Derek Sivers: New Kind of Entrepreneur. 10 Lessons from “Anything You Want”
Derek Sivers is a very colorful character in the world of entrepreneurs. I am a great enthusiast of his approach to entrepreneurship. Derek proposes a new model of the entrepreneur who is the creator first. And he describes it all in his best-selling book, “Anything You Want”.
I became acquainted with him after reading the chapter in the book "Tools of Titans" by Tim Ferriss. I highly appreciate Sivers's view on creating, living on your own terms, and also a new model of entrepreneurship that has nothing to do with suits and people with MBA degrees.
Sivers is an interesting person who is, first and foremost, a creator and then an entrepreneur. This desire of creating led him to found CD Baby, the largest online retailer of independent music that he sold for $22 million in 2008.
And what he learned, he put together in a collection of short life tips and lessons, which he compiled into the book "Anything You Want" that I’ve read from cover to cover several times. Before I share my lessons from Derek’s book, let me share what he wrote at the beginning of his worth reading work.
“I'm not really suggesting that anyone should be like me. I'm pretty unusual, so what works for me might not work for others. But enough people thought that my stories and the philosophies I developed from this experience were worth sharing, so here we are.”
I don’t like the business books, they feel very generic, but the way Derek Sivers captured the idea of entrepreneurship is closed to my heart. I was feeling a sense of connection reading his book.
So here we are, there are my lessons from Derek’s book.
Just Start Now. No funding needed.
I’m sure you know that story. You have big dreams, you’re so excited about the end goal, this great vision. But when you think about starting to execute this grand vision, it paralyzes you, and you don’t even start. After a couple of years, you regret it. Sounds familiar?
Yes, it is. Each of us has experienced it, and I have probably experienced it a few times too much. But Derek came from a different perspective that is the opposite of this counter-productive approach that doesn’t allow us to start.
For an idea to get so huge, it has to be useful, and to be useful it doesn’t need funding or any kind of specific facilities.
Derek encourages us to just start with only 1% of this great vision we have, start contributing, and it allows us to be ahead of the rest. A lot of people wait for the finish line to magically appears, but it won’t happen.
Start with simple steps that can solve people’s problems. Even really tiny steps have a huge advantage over waiting. They can compound, and it allows you to grow, as opposed to waiting.
“If you want to be useful, you can always start now, with only 1 percent of what you have in your grand vision. It'll be a humble prototype version of your grand vision, but you'll be in the game. You'll be ahead of the rest, because you actually started, while others are waiting for the finish line to magically appear at the starting line.“
2. Execution is much more important than ideas.
Ideas are just the multiplier of execution, and they’re worth nothing unless they are executed. People often protect their ideas worth millions. But what is worth millions is executing them.
Derek created famous tables that shifted my perspective of perceiving ideas. This is a table of ideas’ worthiness:
AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20
Worth of executions:
NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000
Business is a multitude of two elements: idea and execution. The most brilliant idea without execution is worth $ 20. The most brilliant idea requires a great execution to be worth $ 20 million. And even a weak execution of a weak idea is worth more than a brilliant idea without implementation.
“I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see their execution“
3. You don’t need a plan or a vision.
This chapter can be shortened to a short sentence that says you don't need a big vision, just focus on helping people today. But there’s an interesting story that Derek put behind his lesson.
Here’s an email that Derek sent to his co-worker:
“I think there's a chance that this thing might be huge one day, so we better start preparing for that now. I mean some day, we might have ONE THOUSAND artists on CD Baby. We might need a third employee! That would mean we'd need three computers here in the office, which would mean we'd need to figure out how to network them together. We might even need to start moving CDs into the garage, since eventually they might fill up the living room. Yes, I know it sounds grandiose, but I think things are headed that way”
Years after they had a hundred thousand artists and several dozen employees, so the long-term vision wasn’t even needed. Here’s an answer that Sivers would say to a journalist on a question about long-term vision:
“I don’t have one. I surpassed my goals long ago. I’m just trying to help musicians with whatever they need today“
For the record, the only thing you need to answer is how you can help people right now.
4. Persistently Improving and Inventing.
You have to be right only once, what I mean by that is you have to make something that people want. If people really want what you had made, then there’s no need to try different marketing approaches. There’s no rush to networking, pitching, and pushing.
We always hear that success comes from persistence, and it’s true, but it only applies to persistently improving and inventing a thing that is working, not to persistently do what’s not working.
Success doesn’t come from years of fighting uphill battles. It’s about efforts that smoothly combined make what people love. And if people love it, you have all the locked doors open wide.
Don’t waste your time on time-wasted efforts, instead find a tailwind that through compounding provides kind-of-effortless growth.
“We all have lots of ideas, creations, and projects. When you present one to the world, and it's not a hit, don't keep pushing it as-is. Instead, get back to improving and inventing”
5. Different types of grading yourself. Choose one you feel like.
This lesson about grading yourself is to find out what is important to you, instead of doing what others think.
So, how do you grade yourself?
Derek Sivers, called also a “king-programmer” by Tim Ferriss found out that people measure themselves in different ways and told a story:
“In New York City, there are dozens of buildings that say “TRUMP” on them. As I was driving about an hour into the rural countryside, I even saw a “Donald J. Trump park.” It made me wonder if he grades himself by how many valuable properties bear his name. Plenty of real estate tycoons have made billions without putting their names on everything, but maybe that's his measure.“
There are different types of defining and measures:
For some people, it’s what job they provided for themselves. Some look at how many jobs they provide for others.
For some people, it’s simply how much money they make. Others look through how much money they give.
For some people, it’s how many people’s lives they influence. Others look at how deeply they influence a few lives.
There’s no one, universal, or whatsoever linear type of grading that we all consider the same. For example, Derek’s type of measurement is how many useful things he created. If something he creates is useless, he doesn’t even count it because he’s only interested in doing useful things.
6. 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 your other fancy business-model stuff“
That’s a great quote by Derek reflecting how he approaches the customer-oriented business, showing how much important it for him is to keep the personal connection with every customer, who is more friend than a customer at that point.
He found out that he made a perfect living because of them, so now he shows his gratefulness.
I share the same approach about my blog, every single person who reads this blog can send me an email that I shared on my website and each of them will receive an answer. This is because they value my blog to the point that they read it, knowing that every second they spend on my website will never get back.
As with almost every life lesson Derek shared an interesting story as well. It allows us to grasp how he shapes the connection with each customer, which is fascinating. It shows that even if you’ve reached a certain level you don’t have to be another boring company.
It’s important to keep a personal relationship. People love customization, as I do, and you certainly do as well.
“Every outgoing email has a “From:” name, right? Why not use that to make people smile, too? With one line of code, I made it so that every outgoing email customized the “From:” field to be “CD Baby loves {firstname}.” So if the customer's name was Susan, every email she got from us would say it was from “CD Baby loves Susan.” Customers LOVED this!”
Every human being has his own story, as I do, that’s why I cannot imagine not having a separate relationship with each reader.
Feel free to join our community! —> discord
7. Be yourself. It’s ok to be casual.
Embrace yourself. Even If you run a business or start side projects you can naturally grab people's attention simply by being yourself and developing a natural connection with them.
There’s no need to do all the things that are associated with the business.
You can be yourself, you don’t have to come from an MBA background, wearing lucrative suits and diamond watches. Don’t worry, by being yourself you can also attract people, they even like authenticity.
That’s how the hiring policy was looking in CD Baby:
“My hiring policy was ridiculous. Because I was “too busy to bother,” I’d just ask my current employees if they had any friends who needed work. Someone always did, so I'd say, “Tell them to start tomorrow morning. Ten dollars an hour. Show them what to do.” And that was that.“
Was this approach traditional in a business sense? I don't think so. But it worked. You don't have to do things in a "business" approach to run a business.
Once again, embrace yourself.
8. Naive quitting.
This is a perverse lesson about being skeptical of the norms set by society. Derek narrated the same story, but from two perspectives, as an employee and entrepreneur, and came up with an interesting, common conclusion.
Sivers told the story of how he decided to quit his job to pursue a dream of being a full-time musician. But before he left the company, he trained his friend in every aspect to master the position he held and have a replacement.
“I need to quit now, but I've already trained my replacement. She's great. She'll take over for me starting Monday. My boss just looked a little stunned, then said, “Uh. Well. OK. We'll miss you. Tell her to see HR about the paperwork.” And that was that.”
A few years later Derek Sivers became an entrepreneur. He itself faced a story of quitting job but by his employee. He was a bit surprised:
“Ten years later, I’m running CD Baby, and for the first time, an employee tells me he needs to quit. I said, “Drag. Well. OK. I wish you the best! Who’s your replacement?“ He looked confused. I said, “Have you found and trained a replacement yet?“ He looked a little stunned, then said, “No… I think that’s your job.“
He was stunned and even ask a couple of friends if it was right and Derek found that his employee was right. People can just simply quit their jobs without finding and training a replacement. He had no idea, he assumed all the years, that he was doing normally.
But there’s also a beneficial side of this story about being naive in terms of the norms. You can simply decide what seems right for you, you don’t have to follow others.
The moral of this life lesson, in my opinion, is to set the direction of your by yourself. Be also aware of the wisdom of the crowd.
9. It’s about being, not having.
“When you want to learn how to do something yourself, most people won't understand. They'll assume the only reason we do anything is to get it done, and doing it yourself is not the most efficient way. But that's forgetting about the joy of learning and doing.“
The process of learning something by yourself maybe is not efficient as outsourcing. It may also cause the whole process to take longer than it should or may even cost you millions of dollars in lost opportunities.
But the whole point of this lesson is simple: do what makes you happy, that’s it.
You may say that it’s the opposite of doing business, it should be about quickly going from zero to millions. But what’s the point of getting bigger and making millions? To be happy!
The end goal is about what you want to be, what skills and personality you want to develop, not what you want to have. To have something (successful business, money, finished book) is only the means, to be something (a skilled entrepreneur, good writer) is the real point.
In terms of having vs being, Derek gave us an insightful sentence:
“When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line“
10. You make your perfect world
While learning how to solve problems and making a dream come true for others, you make your business a dream for yourself as well.
Remember that everything you make is a personal dream, it’s about creating, so the business can also be unique and unconventional just as fine arts. Maybe you want to just settle on a couple of loyal customers, there’s no need for your company to be Fortune 500.
Derek highlights that business is a reflection of a creator:
“Some people want to be billionaires with thousands of employees. Some people want to work alone. Some want as much profit as possible. Some want as little profit as possible.”
No matter which path you feel connected to. Many people will tell you things that may hold you back and that you are just simply wrong. And that's ok. What Derek recommends though, is to pay close attention to things that excited you and what drains you. Sivers was way happier with five employees than with eighty-five.
Choose your path. That is what this creative entrepreneur and musician said:
“Even if what you're doing is slowing the growth of your business—if it makes you happy, that's OK. It's your choice to remain small. Whatever you make, it's your creation, so make it your personal dream come true“
Summary:
There are a lot of common themes in following lessons and stories, but I think the best way to summarize this short, but worth-reading book is by quoting the philosophies from the ten years Derek was spending on growing a small business.
Business is not about money. It's about making dreams come true for others and yourself”
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
Never do anything just for the money.
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what's not working.
Starting with no money is an advantage. You don't need money to start helping people.
The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy.
Thank You, Derek. I was feeling a connection with your thoughts throughout almost the whole book.