Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
In the end, it’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have.
If you want to be useful, you can always start now. It will be a humble prototype of your grand vision, but you’ll be in the game. Start by teaching someone this week. Starting small puts 100% of your energy into solving real problems for real people.
Five years after I started CD Baby, when it was a big success, the media said I had revolutionized the music business. But ‘revolution’ is a term that people use only when you’re successful. Before that, you’re just a quirky person who does things differently.
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working.
If it’s not a hit, switch.
It was the first follower that transformed the lone nut into a leader.
The single most important thing is to make people happy. If you are making people happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.
Don’t pursue business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help.
It’s only a little difficult to say no. You’ve got to believe that the work you’re doing is ultimately more useful to the world.
Obvious to you is amazing to others.
Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?
How you do anything is how you do everything. Your “character” or “nature” just refers to how you handle all the day-to-day things in life, no matter how small.
Go find very early versions of things: the first TV pilot of a later-successful TV show; early audition tapes by famous actors; early demos by famous musicians. Focus on these early examples, not what they became over the next 20 years. Remember that what you’re doing will constantly improve.
There is no movement without the first follower. See, we are told that we all need to be leaders but that would be ineffective. The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
I’m not interested until I see their execution.
Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing.
Make every decision – even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone – according to what’s best for your customers.
Ideas are just a multiplier of execution.
The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task at hand covers both bases, but not often.