**Author:** [[3. Resources/Authors/Derek Sivers|Derek Sivers]] # Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur > [!info] Links > - Readwise highlights: *No highlights found* > - Visual summary: ![[Anything You Want Visual.excalidraw]] --- ## Book Overview ### About the Author Derek Sivers (born 1969) is a programmer, writer, and entrepreneur best known for founding CD Baby in 1998. What started as a way to sell his own music online grew accidentally into the largest seller of independent music on the web, with $100 million in sales for 150,000 musicians. He sold CD Baby in 2008 for $22 million, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. A professional musician and circus performer before becoming an entrepreneur, Sivers has since become known for his TED talks and writings on unconventional business philosophy. He now lives simply, without owning a house, car, or TV. ### Central Thesis Business doesn't have to follow the conventional playbook. When you start a company, you're creating a little universe where you control all the laws—your own utopia. The goal isn't to build the biggest company or make the most money; it's to be happy while helping others. Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what doesn't work. If you design your business around what genuinely makes you happy rather than what you think you "should" do, you'll create something valuable for yourself and others. Sivers argues against the typical startup mentality of raising money, chasing growth, and following business formalities. Instead, he advocates for starting immediately with whatever you have, staying small by choice, caring more about customers than profit, and recognizing when "enough" is enough. Business is just one expression of personal philosophy—know what makes you happy before you build anything. ### Why This Book Matters *Anything You Want* is a counternarrative to the dominant Silicon Valley growth-at-all-costs mindset. In under an hour's read, Sivers distills ten years of building and running a successful business into actionable insights that challenge conventional wisdom. The book matters because it gives permission to build a business on your own terms—small if you want it small, unconventional if that's what makes you happy, and profitable without being greedy. The book also serves as a case study in accidental entrepreneurship: Sivers didn't set out to build a company; he just wanted to help musicians. By solving a real problem and staying focused on his customers rather than growth metrics, he created something valuable. His story demonstrates that business success can come from human connection and genuine helpfulness rather than from business plans and investor pitches. --- ## Chapter Summaries ### Ten Years of Experience in One Hour Sivers sets the frame: from 1998 to 2008, he accidentally grew a hobby into a $22 million company. He positions himself as a student sharing stories, not a guru prescribing rules. His approach might not work for everyone, and he welcomes disagreement. ### What's Your Compass? Before doing anything, know your personal philosophy of what makes you happy and what's worth doing. Most people don't—they imitate others, chase what they've been convinced they should want, and end up with regret. Sivers previews his core themes: business is about making dreams come true; never do anything just for the money; success comes from improving, not promoting; your business plan is moot; proudly exclude people; make yourself unnecessary; only do what makes you happy. ### Just Selling My CD The origin story: In 1997, Sivers was a professional musician wanting to sell his CD online, but no one would distribute independent music. So he spent three months and $1,000 setting up his own shopping cart. When musician friends asked him to sell their CDs too, he said yes as a favor. Word spread, and he accidentally started a business. ### Make a Dream Come True Not wanting the accidental business to distract from his music, Sivers took an "unrealistically utopian approach" designed to keep it small. He wrote his ideal distributor wishlist: pay weekly, share customer info, never kick out slow sellers, never allow paid placement. These four points became his mission statement. The insight: when you design your business as a dream come true for yourself, it becomes a dream come true for others too. ### A Business Model with Only Two Numbers Copying a local record store's approach, Sivers set simple terms: $4 per CD, $35 setup fee. That's it. Six years and $10 million later, these two numbers were still the sole revenue source. A business plan should take hours, not months. ### This Ain't No Revolution "Revolution" is what people call you only after you're successful. Before that, you're just quirky. If you're looking for revolution to feel like war, you'll miss the importance of simply serving people better. When you're onto something great, it feels like uncommon sense. ### If It's Not a Hit, Switch Sivers spent twelve years promoting various projects with little success. CD Baby was different—it was a hit from the start. The lesson: success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what's not working. If people aren't saying "HELL YEAH!" about your offering, get back to improving. ### No "Yes." Either "HELL YEAH!" or "No." A decision-making framework: if you're not saying "HELL YEAH!" about something, say no. This creates room to throw yourself completely into the rare things that truly excite you. ### Just Like That, My Plan Completely Changed CD Baby started as a credit card processor, but a customer from the Netherlands thought it was a store—so it became one. Later, Apple asked them to be a digital distributor. Each time, the plan changed completely. No plan survives first contact with customers. ### The Advantage of No Funding During the dot-com boom, Sivers watched funded competitors waste money on fancy offices and jargon. Without funding, he had to focus entirely on customers. He learned to program himself rather than hire expensive developers. By not having money to waste, you never waste money. ### Start Now. No Funding Needed. Anyone claiming they can't start until they raise money is more in love with being big than being useful. Being useful doesn't need funding. Start with a humble 1% prototype of your grand vision. You'll be in the game while others wait. ### Ideas Are Just a Multiplier of Execution Ideas are worth nothing without execution. A brilliant idea with no execution = $20. A brilliant idea with brilliant execution = $20 million. Sivers presents a formula: ideas multiply execution. He's not interested in hearing ideas—only in seeing execution. ### Formalities Play on Fear. Bravely Refuse. Sivers never hired a lawyer or added legal disclaimers to his site. When CD Baby grew, service companies pitched "necessary" formalities. He said no to all of it. Thousands of small businesses do fine without corporate formalities. ### The Strength of Many Little Customers Hoping to land one big client (Apple, Google) is risky: you become dependent, lose touch with what the market wants, and may need to customize everything for them. Instead, serve many small customers. If one leaves, no problem. ### Proudly Exclude People Most businesses try to be everything to everybody. Instead, confidently exclude people and proudly say what you're not. CD Baby explicitly banned major-label music. When your target 1% hears you excluding the other 99%, they'll come to you. ### Why No Advertising? When asked about running ads on his site, Sivers said no—it would be like putting a coke machine in a monastery. He wasn't doing this to make money. In a perfect world, would your website be covered with advertising? ### This Is Just One of Many Options Inspired by a voice teacher who made him sing songs in radically different ways (up an octave, down an octave, like Bob Dylan), Sivers argues that any business plan is just one of infinite options. Make ten radically different plans. ### You Don't Need a Plan or a Vision A year and a half after starting, Sivers thought big: maybe they'd have ONE THOUSAND artists someday. He never had a grand vision. Years later, with 100,000 artists, he'd tell journalists he didn't have long-term goals—just focus on helping people today. ### "I Miss the Mob" A Vegas taxi driver missed when the mob ran things simply: money in, money out, everyone's happy. Corporate management with MBA weasels and micro-optimization sucked the fun out. Never forget why you're really doing what you're doing. ### How Do You Grade Yourself? Everyone grades themselves differently: money made, money given, lives influenced, useful things created. Know your measure in advance to stay focused on what's honestly important to you. ### Care About Your Customers More Than About Yourself At a conference, Sivers said he didn't care about CD Baby's survival—only about the musicians. If they didn't need CD Baby anymore, great. It's about them, not you. Your company should be willing to die for your customers. ### Like You Don't Need the Money Banks lend to those who don't need it. Labels sign artists who don't need them. If you set up your business like you don't need the money, people are happier to pay you. Desperation is a turnoff. ### Don't Punish Everyone for One Person's Mistake A diner posts warning signs about every past wrong done to them. One kid tries to light his shoes on fire, and now millions queue to remove shoes at airports forever. Resist the urge to make grand policies from single bad incidents. ### A Real Person, a Lot Like You Sivers tells two stories: his friend Sara who spent a weekend devastated by an angry email that turned out to be just venting, and his friend Valerie who casually deleted heartfelt messages from online daters. Remember that at the end of every computer is a real person affected by what you say. ### You Should Feel Pain When Unclear With 2 million customers, an unclear email cost $5,000 in confused replies. This forced extreme clarity. Most websites don't get this feedback—they just get silence. ### The Most Successful Email I Ever Wrote The "Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow..." email. Twenty minutes of fun writing created thousands of new customers who shared it everywhere. ### Little Things Make All the Difference A countdown timer showing time until FedEx shipment. Answering phones within two rings. Customizing the "From:" field to say "CD Baby loves Susan." "We'll do anything for a pizza" policy. Asking for special requests and actually fulfilling them. These human touches built loyalty. ### It's OK to Be Casual Sivers hired people by asking employees if they had friends who needed work. "Tell them to start tomorrow. Ten dollars an hour." Don't try to impress invisible MBA professors. ### Naïve Quitting When Sivers quit his first job, he found and trained his own replacement before telling his boss. Years later, an employee quitting expected Sivers to find the replacement. Sivers was stunned—he didn't know that was normal. There's benefit to being naïve about norms. ### Prepare to Double CD Baby doubled every year for six years. Sivers always bought twice as much warehouse space as needed. Design processes to handle twice your current load. Never be the frazzled business that can't handle success. ### It's About Being, Not Having Sivers spent fifteen years practicing to become a singer despite everyone saying he couldn't. He took years to learn production himself rather than hiring experts. He learned programming rather than outsourcing. The joy is in the being and learning, not just having the result. ### The Day Steve Jobs Dissed Me in a Keynote After meeting with Apple about getting CD Baby into iTunes, Sivers posted meeting notes online, angering Apple. Then Steve Jobs publicly dissed him in a keynote, calling out the "$40 intermediaries." Sivers refunded $200,000 to customers. The next day, Apple sent the signed contract. Sivers learned never to promise what's beyond his control. ### My $3.3 Million Mistake Sivers signed papers when he was young without understanding them. When the bank teller suggested making CD Baby an alias of his existing company (90% owned by his dad's company), he agreed. Eight years later, he learned he owned only 10% of CD Baby and had to pay $3.3 million to buy it back. ### Delegate or Die: The Self-Employed Trap At eight employees, Sivers was answering questions all day. He hit his breaking point and developed the delegation mindset: answer the question, explain the philosophy, have someone write it in a manual, tell everyone they can decide without him. After two months, no more questions. He moved to California; the company grew from $1 million to $20 million. ### Make It Anything You Want Traditional CEOs do deals and have power lunches. But Sivers loved sitting alone programming. He found someone who liked deals to handle that. Never forget: you can make your role anything you want. Happiness is the real reason you're doing anything. ### Trust, but Verify A key employee failed to deliver music to retailers for months despite signing a contract saying "EVERY ALBUM, TO EVERY COMPANY, EVERY WEEK, NO MATTER WHAT." Sivers had to spend six months fixing it himself. Trust, but verify. ### Delegate, but Don't Abdicate Sivers over-delegated. When employees asked which profit-sharing plan to use, he said "You guys choose." They gave themselves all the profits. Communication broke down; 85 employees turned against him. He learned: delegate, but don't abdicate. ### How I Knew I Was Done In 2007, Sivers did a ground-up rewrite of CD Baby's code—his proudest achievement. But looking at 2008 plans, he wasn't excited about any of them. When three companies called about buying, he spent a weekend asking "What if I sold?" For the first time, the answer wasn't "No way!" He realized the bigger challenge was letting go. ### Why I Gave My Company to Charity Sivers already had enough. He created a charitable trust for music education, transferred CD Baby's assets, and let Disc Makers buy it from the trust for $22 million. He gets the deeper happiness of benefiting others, the safety of having little net worth, and the constant reminder that he has enough. ### You Make Your Perfect World Business is as creative as fine arts. Some want billions with thousands of employees; some want to work alone. No matter your choice, people will say you're wrong. Pay attention to what excites you and what drains you. Whatever you make, make it your personal dream come true. --- ## Key Themes and Highlights ### Business as Utopia Creating a company means creating a little universe where you control all the laws. Sivers's four-point mission (pay weekly, share customer info, no kicking out slow sellers, no paid placement) defined his utopia. When you make it a dream come true for yourself, it becomes one for others too. ### Enough Is Enough The book ends with the Vonnegut/Heller exchange about having "enough." Sivers didn't need the $22 million. He gave it to charity because the deeper happiness comes from knowing you have enough and acting on it. ### Customer Obsession Over Growth Sivers repeatedly turned down investors, saying he wanted his business smaller, not bigger. Every decision should be made according to what's best for customers. Thrill existing customers and they'll tell everyone—that's how you grow. ### The HELL YEAH Test A powerful decision filter: if you're not saying "HELL YEAH!" about something, say no. This applies to business opportunities, requests, events, and life choices. ### Ideas × Execution Ideas alone are worth nothing. A brilliant idea with brilliant execution = $20 million. A brilliant idea with no execution = $20. Don't protect ideas; focus on execution. ### Being vs. Having The whole point of doing anything is to be happy. You might be more efficient outsourcing everything, but you'd miss the joy of learning and doing. Being a great singer, a skilled entrepreneur, or just plain happy is the real point. --- ## Analytical Reading ### Main Arguments 1. Business is a creative expression of personal values, not a formula to follow 2. Success comes from solving real problems for real people, not from business plans or funding 3. Staying small can be a deliberate choice that leads to greater happiness 4. Customer obsession beats growth obsession 5. Enough is enough—know when you're done and act accordingly 6. The joy is in the doing, not just the having ### Methodology Sivers writes through autobiographical storytelling. Each chapter is a short vignette from his ten years running CD Baby, followed by an extracted principle. The approach is inductive: specific stories lead to general insights. He frequently undermines his own authority ("I'm a student, not a guru") and invites disagreement. ### Strengths - Extremely concise—distills ten years into one hour of reading - Practical and concrete stories rather than abstract advice - Counternarrative to growth-obsessed business culture - Honest about mistakes ($3.3 million oversight, over-delegation disaster) - Human and humble tone throughout ### Limitations - Highly personal—what worked for CD Baby in 1998-2008 may not generalize - Survivorship bias: we hear from the successful accidental entrepreneur - Light on tactical detail—more philosophy than how-to - The context (pre-Spotify music industry) is dated --- ## Personal Reflection ### Key Takeaways 1. **Know your measure before you start.** How do you grade yourself? If you don't decide in advance, you'll drift toward what others measure. 2. **HELL YEAH or no.** Most decisions become easy with this filter. The hard part is actually saying no. 3. **Enough is enough.** The priceless reminder at the end: Sivers gave away $22 million because he already had enough. Money beyond sufficiency is just numbers. 4. **Ideas are multipliers, not assets.** Stop protecting ideas and start executing. A brilliant idea with weak execution is worth $15,000. A weak idea with brilliant execution is worth $1,000,000. 5. **Being beats having.** The joy of learning to program, becoming a singer, mastering production—these matter more than the outputs. The journey is the point. ### Questions Raised - Is accidental entrepreneurship replicable, or is Sivers's story a product of unique timing (1997 internet, indie music moment)? - How do you balance "start now, no funding needed" with businesses that genuinely require capital? - At what point does staying small become avoidance rather than choice? - How do you maintain the delegation mindset without abdicating? ### Connections to Other Works - [[Company of One]] - Paul Jarvis on staying small by choice - [[Rework]] - Jason Fried and DHH on unconventional business - [[The Mom Test]] - Rob Fitzpatrick on customer conversations - [[Start Small, Stay Small]] - Rob Walling on bootstrapping - [[Essentialism]] - Greg McKeown on the disciplined pursuit of less - [[Hell Yeah or No]] - Sivers's follow-up book --- ## Reading Notes The book is extremely short (about 90 pages) and can genuinely be read in an hour. It was originally published by Seth Godin's Domino Project, which explains its manifesto-like brevity and shareability emphasis. Sivers's website (sivers.org) contains additional essays and notes that expand on these themes. Many chapters in the book originated as blog posts. The title captures the book's ethos: you can make your business—and your life—anything you want. There's no rulebook you have to follow. --- ## Action Items - [ ] Apply the "HELL YEAH or no" filter to current commitments - [ ] Define personal success measures before starting new projects - [ ] Review whether current work is "being" focused or just "having" focused - [ ] Identify what "enough" means personally - [ ] Read Sivers's follow-up essays at sivers.org