Chris Guillebeau, The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
Once
upon a time, every business was a small business. Of course, nobody
called them “small” businesses, because multinational corporations and
faceless banks didn’t exist yet. Adam Smith, the theorist of capitalism,
assumed that his model applied to small operators like “the butcher,
the baker, and the brewer.” And a new generation of business guides has
appeared lately for independent-minded workers who would reclaim that
model.
I
see two business types spotlighted in Chris Guillebeau’s latest guide
to seat-of-your-pants entrepreneurship. The larger type consists of
businesses like the London waitress who started a one-woman PR firm, and
discovered she was so good at it that it went multinational; or the
arts festival organizer who proved so good at creating buzz that it
became a sensation. These are truly small businesses, one or two people,
who got rich by doing a good job.
The
smaller type consists of businesses like the one-man mattress emporium
with which he starts the book, or the book publishers he cites
occasionally. These businesses appear small, but rely on complex
networks to make their business models even possible. The mattress mogul
created his retail outlet from spit and staples and string, but workers
on an hourly wage make his product. Publishers require contractors to
print the book or, for e-publishers, server slaves to distribute the
product online.
This
gulf lurks under much of Guillebeau’s book. I find his larger business
model admirable. Guillebeau shows how these pioneers made a marketable
product out of their own knowledge, effort, and connections. My favorite
is the Omaha woman who sells custom wedding dresses worldwide: I just
really, really like her. But Guillebeau doesn’t examine the assumptions
under his other model, which turns a profit by outsourcing the more
tedious operational procedures.
Where
Guillebeau deals with small businesses which are actually small, he
makes a persuasive case. Many people invest years of study and go tens
of thousands in debt to get MBA’s, only to become cogs in somebody
else’s machine. Yet most of us have the know-how to, as he puts it, fire
our bosses. The difference between those who do so, and those who make
someone else rich, often boils down to having a practical vision and a
useful plan.
Yet
Guillebeau demonstrates the trap our current economic system sets for
would-be entrepreneurs. The sight of high-rise multinational interests
creates the idea that such a model is normal. If the company that sold
us our business computer can ship expensive, time-consuming, banal tasks
like Customer Service to India, I can contract my manufacturing to some
outside entity with a clear conscience.
I
ask you: if you do that, are you still a “small” business? Just because
you don’t have dozens, or hundreds, of workers on your payroll, doesn’t
mean you haven’t bought into the two-tiered system that led to such
outrage in Zucotti Park last year. I suggest that, in such a case, you
aren’t even your own boss. If your contract manufacturer, ISP, or other
external business arm wants to change the terms of your arrangement,
they can literally hold you hostage.
Please
don’t mistake me. I like much of Guillebeau’s work, and find his
business model inspiring. Too many of us remain in unfulfilling jobs
that suck our souls out through our toes, because we think we have no
choice. (Not me, of course. But possibly you.) For readers who can
distinguish true productivity from externalized tedium, Guillebeau makes
us believe we can seize our destiny back from our corporate overlords.
Guillebeau
also does a good job explaining the how-to of making a market for the
product you’ve created. I enjoyed his chapters on leveraging early
success into continued growth, and on how to take your microbusiness
into the big boys’ world, if that’s what you want. And he does a good
job of showing how to turn a business failure into a learning experience
(though again, that only works when you are your own best product,
instead of shucking somebody else’s output).
I
just fear that, despite the good points Guillebeau makes, he overlooks
too many assumptions of what being “small” means. If it means you make
something, whether a product or service, which you then sell to others
who can benefit from your expertise, then I like it, and want to follow
on his trail. If it means externalizing tedium, and getting rich off the
more glamorous parts, that’s as bad as the bosses we all want to quit,
and I want no part of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment