If you have a great idea and $100 dollars will help you get started, tell me about it. Chris Guillebeau gave away $100,000 dollars this weekend because he believed in the 1000 attendees at the World Domination Summit. I am giving away $100, because I believe in you and your project.
You will invest more money in your business over time, but you can get started for $100 or less.
This contest has rules, so please read them, and follow them, or you will be disqualified. I will still love you and believe in you and your idea, but you will not win $100.
- Leave a comment below with a brief introduction to your idea. Don’t worry that someone will steal your idea. They won’t.
- Read the $100 Dollar Surprise and leave your best suggestion in the comment section on that post.
- Share this post on Twitter, G+ or Facebook, or even with a friend. Don’t worry that you will have less opportunity if more people know. You won’t.
- Prepare to be accountable. 60 days from the day you receive the $100, I’ll call you to see what happened. Don’t worry that 60 days isn’t enough time to get started. It is.
- I’ll be announcing the winner in a post on July 17th. Please subscribe if you’d like to receive the announcement via email.
In addition, I’ll be giving away 5 copies of The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
Contest ends on Monday, July 16th at 10pm EST.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to receive future posts via email and connect with me on Twitter.
P.S. A new session of The Goodblog Project starts in August. Space is limited. Contact me to receive early notification.
My idea is to start a community online for teens who are choosing to stay debt free. I have started the blog but I would like a forum so we can interact more together and share ideas of how to live simply as a teenager in today’s world. I plan on staying out of debt and not taking out student loans. I want other teens to know there are creative ways you can do this.
Chase
I would like to make bartering more a common practice. I would like to find a setting that kids could learn to barter their toys , adults can barter anything from vegetables to furniture, books, household items, even have people offer to provide help in education services or handyman services for trade. I am still trying to figure how to make it so people just do not just come and take take take.
There is no place to go to for this in my area other than craigslist / facebook. ( what I am trying to avoid )
Somewhere to slow down , meet people, have conversations. The hard part is figuring how to find funding in order to make things simpler.
My idea incorporates your pay it forward concept. I would like to provide free career counseling and life coaching services to single mothers. In addition to providing them with this service, I would hand them $100 and tell them find someone they can help and they would then give that person $100, to continue paying it forward.
I would use this for my husband to start up a design business. He is already doing a little of this from home but this would help with the site start up and help us get a new printer.
An idea for the $100 you got, what about finding a needy family or single mother and getting her a gift certificate to the grocery store?
I’d like to start a toy library in my community. So much of what we do is just flip things around on CraigsList, which is great and all (recycling!) but I’d like a way to make sharing of toys more of a community event and lower cost. In brainstorming, I was told that setting up shop out of a church one night a week or so might be a good idea and soliciting mother’s groups is where I’d start!
https://twitter.com/ladybirddesigns/status/222769138039406594
I would invest in two more djembes (drums).
I want to have a few to share when I am in drum circle….but I see myself really working with women who are struggling through life….life changes, challenges and celebrations!
I want my drumming circles to continue to be a healing place. A spot where one doesn’t need the right words or expressions….but to hit the drum. To feel the music being made with no expectations, no instruction needed…that inate, tribal being that is in all of us, whether we know and recognize it or not.
I want women to pick up the drum again.
To not be afraid of the music inside.
To know their strength!!
Thanks for this opportunity!!
Be Blessed!
Kelly
I would invest in the small jewelry business that i’ve been threatening to bring back to life.
I am a silversmith, artist and I want to have a creative lifestyle that is supported by multiple
income streams–instead of the 9 – 5 jobs I’ve had and hated. I am willing to work hard and
be dedicated.
I have 5 designs now and want to have 10 solid jewelry designs before opening an on-line
shop. $100 would help buy supplies and packaging for me to get started. I would like to
have a small inventory of jewelry ready when I open. I want my five year old daughter to see
that I contribute to our household, that work can be fun, and that following what’s in your heart
is important and it can work in the “real world.”
Not the most original idea in the world, but my heart is in the right place. I wish that all
those that replied here wanting to create more in their communities are successful. <3
Thank you for this opportunity, and thank you for showing how an "alternative lifestyle"
can really work for just regular folks like me!
Rae
What an awesome way to spend the money he received as donation, and even more awesome that someone donated the money to allow him to do so! Quite impressive! It is like the Pay It Forward Concept and now you’re doing it too! I love seeing this cycle. We should all realize that whatever we do, gets put into circulation, even with happiness…and the more we give from the heart, the more that comes back to us. With the $100, I would purchase a rain barrel, because I want to learn about being more sustainable as a normal citizen and then use my knowledge to educate others. Then I would donate $100 worth of stuff I don’t need anymore to a local thrift store that raises money for an animal shelter. Thank You!!
~Katrina
I know of an organization called “One Love” that is looking for funds to start a youth center for teens. This youth center will provide a safe and healty place for teens to hang out after school and on the weekends in Honolulu, HI. As like other cities across the nation, Honolulu has their fair share of drugs, homelessness and other struggles facing our youth. I would love to support this mission to save our youth from these and other distractions keeping them from having fulfilling lives. After all, the youth of today will help shape our nation of tomorrow. This IS a worthwhile investment!
Leslie
I am going to start a worm breeding and indoor composting systems business as soon as I can buy worms. There is a need for them in my area, every farm and garden store and craigslist poster run out within hours when they have a batch ready to sell. I have free plastic compost bins that I would give away or teach people how to make themselves and my husband will make nicer wooden ones to sell as well.
I think the world is desperately short of trees. They help cleanse the air, attract the rain and support the earth. If everyone used thier $100 to buy and plant trees – we would all be better off.
I am starting a blog on happiness. What is happiness? What makes me/people happy? One of the topics I want to start with is better health makes me happy. I am 53 years old, overweight, have high blood pressure problems and now in April I found out I have type two diabetes. Right now happiness for me is losing weight (I go to a gym and have a trainer) and getting my type two diabetes under control WITHOUT medication – just through diet and exercise. My cardiologist has complete faith in my that I can do this. My pcp didn’t seem to think I could do this but she is giving me until October to try on my own. I AM doing this. And I thought it would be great to start a blog and write about this plus the many other things that make me/people happy.
I would use the $100 to reward someone that needed help getting started on their road to happiness. Because I truly want to “help” someone. You did say I good blog is a blog that helps someone and I want a good blog and at the same time a good blog that succeeds. Thank you for all your help
We (my partner and I) are starting to learn how to live and work debt free. Our most costly bill is our home, and so we are working toward becoming participants in the tiny house movement. Our ancestors lived closely with their families in one bedroom cabins with a loft. Why can’t we? We live in bigger and bigger houses, but are more and more unhappy. Our goal is to show that women with very little construction knowledge CAN be self-sufficient and build their own houses. While the $100 could go toward a tiny house workshop, we would rather see if we can win a copy of the book, The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future. Our whole purpose for working toward a tiny house built entirely by our hands (and those of a few friends) is to be able to change the way we make a living by doing what we love, and helping empower women to create their own future.
We plan to document our journey with a blog and book. All journeys begin with a single step, and our first step has been intensive research of alternative, green building materials, and construction methods.
Thanks for writing a blog that encourages us to be “wierd” and to follow our dreams.
A hundred dollars would be enough to buy heritage breed turkey poults. We sell them at Thanksgiving to local people. We raise them naturally with locally purchased grains. Our goal is to provide our customers with high quality locally produced meats. We need to improve our fences for the lambs that are coming next month, and the calves that will follow soon. Grass-fed and locally produced. It’s not original, there simply aren’t enough people doing this to meet demand. We are two older people who want to give back to our community and also make a little money. We love to eat well, and want to share that experience with everyone we can.
We are Fair Feather Farm. Like us on Facebook, or come visit us at the Dixboro Farmer’s Market on Fridays.
This is a beautiful blog, a beautiful project, and I wish you all the very best in your endeavors.
Hiee there,
I read some of the ideas above and though I like them but I don’t understand the trend of presenting an idea that is purely philanthropic. I think most are doing it as to gain an advantage but if the trends hold true, 90% of the people won’t work on the idea above the $100 dollars you give them. Anyways, I would be practical and honest here.
I plan on starting a niche website business. $100 is more than enough for me to start 2 website in a very specific niche and which I think would start to give me returns in 60 days (Well within your criteria period). And with the money I earn I can start few more sites and make a business out of it.
And if it goes extremely well(hopefully in 6-9 months), I plan to open a small reading club where everyone can read books for free.
Okk, that’s my plan.
here is the link to my tweet:
https://twitter.com/ArunJain19/status/223491225863454720
I forgot to mention one more thing:
I totally support the “Pay It Forward” concept and so if at all I win the $100, I pledge that I will give that $100 again to someone who wants to fulfill their dreams. I think this $100 can change the lives of many.
The big picture of my idea is to create a lifestyle resource that is based on living more naturally. We seem to be heading in a direction where nature will be a commodity and the feeling of belonging to a community will be more and more crucial. The resource will begin as a carefully curated blog (pictures, articles, interviews, perhaps products, places) with the objective to inspire direction towards living in harmony with the natural world and with one another. My role will be defined by my readers to meet them where they are currently at and take them on a journey bigger than they can imagine. The goal of the blog will be to give voice, value and fulfillment to others visions, while inspiring them to create a healthy, balanced and happy life.
The blog is the launching off point to eventually hosting events so people can spend time in nature, attend workshops and meet other people in person. For example, just as this contest allows other people to realize their dreams, I would like to help others, in turn, realize their dreams by connecting them with the right people. Maybe you would like to build a garden and need personal one on one help, you have a great idea for a lightweight tent design mulling around in your head, or you want to start a yoga class. Most of these things require money or a deal with a business; however, through the understanding of community (people coming together for a common interest) other ways are possible : )
I am going in a completely different direction than my previous toy library comment. I still love that idea, but it hadn’t even occurred to me to submit my side business as a proposal.
Currently, I do live seminars aimed at getting non traditional students through college quickly. I teach about alternative credits like CLEP and DSST, and I do one on one consultancies with folks that need more specific help. Http://nontraditionallearner.wordpress.com. What I would really like to do is turn my live lecture into a paid ebook,coupled with free study guides for the more common tests and to expand my consulting nationwide, instead of just locally.
I will use the $99 for registration to sell the iOS app that I am currently developing plus the two subsequent ones I am brainstorming. One is a simple twitter app with no ads, an authenticator app that can be used for 2FA and lastly, a tax calculator. The premise is to sell these apps for 99 cents with no ads. The term build an app if you can’t find one that suit your needs apply here, hence, I am building apps that may satisfy other people who are in the same camp as me.
If I sell enough to cover the $99 apple fee in the first year, can continue to churn more apps for the following year. Given that if someone else pays for the initial fee, that will put me ahead a little bit already.
Any idea as to when would the results be announced??
Thank you all for your great comments! I’ve emailed the winners and really appreciate your feedback.