The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future (36 page)

As I traveled the world meeting our group of unexpected entrepreneurs, I heard story after story like these. Over and over, they echoed a similar theme: When you have these moments, hold on to them. They provide encouragement and positive reinforcement when times are hard.

Before we close it out, let’s look back at the key lessons of this book. First and most important, the quest for personal freedom lies in the pursuit of value for others. Get this right from the beginning and the rest will be much easier. Always ask, “How can I help people more?”

Borrowing money to start a business, or going into debt at all, is now completely optional. Like many of the people you met in this book, you can start your own microbusiness for $100 or less.

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.

If you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else. Use the process of skill transformation to think about all the things you’re good at, not just the obvious ones.

Find out what people want, and find a way to give it to them. Give them the fish!

There is no consulting school. You can set up shop and charge for specialized help immediately. (Just remember to offer something specific and provide an easy way to get paid.)

Some business models are easier than others to start on a budget. Unless you have a compelling reason to do something different, think about how you can participate in the knowledge economy.

Action beats planning. Use the One-Page Business Plan and other quick-start guides to get under way without waiting.

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.

The first $1.26 is the hardest, so find a way to get your first sale as quickly as possible. Then work on improving the things that are working, while ignoring the things that aren’t.

By “franchising yourself” through partnerships, outsourcing, or creating a different business, you can be in more than one place at the same time.

Decide for yourself what kind of business you’d like to build. There’s nothing wrong with deliberately staying small (many of the subjects of our stories did exactly that)
or
scaling up in the right way.

It only gets better as you go along.

When we last left off, Jamestown Coffee Company was opening for business in Lexington, South Carolina. Owner James Kirk had moved south from Seattle and kicked things off. What happened next? Did a flood of loyal visitors show up right away?

Not exactly. It was a tough start, settling into a community not familiar with specialty coffee. The shop grew one customer at a time, with a focus on providing personal experiences and encouraging repeat business. One weekend, James and his crew gave out coupons for a free coffee at a local golf tournament. A man stopped in to redeem his coupon and mentioned that he normally picked up his morning cup at the gas station but was inspired to try something
new. The next day he returned, saying it was the best cup of coffee he had ever had.

A morning group began to gather most weekdays, consisting of regulars from all kinds of backgrounds—a lawyer, a clergyman, a computer guy, a mechanic. People who used to buy instant coffee at the grocery store began making a special trip every week to pick up the superior stuff at Jamestown Coffee Company. Slowly but surely, the business stabilized.

James thought back on the discouragement he had received from well-meaning friends when he first told them about moving down south. “You can’t start a business during a recession,” they said. “You can’t move across the country without a job.” “Most small businesses fail within one year.” “Almost all mom and pop restaurants fail within the first year.” On and on it went. And every time someone gave him a reason he couldn’t succeed in what he had set out to do, he made another note in his “non-planning” folder: merely one more obstacle to overcome.

Elsewhere, Jen and Omar continued making their maps in Columbus, Ohio, expanding to wholesale accounts in addition to the direct sales with which they started. They were featured recently in an Expedia commercial and are thinking about opening up a boutique travel store as part of the next adventure.

Karol Gajda and Adam Baker produced two other mega-sales, each one bringing in a six-figure payday for themselves and their affiliates. I asked for their help in producing the launch for this book just as soon as they finished carrying the bags of cash to the bank.

Brandon Pearce was planning a family move to Malaysia. The business now brings in over $50,000 a month.

Benny Lewis was still language hacking his way around the world, moving to Istanbul for a crash course in Turkish. Next up: a planned attempt at learning Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan.

The Mondo Beyondo course started by Andrea Scher and Jen Lemen has served more than five thousand participants, producing $500,000 in revenue for the two partners.

Brett Kelly’s $120,000 e-book has become a $160,000 e-book. His wife continues to stay at home with the kids, and they are now completely debt-free.

Perhaps the most important lesson arrived in an email from Emily Cavalier, who had recently left a high-paying job in Manhattan to pursue Mouth of the Border, a tour and events business focused on ethnic foods. I asked how often she still felt motivated to go it alone, and she told me: “Every single day. The greatest benefit has been going to bed just as excited as if not more excited than when I woke up. I get to work day in, day out on something that fully engages me and elicits not just my passions but the passion of tons of other people, too.”

Yes, like Emily and everyone else in this book, you can do this too. You aren’t alone out there.

Sure, you can learn through failure, and most likely you’ll have at least one false start on the road to freedom. But failure is overrated—who says you’ll fail? You can just as easily succeed. You can apply the lessons from these stories and create the new life you want.

Ready?

T
he story about freedom and value doesn’t end in the Western world; these themes are just as important in helping people create opportunities for themselves wherever they are. In many parts of Africa and Asia, more people work as buyers and sellers in the informal economy than work as employees for someone else. They may not all be professional bloggers or mobile application developers (yet), but they earn their living through the principles outlined in this book.

In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I met a tuk-tuk driver named Rhett. Tuk-tuks are the open-air taxis of Southeast Asia in which you can ride anywhere in the city for a dollar or two. Some tuk-tuk drivers, just like some cab drivers in other places around the world, are unreliable and dishonest. Rhett, however, is both reliable and honest, always arriving early to pick up a passenger and sometimes delivering regular customers to their destinations at no charge.

Most tuk-tuk drivers in Cambodia make just $2 to $5 a day, but Rhett earns up to $50 a day. He does this through a combination of hard work and careful strategy. The hard work comes by not sleeping or gambling the afternoon away as many of his colleagues do. The strategy lies in understanding that he is better off by serving regular clients instead of constantly roaming the streets looking for
one-time fares. While I was in town visiting a friend, Rhett made it clear that he was at my service, giving me his mobile number and telling me to call him “day and night.”