Derek Sivers Quotes Page 3

“No business plan survives first contact with customers.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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