Currency The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future

A few things to note if you are thinking of buying this book:1. It's basic. I mean really basic. It is full of simplistic suggestions such as "every morning, set aside 45 minutes to think about your business. What can you do to move things ahead (p.235)", and "in deciding what to sell, the best approach is to sell what people buy (p.33)". The patronizing guidance it provides almost assumes that the reader is unaware of really, really obvious and sensible things, which is really frustrating.2. It is full of superficial examples based on random people - Kyle, Gary, Sarah - who are these people? And some of the examples appear unhelpful. For example, the author tells the story of Kyle Hepp, who got fired from her job, but having dabbled in a little photography before, she decided to take up wedding photography with her husband and now they earn $90,000 a year. This is one of many unhelpful anecdotes based on random people and unnamed companies (which by the way, sound completely made up) which add zero value for the reader.3. All of the case studies in the book are about people who quit their jobs and do microbusinesses that earn them between $40,000 and $60,000 a year. In the greater scheme of things, that isn't too bad a salary, but remember this book is aimed at telling you to quit your job, and note the average salary in the UK is £35,423 (US$46,014). My point is, if you are telling people to quit a comfortable, steady job to start a start up, basing your "success stories" around start-ups that generate just about the same amount of money is not exactly inspiring. In fact, it is quite de-motivating. We need to be realistic. People have families to feed. Who on earth would quit a stable job to start their own business and expose themselves to financial risk (there is actually a chapter on failure in the book) just to end up in the same position financially?In summary, if you are as good an entrepreneur as this author is a writer of start-up books, don't quit your day job.

Lots of pages to repeat the same thing. Case studies are superficial and simplifying. The book can be summarised in 1 sentence: start simple and early, keep it low budget/low risk, cash the money and go to the beach

I found the book incredibly frustrating. After about 50 pages in I tried speed reading it. After about 90 I’d just about had enough. The problem is there’s just about nothing useful I hadn’t read elsewhere. There were two or three things which I greatly appreciated being reminded of but the odd titbits that I did come across were buried in so much chaff that I don’t think I can bear to fight my way through any more of it. The case studies get very samey and stop adding anything to the message after the first few. I read the 4HWW many times. I thought about it everyday for years. I’ve read a number of other books in the same vein and got something really significant from most of them. I really had high expectations for this one, not least because I first read about it on Tim Ferriss’s blog. I don’t like to be so negative. I’m sure the book could be pared down to perhaps a fifth of its length and be quite good. The other thing is if it was the first book on this kind of thing I’d read then I’d probably quite like it. But I’m approaching forty, my sixth child is due in four weeks and I don’t have time for ‘infotainment’.

While reading this book , I made an account in Fiverr. And guess what! I sold my work to two gentlemen, one from USA other one from Malaysia in last three months. Though I didn't push enough if I did I can generate more customers o believe but it's not that easy when you are a full time student.But I highly recommend this book for those who want to build their company (even if it is a small or a medium one!) And don't want to work on someone's supervision, want to be the boos of own, this book for you guys. Make sure you complete the book. Even if you don't I am sure you will do something on your own by then!!!

I read this book right after the 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss and I have to admit I had mixed feelings about it.Pros:- Good motivation to start a business (no excuses)- Many success stories and business examples- Easy read although sometimes it is hard to follow the different stories (the author leaves a story pending, tells 10 others and then comes back to it when we already forgot what the original story was)Cons:- Barely any substantial tool or technique to benefit the reader (not like the previously mentioned book)- I personally had the feeling that I already knew most of what was in the book