The $100 Startup

Have you ever dreamt of quitting your nine-to-five job and doing something of your own?

When you try to google which is the best book to read to start understanding entrepreneurship and startups, most search results would include this one book by Chris Guillebeau called “The $100 Startup”.

But what’s so special about this book and what are the main things that we can learn from this book? Let’s discuss exactly that in today’s newsletter.

#1: Passion is not enough for business success; you also need customers and the right skills.

Most people dream of making a living from something they’re passionate about, such as traveling to exotic countries. But there’s a catch: unless someone is actually willing to pay for it, your passion “business” is just a hobby.

The true recipe for success is to find the sweet spot where your passions, your skills and the needs of others meet.

But what if you lack the skills to pursue the business of your choice? Enter skill transformation. Though you may not have the specific skills needed to pursue an opportunity, you may have related ones. You use these as best as you can and pick up the rest as you go, thus transforming your skillset.

For example, I always knew that I have a knack of explaining really complex things in a simple way. I started doing that on my Instagram page but I didn’t have other related skills like video editing, content writing, facing the camera among so many other things. But you can always pick up new side skills when the primary skill required for your business coincides with your passion.

#2: Understand your customers’ deepest needs and craft your offering accordingly.

To build a successful business your offering needs to provide value to customers.

Don’t lazily define your customers by age, gender or income; think hard about their shared personality. What are their passions, skills and values? To truly be successful, you need to dig beyond superficially expressed needs and address even the unspoken ones.

#3: Get creative with your marketing, and focus on the benefits that your product provides.

When crafting your messages, don’t devote too much attention to the features of your product size, power or speed, etc. Instead focus on the core benefits for the customer: how it will help them.

#4: Successful launches rely on thorough preparation and instilling a sense of urgency.

Every entrepreneur’s worst nightmare is to spend months working on a product and then not sell a single one.

To avoid this, it is essential to plan and prepare your launch meticulously. Much like the premiere of a Hollywood movie, a successful launch is advertised so heavily beforehand that people are drooling for it months in advance.

Before starting your launch campaign, you should hustle and self-promote like crazy to build up an audience of prospects and customers.

#5: A business needs to make money, so stay focused on your costs and income.

No matter how passionate you are about your business or how much value it provides to others, it needs to make money. Otherwise, it’s just a hobby.

This means that you need to consider things like your funding, your costs and, of course, your income.

#6: Keep plans simple so you can focus on the action.

When it comes to starting and running a microbusiness, action beats planning every time. Far too many would-be entrepreneurs spend their time making complicated plans that never materialize.

Therefore, when you do plan, keep it simple: your business plan should fit on one page and merely outline – not explain exhaustively – what you’re going to do.

Jot down what you’ll sell, whom you’ll sell it to, why they would buy it and how you’ll actually get paid. For example, your plan could simply be “to sell customized exercise plans to health-savvy professionals who need help with varying their routines, costing a monthly $20 subscription fee over PayPal.”

Today’s newsletter is in association with Skillshare!

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