1629: Start Now. No Funding Needed. AND Delegate, but Don't Abdicate by Derek Sivers

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[00:00:27] This is Optimal Work Daily. Start Now. No Funding Needed. By Derek Sivers of Sivers, S-I-V-E dot R-S. Watch out when anyone, including you, says they want to do something big but they can't until they raise money. It usually means they're more in love with the idea of being big, big, big than with actually doing something useful.

[00:00:50] For an idea to get big, big, big, big, it has to be useful. And being useful doesn't need funding. If you want to be useful, you can always start now with only 1% 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. For example, let's say you have a vision of making an international chain of enlightened modern schools.

[00:01:19] You picture it as a huge, world-changing organization with hundreds of employees, dozens of offices, and expensive technology. But instead of waiting for that, you start by teaching somebody something this week. Find someone who will pay to learn something, meet him anywhere, and begin. It will be nothing but you, a student, and a notebook, but you'll be in business, and you can grow it from there. If you want to make a movie recommendation service, start by telling friends to call you for movie recommendations.

[00:01:47] When you find a movie your friends like, they buy you a drink. Keep track of what you recommended and how your friends liked it, and improve from there. Want to start a new airline? Next time you're at the airport when a flight is canceled, offer to everyone at the gate that you'll lease a small plane to fly to their destination if they will split the costs. This is how Richard Branson started Virgin Airlines. Starting small puts 100% of your energy on actually solving real problems for real people. It gives you a stronger foundation to grow from.

[00:02:16] It eliminates the friction of big infrastructure and gets right to the point. And it will let you change your plan in an instant as you're working closely with those first customers telling you what they really need. Since I had already built a website for my own CD, the first version of CDbaby.com took me only a few days to make, and it did almost nothing. It was a list of a few CDs, each with a buy now button. Clicking that would put the CD in your cart and ask for your info. When you entered your info, the site would email it to me. And that's it.

[00:02:46] For the first year, that's all the site did, and that's all it needed to become profitable. I spent only $500 to start CDbaby. The first month, I earned back $300, but the second month, I made $700, and it's been profitable every month since. So no, your idea doesn't need funding to start. You also don't need an MBA, a particular big client, a certain person's endorsement, a lucky break, or any other common excuse not to start.

[00:03:17] Delegate, but don't abdicate by Derek Sivers of Sivers, S-I-V-E dot R-S. Delegation doesn't come naturally to any of us, but I was trying really hard to be good at it. I knew how important it was to get into the delegation mindset. I was trying to empower my employees to let them know how they could make decisions on their own without me. When they asked, how should we organize all the rooms in the new office? I said, any way you want to do it is fine.

[00:03:44] When they asked, which healthcare plan should we go with? I said, you guys choose. Take a vote. Whichever one you choose, I'll pay for. When they asked, which profit-sharing plan should we go with? I said, you guys choose. Whatever you think is best. A local magazine voted CD Baby best place to work in the state of Oregon. Six months later, my accountant called me and said, did you know that your employees set up a profit-sharing program? I said, yeah, why? He said, did you know that they're giving all of the profits of the company back to themselves?

[00:04:15] Oops. When I canceled the profit-sharing program, I became a very unpopular guy. In our weekly company meetings, the general message from the employees was, we need to get Derek out of here so he stops telling us what to do. We don't need to answer to him. He needs to answer to us. Then I realized that there is such a thing as over-delegation. I had empowered my employees so much that I gave them all the power. After a complete communication breakdown, it was 85 people, my employees, against one, me.

[00:04:43] I became the scapegoat for all of their dissatisfactions. I thought of trying to repair relationships with each of the 85 employees over hundreds of hours of talking. But if you've ever had a romance breakup, you know that sometimes it's beyond repair. So I considered firing everyone and hiring a whole new crew. I also considered shutting down the company entirely since I wasn't enjoying this anymore. I even considered a Willy Wonka move where I'd put five golden tickets into five CDs and then give the whole company to some lucky finder.

[00:05:12] In the end, I did what was best for my clients and me. I retreated into solitude, staying at a friend's house in London, and focused entirely on programming some major new software features for CD Baby. I never saw or spoke to my employees again. Never saw the office again. I learned an important word, abdicate. To abdicate means to surrender or relinquish power or responsibility. This word is usually used when a king abdicates the throne or crown. Lesson learned too late.

[00:05:42] Delegate, but don't abdicate. You just listened to the posts titled Start Now, No Funding Needed, and Delegate, But Don't Abdicate, both by Derek Sivers of Sivers, S-I-V-E dot R-S. And thank you so much to Derek for those two posts today. And I'm going to keep the ending short for you, so I'll just say hope you have a great day, and thanks so much for subscribing,

[00:06:09] and I'll see you back here again tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.