Dear daughter,
The book “The $100 startup” by Chris Guillebeau is, in the words of the author, for those who take action and for those who inspire.
Have you heard that to start a business you need a lot of money? Long business plans? Have everything clear and planned before starting?
In his book, Chris shows us that this is not necessarily true. He describes in his book, how many people started their own business, using $100 or less.
Because of that, this book is awesome. It doesn’t tell what to do, but what people did to create a profitable business starting with little money.
The book is full of actionable insights, that everyone can use for their benefit. And yes, I guess everyone can spare $100 to start doing something that will lead them to more financial freedom.
In the introduction, the author mentions that his book is about freedom and value.
Freedom is what we all want. Freedom of doing what we like to do, without having to report to anyone (except to our customers). With the advances in technology, there are some ways of achieving this freedom, without the need to be in a specific place. In other words, there are opportunities to do what you like, from any place in the world. Yes, my daughter, the way people do things for a living changed a while ago, and most of us are still using the “old model”, the one that keeps us in the rat race. The pattern of getting up, going to work, paying bills; getting up, going to work, and paying bills, as mentioned in the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, is the wrong way to do things.
The second part, value, is what we must provide to get freedom.
Some people think they can get something for nothing. That is not how life works. For you to get something, you have to give something, sometimes of a higher value than what you are receiving.
Remember when I wrote to you about the myth of money? ‘’Rich people make money because they provide services for other people. The more people they provide with service, and the better the service, the more money they make.” The services I mentioned there, are the value we must give to other people to be compensated.
So, always keep in mind, that freedom is achieved through value.
Chris describes his approach to making money. He never thought of working for someone else. All he wanted was the freedom of doing what he wants, without having to answer to “the boss”. He tried to reverse engineering what he saw was working for other people.
Sometimes, we think we have to create something new. In my experience as a researcher, I can tell you that nowadays, there is almost nothing completely new. Whatever we do, we use the results of other people, improve them, or innovatively use them.
So, it is great that the author of the book reminds us of this fact.
There is something I want you to pay special attention to, my daughter.
Chris wrote that he went to Africa as a volunteer for a medical charity, praise to him. And when he returned, he developed a career as a writer in the same way he learn to do everything else: “starting with an idea, then figuring everything else out along the way“.
Don’t let anything or anyone stop you because you still can’t figure out everything. Guess what, no one will ever figure out everything.
Thinking this way will keep you away from the paralysis of the analysis. This is what some successful people call when you spend all the time analyzing and trying to figure out everything, and because you spend all the time on that, you don’t take action, you are paralyzed.
The second part of the book is about people the author meets. They are not geniuses that can create big companies with huge success, that started with a lot of money and many employees. They are ordinary people that had a problem and stood up by themselves to find a way to provide for their families.
The examples the author provides are not a shortcut to getting your freedom, remember we don’t get something, by giving nothing. There are no shortcuts or corner cutting.
The first story the author shows us is about Michael, a sales professional that lost his job. After Michael was fired, he couldn’t find another job.
One day, a friend mentioned to him he has several mattresses that were of no use to him.
Michael bought the mattresses and look for a place to store, and sell, them.
The first experience went well. Michael sold all the mattresses only struggling to answer some specific questions about the mattresses he was selling. After that, he started studying more about mattresses and improving his knowledge of that industry.
Then, he created a website, and the business went up when he started offering mattress delivery using a bicycle. Yes, you got it right, he delivered mattresses using a custom tandem bicycle with a platform in the back.
At this point, Michael has his own business, profitable from the beginning. Now he can provide for his family, without depending on his employer or boss. Now he is his own boss.
What a great unexpected result.
The book is full of these types of examples. Things that you won’t imagine but that happened and created freedom.
He mentioned some unusual businesses like an Indian blogger that makes $200 000 a year, or a product that was launched by one man or woman that has sales in one day for the value of $100 000. This is more than some professionals make in a year, can you believe it?
Yes, this was all new some time ago. Now is not too new, but still, many people don’t know about this or don’t understand how it can be possible.
That is why I always tell you to read books. You will learn how people do things that you don’t know how to do, yet.
Dear daughter, as always, I encourage you to read this book. I cannot summarize all the examples the author shows us in his book without taking the risk to repeat the whole book. Something I don’t want to do. The examples Chris gives us can greatly improve the way we think about starting a small business on our own.
On top of that, the author has a free podcast where he gives all the time new examples of how people are creating small businesses or side hustles. In this show, he also showcases mistakes, so we can learn from them, answer questions, gives ideas, etc. You can find his podcast and more resources on his website.
Love you, Dad.
I share the letters I write to my daughter so more people can benefit from them. If you want to buy this book, you can check it out on Amazon using this link.