Derek Sivers quotes

Derek Sivers is an entrepreneur, author, and musician known for founding CD Baby, a popular online music store for independent artists. With a strong passion for helping creatives succeed, Derek has also written several books, including "Anything You Want" and "Hell Yeah or No." His insightful TED Talks and blog posts continue to inspire and motivate aspiring entrepreneurs worldwide. Explore Derek Sivers' wealth of knowledge and experience in entrepreneurship, leadership, and personal development. Discover valuable insights and practical tips to help you achieve your goals and make a positive impact in the world.

Your business plan is moot. You don't know what people really want until you start doing it.

- Derek Sivers

You need to know your personal philosophy of what makes you happy and what's worth doing.

- Derek Sivers

You can't please everyone, so proudly exclude people.

- Derek Sivers

When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.

- Derek Sivers

When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world.

- Derek Sivers

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.

- Derek Sivers

When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!—then say no. When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say HELL YEAH! Every event you get invited to. Every request to start a new project. If you're not saying HELL YEAH! about it, say no.

- Derek Sivers

We're all busy. Saying yes to less is the way out.

- Derek Sivers

Trust, but verify. Remember it when delegating. You have to do both.

- Derek Sivers

There's a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner. 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 sure you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left.

- Derek Sivers

The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy.

- Derek Sivers

Starting with no money is an advantage. You don't need money to start helping people.

- Derek Sivers

Rrevolution is a term that people use only when you're successful. Before that, you're just a quirky person who does things differently.

- Derek Sivers

None of your customers will ask you to turn your attention to expanding. They want you to keep your attention focused on them. It's counterintuitive, but the way to grow your business is to focus entirely on your existing customers. Just thrill them, and they'll tell everyone.

- Derek Sivers

No business plan survives first contact with customers.

- Derek Sivers

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision—even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone—according to what's best for your customers.

- Derek Sivers

Never do anything just for the money.

- Derek Sivers

We all have lots of ideas, creations, and projects. When you present one to the world, and it's not a hit, don't keep pushing it as-is. Instead, get back to improving and inventing. 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 anything less, don't pursue it.

- Derek Sivers

If you want to be useful, you can always start now, with only 1 percent of what you have in your grand vision. It'll be a humble prototype version of your grand vision, but you'll be in the game. You'll be ahead of the rest, because you actually started, while others are waiting for the finish line to magically appear at the starting line.

- Derek Sivers

The world changes. Some people don’t.

- Derek Sivers

The standard pace is for chumps. The system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you’re more driven than ‘just anyone’ , you can do so much more than anyone expects. And this applies to all of life, not just school.

- Derek Sivers

The first follower is actually an underestimated form of leadership in itself. The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader.

- Derek Sivers

Success is your top priority. Never let anything stop you.

- Derek Sivers

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

- Derek Sivers

Question the norms.

- Derek Sivers

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 anything less, don't pursue it.

- Derek Sivers

No matter which goal you choose, there will be lots of people telling you you're wrong. Just pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. Pay close attention to when you're being the real you and when you're trying to impress an invisible jury.

- Derek Sivers

Most people over-estimate what they can do in one year, and under-estimate what they can do in ten years.

- Derek Sivers

Money is nothing more than a neutral exchange of value. If people give you money, it’s proof that you’re giving them something valuable in return.

- Derek Sivers

Make plans, but feel free to ignore them.

- Derek Sivers