Rating: 8/10
This book is the first book that I read in 2021 as it was highly recommended by a few authors/ influencers I follow and it was not a disappointing read at all. Derek sivers has a unique way of explaining common sense especially if you are planning on starting something on your own. Below are my takeaways from his book “Anything you want”, hope you like reading them…
Do check out this work from here.
Alright, so lets get started..
What’s your compass?
- “Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.
- Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
- When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world.
- Never do anything just for the money.
- Don’t pursue business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help.
- Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working.
- Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it.
- Starting with no money is an advantage. You don’t need money to start helping people.
- You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people.
- Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business.
- The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy.”
Business model with only two numbers
- “A business plan should never take more than a few hours of work—hopefully no more than a few minutes. The best plans start simple. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers will work. The rest are details.”
- “When you’re onto something great, it won’t feel like revolution. It’ll feel like uncommon sense.”
If it’ not a hit, switch
“We’ve all heard about the importance of persistence. But I had misunderstood. Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.We all have lots of ideas, creations, and projects. When you present one to the world and it’s not a hit, don’t keep pushing it as is. Instead, get back to improving and inventing.Present each new idea or improvement to the world. If multiple people are saying, “Wow! Yes! I need this! I’d be happy to pay you to do this!” then you should probably do it. But if the response is anything less, don’t pursue it.”
“No “yes.” Either “Hell yeah!” or “no
“We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying yes to less is the way out”
“Anytime you think you know what your new business will be doing, remember this quote from serial entrepreneur Steve Blank: “No business plan survives first contact with customers.”
Start now. No funding needed
“If you want to be useful, you can always start now, with only 1 percent of what you have in your grand vision. It’ll be a humble prototype version of your grand vision, but you’ll be in the game. You’ll be ahead of the rest because you actually started, while others are waiting for the finish line to magically appear at the starting line.”
“Starting small puts 100 percent of your energy into actually solving real problems for real people. It gives you a stronger foundation to grow from. It eliminates the friction of big infrastructure and gets right to the point. And it will let you change your plan in an instant, as you’re working closely with those first customers telling you what they really need.”
You can also refer to Show your work !, where Austin kleon talks about how you can consistently work towards sharing your work.
Ideas are just a multiplier of execution:
“To me, ideas are worth nothing unless they are executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.
Explanation:
- Awful idea = -1
- Weak idea = 1
- So-so idea = 5
- Good idea = 10
- Great idea = 15
- Brilliant idea = 20
- No execution = $1
- Weak execution = $1,000
- So-so execution = $10,000
- Good execution = $100,000
- Great execution = $1,000,000
- Brilliant execution = $10,000,000”
To make a business, you need to multiply the two components. The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $200,000,000.
- Formalities play on fear. Bravely refuse
The strength of many little customers
“Imagine that you have designed your business to have no big clients, just lots of little clients.
- You don’t need to change what you do to please one client; you need to please only the majority (or yourself).
- If one client needs to leave, it’s OK; you can sincerely wish her well.
- Because no one client can demand that you do what he says, you are your own boss (as long as you keep your clients happy in general).
- You hear hundreds of people’s opinions and stay in touch with what the majority of your clients want.”
Proudly exclude people
- “You need to confidently exclude people, and proudly say what you’re not. By doing so, you will win the hearts of the people you want.”
- “Have the confidence to know that when your target 1 percent hears you excluding the other 99 percent, the people in that 1 percent will come to you because you’ve shown how much you value them.”
This is just one of many options
“We analyzed a business plan for a mail-order pantyhose company. Like all business plans, it proposed only one idea. After reading the whole thing, I felt like saying things my old voice teacher would have said:
- “OK, make a plan that requires only $1,000. Go!”
- “Now make a plan for ten times as many customers. Go!”
- “Now do it without a website. Go!”
- “Now make all your initial assumptions wrong, and have it work anyway. Go!”
- “Now show how you would franchise it. Go!”
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.Same thing with your current path in life:
- Now you’re living in New York City, obsessed with success. Go!
- Now you’re a free spirit, backpacking around Thailand. Go!
- Now you’re a confident extrovert and everyone loves you. Go!
- Now you’re married and your kids are your life. Go!
- Now you spend a few years in relative seclusion, reading and walking. Go!”
You don’t need a plan or a vision:
Please don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today.
Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?
How do you grade yourself?
We all grade ourselves by different measures:
- For some people, it’s as simple as how much money they make. When their net worth is going up, they know they’re doing well.
- For others, it’s how much money they give.
- For some, it’s how many people’s lives they can influence for the better.
- For others, it’s how deeply they can influence just a few people’s lives.”
Act like you don’t need the money
If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you. When someone’s doing something for the money, people can sense it, like they sense 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.
Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake
As a business owner, when you get screwed over by someone, you might be tempted to make a big grand policy that you think will prevent your ever getting screwed over again: One employee can’t focus and spends his time surfing the Web. Instead of just firing or reassigning that person to more challenging work, the company installs an expensive content-approving firewall so that nobody can go to unapproved sites ever again.
A real person, a lot like you
It’s dehumanizing to have thousands of people passing through our computer screens, so we do things we’d never do if those people were sitting next to us. It’s too overwhelming to remember that at the end of every computer is a real person, a lot like you, whose birthday was last week, who has three best friends but nobody to spoon at night, and who is personally affected by what you say.
When you’re thinking of how to make your business bigger, it’s tempting to try to think all the big thoughts and come up with world-changing massive-action plans. But please know that it’s often the tiny details that really thrill people enough to make them tell all their friends about you.
Little things make all the difference
“Even if you want to be big someday, remember that you never need to act like a big boring company. Over ten years, it seemed like every time someone raved about how much he loved CD Baby, it was because of one of these little fun human touches”
Naive Quitting
“There’s a benefit to being naive about the norms of the world—deciding from scratch what seems like the right thing to do, instead of just doing what others do.”
Being, not having:
“But that’s forgetting about the joy of learning and doing. Yes, it may take longer. Yes, it may be inefficient. Yes, it may even cost you millions of dollars in lost opportunities because your business is growing slower because you’re insisting on doing something yourself. But the whole point of doing anything is because it makes you happy! That’s it!”
Delegate or die: The self-employment trap
Simple Process “
- Gather everybody around.
- Answer the question and explain the philosophy.
- Make sure everyone understands the thought process.
- Ask one person to write it in the manual.
- Let everybody know they can decide this without me next time.
Trust, but Verify –
- Remember it when delegating. You have to do both.
- Delegate, but don’t abdicate.
You make your perfect world
“Business is as creative as the fine arts. You can be as unconventional, unique, and quirky as you want. A business is a reflection of the creator.
- Some people want to be billionaires with thousands of employees. Some people want to work alone.
- Some want as much profit as possible. Some want as little profit as possible.
- Some want to be in Silicon Valley with Fortune 500 customers. Some want to be anonymous.
No matter which goal you choose, there will be lots of people telling you you’re wrong.Just pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. Pay close attention to when you’re being the real you and when you’re trying to impress an invisible jury.Even if what you’re doing is slowing the growth of your business—if it makes you happy, that’s OK. It’s your choice to remain small.You’ll notice that as my company got bigger, my stories about it were less happy. That was my lesson learned. I’m happier with five employees than with eighty-five, and happiest working alone.Whatever you make, it’s your creation, so make it your personal dream come true.”
Let me know if you liked reading this summary and if you have any recommendation on books I should read next..
Alos, check out my other posts below..
