The $100 Startup: Empowering Micro-Entrepreneurship for All

Chris Guillebeau inspires individuals to redefine success through low-cost entrepreneurship, fostering freedom and independence in their lives.

### The $100 Startup: Achieving Freedom and Success with Micro-Businesses
* 💼 Chris Guillebeau discusses his book "The $100 Startup," which focuses on helping individuals **start small businesses with minimal investment**.
* 🌍 Guillebeau's research for the book involved studying successful micro-businesses around the world, with a particular focus on those **generating at least $50,000 annually**.
* The book features stories of individuals who found **freedom and success** by starting businesses, often in **unexpected ways or industries**.
* 🎓 Guillebeau's model emphasizes the importance of merging **passion and skill with usefulness**, highlighting the value of creating something **both personally fulfilling and marketable**.
* 💰 Most of the businesses in the book were started with **less than $1,000**, with an average startup cost of **$432**.
* 🏢 While the book primarily focuses on solo entrepreneurship, Guillebeau acknowledges the role of **partnerships and collaborations** in some successful ventures.
* 👨 Guillebeau encourages readers to take action, even if they have fears or are currently employed, suggesting that **starting a side business while maintaining a job** can be a practical approach.
* 🌱 The book aims to **inspire readers to pursue their own business ideas**, educate them on the next steps, and create a **sense of urgency to take advantage of the opportunities** available in today's connected world.

>>Rachel: On video, so welcome everyone to Authors Talks. Today we have Chris Guillebeau who is here with us to talk about his book The $100 Startup. And essentially Chris comes to us as a writer, a world traveler. He has gone to 160 countries, a couple more left on the list. He's also an entrepreneur and lifelong learner. So in addition to his book, Chris is also the author of this blog and site The Art of Nonconformity. It's a great site to check out. Today Chris is going to talk about how anyone can start their small startup where you can commit little time or money, maybe $100 or so, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful. And the best part is if we can change our own life, we can help others change theirs, which I think is a great sentiment. So please welcome Chris. [Applause] >>Chris: All right, thank you so much, Rachel.

Thanks, Googlers, for having me, both those who are here and those who are watching. It's fun to be back. I was at the Mountain View campus last time for my first book, The Art of Nonconformity, and it's fun to come and talk about The $100 Startup. In the cab on the way over, all of a sudden, I had this surge of guilt as I was reminded I haven't updated my Google+ page in a couple of weeks. I was like, Oh shit, I feel really bad. I have to come and apologize and beg forgiveness. I can take the mic out? Okay. So, first of all, my apologies for that. And second of all, I don't want to lecture for a long time, so I'll just talk a little bit about why I wrote the book and what The $100 Startup is about, tell you a couple of stories from it, a little bit more about the model, and what I hope will come out of it.

But then we'll do questions and attempted answers, QAA, which sometimes goes better than others, but I'm sure at Google it'll be great. And then we'll just hang out if anybody wants to hang out. I know lots of you guys have to get back to work. So first things first, whenever you undertake a project, hey guys, c'mon in. Whenever you undertake a big project, whether in business or anything else, I always think it's good to define your own success. I always think it's good to decide for yourself what success is gonna look like as opposed to someone else deciding for you. And in the case of writing a book, it's really good to understand to whom you're writing. To understand, you know, who the audience for this message is. And it takes a lot of work to write a book, so who do you really hope to reach with that. And there's a long tradition in publishing of authors complaining about their publishers.

but unfortunately, I had a very good relationship working with Crown on this book. And so, it's not so good for drama, but it is good for the editorial content of the book because, in the beginning of the research process, I got some really good advice from my editor. And my editor said, You know, Chris, you use this word 'entrepreneur' a lot on your blog and in your writing. And maybe in some of the circles that you travel in, maybe online, with your blog, maybe elsewhere, some people understand what you're talking about. But for a lot of mainstream America, they have their own conception of what entrepreneurship is. And a lot of people are actually intimidated by the idea of entrepreneurship, and not everyone is necessarily interested in entrepreneurship. And for a lot of people, when they think about entrepreneurship, they tend to think of the Silicon Valley model. And they think of kind of moving and banding together to form a real company and pursuing

angel investing or venture capital. And that's one model of startups, but that's not really what the $100 startup is about at all. And then sometimes when people think about business, they think about things like wearing a suit every day or playing golf or voting Republican or all these different things that you might associate with traditional larger business. And that's not what the $100 startup is about either. So essentially this book and a lot of what I do with The Art of Nonconformity, is for those who are seeking freedom. And it's for those who are hoping to have more freedom and independence in their lives. Whether it's people that are dissatisfied in their work, people who have jobs they don't like, obviously no one at Google. But other companies elsewhere, people who are dissatisfied and want to make a change. But they don't necessarily know how to make that change and they don't necessarily know

what the next step is. And so there's a lot of resources that are kind of general motivational encouraging people to go for it and I think that's great. But when you're ready to go for it, the next question is where you're going and how you get there? And so my hope with The $100 Startup, was to provide 300 pages of next steps and a very specific model of checklists and case studies, a very data-driven approach, based on extensive study that would tell people exactly what to do and how to do it. To establish their own small business. And the second group of people that I'm writing for in the book are those people who are just now entering the job market, either just right out of college or those who are unsuccessfully trying to compete in a difficult job market. People of all ages. And right now we have a situation where a lot of people, in many cases, are competing for few jobs. And I don't know entirely what the situation is here, I don't think it's quite as bad in

the Bay Area, but where I live in Portland, Oregon, it's not unusual at all to go to the coffee shop, and your barista who makes your coffee has a Master's degree or sometimes higher. So, it's not unusual at all to find all kinds of people who have this higher education, but they're not able to find work in the field in which they've trained. It used to be that when we met people like this, we might think that they've fallen on hard times. We might even think something's wrong with them, they're not trying hard enough, they should just work harder, they should get on LinkedIn, polish their resume, whatever. But I would suggest when we have situations like last year in Portland, there was a job announcement for an entry-level receptionist position. It paid $14 an hour with no benefits, and 300 applicants showed up to apply for that job and interview. Many of them had college degrees.

So essentially, everyone is qualified or very overqualified for that kind of job. And I would suggest when we have situations like that, the answer isn't just try harder for those people. I would say that the answer for many of them is actually found through creative self-employment. And the answer is found through kind of taking matters into their own hands and making something for themselves that improves the state of the world. And this used to be seen as kind of a risky thing. Entrepreneurship used to be seen as kind of a scary, risky choice, and there might be a lot of rewards on the other side, possibly, but there certainly is a lot of risk. And I think during a difficult economy, a lot of people are reevaluating that and thinking about where their security really is found and what really is risky and what is really safe. And for a lot of people, especially if you can start a business without investing a lot of money and without spending a lot of time in the planning stage.

I think in many ways that's actually the safe conservative choice. So that's the message that I'm hoping to bring to people through the book. And the best way to tell you more about the $100 startup model is to tell you a couple of stories from people who are in the book. So when we began the research process, I was traveling all over the world, cast a really wide net, and said, I want to hear from people from all different backgrounds, from all different countries, different ages, operating different kinds of businesses who had all successfully found this freedom. Found this independence through starting a successful business. But we also had very specific characteristics. So we said that the business has to make at least $50,000 a year, and in many cases, it made a lot more, but we just established that as the baseline so that we're not looking at hobbies, we're actually looking at real small businesses. And the business owner had to provide very specific financial information about how much

money they made and how much it cost to start the business, mistakes along the way, what went well, you know if they scale that business, how do they do it? And again the goal with that was to provide a very specific resource as opposed to a general resource. Because often if you ask someone how their business is doing, assuming it's a private company or a very small business they might say Oh it's going well, but you have no idea what that means so we wanted to be very specific about that. We also looked primarily at micro-businesses or businesses that have five or fewer employees. So I really am looking at this very very small startup model, and in most cases or let's say at least half the cases the business owners were solo entrepreneurs. So people who were just running their business as just one person, maybe a virtual assistant or something, but essentially it was just themselves. And then lastly we were looking primarily at people who started this business without

a lot of advanced technical skills or without a lot of special skills that couldn't be somewhat easily acquired. So, for example, we talked with a guy who opened a coffee bar. And before he did that, he didn't know much about running a coffee bar, but he was able to acquire that knowledge. On the other hand, I had someone submit a survey from Croatia who said that he had taught himself dentistry. And I said, That's great, that's awesome, good for you. But I'm not gonna put that in the book 'cause I'd probably get sued. So again, no special skills, or at least no skills that couldn't be easily acquired. So we received maybe 1,500 submissions, lots of data and surveys, and then from there kind of narrowed down to the 50 to 70 most interesting or most poignant stories I felt kinda reflected the times in which we live. And then that's constructed around a narrative in the book that tells the story of how these

people found that freedom through small business, and then hopefully a blueprint for how readers can do the same thing. And one of the first people that I talked with, in fact, the book begins with the story of Michael Hanna. And Michael was a 25-year veteran sales professional. He worked in media sales, and he'd always been a good worker, got good performance reviews, really helped his firm a lot. But one day, three years ago, he went to work, and while he was planning his schedule, his meetings, his pitches, he received a message from his boss asking him to come and see her. And he went into his boss's office, and he noticed that she didn't make eye contact with him. And she said, Michael, as you know, the industry is in kind of a decline; we had to make some hard choices. And Michael said at that point it was like everything happened in slow motion for him. And he said, You know, I had heard stories of other people who had lost their jobs, been

laid off. This has happened to some of our colleagues. It wasn't a complete surprise, but until it actually happened to me, I had no idea what it felt like. And someone from HR came in, and they gave him a box, and he had to pack up his things and leave right away. And on the way home, he called his wife Mary Ruth, and he said, Honey, I'm sure it's gonna be okay, but I'm just letting you know I've lost my job today. Everything was okay for Michael in the end, but not in the way he first expected. So Michael thought, Okay, this is a shock, but I'll regroup, and I will just get another job. And so he started trying to line up interviews, talk to his colleagues and former colleagues, he used LinkedIn, he did all the things he was supposed to do. And he got some interviews, but what he discovered pretty quickly was he wasn't the only one.

looking for work, first of all. And second of all, because his industry was in a decline, there weren't really any companies that were hiring. So Michael began to get a little discouraged. And one day, a friend of his who owned a furniture store called him up, and his friend said, I know this is kind of random. I have a truckload of mattresses I don't want. Maybe you could take these and sell them one at a time on Craigslist or eBay or something. So Michael called Mary Ruth again. He said, Honey, it's a long story, but is it okay if I buy some mattresses? And she said, Okay, whatever, Michael. So Michael buys the mattresses, but instead of selling them through Craigslist, Michael had this other idea. While he had been driving around to all these fruitless job interviews, he had noticed a car dealership that went out of business. So Michael contacted the developer, thinking that he could probably rent that space very cheaply because there weren't any other car dealerships coming to town during this economy.

So he was able to get this space. And Michael didn't know anything about running a mattress store; his impression was that mattress stores were kind of high-pressure, seedy places you didn't really want to go to them. So he decided to create an unconventional mattress shop. And he made a family-friendly space where people could bring their kids, and there was a play area, and there was a coffee area. And then Michael started the world's first mattress delivery by bicycle service, which you can look up on YouTube. It's very popular bringing mattresses all over town. And this was 2 1/2 years ago, and now Mattress Lot is a $1 million-a-year business. And I talked with Michael recently right before the book came out, and he said, You know, if someone had said to me a couple of years ago that I'd be running a mattress shop, I never would've believed it at all.

But I really love what we're doing, and we're really making a difference in our community, and the whole family is involved, and I feel like I'm actually creating security for myself through this. And the other thing he said was, That day that I got laid off, it was a shock. It was bad. But it turned into probably the best thing that ever happened to me, so I'm so glad that happened that caused this transition. And as I traveled the world and interviewed lots of different people, I heard a lot of stories like Michael's. And they didn't all involve being laid off or fired or something that difficult, but in most cases, they did involve the person kind of stumbling into their business project. Or not necessarily beginning with a hugely strategic plan, they were just kind of pursuing an opportunity and seeing where it led. And so I learned to kind of alter the questions that I ask people in response to this phenomenon.

So I talked with Susannah Conway in England. And Susannah was a former journalist; she was also a photographer. And at one point, she decided to create a photography course, at first just for her friends and family, and then everyone signed up that she knew. And she wasn't a famous blogger; she didn't have thousands of followers on Twitter or Google+. But she did have a Facebook account, and she offered her course to anyone who was connected with her, and everyone signed up. And Susannah ended up creating a $90,000 income out of this project, which is more than she had made as a journalist. And I talked to her and said, Was there anything that you didn't foresee when you were starting up? And she said, I didn't know I was starting up. I just thought I was doing something for fun, and everyone liked it, and I ended up creating this business model around it. And then I talked with Benny Lewis, who's originally from Ireland, and Benny is now a full-time

professional language hacker who travels the world learning foreign languages and teaching people through this method he's devised. And at the end of one of our conversations I said, Is there anything else I should know about your business? And he said Yes, please stop calling it a business I'm just having the time I life. I'm just doing something that I really love to do, but I found a way to connect that with something that's desired by the marketplace. Something that other people also value enough to pay for. And that's how he's able to make good living. One way or another, everyone that we focused on in this study and everyone who's in the book as well as many of the people in the broader community that I am fortunate to work with, they've all found a way to merge that question of passion and skill with the question of usefulness. With the idea of making something that not only they're excited about but also other

people are excited about and willing to pay for. And they found out how to do that in different ways. There is a story about a guy who's a full-time CFO for a University in Virginia. And he likes his job, he has no plans to leave, he's relatively happy there. But he's also been very passionate about travel, and he and his wife have often traveled first-class or business-class around the world using their frequent flyer miles. And for years he always helped his colleagues with this, and his colleagues would ask him, I want to go to Paris with my wife, can you help me? And he did this for free. And then two years ago, he decided kind of on a whim to create a very, very basic website offering this as a service for anyone else who wanted help booking their frequent flyer tickets. And he said, You know, if you have miles and you're not sure how to use them, I'll advise

you on your itinerary. I'll even phone the airline for you. Whatever you want, we'll make sure you have the trip. And long story short, two years on, this is now a $100,000-a-year side business. And so, Gary Leff, this guy, still works as a CFO, but for about one hour a day, he operates this business that brings in $100,000 a year. And Gary says, I like my job. I have no plans to leave, but it's actually a very good feeling to go to work because you want to go to work as opposed to going to work because you have to go to work. And he said, It is a good job, but if something were to ever change, then I have this security that we've established on the side, and I could go full-time with this. So, people apply this model in different ways. Some after losing their job, some continuing in their job, some making a gradual transition.

But again, all in pursuit of freedom. And they all did so, for the most part, without spending a lot of money. Almost everyone in the book spent less than $1000; about half of the stories are $100 or less. I think the average startup cost was something like $432. We decided that $432 startup didn't sound as good as $100 startup; we went with that. But the whole point is not a lot of money, not a lot of special skills or skills that couldn't be otherwise acquired. Last story, I talked with Sarah Young in Portland, Oregon, who opened a yarn shop at the height of the recession. So, she opens this retail business in a nice location just as everything else was closing down. And Sarah didn't have a lot of business experience, and so I asked her, What were you thinking in doing this? You weren't an entrepreneur. And she said, Well, I wasn't an entrepreneur, but I was a shopper.

And I knew what I wanted, and it didn't exist. And I thought I wasn't the only one, and so that's why I decided to create Happiness. And some of you may have seen the video book trailer for The $100 Startup, and in that trailer, Sarah is there in her store, and she tells the story of her first $1000 day. She tells the story of making $1000 for the first time and calling her dad on the phone and saying, Dad, we had a $1000 day at the store. And she talks about just how empowering that felt. Well, we made that trailer a few months ago, and right before the book came out, I went back to her and said, Are there any updates? And she said, Well, we just had this big festival, we had lots of knitters come to town, and we had our first $10,000 day. So, Happiness continues to grow, and it has five employees now.

And it is doing very well. So again, I share all these stories in the book and in the talk and through our other work with the goal of inspiring readers to take action. And as I said in the beginning, I think it's important to define your own success with any project, whether it's a book or business or anything else, as opposed to someone else defining that success for you. And so, in the case of The $100 Startup, I think the book will be successful if it does a couple of things. And that first thing is inspiration combined with action. I hope that people will read the book and say not only was it a good book, but I hope they read and say, I read this and then I went and took action on it. And I started my own little micro-business, or I improved the one I had, or I helped someone else with theirs. I really hope that that inspiration will be combined with action.

Because I talk a lot about freedom. And the question I would have to all of us, or to anyone who's watching, is do you have enough freedom in your life? And are you doing most of what you love most of the time? All of us have things that we have to do from time to time, and that's okay, but most of the time, are you doing something that you find meaningful, that's challenging and rewarding? And then, because freedom and responsibility are correlated, are you making the world a better place? Are you giving enough? Do you feel like you're doing enough for yourself and for others? The second thing that I hope for is education for all those people who want to start something but don't know what those next steps are. The book has lots of examples and checklists and case studies and one-page business plans and promotion plans. Again, just kind of helping people take those next steps. And then, the third and final thing that I hope will come out of the book is I hope it

will create a sense of urgency among those who read it. Because we do live in this remarkable, beautiful age where we're all connected and we can come together today, but we can also go and reach tens of thousands of people all over the world based on shared ideals and shared values. And that, I think, is very unique because micro-entrepreneurship in different ways has always existed since the beginning of commerce. You know, that's micro-entrepreneurship is not new. I used to live in Sierra Leone. And I would drive my Land Rover in the interior of the country and go to the village, and in West Africa, almost everyone is an entrepreneur. Because everyone is buying and selling and responsible for their own well-being, and there is no formal economy for the most part. But the difference is in West Africa, you can pretty much only buy and sell in the village with your neighbors or with people in a very small circle for the most part. But all of us have the chance to connect with people all over the world based on those shared

ideals or values or worldview. And I think that's very unique. And so I like something that Steve Jobs said before his death. He said, Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. And as I worked on the book and talked with everyone whose stories are in the book, I found that those stories were a testament to that ideal. Testaments to the idea that we can do something that we love, we can make the world a better place, we can earn a good income from it. But we can pursue things that are meaningful most of the time. And I'm really grateful to be here at Google today, and thank you so much, Rachel, for arranging this. And thanks to all of you, both here and elsewhere, for sharing the space with me. Thanks. [Applause] So should we do some questions? >>Rachel: I have a question. >>Chris: Yes, Rachel. >>Rachel: You didn't plant me out here.

>>Chris: I didn't. >>Rachel: So can you talk about, from your pool of applicants and the survey people who either dropped out of college or high school, what is the ratio there, did you find trends? >>Chris: Yeah, great question. Yeah, of course. So the question is people who dropped out of college or high school versus those who stayed and were there trends in terms of the people who are in the case study. I think it was quite varied. There were a lot of people who did have advanced education. There were other people who had very little higher education. So I'm not sure if there was a trend. I guess if there was a trend, it was a trend towards independent learning of some form. A trend towards risk-taking. And again, earlier I talked about risk and kind of defined that a bit differently because I don't necessarily think entrepreneurs are risk-takers or mavericks. But I would say that in a lot of the people that we talked with, there was a more of a

history of international travel, for example. More of a history of living in more than one place, for example. Maybe just being exposed to different ideals. But within the education itself, I would say there were all kinds of people. There were high school dropouts to PhDs who left their field to do something else. >>Male number one: Along the same lines, were there any trends with regards to, say, people like the mattress story who did it out of necessity versus the frequent-flier story where he was just sort of doing it as a side hobby. >>Chris: Yeah, great question. So, was there a trend in terms of people making this switch out of necessity, like the person who was laid off, versus the person who was deliberate in staying in the job and establishing a side income? I would say it was more common for people to make a transition out of a transition. And I would say it's more common for people to be faced with a change or to have some

kind of change imposed upon themselves and then to make that change. And that's because you have to. You have this imperative. And so it creates a dramatic story and it's interesting. But what I find in some ways is almost more interesting is those people who don't have that imperative but then kind of take it upon themselves to go and establish the side income. So we had both sides. I think the related question is sometimes, for those people who are in a job and no plans to leave the job for a while but they do want to establish something on their own, what do they do? And I tend to find a lot of those people kind of remain in paralysis. Because everything's going okay. And so everything's going okay and they're busy because we're all busy. And I do feel it's good for those who want to create this side income or side project. I do feel that it's good to be more active about that and to focus more on action than

planning. Like almost no one in the study had a 60-page business plan. Almost no one in the study borrowed money from the bank. There were a couple of exceptions out of 1000 stories, but almost everyone just kind of bootstrapped and found a way to get to market quickly. So regardless of the situation, I would say that the lesson is the same. Yes, sir. >>Male #2: I had a question about choosing the right idea. I think that, I'm just out of college last year. And I think a lot of my fears in college and even now about starting our own business is finding that idea that really resonates with us as well as others. I think that there was a line that you used that said that finding your passion, that's doing something that no longer is a job, no longer feels like a job. We also have the example with the mattress salesman, that doesn't seem to be his passion.

He wasn't like, I'm gonna sell mattresses, so,  
>>Chris: Correct, correct >>Male #2: So where is that line about market  
opportunities and about your passion? >>Chris: Where is that line about the market  
opportunities and your passion? You said a few other things, but I'm just  
gonna kinda go off that point. So the whole thing about following your passion,  
there is a survey on a blog I read recently. The question was, What is the most overrated  
phrase to see online? And follow your passion was like number one  
or number two. It's really fascinating because there's like  
two sides to this. Not everything that we are passionate about  
is going to make a good business model. And in fact, there's lots of things that we're  
excited about or passionate about that no one else is gonna care about enough to value.  
You know, as I said in the book, I used to be  
very passionate about playing video games.

And I was a really good Halo player. But no one came along and offered me a check to do that, right? I had to find a way to create value in my business like everyone else. So, not every passion can be monetized. However, I think when you look at successful people, certainly everyone in the $100 startup model, but almost, I won't say everyone, a lot of successful entrepreneurs, they have followed their passion, right? They have done something that they're excited about. But just as with those pursuing the smaller model, they have found a way to make it useful and to connect with people and deliver something that's valuable. So, in terms of the mattress guy, no, he wasn't passionate about mattresses per se. I guess what he discovers is that he was passionate about community and he was passionate about small business and the role that his shop could play in that. And doing the fun things like delivering the mattresses on the bicycle, and just kind of

making business fun. So, in terms of ideas which you mentioned earlier, one thing that's helpful if you're trying to figure out which skill do I have or which passion do I have that could also be interesting to other people? So, like the frequent-flier tickets as opposed to playing Halo. One thing that's helpful is to focus on the questions that people ask you. Because people probably ask you a certain number of questions about specific topics frequently. And if you think about it, what is it that people always ask me about? That is often a sign that you are perceived authority in something. And also that that information is valued and desirable. So, with the frequent-flier guy, he discovered his colleagues kept asking him how do you do this? And this whole thing is confusing to me. And when I call the airlines I don't get good information. So, he would explain that and go into it in detail. And then finally, he figured out that most people don't actually want to do that themselves,

they just want to have the outcome. So he was able to create a business out of that. So I would go back to passions and skills and then think about which of those are then useful or interesting to other people. And the same was true with Benny Lewis, the language hacking guy. He was passionate about learning languages, and he describes himself and in fact I mentioned it as a full-time language hacker. But essentially he's not being paid to learn languages; he's being paid to help other people do that. So that's also a key distinction. And Rachel mentioned I'm on this quest to visit every country in the world, every once in a while I read these blog posts that say you know Chris Guillebeau is paid to travel. I'm not really paid to travel, like I'm glad people like the blog and they might enjoy it, but no one pays me to travel. I have to create a specific business model.

Thank you. Yes hi. >> Female #1: Hello. Were any of your case studies about entrepreneurs who created nonprofits? And if so, what was that sort of process, how does that differ from the other type? >>Chris: Yeah, a very good question. Were any of the case studies about nonprofits? And if so, how does that differ from other kinds of businesses? So for the most part in this study, I'm focusing on for-profit small businesses. Because again, the whole goal is providing freedom and independence for that entrepreneur or micro-entrepreneur. There are a lot of people who then created that freedom for themselves and then used the time that they had or the resources that they had to devote more to their nonprofit causes as well. But what I was interested in, probably more than strictly nonprofits, I was interested in those who took a hybrid approach, which we're seeing more and more. Like with Kiva for Toms Shoes or something like that where it's like a for-profit company

or organization with a cause. Or something this kind of merging the two things. So there were a couple of stories about that. One of them was Selena and Khary Cuffe who I believe they live in Los Angeles. And they had traveled a bit on the continent of Africa. And in South Africa specifically, South Africa is known for its wine industry and great wine. But due to all the effects of apartheid, most of the vineyard owners were white South Africans. And there was a very small number of vineyards that were owned by black South Africans. And so Selena and Khary started this business called Heritage Link Brands that imported wine from South Africa from black-owned vineyards. And so they basically created a business around this. I mean I think it's a low seven-figure business now. They're importing wines to the US and I think Canada and probably some other places too. So it's a business, but it's a business with a deliberate social cause.

And it's a business to uplift a population that wasn't previously served well. So I was interested in the approaches of combining both profit and nonprofit. Thank you. Yep. >>Male #3: Chris, I have a group of friends that follow you very closely. Actually, myself one of them as well. And we were chatting the other night after having all read your book. And there was a topic that came up recently that had to do with just the fear of having great jobs, having that unconventional desire to do something different than your jobs. He actually works for a large corporation and felt that wasn't enough. Then went to like the rock stars start up, and now he still is in that situation where it's not driving that freedom that he's looking for. >>Chris: Right. >>Male #3: And he's just coming up with these reasons to what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. And the thing that was holding him back was, what do I do if in a month or two I can pay

my rent? Because I want to walk into one of them and say I'm done. Then I want to be able to start my business and go for it. But that fear is something that constantly holds us back, and I know that something you hear all the time. >>Chris: I do hear that all the time. And the question was about fear and if you have a good job, but you have this desire for freedom, what do you do and how do you reconcile these things. And you have a good salary, but you have this desire to do something different. I do hear that all the time, I often hear it from people who write in, especially from the large companies, Microsoft and other places, never here of course. And it's phrased almost always exactly like that. You know, I have this desire to do something but I have this. And sometimes it's from people who have families or other real responsibilities and obligations.

I think the wrong advice to tell those people is to quit your job now. You know, quit your job, just go for it, it's gonna be okay. I think that's the wrong advice. I would also say, I mentioned paralysis earlier. What often happens is that they get stuck because they can only envision two alternatives. They can only envision staying in this job, which may have served me for a time and maybe it's okay, but I'm ready to do something different. And this general idea of freedom or working for myself. But they don't really see how to get from here to there, and they don't imagine all the points in between. So I would say to that person, why can't you start now? While you have this job. And why can't you begin taking those steps now? Because that fear is real, but there's nothing to inhibit you from taking action now. And people often ask, sometimes they say, well, I got this really busy job, and I'm working

50 or 60 hours a week, and I have no time. Well, a couple of things. One, we all make time for what's important to us. So if this is important to you, then you can make some time. I also think it's an advantage when you have limited time to pursue your micro startup because then you can only do things that matter. And if you have 40 hours a week to work on it, you can probably think of all kinds of things that are irrelevant to the business model. But a business essentially is just three things. It's a product or a service, a group of people willing to pay for it, and a means of getting paid. So if you focus on those three things and go from a general offer, general business idea to a specific offer as soon as possible. There's a one-page consulting guide in the book, how to get your website up, how to one-page promotion plan, what to do every day to get the word out.

If you just start that now, I feel that that is so much healthier, and I feel like it generates more security. And if you had something that's making even a thousand dollars a month or something, then I know that's not a lot of money, but it's much easier usually to grow a business that's making some amount of money than it is to start it from the beginning. So, I feel like one of the ways of dealing with that fear is to start now and to have something. So then, maybe you don't have the hundred thousand dollar a year side income like the frequent-flier type, but if you have something, that's so much more easier to envision the possibilities as opposed to just saying, Yeah, go for it, let me quit my job at the greatest company in the world or something to go and do something that's kind of uncertain. And some people do that, but maybe it's easier to do both for a while.

That's great. Anything else? Are we good? >>Male #3: I was gonna ask if you could briefly touch on how you went from your first book to the idea for this book. It sounds like much of the messaging is the same. I haven't read this one yet, but I was wondering how you sorta went from that one to one that was more focused on taking action and creating a side business. >>Chris: OK, so how did I go from book number one, which was The Art of Nonconformity, to book number two, The $100 Startup? What was the process? So they're actually quite different. The first book was much more general, much more about worldview. A lot of stories of challenging authority. Some more information about travel, which this book doesn't really touch on. So The $100 Startup is much more specifically focused on this idea of establishing freedom through a micro business.

And it's also based on, I guess I would also say it's based a lot more on data and on the study. That came about in part from the first book tour. I went to every state and every province in Canada, and along the way, I just met a lot of people who fit this unexpected entrepreneur model. And I heard a lot of stories, and I started getting more e-mail. And so that's when I thought we need to tell the story well. So my main goal in writing the book was to tell these stories well, hopefully. To do honor to them and then to provide that narrative or that blueprint that other people could follow. So it came about mostly organically, just as I traveled and I heard from different people that I'm connected with. Great. >>Rachel: anybody else? >>Male #3: Can you do one last question? >>Chris: Sure. >>Male #3: I haven't read the book yet, but a lot of the stories you mentioned were very

individual. And this person had an idea or has a situation. What about in other industries that require more cooperation. [Inaudible] Do you have any examples of partnerships in general? >>Chris: Great, so most of the stories that we've touched on are fairly individual and wondering about partnerships. And opportunities to leverage knowledge and connectivity. That's a great question. I would say I probably have my own individual bias towards solo entrepreneurs and those people who just kind of establish things on their own. One, because that's what I know. I don't know the big startup model, I don't know that traditional business model that we talked about in the beginning. I just know my own history of always being self-employed, of always kind of hustling to make my own way. And so that's the world in which I'm most comfortable with. And those of the stories that I'm probably best at telling and analyzing.

I would say, though, that everyone that we looked at in the book, we also had a number of partnerships. Lots of husbands and wives or couples operating their business together, or two business partners operating it together. But I really wasn't looking at like a model of 10 people or more than that building an actual company. So, in terms of the partnerships, there's some information about partnerships, about how that works and how it doesn't. About using the strength of one person to remedy the weaknesses of the other. But for the most part, I guess I'm much more interested in that individual focus of freedom. Just because that's what I know. All right, thanks again, guys. Thank you. [Applause] >>Rachel: Thanks, Chris. >>Chris: Thank you.

The $100 Startup | Chris Guillebeau | Talks at Google

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Talks at Google

Starting a Small Business with The $100 Startup

Chris Guillebeau, a writer and world traveler, discusses his book The $100 Startup, which offers a model for starting a small business with minimal time and money.

The book aims to redefine entrepreneurship, focusing on freedom and independence rather than traditional business models.

Guillebeau provides a data-driven approach with checklists and case studies to guide readers in establishing their own small business, targeting those dissatisfied with their current jobs and those entering the job market.

The Shift Towards Creative Self-Employment

In Portland, it's common to see highly educated individuals struggling to find work in their field, leading to a surplus of qualified candidates for low-paying jobs.

The challenging job market is prompting many to reconsider the risks of entrepreneurship, with creative self-employment becoming a viable solution for those seeking independence.

The author's research for the book focused on micro-businesses and solo entrepreneurs, aiming to provide a specific blueprint for readers to achieve freedom through small business ownership.

Michael's layoff led him to sell mattresses, ultimately creating an unconventional mattress shop that became a $1 million-a-year business.

His success was driven by pursuing opportunities and making a difference in the community.

Similarly, other individuals in the study found success by merging their passion and skill with the needs of the marketplace, often stumbling into their business ventures.

A CFO in Virginia turned his passion for travel and helping colleagues into a $100,000-a-year side business by offering frequent flyer ticket booking services.

Sarah Young opened a yarn shop in Portland during the recession, using her shopping experience to create a successful business that now has five employees and generates $10,000 days.

The author aims to inspire readers to take action, define their own success, and provides resources for those wanting to start their own micro-businesses.

The Unique Power of Global Connection and Micro-Entrepreneurship

The speaker emphasizes the unique opportunity of our connected age to reach people globally based on shared ideals and values.

Micro-entrepreneurship has always existed, but now individuals can connect with others worldwide, creating a broader impact.

The speaker highlights the importance of independent learning, risk-taking, and taking action over planning in establishing successful ventures.

The Intersection of Passion and Market Opportunities

Following your passion is often seen as overrated, as not all passions can be monetized.

Successful entrepreneurs typically find a way to create value and connect with others, even if their passion doesn't directly align with their business.

Identifying the questions people frequently ask you can help uncover your perceived authority and potential business opportunities.

Merging Profit and Social Cause: The Story of Heritage Link Brands

Selena and Khary Cuffe started Heritage Link Brands to import wine from black-owned vineyards in South Africa, addressing the legacy of apartheid.

Their business has grown to a low seven-figure operation, importing wines to the US and Canada while uplifting a previously underserved population.

The conversation also highlights the common fear of leaving a stable job for a different path, encouraging individuals to take small steps towards their goals while still employed.

Transitioning from a Steady Job to Entrepreneurship

Starting a side business, even with a small income, can provide security and make the transition to entrepreneurship easier.

The author's first book focused on challenging authority and worldview, while the second book, The $100 Startup, is more about establishing freedom through micro businesses.

The author's bias towards solo entrepreneurship is reflected in the stories told, but there are also examples of partnerships and collaboration in the book.