Book: Anything You Want by Derek Sivers. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

Amazing book! It’s worth 5 stars.

I listened to it on Audible, and it’s around 1h30 of audio, straight to the point. He is not theorizing about what should be right or what you should do to be successful. Instead, he is talking about his experience and what he thinks were the goods and bad choices he made.

This book was concise enough and with tons of valuable information to earn this 5 stars review. :)

If you want a non-fiction book to read in a small amount of time, this is the book for you.

Here is my raw notes about the book:

  • When you make a dream come true, and it becomes a business. It can be a dream coming true for other people too.
  • Business plan should take just some hours of work and be something simple
  • It’s a hell yeah or a no. If you’re not saying “Fuck yeah! I will do it” then it’s a no. Say yes to less is the way out.
  • No plans survive the first contact with customers. Listen to your customer and adapt
  • Whatever VC, you don’t need funding. Without funding, you don’t have anyone to praise so you can focus on your product and customers. {tweet}
  • Don’t be so protective of your idea. Ideas worth nothing without execution.
  • Do you like these terms and conditions of the websites? If not, don’t include this garbage on yours. Avoid creating it until you need it.
  • Proudly exclude people. Focus on what you believe is better for your product. If this kind of user is not what you want, restrict the sign in and praise the users you want
  • No advertising. When you ask your client what they need to have a better product, will they ask to add some advertising? Then don’t add it. Don’t do everything for the money.
  • Prepare many plans for or many situations, don’t expect one plan to rule them all. Use it for your life too
  • How do you grade yourself? What is essential for you? What makes you happy? Focus on that, not on what others think is right to do.
  • The Dao of business. The company should be ready to die for his customers.
  • He built a company to solve his musician problem. If the problem gets solved by itself, the company will not be needed anymore, and he will get back to music. It’s weird for people to see that a company owner doesn’t care about the death of his own business
  • Set up your business if you don’t need the money. People sense it, and you will build a better product
  • Resist the urge to punish everyone for one person’s mistake. Example: firewall blocking
  • Being naive is ok. You don’t have to do what the world expects from you, do what you think is right
  • The key is being not having. You want to be a programmer not to have one big piece of software built. When you decide to run a marathon, you will not get a cab to take you to the finish line.
  • Trust with verifying. Trust people to do their work but verify once in a while.
  • Delegate but don’t abdicate. Give power to your employees but not full power or it will not be your company anymore.
  • If you want a non-fiction book to read in a small amount of time, this is the book for you.