot of work into making it.

Validation Principal

Entrepreneurs are not necessarily risk takers; it’s just that they define risk and security differently from the way other people do.

If you’ve been waiting to begin your own $100 startup (or anything else), stop waiting and begin. Charlie Pabst, a Seattle-based designer who left the corporate

First and most important, the quest for personal freedom lies in the pursuit of value for others.