In November 2006, I was frustrated when I observed many startups burning through huge amounts of capital, labor, and time and still not becoming profitable. So I started The Hundred Dollar Business. The idea sounded simple at the time: use 30-days and $100 in startup capital to test a business idea and make $100 in profit. My first project 
involved selling inventory at a mall kiosk during the 2006 Holiday Season, Startup Princess Kelly King Anderson along with a few other Utah companies participated in that experiment with me.
Project #2: The Entrepreneur Story
“The Entrepreneur Story” was my 2nd project. Essentially, I wanted to write and sell a book based on how entrepreneurs get started, in order to learn from their experiences. A core group of volunteers helped organize and gather stories from 70 entrepreneurs, and we patched together a rough draft within the 30-day time frame and $100 budget (in fact, up to that point, we only spent $9.20 on the website domain). The initial result seemed like failure to me, for several months. I felt that I had let my volunteer team and entrepreneur-authors down, and it was tough to swallow after the financial disaster and stress of the first Hundred Dollar Business kiosk. The truth is, I didn’t have enough resources or business planning at the time to finish the project successfully.Several months later, I tackled the project anew, and finished the editing to a point where the book is useful and marketable. The Entrepreneur Story is the first “profitable” Hundred Dollar Business project: to date, we spent $40.20 in startup expenses, repaid the intial investment, and are $136. 35 in the black through sales revenue (although, it has taken 12 months to do so!).
Special Offer for Startup Princess Readers
Several Startup Princesses participated in The Entrepreneur Story including Kelly King Anderson, Jamie Bird, Marina Westerdahl, Sarah Lewis, Ponn Sabra as well as many other entrepreneurs (total of 70!) with incredible inspirational experiences. We’re sure you’ll enjoy learning from their struggles and successes.
Special offer: Use discount code “startupprincess” to receive 20% off the $9.95 price. Purchase The Entrepreneur Story at www.theentrepreneurstory.com– after clicking “Add to cart”, enter the discount code, click “Update cart”, and then proceed to checkout.Included with your purchase of the book is an invitation to a members-only network, Answers For Entrepreneurs, where you can find additional articles, resources, videos, and information about starting and running your business.
What I’ve Learned
In concept, The Hundred Dollar Business sounded cool– and it really has been a wonderful experience. Four projects later, I understand better that starting a business has nothing to do with how “cool” a business idea is, or how much money and time it takes to get started. Whether you spend a lot of money and time, or only a minimal amount, the critical factor in determining a business idea’s success is this: Do you solve a problem that many people badly need and will pay you money for? You can spend $5 million and 3 years to pursue an idea that is “cool” but ultimately not marketable, or you can spend $100 and 30 days to come to the same failing conclusion. Either way, any business idea is infinitely more risky if you don’t start with your target customer’s problems in mind. And on the other hand, you’re exponentially more likely to succeed when you focus on solving problems for customers first.
This is a great story and so easy to learn from. Thank you for sharing.