Anything You Want
Anything You Want book cover

Anything You Want

Hardcover – June 29, 2011

by
Price
$27.91
Format
Hardcover
Pages
88
Publisher
The Domino Project
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1936719112
Dimensions
5.5 x 0.5 x 7.25 inches
Weight
8 ounces

Description

Tim Ferriss Reviews Anything You Want Tim Ferriss is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek . He has a diverse background of experience, including working as an actor, speaking seven foreign languages, holding a world record in tango, and being a national Chinese kickboxing champion. He has written for Maxim and the Philadelphia Inquirer , has appeared on MTV and CBS radio, and has been interviewed or featured in such major publications as the New York Times , Los Angeles Times , and more. Read his review of Derek Sivers's Anything You Want : 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 CDBaby, 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 Derek Sivers's Recommended Reading We asked author and founder of CD Baby Derek Sivers to tell us about the books that have influenced him the most as an entrepreneur. His list includes everything from What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful to The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World . Check out Derek's complete list of recommended reading for those aspiring to follow their passion to build a successful business--and a rewarding life. See the complete list of Derek's recommended reading "One of the best hours you’ll ever spend will be reading Derek Sivers’s new book… Anything You Want ." -- Forbes After making a living as a professional musician, Derek Sivers went looking for ways to sell his own CD online and ended up creating CD Baby, once the largest seller of independent music on the web with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients. Since 2008, Derek has traveled the world and stayed busy creating and nurturing creative endeavors, like Muckwork, his newest company where teams of efficient assistants help musicians do their “uncreative dirty work.” Derek writes regularly on creativity, entrepreneurship, and music on his blog: http://sivers.org/ . Read more

Features & Highlights

  • Best known for creating CD Baby, the most popular music site for independent artists, founder Derek Sivers chronicles his “accidental” success and failures into this concise and inspiring book on how to create a multi-million dollar company by following your passion. In
  • Anything You Want
  • , Sivers details his journey and the lessons learned along the way of creating CD Baby and building a business close to his heart. “[Sivers is] one of the last music-business folk heroes,” says
  • Esquire
  • magazine. His less-scripted approach to business is refreshing and will educate readers to feel empowered to follow their own dreams. Aspiring entrepreneurs and others trying to make their own way will be particularly comforted by Sivers straight talk and transparency -a reminder that anything you want is within your reach.
  • Anything You Want
  • is also available in a 5 pack, 52 pack and very limited edition Collectible, signed by Derek.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(3K)
★★★★
25%
(1.3K)
★★★
15%
(752)
★★
7%
(351)
★
-7%
(-351)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

In the end, it's about what you want to be, not what you want to have

"In the end, it's about what you want to be, not what you want to have."

If you agree with that statement (I think my favorite quote from this book), you need to read this book.
If you're looking for inspiration.
If you're afraid of failure.
If you want to start something.
You need to read this book.

"Don't pursue business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help."

Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby shares his success and his failures in this remarkably straight forward and honest book about how he basically accidentally founded a remarkably successful internet company - long before the internet bubble and without knowing anything about it.

I read this book in a couple of quick subway rides, to and from work. Don't be fooled by its ease, though. While you'll zoom through it, you'll close it feeling inspired and ready to start something new and, most importantly, you'll close it feeling less afraid of failure and less self-conscious about doing what makes you happy in life.

One more favorite quote: "... if you think true love looks like Romeo and Juliet, you'll overlook a great relationship that grows slowly." Revolution - in business and in life - often starts with a small step.

This book will help you remember that.
136 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

An honest account

While there is little here that you can't find in many other business books, it sounds like a very honest account of one man's journey. It's a short book that details the decisions (good and bad) and events that happened on the way to creating and eventually selling CDBaby. There's no secret in the book that will help you succeed in a similar way, but there are some important mantras that can be taken away, such as the importance of focusing on the customers above everything else. Due to the length of the book, it's hard to rate this book as you would a 300 - 500 page work. The book is worthwhile, but not great. Think of it as an opportunity to sit down with the author for an hour and having him tell you about the experience... definitely worthwhile.
110 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

A man without a family

Me me me. My happiness, my life, my ying, my yang. Retreat, reflect, give it all away.

I bet this guy has no family that is counting on him to be the provider. Funny how that changes your priorities.

He is tone deaf to that reality.
21 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Good Book. Recycled Information.

You can basically go to Sivers website and read all of the book online. Its a collection of all his blog posts rolled into one.
Disappointed I paid money for something I read for free..
8 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Story of Derek Sivers and his CD Baby

"Anything you want" is a very short book. Page-wise, it's about 70 pages, but the pages are very small and the spacing is large, which means you ought to be able to read it in an hour or a few. It is an autobiographical book of Derek Sivers and his starting, growing and eventually selling his company: CD Baby... and the lessons he has learned in all of this.

CD Baby was started by Derek Sivers in 1997 as a web-page for selling his own CD online. Friends started asking if they could sell their CD too and suddenly Derek had a company selling independent music on the internet. His company grew far beyond what he wanted or expected. During the startup and growth of the company he did set some important company values such as putting the customer and musicians often above the company itself. This in itself isn't exceptional, but Derek backs it up with interesting and funny stories on how he has been able to continuously surprise his customer.

During his journey with CD Baby, he learned himself about what he wanted and didn't wanted and learned that he just wanted to focus on the things for himself. After the company grew to a certain size, he had enough of it as he felt he wouldn't achieve anything anymore that he wanted to achieve. He sold his company and moved on to enjoy his life.

The book is well written, quite funny at times, insightful and very short. I've enjoyed reading the story of Derek and CD Baby and would recommend it to people as an interesting and funny story about starting companies. Yet, there wasn't any moment that was shocking or where I was very surprised. Compared to traditional companies, yet, CD Baby and what Derek did was definitively different. Derek does not follow the same greedy-make-lots-of-money attitude that you sometimes read in business books... and that was good. Yet it wasn't too extreme. All in all, I enjoyed reading the book, recommend it and perhaps might go and grab a beer with Derek (as he lives in the same city as me, it seems)
7 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Powerful Personal Insights of this Musician's entreprenuerial ride

The main emphasis I would make from the get-go, was that I was entertained from the first page to the last.
Derek's ride through the business world - which was only meant to be a fun hobby at first - is narrated in a very engaging way in this small book. In his own words, he discusses not only the various events and decisions that went into his growing of CD Baby, but also how he refused to allow the small-minded, scarcity-consciousness urgings of the business lawyers who urged him to take precautions to protect himself (the kind of legal precautions that annoy or push away customers ..)

As well, he ignored "marketing gurus" who insisted that he is losing money because he didn't plaster advertisements on his site. It was *his* business, and that's not what he wanted. He was simply running his business to help independent musicians, that's it. He wasn't in it for the money - he was in it to do what he loved, and to help others.

As just stated, I enjoyed reading how he insisted on asserting his own right to run his business as he saw fit, not having to answer to anyone, and just make everything he did, an expression of just pure fun and joy and of making friends with his own customers through entertaining emails, and company policies that customers got a kick out of.

You could tell that Derek wasn't trying to prepare the message in this book to convey some kind of I'm-an-expert-listen-to-my-business advice.. he was simply telling an entertaining story about a business he ran, that at the same gives you an insight in his personal values, and that will end up being a set of principles summed up that you will re-read to remind yourself how to engage customers and spread the viral message of your product/service as powerfully as Derek did.

Some Siver-isms:
- When someone's doing something for the money, people can sense it, like a desperate lover. It's a turnoff.

- When someone's doing something for love, being generous instead of stingy, trusting instead of fearful, it triggers this law: We want to give to those who give.

- When you set up your business like you don't need the money, people are happier to pay you.
5 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Just Ok

I was first introduced to Derek Sivers while watching a TED Talk. I thought his three minute speech was brilliant, so when I saw that he had written a book I was very excited to read it.

Sivers is the creator of CD Baby, a very successful online business that helps independent musicians sell their music. The book is essentially his retelling of the birth and journey of growing that business. It is described as "40 Lessons For A New Kind of Entrepreneur". The book is put out by The Domino Project and is very short in length (77 pages).

Everything in me wanted to love this book, but I just couldn't really get into it. There was some content that I just thought was poor advice (ie. not setting up thorough precautions for possible lawsuits) and then the parts I enjoyed I feel like I have read elsewhere and it wasn't new to me.

Even though I wouldn't consider this a "must have" book, I do think it is a decent book, and it is interesting if you're into the nuts and bolts of starting a project or business.

Here are a few quotes from the book that I appreciated:

"Watch out when anyone (including you) says he wants to do something big, but can't until he raises money. It usually means the person is more in love with the idea of becoming big big big than with actually doing something useful. For an idea to get big big big, it has to be useful. And being useful doesn't need funding. If you want to be useful, you can always start now."

"You can't pretend there's only one way to do it. Your first idea is just one of many options. No business goes as planned, so make ten radically different plans."

"Never forget why you're really doing what you're doing."

"Delegate, but don't abdicate."
4 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Nothing groundbreaking

First off I have to say I think Derek Sivers is an awesome guy and one of my role models. I love his blog and his TED talks. However, I think this book was just lacking. I wanted it to be longer and go into more details. It's still worth reading, but it won't be something that is life changing or remarkable compared to other business/motivational books out there.
4 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Business doesn't have to be complicated

In this candid account of his experience creating, growing and selling CDBaby, Derek Sivers shows us that success in business has more to do with keeping things simple and being true to yourself than following preconceived notions of success like growing at all costs and obsessing over the financial aspects of the business. Of all the manifestos published so far by The Domino Project this is the one I've enjoyed the most and found most useful.
3 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

The One-Hour Business Book

Books that can be read in an hour are either great or a waste of time. Anything You Want falls into the great category. This is essentially a biographical account of the founder of CDBaby, interspersed with relevant business advice. It is engaging and helpful, and will help you think through what you really want your business to be. It is easy to take yourself and your business way too seriously - this book will help cure you.

Don't expect to get nuts and bolts advice on business.

Don't expect to read the same things you have read before.

Don't expect to get the whole picture.

Expect to walk away from reading this inspired and renewed. This book is a refreshing change from most business books out there.

There have been quite a few "small business" business books lately, and this is one of the best. Two others that I highly recommend are:

[[ASIN:0307465357 The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.]]

[[ASIN:0307463745 Rework]]
3 people found this helpful

Related Books