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

by Chris Guillebeau

Corbett Barr maintains a helpful (and free) set of resources on building traffic at ThinkTraffic.net.

John Jantsch wrote a great book called The Referral

Engine, which is all about creating a systemized process for encouraging referrals.

essentially has two options for self-made franchising: Option 1: Reach more people with the same message. Option 2: Reach different people with a new message.

think of the “hub-and-spoke” model when building a brand, especially online.

the hub is your main website: often an e-commerce site where something is sold,

The hub is a home base with all the content curated by you or your team and ultimately where you hope to drive new visitors, prospects, and customers. The spokes, also known as outposts, are all the other places where you spend your time.*1 These places could include social networking sites, the comments section of...

The Business Audit

The goal is to (1) fix little problems and (2) identify small actions you can take that will create significant results over time.

The solution is simple: Focus on the money.

finding a way to build systemization into the business, and deciding what role the business will play in the rest of their lives.

“My feeling of being a successful business owner is based on the quality of life I lead, not the amount of money I earn,”

Think forward motion…What can you do to keep things moving ahead? Consider these areas:

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT. This is work that grows the business. What new products or services are in the works? Are there any partnerships or joint ventures you’re pursuing? OFFER DEVELOPMENT. This kind of work involves using existing resources in a new way. Can you create a sale, launch event, or new offer to generate attention and income? FIXING LONG-STANDING PROBLEMS. In every business, there are problems that creep up that you learn to work around instead of addressing directly. Instead of perpetually ignoring these issues, use

your non-firefighting time to deal with the root...

The most important step in creating an independent identity for the business is to create a product or service with the potential to scale.

A scalable business is built on something that is both teachable and valuable.

John built a subscription service that conducted financial research and provided a series of informative reports.

There’s more than one road to freedom, and some people find it through a combination of different working arrangements. • “Going long” by pursuing growth and deciding to stay small are both acceptable options, and you can split the difference by “going medium.” It all depends on what kind of freedom you’d like to achieve.

A 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.

the quest for personal freedom lies in the pursuit of value for others.

Focus relentlessly on the point of convergence between what you love to do and what other people are willing to pay for. Remember that most core needs are emotional: We want to be loved and affirmed. Relate your product or service to attractive benefits, not boring features.

Action beats planning.

Crafting an offer, hustling, and producing a launch event will generate much greater results than simply releasing your product or service to the world with no fanfare.

Barbara could have described her business in a typical fashion: “We have a ranch. People pay to visit and ride horses.” Instead, she said something much more powerful: “We help our guests become someone else, even if just for a day. Come stay with us and you’ll be a cowboy.” The difference between these two statements is huge! The first statement is merely descriptive, whereas the second evokes a powerful, emotional connection.

There are two keys to remember in figuring out the difference for your own project: 1.Give people what they really want. Give them the fish!

Sell emotional benefits (“Be a cowboy”) instead of descriptive features (“Ride horses”).

Here are twenty-five people from the study, all of whom found ways to differentiate between something merely descriptive and something t...