Anything You Want: Part 1

 

 

Anything You Want by Derek Sivers is an excellent book on how to start, run and eventually sell your business all while maintaining the main reason for the business; to help people by solving their problems. Below are the insights I got while reading the book

Core Message

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?

Care about your customers more than about yourself, and you’ll do well.

What's Your Compass?

We spend a lot of our time, money and energy following what other people have done that have given them success. Even if we attain it, we won't be happy as we are not pursuing what we were put on this earth to do.

We must pursue our calling.

Make your dream come true

When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia. When you make it a dream come true for yourself, it’ll be a dream come true for someone else, too.

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.

If it’s not a hit, switch

"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. Don’t waste years fighting uphill battles against locked doors. Improve or invent until you get that huge response." - D. Sivers

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.

The advantage of no funding

"None of your customers will ask you to turn your attention to expanding. They want you to keep your attention focused on them. It’s counterintuitive, but the way to grow your business is to focus entirely on your existing customers. Just thrill them, and they’ll tell everyone." - D. Sivers

No money, no problem. The less you are worried about investors, the better for you as you can focus on your customers. Your customers are always your priority and they will determine whether your business thrives or dies. By fulfilling the customers requests, you are able to get a general idea of what their want and you focus on fulfilling those requests and not on getting more investors so that you can expand

Start small but dream big

"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." - D. Sivers

So no, your idea doesn’t need funding to start. (You also don’t need an MBA, a particular big client, a certain person’s endorsement, a lucky break, or any other common excuse not to start.)

Ideas are nothing without execution

To make a great business, you just need two components; idea and execution. A good idea with bad execution is still better than a brilliant idea without execution. When a brilliant idea meets brilliant execution, great things start to happen

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless they are executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions. For example, A weak idea but great execution can be $1 million dollar business. A Brilliant idea and brilliant execution can lead to $200 million dollar business. The figures are theoretical just used to show the concept. See explanation below

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

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. Click on Part 2 to continue with the review. Any feedback or suggestions, please let me know in the comment section.