Entrepreneurs often lose sight of what matters. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn't that enough?
Derek Sivers accidentally started a business by helping musicians sell their music. It became the largest online seller of independent music with over 150,000 musicians and $100M in sales. After ten years, he sold the company for $22 million and gave all the money to charity.
In "Anything You Want" he shares 40 powerful lessons, in a book you can read in about an hour. Points include:
The book's most memorable stories are from his horrible mistakes, like why saving ten minutes cost him $3.3 million dollars, and how he was attacked by Steve Jobs.
"Anything You Want" was first published by Seth Godin in 2011, then by Penguin/Portfolio in 2015. This third edition for 2022 was improved with eight new chapters.
Its surprisingly humanist approach to business, focusing on generosity and happiness more than profits, has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to re-focus on what matters and find their own path to success.
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“Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it.” Excerpt From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur by Derek Sivers #buildinpublic
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5 Books for every content creator stuck in a rut 👇 📚 Do The Work by Steven Pressfield 📚 The Practice by Seth Godin 📚 Keep Going by Austin Kleon 📚 Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert 📚 Anything You Want by Derek Sivers Is there a book you'd recommend to the list? https://t.co/IIE493wbhK
"Anything You Want is a business book like no other. Derek Sivers built a business a different way, a human way. He did it with no investment and a series of apparently crazy principles. And they work. They worked for him and they might work for you. A brilliant book."
- Seth Godin, author of This Is Marketing
"I love this book! Derek is the entrepreneur's entrepreneur. Just as important, perhaps more so: he is a phenomenal teacher. Whether detailing the fascinating rise of CD Baby, explaining catastrophic (but common) founder mistakes, or teaching me about relational databases in two minutes using analogies, he makes the complex simple. Moreover, he makes it all actionable. If you want a true manifesto, a guidebook with clear signposts, and a fun ride you'll return to again and again, you have it here in this book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did."
― Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek
"One of the last music business folk heroes. Derek Sivers is changing the way music is bought and sold."
- Esquire magazine