Anything You Want

Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what's not working.

When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia. When you make it a dream come true for yourself, it'll be a dream come true for someone else, too.

A business plan should never take more than a few hours to work—hopefully no more than a few minutes. The best plans start simple. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers will work. The rest are details.

If you think true love looks like Romeo and Juliet, you'll overlook a great relationship that grows slowly. If you think your life's purpose needs to hit you like a lightning bolt, you'll overlook the little day-to-day things that fascinate you. If you think revolution needs to feel like war, you'll overlook the importance of simply serving people better.

Once you've got a hit, suddenly all the locked doors open wide. People love the hit so much that it seems to promote itself. Instead of trying to create demand, you're managing the huge demand.

Don't waste years fighting uphill battles against locked doors. Improve or invent until you get that huge response.

If you're not saying, "Hell yeah!" about something, say no. When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than "Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!" then say no.

No business plan survives first contact with customers. — Steve Blank

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision—even decision about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone—according to what's best for your customers. If you're ever unsure what to prioritize, just ask your customers the open-ended question, "How can I best help you now?" Then focus on satisfying those requests.

Starting small put 100% of your energy into actually solving real problems for real people. It gives you a stronger foundation to grow from. It eliminates the friction of big infrastructure and gets right to the point. And it will let you plan in an instant, as you're working closely with those first customers telling you what they really need.

The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea take great execution to be worth $200,000,000.

It's a big world. You can loudly leave out 99% of it. Have the confidence to know that when you target 1% hears you excluding the other 99%, the people in that 1% will come to you because you've shown how much you value them.

You'd have to do things in new way to handle twice as much business. Process would have to be streamlined. Never be the typical tragic small business that gets frazzled and freaked out when business is doing well.

In the end, it's about what you want to be, not what you want to have. To have something (a finished recording, a business, or millions of dollars) is the means, not the end. To be something (a good singer, a skilled entrepreneur, or just plain happy) is the real point.

On delegation:

1. Gather everybody around.
2. Answer the question and explain the philosophy.
3. Make sure everyone understands the thought process.
4. Ask one person to write it in the manual.
5. Let everybody know they can decide this without me next time.

Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles. To be a true business owner, make it so that you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left.

Never forget that you can make your role anything you want it to be. Anything you hate to do, someone else loves. So find that person and let her do it.

Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were at a party at a billionaire's extravagant estate. Kurt said, "Wow! Look at this place! This guy has everything!" Joseph said, "Yes, but I have something he'll never have... Enough."