fuchsbau

Anything You Want, Derek Sivers

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• Substrat: "Never forget that you can make your role anything you want it to be."
• being small & self-sufficient can be a good thing
  • design your business to have just lots of little clients
  • w/o investors: "I didn’t have to please anybody but my customers and myself."
• utopian dream-come-true distribution deal for independent musicians (was on homepage)
  • pay me every week
  • show me full name and address of everyone who bought my CD
  • never kick me out for not selling enough
  • never allow paid placement
• simple business model: fixed $35 setup fee per album + variable $4 per CD sold
• first version of CDBaby (took a few days to make, did almost nothing, lead to profitability)
  • 1) list CDs with "buy now" button, 2) shopping cart gathers order info, 3) e-mail info to Derek
• CD Baby doubled in size every year for the first six years (both customers and profit)
  • prepare for what would happen if business doubled
• Tao of business: Care about your customers more than about yourself, and you’ll do well.
  • "Your company should be willing to die for your customers."
  • tiny details thrill people to make them tell their friends
  • "None of your customers will ask you to turn your attention to expanding."
• he grades himself on how many useful things he creates
• memorable quotes
  • "You may be much happier as a $1 million business than a $1 billion business."
  • "When I decided to sell CD Baby, I already had enough. I live simply. I don’t own a house, a car, or even a TV. The less I own, the happier I am."
  • "Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?"
  • "If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you."