Anything you Want is a pint-sized book… like, really small… The whole thing takes about an hour to read and it’s one of the best hours I’ve ever spent.

40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur

I first heard of Derek through his excellent interview on the Tim Ferriss Show podcast.

Originally a professional musician and circus clown, Derek Sivers, created CDBaby in 1998, became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100 million in sales for 150,000 musicians. In 2008, Derek sold CDBaby for $22 million.

The book teaches 40 lessons, showcasing a counterintuitive approach to business and life — not chasing growth all the time and trying to build something that you enjoy doing. While the book is entrepreneur focused - the lessons are applicable to people in all walks of life.

Take, for example, his approach to busyness and taking on too much. Derek uses a simple decision making tactic whenever he’s presented with a new opportunity:

“Either “Hell yeah!” or “no”” - Derek Sivers -

It’s the easiest way to stop over-committing and feeling spread too thin.

The most successful e-mail I ever wrote

In my favourite lesson from the book Derek recounts an email he wrote that automatically gets sent to customers after they make a purchase at CDBaby. The email is so good, I’ve included it in it’s entirety:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves
with sterilized contamination-free gloves and places onto a
satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it
to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packaging specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell
over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined
box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole
party marched down the street to the post office where the entire
town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package,
on it's way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day,
Friday June 6th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year."
We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come
back to CDBABY.COM!!

It’s a funny little email Derek whipped up in an evening, but the results were amazing. Customers would often reply back. To an automated email! It got shared on blogs. This email went viral before ‘going viral’ was a thing.

The lesson is that, it’s often the tiny details that really get people talking about you. The total time to write that email was microscopic compared to the huge dividends it paid.

When customers received that email, it showed them there was real (and funny!) people working at CDBaby. The success of that email shows that in business, you don’t need to follow a stodgy playbook. You can operate your business in a way that makes your customers happier, makes the employees happier and it doesn’t take much effort - just a different approach.

Definitely recommend! 👍

“Never forget why you’re doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?” - Derek Sivers -

Check out Derek Sivers’ site to reach out to the author and to read his blog.