Categories: Articles

Talking About Anything And Everything With CD Baby Founder Derek Sivers

Episode #263 of Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

How far would you go to get something done? Derek Sivers was an independent artist trying to sell his CDs online back in 1998. None of the big online retailers of music would sell his music. He wasn’t on a major label and he wasn’t a "known" entity. Instead of sulking about it, Sivers went out, bought a book on Web programming, turned to page one and started to figure out – on his own – how to build a website and integrate it with a merchant account. This led to creation of CD Baby – which quickly grew to become the largest seller of independent music and artists in the world. In 2008, Sivers sold CD Baby for $22 million. Most recently, he released his first business book, Anything You Want, on Seth Godin‘s The Domino Project book publishing imprint. It’s an amazing and candid look at what it takes to create a great company (and it’s a powerful story for all Marketers to hear). This past week, I published the Blog post, Anything You Want, and some of the quote were culled from this chat with Sivers. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast #263.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.