The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future (23 page)

The difference between a contest and a giveaway is fairly simple: A
contest
involves some kind of competition or judging, whereas a
giveaway
is a straight-up free offer provided to winners through random entries. There are pros and cons to each: A contest usually requires more work for both the aspiring winners and the business hosting the contest, but it can generate more interest. A giveaway is quick and easy and can generate a large quantity of entries, but since there’s usually nothing to do other than put your name down, the typical giveaway doesn’t create much real engagement. For the best results, experiment over time with both methods.

This widely circulated statement first appeared in a December 2010 article in
Fast Company
magazine. Guess what? The future is here. It may not be completely for losers, but the role of paid advertising in marketing has long since changed. The vast majority of case-study
subjects I talked with built their customer base without any paid advertising at all; they did so largely through word of mouth.

While thinking about the quote and drafting this chapter, I decided to conduct an unscientific experiment to measure paid ads versus free hustling. Over the course of a month, I spent $10,000 on carefully selected ads and sponsorship for my Travel Hacking Cartel service. I also spent ten hours hustling, writing guest posts, recruiting a joint venture with another service, touching base with journalist contacts, and so on. Here are the results:

Approximate hour-per-hustle value: $756

Do we have a clear winner? I think so, but with a couple of disclaimers. First, one could say that I had access to relationships that others don’t have and those relationships were what determined the high hour-per-hustle value. This may be partly true. However, the whole point of hustling is to put your relationships to good use, whatever they are. Not everyone may be able to earn $756 per hustling hour. However, some situations could have produced an even higher hustling value.

It is also true that hustling time is not unlimited. If I had $100,000 to spend instead of $10,000, the situation might indeed be different. Combining hustling with paid advertising (again, carefully selected) could be a viable option for some. The point is that hustling can take you far. When you’re thinking about how to get the word out and build your business, think about hustling first and paid advertising later (if at all).

One objection to the hustling and relationship-building strategies described in this chapter is that they take time. Well, of course they do—they’re a big part of your work. But if you’re worried about spending all day on a social networking site, you can avoid doing that by sticking to a series of quick check-ins. I maintain a text file of information and links to share, and a couple of times a day I go online and post something. At the same time, I scan all the messages that have come through for me and respond to as many as possible. Although I sometimes spend more time out of habit or interest, the whole process doesn’t have to take any longer than ten to fifteen minutes a day.

The point is to do what makes sense to you. Get up in the morning and get to work. Make something worth talking about and then talk about it. Who do you know? How can they help? And of course, the answer lies in being incredibly helpful yourself.