Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

Also at the end of each order, there was a box that would ask, “Any special requests?”

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.

At the end of each order, the last page of the website would ask, “Where did you hear of this artist? We’ll pass them any message you write here.”

Your company should be willing to die for your customers. That’s the Tao of business: Care about your customers more than about yourself, and you’ll do well.

When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia.

All employees knew that as long as we weren’t completely swamped, they should take a minute and get to know the caller a bit.

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

please don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today.

Learn to shrug. Resist the urge to punish everyone for one person’s mistake.