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

Chris Guillebeau is well-known for his desire to go to every country on the planet before his 35th birthday (on track to do so), and his website, The Art of Non-Conformity. At the website, he offers up travel wisdom and products to help his readers make the jump from corporate slave to entrepreneur. His latest book is an expansion on this idea.

The book is well-written and easily understood; more conversation than how-to. He makes the idea of starting your own business - any type of business - not only palatable but eminently do-able. Chris gives not only the example of his own life, but many case studies and anecdotes from real-life entrepreneurs such as the well-known Grammar Girl. He offers up a framework of how to get started, for show more very little money, how to keep the business going and growing, and even what happens if you (should) fail. The illustrations, done by artist Mike Rohde, are well-done and fit the flavor of the book to a T.

All in all, if you are a follower of Pam Slim, or are thinking of striking out on your own, this book is for you. If you just want to flirt with the idea of going into business for yourself, this book is worth reading, if only to fire you up. And if you are a fan of Chris Guillebeau, this book is a must-read. show less

I'm paraphrasing but near the beginning the author outlines the 3 necessary ingredients to start a business, and this is all the more important if you're starting with very little capital. You need a product or service, people willing to buy it, and a means of accepting payment. That's it. You can expect more challenges and nuance to grow the business as you go but you'll need at least those 3 conditions to start.

That's the gist of it. And then you'll hear plenty of examples about how scrappy and innovative entrepreneurs made it work.

The book then slowly undermines itself by switching gears from showing you the process of starting a business to trying to sell you on the idea of traveling the world and generally being your own remote show more boss. Signing in for two hours to run your business from a beach in Thailand sounds fantastic but I've heard this pitch from far too many snake oil salesmen to trust this tactic. It's a shame too because Chris Guillebeau has a lot of interesting things to say. I just wish he kept it to the substance and didn't spend a desperate amount of time highlighting the glamour. show less

There's no hiding it: I'm self-employed. Once upon a time this title would never have had a chance on my nightstand. Now I read Guillebeau's blog, have purchased one of his ebooks (Art Money), and plowed through [b:The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future|12605157|The $100 Startup Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future|Chris Guillebeau|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1345666854s/12605157.jpg|17620461] in a week.

Well researched, varied, and personal stories of frugal entrepreneurs combined with Chris's clear writing style make for an engaging and educational read. The only reason I didn't award five stars -- my sense of playing out show more of my league. While this is not fair to the text, feeling ill at ease about joining the ranks of these successful business owners is one clear take away for me. But! Repeat exposure to these ideas, time, and incremental progress as a working artist may bring me back to change this rating one day.

I've been trying to update my website and figure out ways to scale my work. The advice about selling something quickly and the difference between a business and a hobby. Well...No doubt these challenging tasks have had and effect on the way I received this book. show less

It took me a ridiculously long time to read this book, mostly because I read it in tiny little chunks in the morning as a way to get my brain revved up for the day. This book is good for that. It's not an exhaustive entrepreneurial textbook and that's okay. In fact, it's great. Because what this book boils down to is someone saying, "Well, maybe you should just TRY your idea" and then showing lots and lots of examples of people who did just that. It shows you how to try, how to fail, how to tweak, and why all of this is much, much, much less scary than you might think.

First: my wife bought this, read it and liked it. She wanted me to read it. So I did. I found 15% substance, 83% anecdote (examples, case studies, choose your definition), and 2% vapor. Needs more "how" to be really useful, and Guillebeau shortchanged the "how" he did write, though there were a couple of good resources found on his website...

Another thing irritated me: quotes obviously taken from some unsourced site like brainyquotes.com. Any discerning reader would immediately see that Karl Marx or Anais Nin could not have said the quotes he attributed to them (Nin did not use the word "hustle" in any of her writings). That's just lazy on the part of Guillebeau, and sends me the message that he doesn't think his readers will call him show more on something like that. The secondary message is that if a little research uncovers a falsehood, what am I to think of the rest of the text?

Bottom line: best startup is to write a book about startups, publish it and sell it. But that's been done. show less

Another Ferriss-style "how I got rich by starting a business" book. I don't hate these, and I almost find something useful in them, even if it's just motivation (which is the only explanation I have for why I keep reading them). Don't expect much in the way of novel ideas, but if you're like me, the case-studies and the reminders of Good Ideas for business make the read worthwhile.

Ehhhh....for someone with a business idea and no business experience or clue how to start, this book is worth considering.

For anyone with actual work or business experience who's contemplating taking the plunge to start his/her own thing, this probably isn't the book for you.

Guillebeau has a direct and accessible writing style. He's not pretentious and his book isn't full of get-rich-quick / maximum money for minimum work kind of advice. He does say that starting a business takes lots of time, work and hustle before it pays off. Also, there are a range of startup types portrayed with an idea of revenue they make. Some are six-figure businesses and some more modest. There are a lot of anecdotes and some advice on how to put together a show more marketing plan, develop a mission statement, and how not to waste time or money on things you don't need. That's all good, but in totality it's 101, entreneur-lite kind of stuff.

If that's what you need and want, this does it as well as any; otherwise, keep looking. show less