The $100 MBA Show

Blogging: it’s still one of the best ways to start a business! All you really need to get started is your own experience, decent writing ability, and the time to put your insights down on (digital) paper. But of course, there are a few other costs. It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’ve got a well-traveled listener who wants to start a blog, with the ultimate goal of monetizing it through affiliate commissions. Wisely, this listener wants to know how much an aspiring blogger needs to budget in order to get their website off the ground. From hosting to design and more, starting a blog is one of the cheapest ways to launch a business — but it’s not free.  Today, we discuss a few ways to monetize a blog, and outline exactly what you’d have to pay for, and where you should (and shouldn’t) invest a little more to give your blog the best chance to build an audience. Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors SYFOB Learn how to start your own business online, from scratch — without taking dangerous risks or sinking yourself into debt. This 10-part audio course lays out a complete roadmap for producing your first products and getting your brand off the ground. Get a special extended free trial of Himalaya Learning, an audio education platform with lessons from Tim Ferriss, Malcolm Gladwell, Omar, and more — just go to himalaya.com/mba and use promo code MBA. WebinarNinja Share what you know, and grow your business — the easy way. WebinarNinja lets you teach, market, and sell with the user-friendliest webinar software ever created. With built-in assets like automated emails, an easy landing page builder, and more, it’s never been easier to connect with your audience. Best of all, you can use WebinarNinja at no cost with our FREE plan. No credit card, no expiration; just a basic version of WebinarNinja you can use as long as you like. Just head to webinarninja.com Show Links Ghost WP Engine Google Domains The post MBA2035 Q&A Wednesday: How much money do I need to start an affiliate travel blog? appeared first on The $100 MBA.

Never go to market without a strategy. A launch is never as simple as just putting your product or service in front of people. Before you attempt the first sale (whether it’s a new business, a pivot, or a product launch), you have to decide exactly how to make your “entrance” into the marketplace. Today, we break down exactly how to plot your debut. Based on countless hours of reading, research, and coaching, we’ve boiled the go-to-market strategy down to 6 basic steps. In this episode, we share how to define and position your brand, appeal to the right customer base, and build a solid springboard for your launch. Learn how to communicate what your business is, what it stands for, and who it serves — before you hit the market. Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors Rutgers Modern business is all about data, which means analytics skills are in high demand. The STEM-Designated Rutgers Master of Science in Business Analytics gives you the knowledge to turn big data into big revenue, and accelerate your career growth in just 12 months. As the summer deadline approaches, Rutgers has made made it easier to apply by waiving the GMAT requirement! Learn more about one of the hottest degrees you can acquire at go.rutgers.edu/podcast. Mint Mobile After years of fine print and getting ripped off by “Big Wireless,” we’ve learned that there’s always a catch. But Mint Mobile offers premium wireless service starting at just 15 bucks a month – no catch! Mint Mobile is the first company to sell wireless service online-only; by cutting out retail stores, there’s no crazy overhead costs to pass on to you! All Mint Mobile plans come with unlimited talk and text PLUS high-speed data delivered on the nation’s largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Mint Mobile gives you the best rate, whether you’re buying for one or a family (and at Mint, families start at 2 lines). To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to at mintmobile.com/mba.   Show Links Dan Martell SaaS Coach TK Kader The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes The post MBA2034 How To Create a Go To Market Strategy appeared first on The $100 MBA.

It’s another incredible book from the 4-Hour legend. Today, we review the inimitable Tim Ferriss’ Tribe of Mentors. Ferriss is the original life-hacker, a seeker of new solutions for everything from making money to getting in shape. With Tribe, Ferriss surveyed successful innovators and game-changers to see how they managed to make waves where others couldn’t. This book is big, dense…and worth every second. Tribe is composed of 100 interviews with various experts, based on conversations from The Tim Ferriss Show podcast. By asking the same set of 11 questions to each interviewee, Ferriss condensed their unique insights and experiences into an easy-reading, inspiring resource for anyone looking to change their life. Hear our favorite takeaways, from the distilled wisdom of dozens of high achievers. Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors Capital One Spark With the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. There’s no preset spending limit, so your purchasing power can adapt to meet your business needs. Antonelli’s Cheese Shop in Austin, Texas used their 2% cash back to help cover their employees’ healthcare costs — imagine what the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One could do for your business! Capital One: What’s in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at CapitalOne.com/SparkCashPlus. WebinarNinja Share what you know, and grow your business — the easy way. WebinarNinja lets you teach, market, and sell with the user-friendliest webinar software ever created. With built-in assets like automated emails, an easy landing page builder, and more, it’s never been easier to connect with your audience. Best of all, you can use WebinarNinja at no cost with our FREE plan. No credit card, no expiration; just a basic version of WebinarNinja you can use as long as you like. Just head to webinarninja.com Show Links Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss The post MBA2033 Must Read: Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris appeared first on The $100 MBA.

Don’t let holidays sneak up on you! Having SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for holiday breaks is a crucial part of managing your team — and your customers’ expectations. From communicating with customers to giving your employees time off (while still keeping the business running), holiday management takes a little preparation. It gets even more complex when you consider remote teams and global marketplaces, since folks in different areas may celebrate different holidays. Fortunately, we have some experience with this. Our SaaS business has customers and employees all over the world. It took some trial and error, but we have a system that allows everyone to celebrate the holidays that matter to them, while keeping the lights on for customers almost the entire year. Get our best tips on ensuring truly happy holidays — for everyone. Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors SYFOB Learn how to start your own business online, from scratch — without taking dangerous risks or sinking yourself into debt. This 10-part audio course lays out a complete roadmap for producing your first products and getting your brand off the ground. Get a special extended free trial of Himalaya Learning, an audio education platform with lessons from Tim Ferriss, Malcolm Gladwell, Omar, and more — just go to himalaya.com/mba and use promo code MBA. WebinarNinja Share what you know, and grow your business — the easy way. WebinarNinja lets you teach, market, and sell with the user-friendliest webinar software ever created. With built-in assets like automated emails, an easy landing page builder, and more, it’s never been easier to connect with your audience. Best of all, you can use WebinarNinja at no cost with our FREE plan. No credit card, no expiration; just a basic version of WebinarNinja you can use as long as you like. Just head to webinarninja.com Show Links EasyCourse Intercom The post MBA2032 How To Prepare Your Business For a Holiday + Free Ride Friday appeared first on The $100 MBA.

There’s (way) more money in people than in products. One of the hardest early lessons new entrepreneurs have to learn is to stop chasing the best product idea.  Almost all of us start with some version of the thought: “If I come up with the right product or service, I can build a business.” Or, we build a business because we thought of a product or service. But that’s getting it backwards. To build a business, you don’t start by building a product.  You start by building an audience. Today, we outline all the reasons the audience-first approach gives you far higher odds of success. When you serve the right crowd — and serve them well — coming up with the product is actually the easy part. Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors SYFOB Learn how to start your own business online, from scratch — without taking dangerous risks or sinking yourself into debt. This 10-part audio course lays out a complete roadmap for producing your first products and getting your brand off the ground. Get a special extended free trial of Himalaya Learning, an audio education platform with lessons from Tim Ferriss, Malcolm Gladwell, Omar, and more — just go to himalaya.com/mba and use promo code MBA. Rutgers Modern business is all about data, which means analytics skills are in high demand. The STEM-Designated Rutgers Master of Science in Business Analytics gives you the knowledge to turn big data into big revenue, and accelerate your career growth in just 12 months. As the summer deadline approaches, Rutgers has made made it easier to apply by waiving the GMAT requirement! Learn more about one of the hottest degrees you can acquire at go.rutgers.edu/podcast. Show Links Justin Jackson Self-Publishing School The post MBA2031 Why Your Audience Is More Important Than Your Product appeared first on The $100 MBA.

For a startup, paid ads can be a game-changer…or a complete bust. It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’ve got a listener who runs a small SaaS business in need of more traffic. Our listener has been sinking money into paid digital advertising for months — and has exactly $0 to show for it. So how long should you lose profit on paid ads, before finally tapping out? Today, we discuss why paid ads work better for some businesses than others, why paid advertising is deceptively complex, and how to know if you’re likely to see an ROI. Depending on a few factors, it might be smarter to spend your marketing money elsewhere. We’ll cover the numbers you should consider, different models of paid advertising, and our favorite alternative to paid ads. Figure out what kind of marketing and advertising makes the most sense for you — Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors SYFOB Learn how to start your own business online, from scratch — without taking dangerous risks or sinking yourself into debt. This 10-part audio course lays out a complete roadmap for producing your first products and getting your brand off the ground. Get a special extended free trial of Himalaya Learning, an audio education platform with lessons from Tim Ferriss, Malcolm Gladwell, Omar, and more — just go to himalaya.com/mba and use promo code MBA. Rutgers Many graduate business programs were retrofitted for online learning. But the Rutgers Online MBA was BUILT for online. Not ready to start a master’s degree? Select one of seven new grad-level certificates that can be applied to a future graduate degree. To learn more about New Jersey’s #2 ranked online MBA, online graduate certificates, and how to specialize the Rutgers online MBA for your career, visit go.rutgers.edu/100MBA. The post MBA2030 Q&A Wednesday: I’ve had no luck with paid ads. Should I just stop wasting my money? appeared first on The $100 MBA.

Redefine your “why.” Most of us get into business hoping to make a certain amount of money. But a radically different approach is gaining steam, helping entrepreneurs totally rethink what they’re really working towards. Spoiler alert: it’s not money. Today, we explore the concept of a “time billionaire.” That’s a specific term for a specific reason; it represents a measurable portion of your finite term on Earth, providing a concrete — if unconventional — way to define true wealth. Learn about the “time billionaire” philosophy, hear how it changed the way we look at entrepreneurship, and see why obtaining the time you want might not take as much money as you think. Click Play!  #btn_1_2a93752f5900eebe99baf810059ed3f8 .text {font-size:22px;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;}#btn_1_2a93752f5900eebe99baf810059ed3f8 {padding:30px 40px;border-color:#cc0033;border-width:1px;-moz-border-radius:0px;-webkit-border-radius:0px;border-radius:0px;background:#cc0033;background:-webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%, #cc0033), color-stop(100%, #cc0033));background:-webkit-linear-gradient(top, #cc0033 0%, #cc0033 100%);background:-moz-linear-gradient(top, #cc0033 0%, #cc0033 100%);background:-ms-linear-gradient(top, #cc0033 0%, #cc0033 100%);background:-o-linear-gradient(top, #cc0033 0%, #cc0033 100%);background:linear-gradient(to bottom, #cc0033 0%, #cc0033 100%);filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#cc0033, endColorstr=#cc0033, GradientType=0);box-shadow:none;}#btn_1_2a93752f5900eebe99baf810059ed3f8 .gradient {-moz-border-radius:0px;-webkit-border-radius:0px;border-radius:0px;}#btn_1_2a93752f5900eebe99baf810059ed3f8 .shine {-moz-border-radius:0px;-webkit-border-radius:0px;border-radius:0px;}#btn_1_2a93752f5900eebe99baf810059ed3f8 .active {-moz-border-radius:0px;-webkit-border-radius:0px;border-radius:0px;}#btn_1_2a93752f5900eebe99baf810059ed3f8 .hover {-moz-border-radius:0px;-webkit-border-radius:0px;border-radius:0px;}SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today's Sponsors SYFOB Learn how to start your own business online, from scratch — without taking dangerous risks or sinking yourself into debt. This 10-part audio course lays out a complete roadmap for producing your first products and getting your brand off the ground. Get a special extended free trial of Himalaya Learning, an audio education platform with lessons from Tim Ferriss, Malcolm Gladwell, Omar, and more — just go to himalaya.com/mba and use promo code MBA. Shopify Supercharge your knowledge, sales, and success with Shopify: the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business. Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business, so start-ups and scale-ups can sell everywhere, synchronize online and in-person sales, and stay informed. Reach customers across social networks with an ever-growing suite of channel integrations and apps — including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and more. Plus, gain insights with detailed reporting on conversion rates, profit margins and beyond. Head to shopify.com/mba for a free 14-day trial. The post MBA2029 Why You Really Want to Be a Time Billionaire appeared first on The $100 MBA.

What’s the point of starting a business?  Is it to earn money, or what money buys? Probably the latter. And the most important, valuable thing money can buy isn’t real estate or caviar — it’s time. Free Time by Jenny Blake takes a different approach to entrepreneurship. Rather than trying to win the game of Who Can Make the Most Money, Blake decided to prioritize the creation of time for herself. And she couldn’t be happier with the results. Today, we review Free Time, and share why this book is such a life-altering shift of perspective for anyone who takes its lessons to heart. Hear how Blake created the kind of business that rewards her with the ultimate prize of entrepreneurship: freedom. By carefully creating a team and systems that make her presence less necessary, she won the only game that matters. Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors Capital One Spark With the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. There’s no preset spending limit, so your purchasing power can adapt to meet your business needs. Antonelli’s Cheese Shop in Austin, Texas used their 2% cash back to help cover their employees’ healthcare costs — imagine what the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One could do for your business! Capital One: What’s in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at CapitalOne.com/SparkCashPlus. WebinarNinja Share what you know, and grow your business — the easy way. WebinarNinja lets you teach, market, and sell with the user-friendliest webinar software ever created. With built-in assets like automated emails, an easy landing page builder, and more, it’s never been easier to connect with your audience. Best of all, you can use WebinarNinja at no cost with our FREE plan. No credit card, no expiration; just a basic version of WebinarNinja you can use as long as you like. Just head to webinarninja.com Show Links Free Time by Jenny Blake Pivot by Jenny Blake The post MBA2028 Must Read: Free Time by Jenny Blake appeared first on The $100 MBA.

How many company newsletter emails do you really read? The email newsletter goes all the way back to the beginning of the Internet. But needless to say, times have changed. With stuffed inboxes and the invention of the ‘Promo’ tab, does anyone give a hoot about your newsletter now? Well, that depends on you. Today, we share 3 strategic approaches to newsletters. From marketing your products to actually charging for the newsletter itself, these emails can truly support your business — if you include truly valuable content. With consumer email habits today, your newsletter needs a little something extra to be effective. Learn how it’s done — Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors Rutgers Modern business is all about data, which means analytics skills are in high demand. The STEM-Designated Rutgers Master of Science in Business Analytics gives you the knowledge to turn big data into big revenue, and accelerate your career growth in just 12 months. As the summer deadline approaches, Rutgers has made made it easier to apply by waiving the GMAT requirement! Learn more about one of the hottest degrees you can acquire at go.rutgers.edu/podcast. WebinarNinja Share what you know, and grow your business — the easy way. WebinarNinja lets you teach, market, and sell with the user-friendliest webinar software ever created. With built-in assets like automated emails, an easy landing page builder, and more, it’s never been easier to connect with your audience. Best of all, you can use WebinarNinja at no cost with our FREE plan. No credit card, no expiration; just a basic version of WebinarNinja you can use as long as you like. Just head to webinarninja.com Show Links EasyCourse Delightful Emails Master Class Drip Mastery The post MBA2027 Is The Email Newsletter Dead? + Free Ride Friday appeared first on The $100 MBA.

Creating a course? Listen to this first. Our intrepid host Omar wasn’t always a SaaS entrepreneur. Before that, he was a professional educator for over a dozen years. And since then, he’s created (and taken) dozens of online courses.  In other words, we know what makes a good course…and what makes a bad one. Today, we share 5 essential elements every course needs. These aren’t suggestions or options; these are the 5 musts. If your course is going to produce results for your students, certain things absolutely have to be in place. Give your course the best chance to deliver for your customers. Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors SYFOB Learn how to start your own business online, from scratch — without taking dangerous risks or sinking yourself into debt. This 10-part audio course lays out a complete roadmap for producing your first products and getting your brand off the ground. Get a special extended free trial of Himalaya Learning, an audio education platform with lessons from Tim Ferriss, Malcolm Gladwell, Omar, and more — just go to himalaya.com/mba and use promo code MBA. Capella University At Capella University, you’re in control of your education. With the game-changing FlexPath format, you can take classes at your own pace, set your own deadlines, and even leverage your previous experience to move faster. And the faster you move, the more you’ll save. Now THAT’s smart. Learn more at capella.edu. Show Links The Automated Webinar Challenge The post MBA2026 The 5 Elements of an Impactful Online Course appeared first on The $100 MBA.