Notes and Takeaways from Anything You Want
When I read it: June 2021
Why I read it: I'm always looking for innovative ways to approach business. In Anything You Want, Derek Sivers shares 40 lessons he learned during the ten years he ran CD Baby. His primary point is that, in business, you can be as "unconventional, unique, and quirky" as you want. Like a painting, a business is a reflection of its maker.
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My notes
About Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers has been a musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and book publisher.
Derek started CD Baby in 1997 to help independent musicians distribute their music. In 2008, he sold it to Disc Makers for $22 million. Derek didn’t need or want the money. He just wanted to make sure he had enough for a simple, comfortable life. So, he created a charitable trust to hold the assets from the sale and when he dies, the money will go to music education. But while he's alive, it pays out five percent of its value per year to him.
About Anything You Want
In Anything You Want, Derek shares 40 lessons he learned during the ten years he ran CD Baby. The lessons provide context for Derek's eleven core personal philosophies about running a business:
Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world.
Never do anything just for the money.
Don’t pursue business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help.
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working.
Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it.
Starting with no money is an advantage. You don’t need money to start helping people.
You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people.
Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business.
The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy.
The primary point is that, in business, you can be as "unconventional, unique, and quirky" as you want. Like a painting, a business is a reflection of its maker.
Create a personal philosophy and use it as a compass.
Why do so many people imitate others? Because they don't have a clear purpose. If you don't know what you want to do and why you want to do it, is it's hard to make your own path. So, you follow others and go with the flow. You mimic.
When you prioritize others' dreams over your own, it leads to regret. (RKL: In the short term, we typically regret our actions. And over the long term, we are more likely to regret our inaction. For more on this see, Minimizing regret is hard but worth it. )
One way to minimize this sort of regret to create your own personal philosophy that helps you prioritize doing what makes you happy. Then, you can use it as a compass to make your own path.
Create a utopia.
Your business is a little universe where you control the laws. Think of it as your utopia.
How would one little thing work in your perfect world? Daydream about it. Write down the "utopian dream-come-true" service from the customer's point of view. When you make that dream come true, it will make others' dreams come true too.
For example, Derek Sivers spelled out his ideal distribution deal from his musician’s point of view. In a perfect world, his distributor would: 1) Pay him every week, 2) Show him the full name and address of everyone who bought his CD, 3) Never kick him out for not selling enough, 4) Never allow paid placement. Derek used these four points like a mission statement. He wrote them on his website, he talked about them at every conference, and he made sure everyone he worked with knew them.
Keep your business model simple.
Great plans start simple. A business plan should only take a few minutes to write out. Common sense should tell you if the numbers work. Avoid getting into the details.
For example, even after generating $10 million in revenue, Derek's business model for CD Baby only had two numbers: a $35 setup fee per album and a $4 cut per CD sold.
A revolution doesn't require a war.
When you think running a business needs to feel like war, you risk overlooking the little things that make a big difference like serving customers better. When you’re onto something, it will feel like uncommon sense.
Don't repeat what's not working.
Business is hard when progress only comes with massive effort. It's much easier to grow a business when you have a product or service that people really want.
In music, when you have a hit song, people love it so much that it promotes itself. When your service product is not a hit, don’t try to fight uphill battles. Instead, go back to improving and reinventing until you have a hit.
Persistence is an important trait in an entrepreneur, but it must be applied the right way. Be persistent at iterating your way to a hit, not at repeating what’s not working.
If you're not saying "Hell yea!", then say no.
Say yes to less. Creating space to take advantage of the truly special opportunities requires you to say no to most things. Raise your bar for a yes. Only say yes when you feel like saying "Hell yes!"
Business plans change.
Don't trick yourself into thinking you have the perfect plan. As serial entrepreneur Steve Blank says, "no business plan survives first contact with customers."
Your first plan is just one of many options. No business goes as planned.
In fact, you don’t even need a plan or a huge vision. Just focus on helping people and improve from there.
There are advantages to having no investors and no funding.
When you don't have investors, you don't have to please anyone but your customers and yourself.
When you don't have funding, you don't waste money. As the famous proverb states, necessity is a great teacher. Without funding, you're forced to focus on your customers. You make every decision according to what’s best for them—from personnel to growth plans.
The best way to grow your business is to focus on your existing customers. Prioritize your work by asking them how you can best help them. When you help them, they'll help you by telling others.
You don't need to raise money to get started.
For an idea to get big, it first has to be useful. And creating something useful doesn't require funding. If you have a big vision, identify the most useful one percent of it is and create a prototype based on that. As they say, showing up, or in this case getting started, is half the battle.
For example, if you want to start a revolutionary health insurance recommendation service, start by telling your friends to call you for health insurance recommendations. Have them buy you a drink if they like your recommendation. Then, iterate from there based on your learnings.
Starting with a small idea helps you avoid the distraction of building infrastructure and forces you to focus your time and energy on serving customers.
Don't be too protective of your ideas.
The best way to think of ideas is as multipliers of execution. Ideas are worthless without execution. You need both. You can't out-execute a terrible idea. And without execution, the best ideas go nowhere.
Corporate formalities are optional
There are thousands of businesses that are doing just fine without privacy policies and terms and conditions. You don't have to formalize everything.
Many small customers vs a few huge customers
Working with a small number of huge customers is like having multiple bosses. They practically own you. If one customer decides to leave, it can destroy you. By serving a few demanding customers, you risk losing touch with what most customers really want.
Working with a large number of small customers allows you to be the boss. You only need to please the majority. If one customer decides to leave, it doesn't hurt you. By serving many easy customers, you stay in touch with what most customers really want.
Win your target customers' attention by excluding everyone else
You can’t please everybody, so don't try to be everything to everyone. Exclude people.
Be confident about what you are not and exclude people you don't want to serve. When you do this, you win the attention of your target customers because you're able to show much how you value them.
For example, Derek Sivers did not allow record labels to feature their newest, hottest acts on the CD Baby site. CD Baby was a place for independent musicians only.
If it doesn't improve your service, don't do it.
Say no to money-making opportunities when they weaken your service.
Grade yourself to focus yourself
We all have different reasons for being. One way to stay focused on what matters to you is to measure it. For example, if you're motivated by making money, track your net worth. If you're motivated by giving to others, track your donations. And if you're motivated by building useful things, track your creations.
Don't get trapped in survival mode.
Rule number one about providing great service is to care about your customers more than yourself. It’s all about them. It's not about you.
Your business exists to solve a problem. When that problem goes away, your service is no longer needed. If someday your customers don't need you anymore, don't fight to survive. Instead, celebrate and go build a new business.
Act like you don’t need the money.
When you do something just for the money, people can sense it, and it turns them off.
If you run your business like you don't need money, it'll likely come your way.
Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake.
When something goes wrong with one customer, resist the urge to overreact. Don't worsen your service for all your happy customers just to prevent a few unhappy customers in the future. The same goes for team members and other relationships.
Treat people like people, not machines.
Everyone you deal with in business is a real person who is personally affected by how you treat them. Remember this and take time to get to know a bit about them.
Little things make the difference
It's often the tiny details that thrill people enough to talk about you. You don't have to act like a big boring company. It’s OK to be casual.
If you find a way to make someone smile, they’ll remember you. So, build in humorous human touches when you can.
For example, CD Baby always answered the phone within two rings during business hours. Their customers loved this because someone picking up the phone these days is so rare. CD Baby also customized the "from name" of the emails they sent to customers to say it was from "CD Baby loves" followed by the customer's first name.
The benefits of naivety.
There are benefits to being naive about business norms. You get to decide from scratch what seems like the right thing to do instead of just doing what others do.
Build in excess capacity.
When you grow, you uncover constraints. Doing more of the same doesn't usually work. You have to experiment with new processes.
Don't put yourself in a position to get overwhelmed when your business is doing well. You can stay ahead of future demand by building in excess capacity.
For example, ask yourself, "what would it take for us to handle twice the number of our current customers? Then, build that excess capacity into your service today.
It's OK to do things yourself
Doing things yourself might be inefficient and cost you millions in missed opportunities. But if it makes you happy, do it.
The whole point of doing anything is because it makes you happy. If you want to learn how to do something yourself, do it. There is a joy that comes from learning and doing.
Avoid the delegation trap
The delegation trap happens when you’re so busy doing everything yourself, you don't have time to find and train someone to help you.
Your goal should be to delegate the running of the business so that you can focus on improving the business full-time.
Successful delegation requires your people to know the philosophy and thought process behind the way you make decisions so that they can make the right decisions without you.
Delegate, but don’t abdicate
There’s such a thing as over-delegation. You can empower your employees so much that you give them all the power. Delegate, but don’t abdicate.
Trust, but verify
When you delegate a job to someone, you have to trust the person to get it done. But that doesn't mean you need to trust them blindly. You can trust someone while also making sure that they're meeting your requirements.
Make your owner role whatever you want it to be
Most people will assume you’ll be the traditional CEO, but you don't have to be. As the owner of the business, you can make your role anything you'd like it to be.
It's important that you love your role. If you don't, you'll lose interest in your business.
Pay attention to what energizes you and what drains you. What you hate to do, someone else loves. Find that person and delegate.
Make your company as big as you want it to be
Most people will assume that you want to grow as big as possible, but you don't have to.
Random notes
Sometimes hobbies can turn into a business.
Be a student, not a guru.
The loudest business owners describe their business by talking about things that have nothing to do with serving customers. They boast about their recent funding round, their growing team size, their fancy new office space, or their fun parties.