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$100 startup by Chris Guillebeau 

by James Tang (8276 views)
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Estimated reading time: 1.5 minutes

The book $100 startup talks about people who have followed their passion and spent less than $100 on their business before it transformed into large businesses making more than $50,000. The business requires no special skills and has less than 5 employees. This book shows the reader that you don’t have to have a lot of money in order to start a profitable business and actually enjoy what you are doing on a daily basis. With real-life examples shown at every step with people having no business experience, this book is a highly informational read that is sure to motivate you to start living your dreams. Without spoiling the book for you, here are some lessons that you will learn once you pick up this excellent book.

Lessons We Can Learn From

Passion Is Important

The book emphasizes a lot on passion and how people that follow their passion are able to convert their hobbies into their jobs. This makes sense because when the work starts getting harder, you need to be able to push yourself and passion is one of the few things that will drive you to put in the work needed. On top of that, Guillebeau talks about how cost should be kept as low as possible through hard work that is put in by the business owner. This means that lots of time will be spent on your project so that your money spent can and will be reduced. The great thing about this is that since it’s your passion, you would have spent your time doing it anyway.

You Don’t Need Ingenuity; You Need Empathy

Besides passion, having empathy is extremely important in starting up a business. This shows in every aspect of your business plan, and could potentially be the core of your business. The example that Guillebeau raises revolves around an entrepreneur that created a paleo diet business surrounding simplicity. Realising that it took far too long to understand how paleo worked, he created a website that simply stated what users had to eat. There were no explanations needed because readers didn’t want to know why or how it would be effective, they just wanted to know how to do it! By understanding the very basis of how people felt, this entrepreneur eventually grew his business to a huge one, earning him over $6,000 a month now.

Life isn’t Just About Working

Throughout the book, a recurring theme that is the entire basis of the book is about ways to actually gain freedom through the liberation of a mundane lifestyle. It isn’t a business book per say, neither is it a handbook on how to get rich fast. Instead, it focuses on how to leverage one’s hobbies and lifestyle in order to attain the financial freedom to enjoy life. With this in mind, it reminds the reader that not everything in life is about money, and instead to focus on doing the things they love.

Overall, if you’re an amateur entrepreneur looking for some motivation in life, this book would be an excellent read to help you begin your journey by utilising your hobbies.

Are you curious to find out more about the different start ups around the world? Grab your copy of The $100 Startup at Book Depository. Free shipping worldwide.