MBA2048 Must Read: The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia

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Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA show where it's our business to help your business every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is a must Read Episode. On our Must Read Episodes, I share with you a book that I've read that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights and why you should read it too. Today's must Read is the Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia. The Minimalist Entrepreneur is one of the best books I've read this year. If you know a bit about me, I read around 50 books a year. About 20 books in for this year and this one really stands out and I'll tell you why. The author, Sahil Lavingia is the founder of Gumroad. Gumroad is a tool to allow creators to sell what they create. Downloadables, books, videos, courses, you name it. Sahal is also employee number two at Pinterest and this book, the Minimalist Entrepreneur is all about how to build a profitable, successful business without venture capital and most importantly, do it while enjoying yourself and enjoying the company that you do it with. If you're building any kind of business and you're wondering, should I fund it myself? Should I get a vc? Should I get investors? Should I raise a round? If you're on the fence. This book will definitely help you get off the fence. This book will outline the steps you need to take from literally making $0 and having no idea to profitability. But it's more than that. It's wisdom. It's insight. It's perspective. And I'll share some of it in today's episode. So let's get into it. Let's. Let's get down to business. Gas, snacks, tolls.

This trip is draining my wallet.

Yeah, but we'll be with family.

You're in a good mood.

What's your deal?

What's my deal? I saved at Metro with no activation fees and I got one line of 5G for just $25 per month. Kept the phone I love and a 5 year price guarantee on my top.

Text and data detour to Metro.

Get that more for your money feeling only at Metro by T Mobile.

Just bring your number $30 first month and $25 after with autopay not available if with Metro or T Mobile in the past.

The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia is a very practical guide. Whether you're just getting started or you've been grinding it out for some time and you're wondering, are you doing the right thing? You're going to find a lot of wisdom in this book. Now, if you're an absolute beginner, like you have never even considered the idea of being an entrepreneur and haven't watched any videos or read any blog posts or anything like this, this is the first book you pick up. There's going to be some terms in this book that you might not understand, and that's okay. You can look them up. If you're using a Kindle, you can actually just highlight them and look them up yourself right away. But if you are a beginner, it's actually a good book to read because it's going to kind of set up your mindset in the right direction in the right way. Now, in essence, this book is written to advocate the idea that a minimalist entrepreneur is somebody who builds a sustainable, profitable business and grows at its own pace, not at the pace of somebody else, like a vc, like an investor, somebody who's pushing for growth and a return on their investment. He really enforces the idea that you gotta be profitable right from the start, from day one, and to think in those terms. And I actually really strongly agree with him because if you do this, you're setting up your business for success. You're making sure that you can continue to build and grow and do what you Love, Listen, if your business is profitable, it's making money, you're not losing money and you enjoy what you do. You can keep doing it forever. You're playing with house money. This is why profitability, profitability is so important. When you're profitable, you're in control. You're not indebted, you're not weak, you're not reliant on the help of others. You can run and keep the business alive on your own. The other concept he really stresses in the book is community. And this is something that I don't hear enough about in the business world. And he's so right. You need to build a community, a movement around your idea, around your business, because your community is going to be how you power your growth and your marketing, really, because they're going to tell other people, they're going to be believers of what you're trying to do and they're going to spread the word. You can't do this unless you contribute to a community. It's really important for you to start thinking about that. Start being part of a community, Start networking, start talking. This is what I'm talking about in terms of sharing your expertise and helping other people. I've talked about this in previous episodes. You can simply do this by choosing one social media media platform that you enjoy. If you don't get any joy from Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, don't worry, you don't have to be on there, but choose one that you feel is most comfortable for you. For me, it's Twitter and that's where I invest my time and try to build relationships and be part of a community and contribute to my creator, my coaching and teaching and learning. Community. Another concept that he talks about that again, I don't really see a lot of people talking about and it's build as little as possible. Now he's talking not only about mvp, like a minimal viable product, but also think about what you can outsource, what you can automate to other people or services. And in today's day and age, there are so many options. There are people who are building whole software companies with no code because there are no code options. Now. People are using services like Amazon and Google to power their businesses. People are reusing resources or buying resources like elements of ui, like Tailwind UI if you're in the design world, people using templates and already made products and just plugging them into their existing business. And in terms of your MVP or your minimal viable product, he talks about shipping early, meaning share it or allow your users or allow your customers to consume your product early when it's not perfect, okay, you don't want it completely polished. You actually want it to be at its very basic state so that when you give it to a customer, they have something to say. They have actually feedback to give you to tell you this is what they want, this is what they would change, this is how they improve it. This allows you to not have to do or redo work. Creating something in a couple weeks and putting it out there and then getting feedback and iterating is far more productive than working on something for months or even years. Than putting it out there and realizing nobody wants it. And then you got to start iterating and you're already a year or two behind. One of my favorite parts of this book is where he talks about selling to your first hundred customers. And he talks about educate your customers, don't sell to them. I love this. Don't try to convince them of anything. Show them why your product is worth buying. Teach them how your product can help them. You can even do a head to head comparison with your competitors. Why are you better? That's what they're thinking in their head. Show them and teach them why you're better. And if you can't become better, you have to change the product then and use this process to learn more about their problems so you can solve more problems for them. His insights on marketing is actually very unique and quite good. He talks about the best way to market your business is by being yourself. No one can be you, okay? No one can create an exact clone of you. So you're going to be unique and this is going to allow you to stand out. So share yourself. Share your own experiences. Share why you started this business and why are you so passionate about it. For example, I run a software company. It's all about live teaching. Webinar ninja. I try as much as possible to share why I started this company. Well, because I actually was a teacher for 13 years in the classroom. And when I started becoming an entrepreneur, I thought it was fascinating to be able to teach at scale across the world. And I wanted to make it easier for people just to focus on their content, on what they're teaching and just focus on being a great teacher and not on the technology. Now why do I share this? Because it's a unique perspective. It's my story, it's who I am, it's my why. And when you share something that's personal, unique and other people resonate with it, it's incredibly strong. And this is one of the best forms of marketing. One of the things he mentions in his marketing chapter is to spend money on ads last. That should be a last resort or the last step in your journey. Meaning work on building your following on social. Work on building an email list. Okay. Work on being a part of your community, speaking on stages, being a tastemaker. And when you've exhausted all that stuff or you become an expert at all that stuff and you've had success, move on to ads. I got more on today's Must Read than Minimalist Entrepreneur. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. Gas, snacks, tolls.

This trip is draining my wallet.

Yeah, but we'll be with family.

You're in a good mood.

What's your what's my deal?

I saved at Metro with no activation fees and I got one line of 5G for just $25 per month. Kept the phone I love and a 5 year price guarantee on my top.

Tuxt and data detour to Metro.

Get that more for your money feeling only at Metro by T Mobile.

Just bring your number $30 first month and $25 after with autopay. Not available if with Metro or T Mobile in the past 180 days.

The minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia was a powerful read. I want to give you a few more insights that I got from the book. He shares this idea of growing at your own pace, growing mindfully not only yourself but your business, but also not running out of energy. He says, avoid thinking you always have to do more and earn more and grow more. This will burn you out. He also talks about how to build a house you want to live in. When you're building a business, you're building your own little world, as Derek Sivers says, your own little utopia. Build a business that's based on your values, on the way you want to live, on the way you want to work and who you want to work with. And build a company that actually tells the world who you are. I absolutely love the Minimalist Entrepreneur by Saha Lavingia. I highly recommend you pick it up. It's on Amazon. You can pick it up as a paperback or on Kindle. I prefer the Kindle because I read in bed. I love the Kindle. For that I don't need to keep the light on. If you're looking for sort of like a manifesto, a structure, a belief system for building a business that you're happy with, you're going to be happy with reading the Minimalist Entrepreneur thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love it, you hear hit, subscribe, hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app right now. By doing so, you get access to our over 2000 episodes in our archives. You also get our episodes as soon as they drop. It's also one of the easiest things you can do to support the show. Smash that subscribe or Follow button right now. Thanks so much again for listening. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I've been an entrepreneur for over two decades and I read a book like this and even though I'm no beginner, it helps me tremendously. It reminds me of what's important, it realigns me. It allows me to recenter and really remind myself of what I really believe in, what my values are. Sometimes hard to kind of be in touch with that when you're working day in day out and a book like this allows you to do so. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

Gas, snacks, tolls this trip is draining my wallet.

Yeah, but we'll be with family.

You're in a good mood.

What's your deal?

What's my deal? I saved at Metro with no activation fees and I got 1 line of 5D for just $25 per month. Kept the phone I love and a 5 year price guarantee on my top.

Tuxt and data detour to Metro.

Get that more for your money feeling only at Metro by T Mobile.

Just bring your number $30 first month and $25 after with autopay not available. If with Metro or T Mobile in the past 180 days.