Well, I’m not sure if I liked it or hated it. But he has given me some things to think about in any case. Book Website
He starts the book poorly with a strong get-rich-quick feel (the web site has the same feel). He introduces the “NR” New Rich concept, has some acronyms that I rolled my eyes at, and proceeds to end the book poorly. The end feels like he is trying to justify his self-absorbed travel and pursuits.
That being said, the middle of the book was very interesting. He seemed to have some pretty good ideas, though most were applicable more for the business owner or entrepreneur. One thing he suggested was hiring a personal/virtual assistant (cheaper if in India). I looked into this on one of a few sites he suggested and it is not nearly as cheap as he makes it out to be.
His big idea is to find a “muse” – some business idea that is cheap to make, sells for $50-200, and has a business model that can be automated at every level. He suggests setting up yourself as the owner – not the manager or CEO, and limiting your interactions to email only, and then no more than once a week. He suggests selling one or two items (this reduces complexity in fulfillment, customer questions, etc), make it fairly expensive (so you don’t get the counting-every-penny customers who are hard to please), and outsource everything. He has many good sites to support his ideas, but comes across as shrewd marketer. He would would hold the “Learn Microsoft Windows DVD” guy as a hero – a product cheap to make, with a business ridiculously easy to automate. He suggests building businesses to sell a product for as high of a profit margin as possible. If you followed his ideas, you would have a business that on one hand you’ll say that the customers are poor saps for buying what you are selling, and on the other hand, you’ll say ask, precisely because they did buy it: “why is it not a fair business model?”.
Throughout the book I kept thinking to myself: how much of this was written by assistants? How much of the book was outsourced? Does that change the validity of the points made? The book is sold to make money, or as he suggests, so he can call himself an author.
All in all, I am glad I read the book. He gave me something to think about and listed some outsourcing services I am interested in exploring. The next step: find out which of his ideas actually hold water.
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