Finished reading Chris Guillebeau’s The $100 Startup. Here’s the premise:
In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau shows you how to lead a life of adventure, meaning and purpose — and earn a good living.
… In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.
I’m hitting a point in my life where I want to think about different ways to generate income and/or have more control over how I spend my time. The book has been sitting in my ToRead pile for a while, so I finally got around to it.
It’s hard to gainsay a New York Times bestselling author, but two thoughts came to mind. One, a careful reader needs to control for survivor bias. The book’s approaches are reasonable and pragmatic, although a sharp businessperson could see them as a tad shallow. Still I have to wonder how many followed the advice and fell flat on their faces, or worse. Second, I personally got a heavy Jerry Maguire vibe. Not as much romance, but a lot of personally inspiring, guy or gal knocked down, get back up on their feet anecdotes.
I’m not widely read enough in this space to say whether The $100 Startup is a standout business book or not. YMMV, but it at least feels like a good starting point.