Hey friends 👋

If you were the CEO of your own company, what kind of goals 📈 would you set for your business? It would probably look something like this:

• Grow revenue by X%
• Sell Y units
• Acquire Z customers

These types of goals make sense because we normally think of businesses as organizations that are optimizing for profit, revenue, or value. But could a company have a north star that isn’t about business growth? In the book 📕 Anything You Want, author Derek Sivers shares his story about running a multi-million dollar business without caring about the metrics MBA programs teach you to worry about. 🙀

📕 Quick book summary

Derek Sivers shares lessons he learned from running his business CDBaby.com, an online music distribution store that started after he tried to sell his music online 💿, which he eventually sold for 22M USD. His management compass and values on which he grew CD Baby, were very clear:

1. Prioritize the customers.
2. Do what makes you (the business owner) happy.

Instead of focusing on growth metrics, Derek was content with making sure that he was helping independent musicians sell their music and that he was keeping the customer base happy.

🧐 Impressions

1. I was skeptical of Derek’s business philosophy at first, but I think he had very valuable advice for small businesses 👌 – It was hard to believe that a multi-million dollar business did not focus on revenue or growth metrics. But this kind of thinking has been popularized in the startup space. “Do things that don’t scale,” is a common piece of advice given to startups participating in Y Combinator. The startup accelerator encourages startups to be willing to do manual and tedious work in order to grow a strong customer base.
   
2. Your business is your chance to make your own utopia 🏙 – People just assume that CEOs and the businesses they run are all aiming for the same thing: “Grow X% by year Y.” But you can make your business aim for whatever you want. Define what will make you happy to run your business.

🧠 How this book changed me

It challenged me to reflect on what was worth doing – Derek knew what made him happy, so he was able to shape CD Baby in a way that he got to do more of what he liked doing, and less of the things that were of little importance. I thought about my own work and I happily realized that I'm mostly doing things I think are important and worth doing.

Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams. You need to know your personal philosophy of what makes you happy and what’s worth doing.

I realized you don't need to be a visionary to start a business – I used to think that great businessmen were lone geniuses, ready to build a world by their design. Derek wasn't trying to change the music industry when he built CD Baby. He was just trying to make a helpful product for musicians and their fans.

Journalists would ask, “What’s your long-term goal for CD Baby?” I’d say, “I don’t have one. I surpassed my goals long ago. I’m just trying to help musicians with whatever they need today.” So please don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today.

📣 Super Solid Question for the Day

If you were to be the CEO of your own company, what kind of business would you NEVER let fail?

Let me know your answer by replying to this email!

My answer: If I owned and operated a basketball gym, I would starve before I let that business fail.

Cheers,
Marro