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

Reality Check Checklist
Questions for You
 Instead of just during your free time, would you enjoy pursuing your
hobby at least twenty hours a week?
 Do you enjoy teaching others to practice the same hobby?
 Do you like the ins and outs (all the details) of your hobby?
 If you had to do a fair amount of administrative work related to your
hobby, would you still enjoy it?
 
Questions for the Marketplace
 Have other people asked for your help?
 Are enough other people willing to pay to gain or otherwise benefit
from your expertise?
 Are there other businesses serving this market (usually a good thing)
but not in the same way you would?
 
Note: 
Chapter 6
  looks  at  market  testing  in  more  detail.  If  you’re  not  sure
how to answer the marketplace questions, stay tuned.
 
When  I  asked  our  group  of  unexpected  entrepreneurs  about  the  follow-
your-passion  model,  I  frequently  heard  a  nuanced  answer.  Almost  no  one
said,  “Yes!  You  should  always  follow  your  passion  wherever  it  leads.”
Similarly, almost no one dismissed the idea out of hand. The nuance comes
from  the  idea  that  passion  plus  good  business  sense  creates  an  actual
business.
To  understand  how  passion  can  sometimes  translate  into  a  profitable
business,  look  at  the  chart  on 
this page
.  In  addition  to  passion,  you  must
develop  a  skill  that  provides  a  solution  to  a  problem.  Only  when  passion

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merges  with  a  skill  that  other  people  value  can  you  truly  follow  your
passion to the bank.
 
Another way to think about it is
(Passion + skill) → (problem + marketplace) = opportunity
 
 
Although  it  is  important,  passion  is  just  one  part  of  the  equation.  If
Gary’s  skill  at  booking  award  tickets  suddenly  disappeared,  it  wouldn’t
matter how passionate he is about travel. No matter how passionate Megan
is about her dresses, if a willing marketplace didn’t exist that is eager to buy
them, she couldn’t be in business.
The next step is to transfer your passion into a business model. Everyone
we’ve met thus far has used a slightly different business model to monetize
his or her project, so let’s look at how each of these four examples cashed
in.