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

by Chris Guillebeau

If I needed money, I learned to think in terms of how I could get what I needed by making something and selling it, not by cutting costs elsewhere or working for someone else. This distinction was critical, because most budgets start by looking at income and then defining the available choices. I did it differently—starting with a list of what I wanted to do, and then figuring out how to make it happen.

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

as you build a community of loyal customers, you’ll know well in advance what to make for them and how likely you are to be successful without investing a lot of money. In fact, the more you understand how your skills and knowledge can be useful to others, the more your odds of success will go up.

The goal isn’t to get rich quickly but to build something that other people will value enough to pay for. You’re not just creating a job for yourself; you’re crafting a legacy.

convergence represents the intersection between something you especially like to do or are good at doing (preferably both) and what other people are also interested in. The easiest way to understand convergence is to think of it as the overlapping space between what you care about and what other people are willing to spend money on.

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.

here is the not-so-secret recipe for microbusiness alchemy: Passion or skill + usefulness = success

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

the secret to a meaningful new career was directly related to making people feel good about themselves.

Value means helping people. If you’re trying to build a microbusiness and you begin your efforts by helping people, you’re on the right track. When you get stuck, ask yourself: How can I give more value? Or more simply: How can I help my customers more?

More than anything else, value relates to emotional needs. Many business owners talk about their work in terms of the features it offers, but it’s much more powerful to talk about the benefits customers receive. A feature is descriptive; a benefit is emotional.

Strategy 1: Dig Deeper to Uncover Hidden Needs

Strategy 2: Make Your Customer a Hero In India

Strategy 3: Sell What People Buy In deciding what to sell, the best approach is to sell what people buy—in other words, think more about what people really want than about what you think they need.

Six Steps to Getting Started Right Now As we saw from the stories in Chapter 1, you don’t need a lot of money or special training to operate a business. You just need a product or service, a group of people who want to buy it, and a way to get paid. We’ll look at each of these things in more detail throughout the book, but you don’t have to wait to get started. Here are the six steps you need to take: 1.Decide on your product or service. 2.Set up a website, even a very basic one (you can get a free one from WordPress.org). 3.Develop an offer (an offer is distinct from a product or service; see Chapter 7 for help). 4.Ensure you have a way to get paid (get a free PayPal account to start). 5.Announce your offer to the world (see Chapter 9 for more on this). 6.Learn from steps 1 through 5, then repeat. Almost all microbusiness building follows this sequence of events. Of course, we’ll be discussing specifics as we go along, but it’s always better to start from where you are than to wait for everything to be perfect. If you have an existing business and are thinking about how to apply the concepts from this book, focus on either getting money in the bank or developing new products or services. These are the most important tasks of your business—not administration, maintenance, or anything else that takes time without creating wealth or value. If you’re not sure what to do, think about any of these ideas: Can you contact your customer list with a special offer or incentive? Can ...

we want more of some things and less of others. In the “More” column are things such as love, money, acceptance, and free time. We all want more of those things, right? In the “Less” column are the undesirables: things such as stress, long commutes, and bad relationships. If your business focuses on giving people more of what they want or taking away something they don’t want (or both), you’re on the right track.

“If you make your business about helping others, you’ll always have plenty of work.”

We’ll return to Brooke’s theme several times throughout the book. 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.

The common theme was to figure out what people want and then find a way to give it to them. This is the road map to a successful, profitable business. As you build your escape plan, keep your eyes on the prize: creating real value by giving people what they really want.

KEY POINTS • Value means “helping people.” Our unexpected entrepreneurs discovered that when they focused on providing value above all else, their businesses were successful. • Give people what they really want, not just what you think they should have. Give them the fish! • The more you can market a core benefit instead of a list of features, the easier it will be to profit from your idea. Core benefits usually relate to emotional needs more than physical needs. • Most people want more of some things (money, love, attention) and less of other things (stress, anxiety, debt). Always focus on what you can add or take away to improve

someone’s life…and then prepare to get paid.

Instant Consultant Biz Gary’s business is great, and no one cares that his website looks like it was made ten years ago. He also didn’t wait for someone to accredit or endorse him for his business. There is no “consulting school” or degree. You can start a new business as a consultant in about one day, if not sooner. Follow these two basic rules: 1.Pick something specific as opposed to something general. Don’t be a “business consultant” or a “life coach”—get specific about what you can really do for someone. 2.No one values a $15-an-hour consultant, so do not underprice your service. Since you probably won’t have forty hours of billable work every week, charge at least $100 an hour or a comparable fixed rate for the benefit you provide. OPENING FOR BUSINESS* I will help clients __________. After hiring me, they will receive [core benefit + secondary benefit]. I will charge $xxx per hour or a flat rate of _____ per service. This rate is fair to the client and to me. My basic website will contain these elements: a.The core benefit that I provide for clients and what qualifies me to provide it (remember that qualifications may have nothing to do with education or certifications; Gary is qualified to book vacations with miles because he’s done it for himself many times) b.At least two stories of how others have been helped by the service (if you don’t have paying clients yet, do the work for free with someone you know) c.Pricing details (always be up front about fees; never ma...

The missing piece is that you usually don’t get paid for your hobby itself; you get paid for helping other people pursue the hobby or for something indirectly related to it.

Reality Check Checklist Questions for You • Instead of just during your free time, would you enjoy pursuing your hobby at least twenty hours a week? • Do you enjoy teaching others to practice the same hobby? • Do you like the ins and outs (all the details) of your hobby? • If you had to do a fair amount of administrative work related to your hobby, would you still enjoy it? Questions for the Marketplace • Have other people asked for your help? • Are enough other people willing to pay to gain or otherwise benefit from your expertise? • Are there other businesses serving this market (usually a good thing) but not in the same way you would? Note: Chapter 6 looks at market testing in more detail. If you’re not sure how to answer the marketplace questions, stay tuned.

To understand how passion can sometimes translate into a profitable business, look at the chart on this page. In addition to passion, you must develop a skill that provides a solution to a problem. Only when passion merges with a skill that other people value can you truly follow your passion to the bank.

Become Your Own Publisher Follow these steps to enter the information publishing business. Each step can be made more complicated, but they all relate to this basic outline. 1.Find a topic that people will pay to learn about. It helps if you are an expert in the topic, but if not, that’s what research is for. 2.Capture the information in one of three ways: a.Write it down. b.Record audio or video. c.Produce some combination of a and b. 3.Combine your materials into a product: an e-book or digital package that can be downloaded by buyers. 4.Create an offer. What exactly are you selling, and why should people take action on it? Learn more about offers in Chapter 7. 5.Decide on a fair, value-based price for your offer. For pricing guidelines, see Chapters 10 and 11. 6.Find a way to get paid. PayPal.com is the most ubiquitous method, with the ability to accept payment from users in more than 180 countries. Other options are available if you want more flexibility.* 7.Publish the offer and get the word out. For an overview of hustling, see Chapter 9. 8.Cash in and head to the beach! (This step may require further effort.) * You can find a review of several different payment options in the online resources at 100startup.com.

Traditional Demographics: Age, Location, Sex/Gender, Race/Ethnicity, Income New Demographics: Interests, Passions, Skills, Beliefs, Values*1

Does the project produce an obvious product or service? • Do you know people who will want to buy it? (Or do you know where to find them?) • Do you have a way to get paid? Those questions form a simple baseline evaluation. If you don’t have a clear yes on one of them, go back to the drawing board. Let’s assume, however, that you can answer yes to all of them but know you can’t pursue five big projects at one time. In that case, you’ll need some method of evaluation. Here’s one option: the decision-making matrix. In this matrix, you’ll list your ideas in the left-hand column and then score them on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. Granted, the scoring will be subjective, but since we’re looking for trends, it’s OK to estimate. Score your ideas according to these criteria: Impact: Overall, how much of an impact will this project make on your business and customers? Effort: How much time and work will it take to create the project? (In this case, a lower score indicates more effort, so choose 1 for a project that requires a ton of work and 5 for a project that requires almost no work.) Profitability: Relative to the other ideas, how much money will the project bring in? Vision: How close of a fit is this project with your overall mission and vision? Rank each item on a scale of 1 to 5 and then add them up in the right-hand column. Remember, you’re looking for trends. If you have to cut one project, cut the lowest one; if you can only take on one project, proceed wi...

The Action Bias Plan? What plan? Many of our case studies showed a pattern similar to Jen and Omar’s: Get started quickly and see what happens. There’s nothing wrong with planning, but you can spend a lifetime making a plan that never turns into action. In the battle between planning and action, action wins.

Seven Steps to Instant Market Testing* 1.You need to care about the problem you are going to solve, and there has to be a sizable number of other people who also care. Always remember the lesson of convergence: the way your idea intersects with what other people value. 2.Make sure the market is big enough. Test the size by checking the number and relevancy of Google keywords—the same keywords you would use if you were trying to find your product. Think about keywords that people would use to find a solution to a problem. If you were looking for your own product online but didn’t know it existed, what keywords would you search for? Pay attention to the top and right sides of the results pages, where the ads are displayed. 3.Focus on eliminating “blatant admitted pain.” The product needs to solve a problem that causes pain that the market knows it has. It’s easier to sell to someone who knows they have a problem and are convinced they need a solution than it is to persuade someone that they have a problem that needs solving. 4.Almost everything that is being sold is for either a deep pain or a deep desire. For example, people buy luxury items for respect and status, but on a deeper level they want to be loved. Having something that removes pain may be more effective than realizing a desire. You need to show people how you can help remove or reduce pain. 5.Always think in terms of solutions. Make sure your solution is different and better. (Note that it doesn’t need to be che...

the question you need to ask is…how can I get my first sale? Competition from other businesses is a problem for another day; the greater problem you face is inertia. Nick won the battle against inertia by getting his site up and running, and was rewarded with the sale.

The One-Page Business Plan* Answer each question with one or two short sentences. OVERVIEW What will you sell? _____________________________________ Who will buy it? _______________________________________ How will your business idea help people? _____________________ KA-CHING What will you charge? ___________________________________ How will you get paid? ___________________________________ How else will you make money from this project? _______________ HUSTLING How will customers learn about your business? __________________ How can you encourage referrals? ___________________________ SUCCESS The project will be successful when it achieves these metrics: Number of customers _________________________________ or Annual net income _____________________________________ (or other metric) OBSTACLES / CHALLENGES / OPEN QUESTIONS Specific concern or question #1 _____________________ Proposed solution to concern #1_____________________ Specific concern or question #2 _____________________ Proposed solution to concern #2_____________________ Specific concern or question #3 _____________________ Proposed solution to concern #3_____________________ Deadline: I will launch this project into the world no later than _____. * You can download or print a free copy of your own customized plan at 100startup.com. Other helpful, alternative business planning guides are offered by Jim Horan and Tim Berry.

The 140-Character Mission Statement Let’s break down the planning process into a very simple exercise: defining the mission statement for your business (or your business idea) in 140 characters or less. That is the maximum amount of text for an update on Twitter and a good natural limit for narrowing down a concept. It may help to think of the first two characteristics of any business: a product or service and the group of people who pay for it. Put the two together and you’ve got a mission statement: We provide [product or service] for [customers]. As described in Chapter 2, it’s usually better to highlight a core benefit of your business instead of a descriptive feature. Accordingly, you can revise the statement a bit to read like this: We help [customers] do/achieve/other verb [primary benefit]. Focusing like this helps you avoid “corporate speak” and drill down to the real purpose of the business as it relates to your customers. Here are a few examples: If you have a dog-walking service, the feature is “I walk dogs.” The benefit is “I help busy owners feel at ease about their dogs when they’re not able to be with them.” If you sell knitted hat patterns, the benefit is something like “I help people be creative by making a hat for themselves or someone close to them.” If you make custom wedding stationery, you might say, “I help couples feel special about their big day by providing them with amazing invitations.” How about you? What is the 140-character (or less) mission...

Offer Construction Project MAGIC FORMULA: THE RIGHT AUDIENCE, THE RIGHT PROMISE, THE RIGHT TIME = OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE BASICS What are you selling? _______ How much does it cost? _______ Who will take immediate action on this offer? _______ BENEFITS The primary benefit is _______ An important secondary benefit is _______ OBJECTIONS What are the main objections to the offer? 1. 2. 3. How will you counter these objections? 1. 2. 3. TIMELINESS Why should someone buy this now? What can I add to make this offer even more compelling?

Compelling Offer Tool Kit: FAQ, Guarantee, and Overdelivery As you continue to work on your offer, three tools will assist you in making it more compelling: the FAQ page (or wherever you provide the answers to common questions), an incredible guarantee, and giving your customers more than they expect.

1. Frequently Asked Questions, AKA “What I Want You to Know” You might think that a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page is designed merely to answer questions. Surprise! It’s not…or at least, that’s not its only function. A well-designed FAQ page also has another, extremely important purpose. You could call it “operation objection busting”: The additional purpose of a FAQ is to provide reassurance to potential buyers and overcome objections. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify the main objections your buyers will have when considering your offer and carefully respond to them in advance.

Wondering what the objections to your offer will be? They fall into two categories: general and specific. The specific objections relate to an individual product or service, so it’s hard to predict what they might be without looking at a particular offer. General objections, however, come up with almost any purchase, so that’s what we’ll look at here. These objections usually relate to very basic human desires, needs, concerns, and fears. Here are a few common ones: • How do I know this really works? • I don’t know if this is a good investment (and/or I’m not sure I have the money to spare). • I’m not sure I can trust you with my money. • What do other people think about this offer? • I wonder if I can find this information/get this product or service without paying. • I worry about sharing my information online (or another privacy concern).

The core concern for each of these objections relates to trust and authority. You must create consumer confidence in order to overcome the objections. As you craft the offer, think about the objections…and then flip them around in your favor. You want to send messages like these: • This really works because… • This is a great investment because… • You can trust us with your money because…(alternatively, You don’t have to trust us with your money, because we work with an established, trusted third party…) • Other people think this is great, and here’s what they say… • You have to pay to get this product or service (alternatively, The free versions aren’t as good, it takes a lot of work to get it on your own, etc.) • Your information and privacy are 100 percent secure because… See how it works? The point is not to be defensive (you want to avoid that) but rather to be proactive in responding to concerns. One model you can use when describing your offer is outlined below in what we’ll call a “rough awesome format.” It works like this: Point 1: This thing is so awesome! [primary benefit] Point 2: Seriously, it’s really awesome. [secondary benefit] Point 3: By the way, you don’t need...

3. Overdelivering, AKA “Wow, Look at All This Extra Stuff I Didn’t Expect”

An early look at the future.

“Hey, I’m working on something interesting. It’s going to be a big deal when it’s finished, but for now I’m just letting you know that it’s coming down the line.”

Why this project will matter.

The plan for the big debut.

Whoa, we’re almost ready!

OMG, HERE IT IS!

It’s Not (All) About the Sales The goal of a good launch is not just to convert as many prospects as possible; it’s also to preserve your relationship with other prospects and increase your influence. The reason this is important is because you don’t want to hammer people too hard; it’s better to build relationships over time. Some people will always complain whenever you sell anything at any price. There’s nothing you can do about that attitude, so just accept it and don’t cater to those people. But you do want to pay attention to your broader base. What are they saying about you? How do they perceive the value of your offer and the style of your messaging? A good launch should increase sales and influence at the same time. If you’re getting positive feedback from people who don’t buy your product but want to support you in other ways, you’re on the right track.

Thirty-Nine-Step Product Launch Checklist Note: Every product launch is different. Use these steps as a guideline to your own. Often by adding one or two steps you would otherwise leave out, you’ll get a significant increase in sales. THE BIG PICTURE 1.Ensure that your product or service has a clear value proposition.*1 What do customers receive when exchanging money for your offer? 2.Decide on bonuses, incentives, or rewards for early buyers. How will they be rewarded for taking action? 3.Have you made the launch fun somehow? (Remember to think about non-buyers as well

NEXT STEPS 10.If this is an online product, is it properly set up in your shopping cart or with PayPal? 11.Test every step of the order process repeatedly. Whenever you change any variable (price, order components, text, etc.), test it again. 12.Have you registered all the domains associated with your product? (Domains are cheap; you might as well get the .com, .net, .org, and any very similar name if available.) 13.Are all files uploaded and in the right place? 14.Review the order page carefully for errors or easy-to-make improvements. Print it out and share it with several friends for review, including a couple of people who don’t know anything about your business. 15.Read important communications (launch message, order page, sales page) out loud. You’ll probably notice a mistake or a poorly phrased sentence you missed while reading it in your head. 16.Have you or your designer created any custom graphics for the offer, including any needed ads for affiliates or partners? MONEY MATTERS 17.Set a clear monetary goal for the launch. How many sales do you want to see, and how much net income? (In other words, what will success look like?) 18.Advise the merchant account or bank of incoming funds.*2 19.Create a backup plan for incoming funds if necessary (get an additional merchant account, plan to switch all payments to PayPal, etc.). 20.Can you add another payment option for anyone who has trouble placing an order? 21.For a high-priced product, can you offer a payment plan? ...

THE NIGHT BEFORE 22.Clear as much email as possible in addition to any other online tasks so you can focus on the big day tomorrow. 23.Write a strong launch message to your lists of readers, customers, and/or affiliates. 24.Prepare a blog post and any needed social media posts (if applicable). 25.Set two alarm clocks to ensure that you’re wide awake and available at least one hour before the scheduled launch. THE BIG MORNING 26.Schedule your launch time to suit your audience, not you. All things being equal, it’s usually best to launch early in the morning, East Coast time. 27.Soft launch at least ten minutes early to make sure everything is working. It’s better for you to find the problems than to have your customers find them! 28.Write the first three to five buyers to say thanks and ask, “Did everything go OK in the order process?” (Side benefit: These buyers are probably your biggest fans anyway, so they’ll appreciate the personal check-in.) 29.As long as it’s possible, send a quick personal note to every buyer in addition to the automated thank-you that goes out. (If it’s not possible every time, do it as often as you can.)