The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future Hardcover – May 8, 2012

Everything you need to get you started in launching a business, from overcoming fears to tools to overcome obstacles. The stories in the book help you see the possibilities.

The first edition of Tim Ferriss’ book “The Four Hour Work Week”, which I loved, faced one common criticism among those who didn’t like it – that it wouldn’t work, and that Tim’s success was a fluke. Tim answered his critics in the second edition of the book, adding case studies showing that the principles work, which can also be found in the Case Studies section of his Four Hour Work Week blog.Chris Guillebeau (I really want to find out how to properly pronounce that last name – jzill-a-bow? gill-eh-bau?) side-steps the issue nicely with his book “The $100 Startup” (affiliate link) by starting with the case studies and working backwards. Rather than present a list of ideas and explain how they can be used, he presents a case study and then uses the case study to illustrate the point he’s trying to make. Starting with the idea that going into debt to start a business is no longer necessary, he details several people who started successful businesses with little money. (He’s also fair in that saying while the book suggests you can start with less than $100, many still use more, as there’s a spectrum from $0 to about $6k.) Convergence is the second point – the one I have the most difficulty with – because it discusses focusing on what you love and how to make money from it. Chris is fair in that this may not be possible for everyone – using the example of pizza eating (a man after my own heart!) – but illustrates several instances where people were successful in combining passion and profit.Skill transformation and finding out what people want are the next two main points, and those are followed by the idea that you needn’t wait to get started – being an expert is as much a function of you than it is some external verifying body. Action takes up the rest of the book – learning to use the knowledge economy and putting that into practise by using a one-page business plan for yourself to take action. Offer creation, hustling, and self-franchising make up the additional action points, the latter presenting a unique perspective in which you can actually be in two places at once! The book finishes with some debates on whether or not to outsource and whether or not to grow the business to where you need to hire employees. Chris rightly points out that these will be individual instances, and in the latter, contrasts the “build to sell” method of entrepreneurship with the “build to exist” method most of his case studies chose to use.I would suspect that Chris and Tim run in the same circles, based on the fact that they seem to know each other, and that they share some similarities when it comes to their work. The point about expertise is something Ferriss mentions in his book, and one of their case studies – the music teacher making $300k+ per year – is the same person. This could be seen as collusion, but realistically, my guess is that it’s just reinforcement that the ideas can work.The book is well written, and Chris has an engaging style. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in entrepreneurship and I look forward to reading more of Chris’ work!

Chris Guillebeau's "The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future" is the kind of book I was actually a little hesitant to review, out of a selfish desire to keep such excellent information to myself. Nonetheless, here I am.The $100 Startup is a book about entrepreneurship, but it's about more than that. It is a profile of successful startup businesses, that have been significantly successful for their owners, with a minimum initial investment. The manifesto in the prologue calls it "a short guide to everything you want," and really, that's what this book is about. It is a blueprint to start you on the path to doing better work.If you take one key idea away from this book, it should probably be the magic formula. Passion or skill + usefulness = success. In other words, if you can use your passion or skills to solve a problem that other people have, you will be successful. The book then delves into a bunch of great examples of startups, some of the challenges they faced, and some additional lessons to consider on your path.Everyone had skills and passions. How can you turn those into a successful business and earn enough money to have the life you want? That's for you to decide, but I finished this book with an idea about how to transform my own passions into a business. I was starting to do that before I read the $100 Startup, but this crystallized my desire to pursue the lifestyle I want by utilizing my passions, and started me thinking about what needs I could fulfil and benefits I could provide. If you read this book, you will probably feel the same way.Guillebeau's book is packed with a lot of useful information. Better yet, it has a companion website, [...], which features some of the resources in the book in a handy pdf format.Do you need this book to start your own business and because an entrepreneur? Of course not. Are you a lot more likely to become one if you read this book? Probably. Are you more likely to succeed if you read this book? Probably. This is about more than just having an idea. This book takes you from the initial step of the idea, to how to research and build your product or service, how to market it, and how to build your business.I am sitting down to read this book again, which is what prompted this review. I expect I will come away having learned more after the second read. How is my startup business coming? Slowly. I want to build a superior service, and that takes time. That's okay. This book changed how I think about my future, and what my plans were. It was without a doubt the most important thing I've read in a long time.

Aún continuo leyéndolo y lo que llevo me ha inspirado mucho.

The contents are easy to understand. Grateful for it. Simple contents. Still at the beginning pages.But my goals have shifted so I need to understand if I need to finish reading or not.

There is nothing that I dislike this product.

Leitura essencial pra quem pensa em empreender, não só voltado pra startups. O autor te incita a começar e te apresenta modelos de negócio simples e que derem muito certo.

me interesan los libros de emprendimiento, este es una buena referencia. hay buenos ejemplos reales y motivacionales.es una buen guía si quieres empezar con algúna idea de negocio que tengas con bajo presupuesto.