<ul><li>Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles. To be a true business owner, make sure you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left.</li><li>Anything you hate to do, someone else loves. So find that person and let him do it.</li></ul>

Self-employment vs. business ownership

<ul><li>When one customer wrongs you, remember the hundred thousand who did not.</li><li>Please know that it's often the tiny details that really thrill people enough to make them tell all their friends about you.</li><li>If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they'll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff.</li></ul>

The tiny details matter

<ul><li>When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you create all the laws. </li><li>Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers.</li><li>Be incredibly clear in your writing. Leave no room for confusion.</li><li>Pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you.</li><li>Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.</li></ul>

Improve The World While Improving Yourself

<ul><li>A business is started to solve a problem. But if the problem was truly solved, that business would no longer be needed! So the business accidentally or unconsciously keeps the problem around so that they can keep solving it for a fee.</li><li>If you set up your business like you don't need the money, people are happier to pay you.</li><li><a href="https://deepstash.com/idea/203934/reciprocity">We want to give to those who give.</a></li></ul>

Act like you don’t need the money

<ul><li>You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people.</li><li>Proudly say what you're not. It's a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 percent of it.</li><li>You should care about your customers more than you care about yourself!</li><li>That's the Tao of business: Care about your customers more than about yourself, and you'll do well.</li></ul>

It’s okay to exclude people

<ul><li>Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what's not working.</li><li>If you're not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, <a href="https://sive.rs/hellyeah">say “no.”</a></li><li>Necessity is a great teacher.</li><li>It's counterintuitive, but the way to grow your business is to focus entirely on your existing customers. Just thril them, and they'll tell everyone.</li></ul>

Stop doing what’s not working

<ul><li>Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.</li><li>Never forget why you’re really doing ,what you’re doing.</li><li>Resist the urge to punish everyone for one person's mistake.</li><li>In the end, it’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have.</li></ul>

Don’t forget why you’re in the game

Derek Sivers best known for creating CD Baby, the most popular music site for independent artists, He 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…..

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 neither do you. You don’t need to think big; in fact, it’s better if you don’t. Start with what you have, care about your customers more than yourself, and run your business like you don’t need the money.

career

Career

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

business

Business

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Startups

books

Books

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 neither do you. You don’t need to think big; in fact, it’s better if you don’t. Start with what you have, care about your customers more than yourself, and run your business like you don’t need the money.

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/