$100 Start Up — Chris Guillebeau — Hacked Cracked & Digested

Published in

The Coffeelicious

8 min readMar 9, 2016

The Micro Business Revolution Is Here!

Most people don’t plan to be entrepreneurs, they just get tired of working for somebody else and living someone else’s dream.

Don’t cut back on quality of life! Decide what you want, then look to create and sell something to live the way you want to live.

FREEDOM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY

Start With An Idea & Figure Everything Else Out Along The Way, Just Jump!

There Is No Rehab For Being Addicted To Freedom

Value = Creating Something Useful & Sharing It With The World.

The goal is not to get rich quickly but to create something that people will value enough to pay for.

Losing your job could be a blessing in disguise.

You already have the skills you need to create the life you want, you just have to know where to look.

Empowering others should be your biggest marketing tool.

Freedom Is Possible & The Future Is Now!

Create Something Useful & Share It With The World

Success isn’t about being the best at a particular activity.

Value is created when a multitude of modest skills are gathered in one person.

If you have a paying job, then you have skills you can put into a passion or hobby

Passion / Skill + Usefulness = Micro Business Success

Ask yourself: what do want to sell and why would your customers buy it?

Helping people escape from who they are and the reality they live in is key.

Create something you want to buy yourself and people will probably buy it.

Every business should focus on the product’s core benefit to customers, NOT the features of the product.

Dig deep for hidden needs because what people want (vs) what they say they want might be very different.

Make your customer a hero by helping them simplify a complicated process for their colleagues, boss, family or friends.

Sell What People Buy, Not What You Think They Need!

Don’t make it complicated. A customer at a restaurant doesn’t want to go into the kitchen to see how his meal is cooked.

FOCUS ON SALES, NOT ADMINISTRATION

When it comes to sales, focus on the value proposition: the core benefits and value you bring to people’s lives or the solution you provide to their problems!

Many start-ups tend to focus on the product features instead, then wonder why their sales aren’t going through the roof.

An ounce of action is worth more than a ton of theory!

Key Tasks When Structuring Your Value Proposition

Create the ideal customer profile
List product benefits
Design consumption matrix: where and how will your customers consume your product/service?
Design hero/impact matrix: how your product/service will help them simplify complex tasks?
Focus on giving people more of what they want or on taking away the stuff they don’t want.

MORE: free time, love, acceptance, certainty, etc…

LESS: stress, debt, long commutes, bad relationships, etc…

If You Make Your Business About Helping Others, You Will Have Work Forever

Passion, although a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.

The Best Businesses Are Focused On

Finding solutions
Fixing problems
Adding kudos

If Passion Drives You, Let Reason Hold The Reigns

People like to buy, but they don’t like to be sold

Old age marketing is based on repetitive persuasion.

New age marketing is based on invitation.

BUILD IT AND THEY MIGHT COME — It’s Worth A Shot!

Business opportunities are like busses, there is always another coming.

When you have a product and want to see if you have a market, ask your prospects:

What is your biggest problem with ______________________?
What is the number 1 question you have about ____________?
What can I do to help you with _________________________?

(use www.surveymonkey.com or google forms)

PRODUCT LAUNCHING STEPS

Build a list of followers and fans interested in what you’re doing, not just what you sell.
Launch Build Up: continually reinforce why customers should care about your product
Why is it a game changer?
Core benefits it will bring
Follow hero matrix
Pre Launch: get the customer involved
Explain how the launch works
Present special offers
Describe the buying process
Announce launch dates
Run a giveaway / competition

PRODUCT LAUNCH CHECKLIST

Clear value proposition, main USPs and why should people pay attention
Create bonus incentives and rewards for early buyers
Make launch day fun and incorporate non buyers into the mix with something free
Make videos
Build up anticipation
Put urgency into the launch
Publish time and date of launch in advance
Proof read draft and get someone else to double check
Check all links in multiple browsers
Check and test all purchasing structures
Read all important information and sales pages out loud
Set a financial goal for the launch
Alert your bank on a possible flood of income
Add additional payment options & payment plans
Send a pre launch video and a strong message the night before
Prepare blogs, emails and social media ahead of time
Soft launch 10 minutes early
Write to the first five customers to say thanks and ask if all is well
If possible, send personal notes to every buyer
Ask for help to spread the word

You Can Live Your Dreams Or Help Someone Else Live Theirs

Franchise yourself and outsource if it suits your personal and business goals.

Joint Ventures should generate more than individual contributions. 1+1 should = 3

NOTHING WILL WORK UNLESS YOU DO

Focus On Your Business, Not In Your Business
Do Not Waste Time Fighting Fires

Things To Watch & Metrics To Follow

Number of sales per day
Number of leads per day
Average sale value
Sales conversion rate, (leads/customer)*100
Average costs (monthly & per sale)

How you evolve your business is dependant on how much freedom you want (vs) how big you want to grow.

Catch A Man A Fish & You Can Sell It To Him. Teach A Man How To Fish & You Ruin A Perfectly Good Business Opportunity!

FAILURE IS OVERRATED — You Could Just As Easily Succeed

Case Study #1: Benny — The Guy Who Gets Paid To Learn Languages

Benny makes more than $65k traveling the world, merging with the local cultures and learning new languages.

He is only 24 and in his 2 years of world travels he learned to speak 8 languages fluently.

He is an Engineering graduate and has English as his first language. He traveled to Spain after graduation and developed an interest in learning Spanish.

Spending his time with expatriates or Spanish friends that he spoke to only in English, his ambition was still just a wish after 6 months in Spain so he decided to speak only Spanish for an entire month.

In the beginning it was hard, but he kept at it and within a few weeks he could speak Spanish comfortably. His interest in pursuing other foreign languages grew.

He relocated to Berlin to learn German, to Paris to learn French and to Prague to learn Czech, using the same kind of approach.

To help pay for his bills, Benny took occasional consultancy jobs and once in a while he’d tutor people in language learning.

It became obvious to him that he had a skill he needed to share with the world.

He now knew that, like himself, anyone can learn another language, even if they thought they aren’t gifted. All he needed to do is share his technique with people.

“Fluent in 3 months” is the project that Benny started working on as soon as he learned Thai, his 8th language.

Through a collection of documents, videos and interviews he shares with the world everything he knows about language hacking.

The “Fluent in 3 months” course is now available in 8 languages, all taught by Benny himself.

Benny might say that he gets paid to travel the world and learn new languages. But in reality he gets paid for helping other people learn new languages in very short amounts of time.

Case Study #2: Garry — The Travel Hacking Consultant

Garry is a CFO for 2 university research centres in the USA and has a part time business as a travel hacking consultant.

Like many executives, he earns hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles every year, usually from credit card bank charges or different airline promotions.

Most people don’t know how to redeem the miles for free tickets or actual vacations. They usually have no idea how the process works and they don’t have the time to learn.

Do you know how many miles do you earn for a specific trip? Or what you can do if the airline tells you there are no empty seats for your next booking?

That’s what Garry does. For a $250 fee (includes 2 passengers with the same itinerary) Garry books the trip of your dreams, with the preferences you select. All he needs to know is where do you want to go, which airlines do you have miles with and what is your travel dates flexibility.

Garry searches availability through databases and takes advantage of every loop hole.

Why do people pay Garry $250 for something they can do themselves for free? Because he offers incredible value to his clients’ lives.

Many of the tickets Gary books are often $5000 cheaper. He specialises in first and business class routes and some of the bookings reach 6 airlines on a single award ticket.

You want a free stop over in Paris on your way to Johannesburg? Or some time to enjoy the new first class terminal in Frankfurt airport on your way to Singapore?

If he is not successful in booking the trip, his clients don’t have to pay anything.

The business succeeds only when Gary provides real value to his clients.

The people using his services aren’t necessarily executives, but anybody who has a bunch of miles and no idea how to make the most of them.

His part time “job” brought in $75K last year and he is on track to 6 figures annually.

If, like me, you’re on your own journey of self-discovery and growth, you will find a wealth of value in my new “Reprogram Your Mind For Success” e-book.