Anything You Want

Anything You Want Plot Summary

Introduction

Imagine standing at a crossroads in your entrepreneurial journey. On one path, you see the conventional business wisdom beckoning with promises of rapid growth, complex strategies, and an obsession with metrics. On the other path lies something more intuitive – a business built around what truly matters to you, designed to make you happy while serving others authentically. Which would you choose? Most entrepreneurs get caught in a trap of following established norms, chasing growth for growth's sake, and forgetting why they started their venture in the first place. This remarkable journey of building a business from a simple favor for friends into a $22 million company reveals a profound truth: business isn't primarily about money or complicated strategies – it's about creating a world where your values thrive while helping others. Through intimate stories and hard-earned wisdom, you'll discover how to build a business that serves your life rather than consumes it, how to maintain the courage to do things your way, and perhaps most importantly, how to recognize when it's time to let go and move on to your next adventure.

Chapter 1: Starting Small: How a Simple Favor Became a $22M Business

In 1997, Derek Sivers was living a musician's dream – performing regularly, producing records, and even serving as the musician and MC for a circus. He had made a CD of his own music and sold about 1,500 copies at his concerts. When he wanted to sell it online, he discovered a problem: no businesses would sell independent music online. The big online record stores told him the same thing – he needed to go through a major distributor. Music distribution was a terrible system at the time. Getting a distribution deal was nearly as difficult as getting a record deal. Distributors would take thousands of CDs and might pay artists a year later, if ever. If you didn't sell well immediately, you were kicked out of the system. Frustrated by this reality, Sivers thought, "I'll just set up my own online store. How hard could it be?" It turned out to be quite challenging. In 1997, PayPal didn't exist, so he had to get a credit card merchant account, which cost $1,000 in setup fees and required three months of paperwork. The bank even sent an inspector to verify his business was legitimate. He had to figure out how to build a shopping cart with no programming experience, piecing together code from a programming book through trial and error. Finally, he had a "buy now" button on his website – a significant achievement at that time. When he told his musician friends about his online store, one asked, "Could you sell my CD, too?" Sivers thought about it briefly and agreed, adding his friend's CD to his band's website. Soon, two more friends asked for the same favor, then strangers started calling: "My friend Dave said you could sell my CD?" The requests kept coming, and Sivers said yes to everyone. When two popular online music leaders announced his service to their mailing lists, fifty more musicians signed up. What began as a simple favor for friends had accidentally turned into a business. The lesson here is profound: sometimes the most successful businesses start not with grand ambitions or elaborate business plans, but with simply helping others solve a problem. Sivers wasn't trying to create a revolution or build an empire – he was just responding to a need he saw. By focusing on solving a real problem for people he cared about, he laid the foundation for something that would grow far beyond his initial vision.

Chapter 2: Customer Happiness First: The Power of Uncommon Service

Years after CD Baby had become successful, Derek Sivers was often surprised by what musicians told him about why they chose his company. It wasn't the pricing, features, or partnerships that won them over. The number one reason was startlingly simple: "They pick up the phone! They reply to my emails! You can talk to a real person!" This revelation shaped how Sivers structured his entire company. Out of his 85 employees, 28 were dedicated full-time to customer service. He viewed customer service not as an expense to be minimized but as a core profit center, like sales. Sivers made sure to hire the sweetest, most empathetic people and gave them all the time and resources they needed to make customers happy. If they got so busy that their interactions became brief and hurried, he knew it was time to hire more people. The approach to each customer interaction was equally thoughtful. When a musician would call to sell their music, the CD Baby team would take a few minutes upfront to get to know them: "What's your name? Hi Reza. Got a website? Is that you on the home page? Cool. Is that a real Les Paul? Sweet! Here, let me listen to a bit of the music. Nice, I like what you're doing." Musicians rarely found anyone willing to listen to their music, so even those few minutes of genuine attention created a lasting positive impression. Even when dealing with complaints, Sivers embraced an unusual philosophy: lose every fight. When a customer was upset, the best approach was to acknowledge they were right, apologize sincerely, and do whatever it took to make them happy again. Rather than getting defensive or trying to prove the customer wrong, CD Baby's approach was to act with humility and generosity. Interestingly, many of the company's biggest evangelists started as loudly upset customers who were transformed by exceptional service. This perspective on customer service reflects a deeper philosophy: caring about customers more than yourself. When asked what would happen if musicians no longer needed CD Baby because they could set up their own stores, Sivers replied, "Honestly, I don't care about CD Baby. I only care about the musicians. If someday musicians don't need CD Baby anymore, that's great! I'll just shut it down and get back to making music." This wasn't altruism – it was simply good business. Companies that truly put customers first create loyal supporters who spread the word far better than any marketing campaign could.

Chapter 3: Make Decisions Based on Your Values, Not Industry Norms

When CD Baby was growing, Derek Sivers constantly encountered traditional business expectations that didn't align with his values. MBA types would approach him asking about growth rates, retained earnings percentages, and projections. His response was refreshingly honest: "I have no idea. I don't even know what some of that means. I started this as a hobby to help my friends, and that's the only reason it exists. There's money in the bank and I'm doing fine, so no worries." This approach baffled many business professionals who assumed every company wanted to maximize growth and profit. Sivers recalled a telling story about a Las Vegas taxi driver who had lived there for 27 years. When asked about the changes he'd seen, the driver surprisingly said, "I miss the mob." He explained that when the mafia ran Vegas, only two numbers mattered: how much money was coming in and how much was going out. As long as more came in than went out, everyone was happy. But when corporations with MBAs took over, they focused on maximizing profit from every square foot, charging for previously free amenities like ketchup, and sucking the fun out of the city. This story became Sivers' metaphor for resisting conventional business thinking. When investors would call asking to invest in CD Baby, Sivers would immediately say no. When they asked, "Don't you want to expand?" he'd reply, "No. I want my business to be smaller, not bigger." This usually ended the conversation, as it contradicted every assumption about what a business "should" want. Sivers also rejected standard corporate formalities. A year after starting CD Baby, when a friend asked which lawyer he used for his website's "Terms and Conditions" and "Privacy Policy," Sivers admitted he had none. When his friend warned him about potential lawsuits, Sivers simply responded, "Then no stupid footnote legalese would protect me anyway, so I'll worry about it if it happens." Even as the company grew to fifty employees, he continued to reject corporate practices like sensitivity training and formal employee review plans. The underlying principle here is refreshingly simple: When you create a business, you get to make your own little world where you control the laws. You don't need to follow industry norms or conventional wisdom if they don't align with your values. Sivers' approach demonstrates that business success doesn't require conforming to traditional expectations – in fact, deliberately going against the grain can become a competitive advantage when it allows you to serve customers in ways others don't.

Chapter 4: Delegate Without Abdicating: Building Systems That Work Without You

In 2001, three years after starting CD Baby, Derek Sivers found himself working from 7 AM to 10 PM, seven days a week. Despite having eight employees, everything still went through him. Every five minutes, employees interrupted him with questions: "Derek, some guy wants to change the album art after it's already live on the site. What do I tell him?" or "Derek, can we accept wire transfer as a form of payment?" He felt like he might as well just sit in the hallway answering questions all day. When Sivers reached his breaking point, he realized he needed to make himself unnecessary to the running of his company. The next day, instead of just answering questions as they came, he gathered everyone together each time a question arose. He would repeat the situation, answer the question, and most importantly, explain the thought process and philosophy behind his answer. For example: "Yes, refund his money in full. We'll take a little loss. It's important to always do whatever would make the customer happiest, as long as it's not outrageous... Helping musicians is our first goal, and profit is second." After each explanation, he made sure everyone understood the answer and asked one person to document both the solution and the philosophy in a company manual. He repeated this process for every question that came up over the next two months. Eventually, the questions stopped coming altogether. His employees had not only learned the answers but understood the thinking behind them, enabling them to handle new situations on their own. After transferring all his remaining responsibilities to others, Sivers began working from home, completely unnecessary to daily operations. To emphasize the team's autonomy, he eventually moved to California while the business remained in Portland. Without his direct involvement, CD Baby grew from $1 million to $20 million in four years, expanding from 8 to 85 employees. Years later, Sivers learned an important distinction between delegating and abdicating. When employees asked about organizing office rooms, choosing healthcare plans, or implementing profit-sharing, he would simply say, "Whatever you think is best." This over-delegation backfired when his accountant informed him that employees had set up a profit-sharing program that gave all company profits back to themselves. When Sivers canceled the program, he found himself facing 85 unhappy employees who felt he shouldn't be telling them what to do. The key lesson is that there's a significant difference between being self-employed and being a business owner. Being self-employed means your business crumbles when you take time off. Being a true business owner means you could leave for a year, and when you return, your business would be doing better than when you left. But this requires a careful balance – you must delegate responsibilities and decision-making while maintaining clear boundaries and oversight for major decisions that affect the company's future.

Chapter 5: Little Things Matter: How Small Gestures Create Loyal Fans

When entrepreneurs think about growing their businesses, they often focus on big strategies and massive action plans. But Derek Sivers discovered that it was often the tiny, thoughtful details that truly delighted customers and turned them into devoted fans. These small touches did more to build CD Baby's reputation than any sophisticated business model ever could. One of the most famous examples was CD Baby's order confirmation email. Initially, it was a standard message: "Your order has shipped today. Please let us know if it doesn't arrive. Thank you for your business." After a few months, Sivers decided this didn't align with his mission to make people smile, so he spent twenty minutes writing something more playful: "Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed 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 packing 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..." This whimsical email became so beloved that if you searched the web for "private CD Baby jet," thousands of results would appear – each representing a customer who loved the message enough to share it online. That one goofy email created thousands of new customers through word of mouth. Other small touches made equally significant impressions. Since CD Baby shipped FedEx at 5 PM each day, customers would often call asking if they still had time to place an order for same-day shipping. Sivers added two lines of code that showed exactly how many hours and minutes remained until the 5 PM cutoff. Customers loved this helpful feature. The company also answered phones within two rings at all times, from 7 AM to 10 PM, seven days a week. Even warehouse staff could pick up if customer service was busy, simply answering with "CD Baby!" The company's "We'll do anything for a pizza" policy was another memorable touch. If a musician needed a special favor that required extra work, CD Baby would ask them to order a pizza for the staff. Musicians would often laugh, thinking it was a joke, but when they discovered it was a genuine policy, they were charmed. Similarly, every outgoing email customized the "From:" field to read "CD Baby loves {customer's first name}," a simple change that made people smile. These examples illustrate a powerful principle: remarkable customer experiences don't necessarily require grand gestures or expensive investments. Often, it's the unexpected, human touches that people remember and tell others about. Even as your business grows, maintaining this attention to delightful details can set you apart in ways that competitors find difficult to replicate.

Chapter 6: Stay True to Your Vision: Even When Growth Tempts You

As CD Baby grew increasingly successful, Derek Sivers faced constant pressure to expand the business in ways that didn't align with his core vision. Investors would call weekly, wanting to put money into the company. They'd ask, "Don't you want to expand?" to which Sivers would respond, "No. I want my business to be smaller, not bigger." This answer always ended the conversation abruptly. Sivers had started CD Baby as a utopian approach to music distribution. He wrote down his dream distribution deal from a musician's perspective: pay artists weekly, show them the full name and address of everyone who bought their CD, never kick them out for not selling enough, and never allow paid placement. These four simple points became his mission statement, guiding every decision at the company. It wasn't about maximizing profit – it was about creating the fairest, most helpful service possible for independent musicians. This approach extended to how Sivers handled revenue opportunities. When an advertising salesman called offering to run banner ads on cdbaby.com, Sivers refused: "No way. Out of the question. That would be like putting a Coke machine in a monastery. I'm not doing this to make money." When the confused salesman pointed out that CD Baby was a business, Sivers explained, "I'm just trying to help musicians. CD Baby has to charge money to sustain itself, but the money's not the point." Even his business model reflected this simplicity. CD Baby had just two sources of income: a one-time $35 setup fee per album and a $4 cut from each CD sold. Six years and $10 million later, these same two numbers remained unchanged. Sivers believed a business plan should never take more than a few hours of work – the best plans start simple, with numbers that clearly work based on common sense. Perhaps most telling was Sivers' response when asked at a conference what would happen if musicians eventually set up their own online stores, making CD Baby obsolete. He replied, "Honestly, I don't care about CD Baby. I only care about the musicians. If someday musicians don't need CD Baby anymore, that's great! I'll just shut it down and get back to making music." The audience was shocked to hear a business owner say he didn't care about his company's survival, but to Sivers, it was just common sense: of course you should care about your customers more than yourself. The lesson here is powerful: when building a business, define your own measure of success rather than chasing conventional growth metrics. Whether your goal is making money, helping others, creating something beautiful, or simply enjoying the work itself, stay focused on what truly matters to you. External pressures to conform to traditional business expectations will always exist, but the most satisfying path is the one aligned with your personal values and vision.

Chapter 7: Know When to Let Go: Recognizing When Your Journey Is Complete

For ten years, Derek Sivers insisted he would never sell CD Baby. In a 2004 National Public Radio interview, he declared he would stick it out until the end, and he meant it. Yet by 2008, everything had changed. After completing a ground-up rewrite of the website software—what he considered the proudest achievement of his life at that time—Sivers found himself looking at his plans for the future with an unfamiliar feeling. His project list for the coming year included about 20 initiatives, each taking 2 to 12 weeks to complete. They were necessary for future growth, but as he reviewed them, he realized he wasn't excited about any of them. He had taken the company far beyond his original goals and had no grand vision for what it might become next. The following week, three different companies called asking if he'd be interested in selling. As always, his immediate answer was no. But to remain open-minded, he spent a weekend writing in his diary, exploring the question: "What if I sold?" Unlike previous times he'd contemplated this question, his answer was different. He wrote about how nice it would be to not have 85 employees and all that responsibility. He felt excited about the freedom and the cool new projects he could pursue instead. Surprised by this shift in his thinking, Sivers sought advice from his mentor Seth Godin, who simply said, "If you care, sell." The point was that Sivers' lack of enthusiasm was doing a disservice to his clients. It would be better for everyone if the company were in more motivated hands that could help his customers grow. When Sivers made the decision to sell, he experienced what he describes as an emotional disconnection—like a graduation or a move. He felt as if he were already on the highway with a small box of belongings, moving cross-country, with his old home long gone. That night, he slept longer than he had in months and woke up full of detailed ideas for his next company. What's remarkable about Sivers' approach to selling was that he didn't keep the money for himself. Having already reached a point where he had "enough" for his simple lifestyle, he created a charitable trust called the Independent Musicians Charitable Remainder Unitrust. He transferred ownership of CD Baby and all its intellectual property to this trust before the sale. When Disc Makers bought the company for $22 million, the money went directly to the trust to benefit music education, saving approximately $5 million in taxes that would have been incurred had he sold the company personally and then donated the proceeds. The deeper wisdom here extends beyond knowing when to let go of a business. It's about recognizing what truly brings you fulfillment and having the courage to act accordingly. For Sivers, it wasn't about maximizing financial gain but creating the most happiness and positive impact. By giving away his company, he gained something more valuable: the freedom to pursue new challenges, the satisfaction of helping others, and the constant priceless reminder that he had enough.

Summary

The essence of entrepreneurial wisdom lies not in building an empire, but in creating a business that serves your authentic vision while genuinely helping others. When you strip away conventional business thinking, you discover that success comes from focusing on what truly matters: making customers happy, staying true to your values, and knowing both when to delegate and when to walk away. Start by solving a real problem for people you care about, even if it begins as a simple favor. Treat customer service as your most important department, not an expense to minimize. Design your business around your personal values rather than industry norms, and find ways to delight customers with small, memorable touches. Build systems that allow your business to run without you, but never completely abdicate your responsibility. And perhaps most importantly, regularly check in with yourself about whether you're still the right person to lead your creation. Remember that business is ultimately about creating your perfect world – one where you control the rules and can prioritize happiness over conventional metrics of success.

About Author

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Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers is an author of philosophy and entrepreneurship, known for his surprising quotable insights and pithy succinct writing style.Formerly a musician, programmer, TED speaker, and circus clown, he sold his first company for $22 million and gave all the money to charity.Sivers’ books (How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Your Music and People, Anything You Want) and newest projects are at his website: https://sive.rs/

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