A framework to turn your passion into a business
Learn how to combine your skills and passions to make a profitable business, with minimum budget.
Welcome to issue #3 of Business Knowledge!
⏮️ Previously on “Business Knowledge”
On the previous issue of Business Knowledge, we talked about how to minimize the chance of failure by launching and pivoting fast. Find it here!
📖 The $100 Startup - Book Summary
The second book by the author Chris Guillebeau, The $100 Startup is perhaps the only book that you will ever need if you want to start a business of your own. This book is the result of identifying around 1,500 people who made a lot more than $50,000 modest and simple investments, which were sometimes even less than $100 and the author’s subsequent focus on the 50 most interesting cases out of all these.
Based on the case study of the author, he made a detailed and step by step framework that you can use to figure out where your passion meets with the skills that you possess and then be able to turn those into income for yourself, right from your couch!
You don’t need much but only a laptop and wifi in order to create a solid freelance, education or software business. And then you can scale it as far ahead as you want to.
The 3 key lessons from this book that will help you get started are:
1. Passion is only 1/3 of the equation; you also need skills and customers.
2. If you want your passion to be more than a hobby, focus on income and costs.
3. Keep your plans simple, because action beats them every time.
Now, let’s take a look at these 3 lessons now!
Lesson 1: Passion is only 1/3 of the equation; you also need skills and customers.
All thanks to Steve Jobs, we now have a generation of people who are trying to turn their passion into their paychecks! While such behavior is to be appreciated, it is very sad to see how some people approach it with no preparation at all. The author of this book argues for an approach that is much more practical. This is an approach where you will keep your day job at first and start your business on the side. The author says that passion is only 1/3 of the equation to be precise.
The other 2 parts of the equation are skills and customers.
You will have to find the right spot where your passion will meet with the skills that you are good at and also the needs of the people in the market, which you will be able to fulfill using your skills. Because in order for all this to work for you, people need to pay you!
Having coffee might be your passion but it does not require any skills and it surely doesn’t solve any needs of other people. So, this is not the right passion. On the other hand, making coffee is the right passion. Lots and lots of people love coffee and if you make good coffee, they will be glad to pay you for it as you will be fulfilling their need of getting a caffeine rush!
So you need to make sure that you choose your passion that matches with the skills and needs of customers so that you can capitalize on it all.
Lesson 2: If you want your passion to be more than a hobby, focus on income and costs.
Well, to get this straight: if someone is not paying you, then your passion is nothing more than just a hobby. Therefore, you need to make sure that you are looking at the income, the funding and also the costs of your business. As compared to the old times, funding is very easy now. A lot of businesses can be run or be validated with only a website and therefore it costs a lot less than a $100 to get them up and running. If you require funding for a physical product then you can build an audience and afterwards start a Kickstarter campaign to gather all the money that you require.
In terms of a micro-business, your income will most likely depend on your hustle. The more customers that you try and reach out to, the more affiliate businesses you get on board, the higher traffic you create, the more and better you’ll earn. You need to act proactively in developing the business and then focus on the low cost options like Google ads, personal outreach and attending conferences etc.
Also, your costs must be considered with great care. There will be a lot of costs when you start a business and therefore you will be basically forced to invest money in the most important parts of the business, specifically the parts that will improve the sales. So, do not just spend a $1,000 on improving the design of the website when you can hire a proper sales person for the same amount of money that can help you make more sales!
While it is your passion, remember that it is still a business too so if you don’t treat it like a business, you will only face loss.
Lesson 3: Keep your plans simple, because action beats them every time.
Never forget that actions will beat plans every single time. You must not forget this ever! Do not sit down and keep on making plans for weeks! It won’t work at all! You need to make sure that you put your business plan on a single piece of paper and leave everything else. You need to act more and plan less!
Focus on how you will sell, who will buy from you and how much you are going to earn. You also need to set an aggressive launch date. This is because work will always fill the time you make for it and also make sure that your business has a mission statement that fits well in 140 characters, which is basically a single tweet.
And of course, whenever you start a business, everyone will suddenly become experts and they will try and give you lots of unsolicited advice even when they have no experience about how to run a business. You must never listen to such advice. Always do what you think is right, in your own unique approach.
So, read this book if you want to be able to turn your passion into income, using only a minor investment!
On the next issue, we will talk about how to create change and purpose that inspires people!
Let me know your feedback on the summary!
⭐ Testimonials
“Many examples of successful simple startup businesses”
“Great overview of the many ways you can start-grow a business.”
“Practical guidebook with actionable steps and instructions”
“This book helps you to stop thinking and do!”
📚 Related books
👋 End Notes
Bootshelf Updates
4 new books on Idea Validation, Mindset, Starting a business and more!
I would really love to get some feedback on this. If you have 2 minutes feel free to let me know here!
Also, if you have a book to suggest that is not on the list add it here!
Bootstrap Toolkit
22 new tools for No Code, Time Tracking, Email Marketing and more!
Find me on Twitter
I post about my #buildinpublic journey!
If you enjoyed reading this issue, consider sharing it with a friend:
You can also subscribe to receive future emails directly in your inbox.