1546: Big Catalog Equals Infinite Specialty Shops AND Business is Creative by Derek Sivers on Intentional Thinking

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily. Big Catalog Equals Infinite Specialty Shops by Derek Sivers of Sivers, S-I-V-E dot R-S.

[00:00:11] Here's an idea I built but never launched at CD Baby. Maybe you can take it and use it somehow.

[00:00:17] How do you call attention to over 200,000 musicians so that each has a chance of being noticed by someone who might like them?

[00:00:24] They're categorized into 850 different musical genres and the artists are from 300 different countries and states.

[00:00:31] You break it down into categories, right?

[00:00:33] But then people still have to start at a big generic front door listing every possible genre or location. Not exciting.

[00:00:40] If you're a huge fan of Brazilian funk music, wouldn't you be more excited to find a shop that's specialized in Brazilian funk?

[00:00:47] If you only love gospel, wouldn't you feel better browsing a site that only carries gospel from around the world?

[00:00:52] If you live in Italy, wouldn't it be cool to explore a music store of independent musicians from Italy?

[00:00:58] Finding a great kindred specialist in your niche is way more exciting than finding another generalist.

[00:01:03] So what if you could break down this big catalog of 200,000 musicians into 1,000 little specialty shops?

[00:01:10] It's difficult and expensive in the physical world, but easy and cheap in the digital world.

[00:01:15] It's cheap and easy to register 1,000 domain names like brazilianfunk.com, worldwidegospel.com, and italianindies.com.

[00:01:24] Point them all at the same storefront, which then limits the catalog to artists in that genre and location.

[00:01:30] Each has a unique CSS style, so they look visually different too.

[00:01:34] From the customer's point of view, it's much easier to discover new music in a specialty shop like this.

[00:01:39] All new arrivals and editor's picks and top seller's charts only show albums in that niche.

[00:01:45] From a marketing point of view, it opens up all kinds of avenues to reach niche music organizations like Folk Alliance or the Japanese Music Exporters League or whatever.

[00:01:55] In fact, it'd be easy to make a specialty shop for each of them featuring only their members.

[00:01:59] Now imagine you're a jazz musician in Sweden and you come across a store called SwedishJazz.com.

[00:02:05] It's filled with 100 jazz musicians from Sweden, but your album is not there.

[00:02:10] You'd have to get on it.

[00:02:11] Whereas you wouldn't have been so inspired to get your album selling in a big generic store,

[00:02:16] you do go to the trouble to sell your music through this niche store,

[00:02:19] which of course adds your music into the main central database that powers them all,

[00:02:23] including the original big store that carries everything for those that are not niche shoppers.

[00:02:28] If you get inspired by this or make something like this, please let me know.

[00:02:37] Business is Creative by Derek Sivers of Sivers, S-I-V-E dot R-S.

[00:02:44] A famous record label executive was confronted by a musician who said,

[00:02:48] You don't value creativity.

[00:02:50] The executive said, Oh, please, I've got accountants more creative than you.

[00:02:54] It's meant as an insult, but it has a point.

[00:02:56] Don't think of music as creative, but business as not.

[00:03:00] Business is definitely just as creative as music.

[00:03:03] Most musicians are wildly creative when writing, playing, performing, and recording.

[00:03:08] But as soon as it's time to do business, they stiffen up and lose their confidence.

[00:03:12] They follow advice that tells them exactly how to promote.

[00:03:15] But turning off your creativity, trying to play it safe, is the worst thing you could do.

[00:03:20] Just like with music.

[00:03:21] So loosen up.

[00:03:23] Get confident, creative, playful, and experimental.

[00:03:27] Break the rules.

[00:03:28] Try some things that nobody else has done.

[00:03:30] Think of how comfortable you are on your instrument, improvising, experimenting, and having fun with it.

[00:03:35] Now, be that comfortable when marketing.

[00:03:38] Improvise, experiment, and have fun with it.

[00:03:45] You just listened to the posts titled, Big Catalog equals Infinite Specialty Shops, and Business is Creative, both by Derek Sivers of Sivers.

[00:03:55] That's S-I-V-E dot R-S.

[00:03:57] And thank you to Derek for letting us share his work.

[00:04:00] He is a musician and programmer who created the popular website, CD Baby, where independent musicians can sell their CDs online,

[00:04:08] and even have their music submitted online to Apple Music, Spotify, and more.

[00:04:13] Around ten years later, owning the entire company, he sold it to Disc Makers for $22 million, putting most of that money away into an organization he created called the Independent Musician's Charitable Trust, which will fund music education after he passes away.

[00:04:28] Derek's a super unique guy.

[00:04:30] He's a TEDx speaker and popular writer with some great books like Anything You Want.

[00:04:35] Definitely worth checking out, so come by his site, which is just his last name with a dot in it.

[00:04:40] That's Sivers, spelled S-I-V-E dot R-S.

[00:04:45] But that should do it for today.

[00:04:46] I hope you've enjoyed the post from Derek and that you have a great rest of your day.

[00:04:50] And I'll be back here tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.

[00:04:53] Let's see.