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

More Praise for

With traditional career doors slamming shut, its easy to panic, but Chris Guillebeau sees opportunities everywhere. Making a career out of your passion sounds like a dream, but in this straightforward, engaging book he shows you how to get it done, one simple step at a time.

Alan Paul, author of Big in China

Business, like traveling, is often improved by starting poor. You are forced to improvise, innovate, and stay close to reality. You cant buy solutions, so you have to create your own. Suddenly you have the first part of successsomething of value. I got all this from The $100 Startup, which is full of practical advice about inventing your own livelihood. Ive done a handful of $100 startups myself, several of which I later sold. Chris Guillebeau knows what he is talking about. Listen to this book!

Kevin Kelly, author of What Technology Wants

This book is more than a how to guide, its a how they did it guide that should persuade anyone thinking about starting a business that they dont need a fortune to make one.

John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing
and The Referral Engine

Is that giant knot in your stomach keeping you from starting your own business or pursuing the career of your dreams? Chris Guillebeaus seasoned, practical advice and his efficient blueprint for entrepreneurial success will alleviate your anxieties and get you on the path to being responsible forand in control ofyour future.

Erin Doland, editor-in-chief of Unclutterer.com
and author of Unclutter Your Life in One Week

You cant grow a thriving business on wishes and dreams. You need the kind of nuts-and-bolts wisdom that only comes from hard-earned experience. Chris Guillebeau has been in the trenches for years, and inThe $100 Startuphe guides you step-by-step through how he and dozens of others have turned their passions into profits. Its essential reading for the solopreneur!

Todd Henry, author of The Accidental Creative

Starting your own business doesnt have to be expensive or difficult. Follow Chriss advice, and youll help people, have fun, and never work for the man again.

Josh Kaufman, author of The Personal MBA:
Master the Art of Business

Copyright 2012 by Chris Guillebeau

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN BUSINESS is a trademark and CROWN and the Rising Sun colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Guillebeau, Chris.
The $100 startup : reinvent the way you make a living, do what you love, and create a new future / by Chris Guillebeau.
p. cm.
1. New business enterprisesManagement. 2. Entrepreneurship. I. Title.
II. Title: One hundred dollar startup.

HD62.5.G854 2012
658.11dc23 2012003093

eISBN: 978-0-307-95154-0

Illustrations: Mike Rohde
Jacket design: Michael Nagin
Jacket photography: Comstock/Getty Images

v3.1_r1

This book is for:
those who take action
and
those who provide the inspiration

PROLOGUE : Manifesto
A short guide to everything you want.

I magine a life where all your time is spent on the things you want to do.

Imagine giving your greatest attention to a project you create yourself, instead of working as a cog in a machine that exists to make other people rich.

Imagine handing a letter to your boss that reads, Dear Boss, Im writing to let you know that your services are no longer required. Thanks for everything, but Ill be doing things my own way now.

Imagine that today is your final day of working for anyone other than yourself. What ifvery soon, not in some distant, undefined futureyou prepare for work by firing up a laptop in your home office, walking into a storefront youve opened, phoning a client who trusts you for helpful advice, or otherwise doing what you want instead of what someone tells you to do?

All over the world, and in many different ways, thousands of people are doing exactly that. They are rewriting the rules of work, becoming their own bosses, and creating a new future.

This new model of doing business is well under way for these unexpected entrepreneurs, most of whom have never thought of themselves as businessmen and businesswomen. Its a microbusiness revolutiona way of earning a good living while crafting a life of independence and purpose.

Other books chronicle the rise of Internet startups, complete with rants about venture capital and tales of in-house organic restaurants. Other guides tell you how to write eighty-page business plans that no one will ever read and that dont resemble how an actual business operates anyway.

This book is different, and it has two key themes: freedom and value. Freedom is what were all looking for, and value is the way to achieve it.

More than a decade ago, I began a lifelong journey of self-employment by any means necessary. I never planned to be an entrepreneur; I just didnt want to work for someone else. From a cheap apartment in Memphis, Tennessee, I watched what other people had done and tried to reverse-engineer their success. I started by importing coffee from Jamaica, selling it online because I saw other people making money from it; I didnt have any special skills in importing, roasting, or selling. (I did, however, consume much of the product through frequent testing.)

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 differentlystarting with a list of what I wanted to do, and then figuring out how to make it happen.

The income from the business didnt make me rich, but it paid the bills and brought me something much more valuable than money: freedom. I had no schedule to abide by, no time sheets to fill out, no useless reports to hand in, no office politics, and not even any mandatory meetings to attend.

I spent some of my time learning how a real business works, but I didnt let it interfere with a busy schedule of reading in cafs during the day and freelancing as a jazz musician at night.