Every time I finish a self-help book, I ask myself – Why did I read it? At least for this book The $100 Startup, I have a clear answer – the awesome online marketing campaign by the author. And the publishers especially during author’s book tour in India. When I had first received an intimation of the release of this book, I ignored it. But then was excited about the book when I heard about the book tour and the response to it. Like one of my mentors says – you always learn something from every book. So let me share what I gathered from this book.
The book talks about small but successful entrepreneurs. So you do not hear those rags to riches stories of billionaires. But stories of people who continue to earn more or less the same that they earned in their jobs. But by doing what they like to do rather than what their bosses expect them to do. Did they have a concrete plan or a framework that they followed to be successful? I do not think so. Though looking back you can always put a model around what happened, except for the fact that they all worked hard.
Author coins the term Solopreneurs for entrepreneurs who operate a single person enterprise. And this is a phenomenon that we need to study. As more and more people venture into this. I liked his inference of traditional demographics like Age, Location, Gender, Race, and Income level changing to Interests, Passions, Skills, Beliefs, and Values. Author has touched upon but not deep dived in any of the cases that he mentions in the book.
He advises wannabe entrepreneurs to find an intersection between your passion and the market needs. And this is usually a tough task. Wherever the intersection does exist it is a very narrow space. And if the entrepreneur shifts the focus to this narrow section, the passion is bound to be lost. His second advice that I liked is the way he presented the concept of Hustling. Where he categorizes entrepreneurs in three categories. Charlatans – who work less but talk a lot. Martyrs – Who work a lot but hardly talk. And Hustler – those who perfectly balance between working and talking about their work.
No doubt this balanced approach works, and how all of us wish we could be hustlers. My question though is that as personalities we are not always equally comfortable or competent doing the talking or the work we like to talk about. The author goes on to share his personal experience of hustling on various social networks especially twitter. He also hustles throughout the book by directing the reader to free resources available on his website for download and use.
A distinct feature of books that feature a lot of people who are not yet well known is that those people help the book get and maintain good ratings.
I would say refer to the website of the book The $100 Startup for the resources that you can potentially use. And if that inspires you to read the book, go ahead.
You may buy this book – The $100 Startup Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love and Work Better to Live More by Chris Guillebeau at Amazon.
I read this!
The book seems interesting. I would surely like to read.
I liked the three categories of people.
Thanks for the review!