Page 169 - The $100 Startup_ Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love

How does this happen? No doubt there are a few different factors. Momentum
is important, as is the ongoing attention of the business owner. The longer a
microbusiness is around, with customers and onlookers saying good things about
it, the more the word will spread. In addition to these natural factors, a series of
small, regular actions is all it takes for many businesses to go from zero to hero
in a short period of time. These actions are called tweaks.

Nev Lapwood was a classic ski bum. He lived in Whistler, British Columbia, and
worked “off and on” in restaurants at night while snowboarding during the day.
Life was basic but good … until the limited employment ended when Nev was
laid off. Needing to make ends meet, he began offering snowboard lessons, a
part-time gig that was highly valued by his students.

Teaching students in person on the Whistler slopes was fun and rewarding, but
it also had a number of built-in unavoidable limitations: lots of competition,
relatively few clients, and limited times of year when he could work. Nev knew
that people all over the world wanted to learn about snowboarding—what if he
could teach them all virtually, without needing to be in the same place? Getting
his act together, Nev worked with a couple of close friends to create Snowboard
Addiction, a worldwide series of snowboarding tutorials.

It was an instant hit, drawing customers from twenty countries and making
$30,000 in year one—not bad for a ski bum. (Since Nev had never been that
focused on making money, that was the highest annual income he had ever had
at that point.) The next year, he put more thought into the business, scaling up
with affiliates and a broader range of products. The result: just under $100,000 in
net income. Nev was still on the slopes during the day but worked closely with
his new partners during the downtimes to scale the business even further. The
next plan was foreign language translation: Snowboard Addiction went out
around the world in nine languages, with more versions scheduled to roll out
based on customer demand.

Naturally, the growing business had its challenges. An untrained and
accidental entrepreneur, Nev had to learn a lot about strategy, accounting, and
marketing. Stickers that were ordered from China arrived months late and in an
unusable condition. Just two years in, however, the business was on track to earn
at least $300,000. As we’ve heard over and over in other stories, Nev speaks
proudly of his new independence. “Frankly, starting this business after being laid
off has been the best decision of my life,” he says. “The greatest benefit has been
the freedom and ability to do what I like. My plan is to travel for six months of
every year and run the business for the other six months of each year.” And of
course, while he’s running the business, he still finds plenty of time to hit the