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

The Moment They Knew
 

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As  I  reviewed  thousands  of  pages  of  survey  data  and  made  countless
follow-up calls, I learned to ask people if the decision to start their business
had  been  worth  it.  You  might  think  that  such  a  question  is  simplistic;
wouldn’t  most  responses  be  “yes”?  Well,  perhaps  …  but  one  of  the  best
parts  of  the  study  was  hearing  exactly  how  a  group  of  diverse  people
answered  this  question.  There  was  usually  a  story  behind  the  affirmative
answer,  and  the  story  often  related  to  a  particular  day,  event,  or  moment
when they knew their business was going to work. As we come to the end
of this journey, I thought you should hear from a few of them directly.
Gary Leff
Book Your Award
Fairfax, Virginia
I never thought that people would pay for the service that I offer, so the
very first time I received a check in payment for services from my very
first  client,  it  hit  me  like  a  ton  of  bricks—there’s  real  money  on  the
table  here!  And  when  I  saw  a  letter  from  that  very  first  customer
published  in  a  magazine  recommending  my  service,  I  realized  that
there was both appreciation and demand for what I was offering.
Karen Starr
Hazel Tree Interiors
Akron, Ohio
Even with our excellent credit history, 2010 was a bad time in banking
to  ask  for  money.  We  didn’t  need  much,  but  we  couldn’t  swing  it
completely on our own. My husband Jon and I needed a small credit
line  to  lease  the  building  where  we  planned  to  house  our  interior
design and framing business. Unfortunately, the bank said no.
Later  that  day,  Jon  was  on  the  phone  with  the  landlord  of  the
building, telling him that we just weren’t going to be able to make it
work  and  that  he  could  release  the  building  to  the  other  interested