In 1998 Derek Sivers built CDBaby.com as a way to get his music to his (hopefully) larger audience. A decade later, he sold his $100,000,000 a year business for $22,000,000 – and pledged most of that windfall to help Independent Musicians thrive. His new book, published by Seth Godin’s Domino Project, is a guide to looking at business from a totally new direction. And quite possibly the best non-business business book ever written.
New York, NY – August 4, 2011 (via PressReleaseNation.com) — Tens of thousands of consulting books hit the shelves every year. Most of them written by MBA types who have learned to turn thousand dollar buzzwords into hefty consulting fees. While these books create short term buzz they tend to fade very quickly. Mostly because they lack the depth and insights which can only be brought about by real entrepreneurs in the trenches.
What are the fundamentals of business and entrepreneurship? Building for the customer. Within your lifestyle.
Derek Sivers, the founder of CDBaby.com, penned Anything You Want – 40 Lessons For A New Kind Of Entrepreneur as a memoir. An accidental success journal of critical insights on founding and growing a very successful e-commerce business.
The book is a quick read. But like a great wine we suggest that you take your time and let every page settle on the palate like a vintage cabernet.
Sivers’ book is void of any traditional business jargon. Instead, it focuses on counter-intuitive principles. Ones that only make sense to businesses dedicated to genuinely serving the best interests of their customers.
A short YouTube video by Sivers, which illustrates how to start a business on the cheap, “Start Now. No funding needed”, can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KLnXjqKL5g
Some key points from the book:
* “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.”
* “You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people.”
* “Little things make all the difference. If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all of your other fancy business model stuff.”
Derek Sivers sold CDBaby for $22 million in 2008. He founded it in 1998 with a bankroll of $500. While the return on investment is legendary, this book is not about making money. It is about connecting with the customer and building value for them and the world. Do that, and Sivers claims you just might make the money. But you are GUARANTEED to make a difference.
This book is a classic which, like CDBaby, will build value for generations because of its practical, no nonsense simplicity. Every now and then entrepreneurs need to get back to the basics. According to Sivers those basics are:
1. Start with a dream
2. Take massive action
3. Listen to your customers, and the market.
4. Build value
5. Learn from your experience, and most importantly…
6. Care about your customers (as much or) more than you care about yourself.
In the words of Oliver Twist, “may I have some more please, sir?”
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Anything You Want – 40 Lessons For A New Kind Of Entrepreneur is available from Amazon at http://amzn.to/Anything-You-Want
About Derek Sivers:
After making a living as a professional musician, Derek Sivers went looking for ways to sell his own CD online and ended up creating CD Baby, once the largest seller of independent music on the web with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients. Since 2008, Derek has traveled the world and stayed busy creating and nurturing creative endeavors, like Muckwork, his newest company where teams of efficient assistants help musicians do their “uncreative dirty work.” Derek writes regularly on creativity, entrepreneurship, and music on his blog: http://sivers.org/ . He can be contacted via e-mail at derek@sivers.org
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