This is a fantastic little book. Not quite 80 pages long, Derek Sivers tells the story of how he founded CDBaby, built it and sold it. Along the way he says what he thinks he did well and, amusingly, outlines some of the mistakes he made.
Sivers is pretty much an accidental entrepreneur. A musician by trade, he built a website to sell his own CDs. A few friends asked if they could sell their CDs on his website and suddenly he had a business. And then it became the biggest seller of independent music on the web. It seems that although Sivers put a lot of effort into making the company work, for him it was always just a diversion from what he really wanted to do. And it is perhaps this that allows Sivers to do things a little differently.
Partially because he’s not desperately trying to maximise revenue, he really focuses on doing the thing his customers want – and he sees his customers firstly as the musicians. But as a consequence the business did really well. He did quirky things to spread some happiness, like the confirmatory email, give a different vibe from the corporate efficiency of other retailers. Indeed one of his sections is headed ‘Little things make all the difference’. It is the details that distinguish you from the crowd.
The most interesting section was how he removed himself from the business. Every time a question came to him, he got the staff together, explained how to answer it and why it would be answered that way and it was written down in a manual. Eventually the philosophy, and answers, in the manual meant he didn’t need to answer any questions. Basically he wasn’t needed to run the business any more! I think many small business owners would shudder at the thought, but it’s part of any business growing up. He does describe how eventually he took that too far, by allowing the employees to set up a profit share plan without scrutinising it and finding all the profits were going to the employees. Whoops!
His final section is called ‘Make your perfect world’. While most of us won’t fall into a great business like Sivers, his book is an inspiring read, makes you think and encourages you to do something better.