Anything You Want audiobook cover - 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

Anything You Want

40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

Derek Sivers

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Entrepreneurship

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Key Takeaways from Anything You Want

Learning Tools

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Mind Map

Anything You Want
Ideas & Business Plans+
Customers & Target Audience+
Funding & Resources+
Delegation & Team+
Personal Autonomy & Job Design+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 6
According to the book, what should you do if your business idea isn't receiving a lot of positive feedback?
  • A. Seek more investment to improve marketing.
  • B. Create a more complex 100-page business plan.
  • C. Let go of the idea and try new options.
  • D. Continue promoting it, as success takes years.
Question 2 of 6
What is the book's recommended strategy for building a secure and flexible customer base?
  • A. Focus all your efforts on satisfying a single, high-value client.
  • B. Try to fulfill every request from every type of person to maximize reach.
  • C. Develop many small customer groups instead of one big one.
  • D. Prioritize the needs of investors over the needs of customers.
Question 3 of 6
How does the book describe the effect of being 'strapped for cash' when starting a business?
  • A. It is the biggest obstacle to growth and should be solved with funding.
  • B. It boosts creativity and forces you to find cheaper, faster solutions.
  • C. It means you should delay starting the business until you have enough money.
  • D. It leads to a business with lower quality products and services.
Question 4 of 6
What is the author's perspective on the possibility that his business, CD Baby, could become obsolete if its core problem was solved by other means?
  • A. He would see it as a failure and try to fight against the new solution.
  • B. He would pivot the company to serve a completely different industry.
  • C. He wouldn't worry, as his goal was to solve the problem, not to keep the business alive forever.
  • D. He would consider it a sign to seek massive venture capital to compete.
Question 5 of 6
What is the primary risk of 'over-delegating' as illustrated by the author's experience?
  • A. Employees become burned out from too much responsibility.
  • B. It requires too much time to create training manuals.
  • C. Employees might make critical decisions without your knowledge due to a lack of control.
  • D. The owner has too much free time and loses touch with the business.
Question 6 of 6
When creating roles for employees, what unconventional approach does the author recommend?
  • A. Assigning traditional titles like 'Head of Finance' to create a clear structure.
  • B. Asking employees what they are good at, to maximize their efficiency.
  • C. Letting employees choose positions based on what they enjoy doing.
  • D. Hiring consultants to define the most effective corporate structure.

Anything You Want — Full Chapter Overview

Anything You Want Summary & Overview

Anything You Want (2011) is a guide to realizing your dream business, which is easier than you might think. These blinks will teach you why the conventional ideas of amassing tons of money, consultants and technology are all wrong, and that the real key to success is you and your stellar ideas.

Who Should Listen to Anything You Want?

  • All entrepreneurs
  • Anybody with a great idea they don’t know how to realize

About the Author: Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers began a career as a musician who endeavored to sell his music online. This simple idea became the basis of CD Baby, a company that was the biggest seller of independent music on the web when he sold it in 2008 for $22 million.

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