Anything You Want – Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers, best known for creating CD Baby, the most popular music site for independent artists, He chronicles his “accidental” success and failures in this concise and inspiring book on how to create a multi-million dollar company by following your passion.
Stop doing what’s not working
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.
If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say “no.”
Necessity is a great teacher.
It’s counterintuitive, but the way to grow your business is to focus entirely on your existing customers. Just tell them, and they’ll tell everyone.
It’s okay to exclude people
You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people.
Proudly say what you’re not. It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 percent of it.
You should care about your customers more than you care about yourself!
That’s the Tao of business: care more about your customers than yourself, and you’ll do well.
Improve The World While Improving Yourself
When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you create all the laws.
Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers.
Be incredibly clear in your writing. Leave no room for confusion.
Pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you.
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
Act like you don’t need the money
A business is started to solve a problem. But if the problem was truly solved, that business would no longer be needed! So the business accidentally or unconsciously keeps the problem around so that they can keep solving it for a fee.
If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you.
We want to give to those who give.
Don’t forget why you’re in the game
Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.
Never forget why you’re really doing ,what you’re doing.
Resist the urge to punish everyone for one person’s mistake.
In the end, it’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have.
The tiny details matter
When one customer wrongs you, remember the hundred thousand who did not.
Please know that it’s often the tiny details that really thrill people enough to make them tell all their friends about you.
If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff.
Self-employment vs. business ownership
Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles. To be a true business owner, make sure you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left.
Anything you hate to do, someone else loves. So find that person and let him do it.
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