Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

Finally available in bookstores the Portfolio edition of Derek Sivers s iconic and bestselling manifesto on lessons learned while becoming an entrepreneur Most people don t know what they re doing They imitate others go with the flow and follow paths without making their own 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 multimillion dollar company by following your passion Sivers details his journey and the lessons learned along the way of creating CD Baby and building a business close to his heart In 1997 Sivers was a musician who taught himself to code a Buy Now button onto his band s Web site Shortly thereafter he began selling his friends CDs on his Web site As CD Baby grew Sivers faced numerous obstacles on his way to success Within six years he had been publicly criticized by Steve Jobs and had to pay his father 3 3 million to buy back 90 percent of his company but he had also built a company of more than 50 employees and had profited 10 million Anything You Want is must reading for every person who is an entrepreneur wants to be one wants to understand one or cares even a little about what it means to be human What you need to start a business A visionary master plan Loads of funding A brilliant team GENEROSITY You can follow the beaten path and call yourself an entrepreneur or you can blaze your own trail and really be one When Derek Sivers started CD Baby he wasn t planning on building a major business He was a successful independent musician who just wanted to sell his CDs online When no one would help him do it he set out on his own and built an online store from scratch He started in 1998 by helping his friends sell their CDs In 2000 he hired his first employee Eight years later he sold CD Baby for 22 million Sivers didn t need a business plan and ne