The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia
The Minimalist Entrepreneur focuses on the business side of things in a practical way. It shows you why you should start a business with whatever you have—no need for a big office, a large staff, or tons of money.
The book focuses more on starting small, with the resources you already have, and building from there.
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Think of it as a self-help bible—not just a collection of lessons, but a guide to transforming your life.
Book in Five Sentences
- Start with what you have: You don’t need a big office or tons of money to start. Just begin with whatever resources you have and build as you go.
- Don’t fear mistakes: When you start a business, you will make mistakes. But that’s how you learn. The key is to learn from them and not repeat them.
- Focus on building a personal brand: Be authentic, show up as yourself, and build a brand around your uniqueness. People buy from people they trust.
- The importance of patience: Success doesn’t happen overnight. Be prepared for slow growth and stay committed to your business, even if you’re not seeing instant results.
- Free vs. paid model: Both free and paid models have pros and cons. Starting with a free model can attract users, but converting them into paying customers is hard. You need to decide what works best for your business.
The Minimalist Entrepreneur Summary
Everyone who’s thinking of starting a business or working on something on the side should read The Minimalist Entrepreneur. The book talks about everything that you need to know about business—where to start, when to start, how to start, how much to spend, and most importantly, how much time you should give to your business.
As Naval Ravikant says:
“If you really want to get paid in this world, you want to be number one at whatever you do. You can literally get paid for just being you. Some of the more successful people in the world are that way. Oprah gets paid for being Oprah. Joe Rogan gets paid for being Joe Rogan. They’re being authentic to themselves.”
We’re living in the 21st century with unlimited resources to do whatever work you choose. You can make money from the comfort of your room—what more could you ask for?
But to achieve that, you need to dedicate some time to whatever you’re pursuing.
When I started my first website in 2016, I didn’t earn a penny initially. But after 9 months, I received an email from Amazon Affiliate saying, “The remaining payment has been sent to your bank account.”
The idea here is, just start, don’t wait for the perfect time.
Build As Soon As Possible
You don’t need a master’s degree to start any kind of business. You can begin with whatever you have.
I get it, you will make lots of mistakes when you start a business for the first time, but you know what? You’ll also learn a lot from those mistakes. The key is to not repeat them.
Don’t be afraid to start a website, a shop, a YouTube channel, a newsletter, or anything else. You won’t become a billionaire from the first day, but you will experience everything—from failure to success.
So if you have an idea, turn that idea into reality by working on it. You don’t need someone else to tell you that.
No matter how many books you read, how many videos you watch, or how many articles you read, you won’t earn anything until you start.
You’re the Important
Have you heard of Elon Musk, yes, that Tesla guy?
Tesla has never spent a single rupee on advertisements because the CEO of the company is an advertising agency in himself.
He can put anything on the Tesla website, and people will start buying it. Every new outlet will cover that product.
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What Sahil Lavingia is saying is, make a brand out of yourself. Be yourself, and don’t ever cheat with your audience.
If you’re like me, who makes YouTube videos, you’ll need to be active on social media and show your audience what you’re doing. It could be your workplace, your house, your friends, or even the things you like or don’t like.
Growth
The Minimalist Entrepreneur focuses on the things that truly matter.
Let’s say I want to start a new mobile company. Now, I have two options:
- I can use Android, which is open-source software, or
- I can build my own operating system, which will take a lot of time.
The second option was tried by Microsoft, and they failed miserably because no one was building applications for Windows Mobile.
So the right thing to do is, use Android and add some additional features on top.
Also, when starting something new, you don’t need a big office or a huge team. You just need to start.
Charge From Day One
YouTube has always been free, and now they’ve launched YouTube Premium, which removes ads for Rs 129 per month in India.
The question is, would you pay Rs 129 to remove the ads?
The data shows that out of 2.6 billion active users, only 30 million are paying for YouTube Premium (worldwide).
Now, let me give you my example:
What if I start a subscription model where I post book summary articles, remove all ads, and give you additional data points? Would you pay for it?
The answer will probably be no.
Why? Because I’ve started with a free model, and now it will be hard to convert those free users into paid ones. If I launch a book, people might buy it because they know what I’ve been doing for years, but not many of my free users will switch to a paid model.
Both free and paid have their advantages and disadvantages. You have to choose what works for you.
The Minimalist Entrepreneur Review
The book is written in a way that makes everything easy to understand, from start to finish.
So yes, you should read The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia. You’ll learn a lot, but make sure you apply what you learn. Knowledge alone won’t do anything unless you put it into action.
For me, it didn’t offer anything new because I’ve already read a lot about business and productivity, so it didn’t teach me much. However, it did help refresh my memory.
For you, it might be different. If the points I’ve shared in this article seem new, you’ll likely enjoy The Minimalist Entrepreneur. But if you feel like you already know most of the content, then you can skip the book.
Buy The Minimalist Entrepreneur:
The Minimalist Entrepreneur Quotes
“You don’t learn, then start. You start, then learn.”
“On the internet, they say, 1 percent create, 9 percent contribute, and 90 percent consume.”
“Ultimately, you should be trying to minimize your business’s burn, but also remember that the goal here is to provide yourself enough of an income to be able to focus on what matters: helping your customers solve their problems.”
“build the house you want to live in You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world . . . but it requires people to make the dream a reality. —Walt Disney”
“What started as a blog in 2015 about her personal passion has become Blossom and Root, a business that employs dozens of people and helps thousands of families every month.”
“Behavior is what someone is doing; intention is why they’re doing it. Most people judge themselves based on their own intentions but then judge others based on their behavior. Transparency makes that difficult, if not impossible.”
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