Name: Anything You Want
Rating: 4.1 (98 reviews)
Author: Derek Sivers

What’s in it for me? Make your business anything you want.

Stay true to yourself, but be flexible! Make a business plan that makes investors believe in you but keep it simple! Delegate, but don’t delegate too much!

Maybe you’ve already struggled with balancing some or all of these seemingly unbalanceable things when starting your own business. Maybe you’re feeling pretty lost. And could use some advice?

In Anything You Want, that’s exactly what author Derek Sivers will give you. Based on his own personal success story and aiming to unravel the tangled threads of starting a business, he helps you figure out the answer to the question: How do you make your business anything you want?

In these blinks, you’ll discover

why you don’t really need that much money to start your own business;
when delegation is good – or when it’s too much; and
why the author refused to work with some musicians.

Starting a successful business means striving to improve your ideas while keeping it simple.

When the author set out in the world of business he never intended to found CD Baby, an online independent music store. In fact, he’d previously attempted several other businesses only to end up unsuccessful.

So, what made this one work?

A key step was realizing that the more you improve your ideas, the higher the chances are that you’ll come up with one that’s truly successful. The point is that if you’ve been promoting your “perfect” idea for years and it’s still going nowhere, it might be time for a change. That means, if you’re not getting positive feedback – and a lot of it – it’s probably best to let go of your idea.

Instead, you should try out new options and work to improve your ideas. Because if you’re always improving, you’re bound to hit on an idea that people will love. For instance, the author was totally surprised when one of his ideas suddenly caught fire among his musician friends. His hard work had paid off, and he created something that would help both himself and others.

But coming up with the right idea is just the beginning. The next step is to come up with some simple numbers and build the principles of a business plan. This doesn’t have to be a complex, 100-page document with financial projections for the next two decades, but a simple document that lays out how your company will work and how much money it’ll take to make it happen.

The key here is to keep it logical and easy to understand. That’s because the more precisely you write, the better people will comprehend and believe in your idea. It’s really not necessary to throw around complicated figures. You just need to explain how you’ll make money and if it will cover your costs.

For instance, when the author first set up CD Baby, he only used two numbers: how much it would cost musicians to list their CD on the site and how much they would make on each sale. These simple, fixed numbers were enough to calculate his projected success.

Define your target audiences and tailor your business to their needs.

It might be hard to settle on a specific group you want to sell products to, but defining a target market is key to meeting your customers’ needs. A good strategy is to develop many small customer groups, rather than one big one, making a flexible and secure business.

For instance, imagine crafting your product or service to meet the needs of a single client with the hopes that she’ll invest more in your company. In doing so you, base just about every decision on her thoughts and desires.

You don’t need big money to realize a big idea.

When most people talk about starting a business, their focus is on securing enough money before really investing in the idea. But having zero funding can actually be a huge advantage.

In fact, there’s nothing wrong with financial limitations. You just need to start with the bare minimum. So, if you’re hard up for cash but you’ve got a grand vision for your business’s future, don’t worry. Money isn’t what makes ideas grow. Being useful to people is, and that should be your main focus.

Follow your customers’ needs.

We all know the saying “the customer is always right” and it’s clear that satisfying customers is essential to a thriving business. After all, they buy your products!

Knowing this, you should base decisions on your customers’ needs. That’s because a good business isn’t just about you or making money: it’s about the people you serve. So listen to what they want and make it happen.

Share responsibility, but not too much.

What do most self-employed people have in common? They have no clue how to delegate.

This can be a major pitfall since developing a delegation mindset is an absolute must if you want to protect your precious resources from depletion. After all, if you start a business yourself, doing everything alone, it can be difficult to suddenly start sharing responsibilities. Many entrepreneurs struggle to even find the time to hire and train employees to take over certain tasks.

Key ideas in Anything You Want