21 inspiring ideas from Derek Sivers

(Editor’s note: Dharmesh Shah is a serial software entrepreneur and the founder and CTO of HubSpot, which provides marketing software for small businesses. This column originally appeared on his blog.)

I first met Derek Sivers (who most people know best as the founder of CD Baby) at the Business of Software conference, but I’d heard about him long before that.

In a world full of entrepreneurs who have done any number of incredible things, Derek has two accomplishments to his credit that are remarkable: He created a successful business, from scratch – then gave the business away to charity when he was done.

Derek recently spoke at the Business of Software conference.  If you’ve got the time, you should go watch his presentation.  It’s inspiring. Even if you don’t, you definitely should pick up his book.

Derek is the author of the simple, highly readable “Anything You Want”. It’s short, to the point and inspiring. Also, the book is published through “The Domino Project” by Seth Godin. Here are some of the most stirring ideas from that book to get you motivated:

1. Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.

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

3. Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working.

4. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers will work. The rest are details.

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

6. When you’re on to something great, it won’t feel like revolution. It’ll feel like uncommon sense.

7. If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say “no”.

8. Start now. No funding needed.

9. After we grew to 50 employees, people started pitching me on how I needed an official employee review plan, sensitivity training, Terms and Conditions postings, and all this corporate crap. I got such joy out saying no to all of it.

10. In a perfect world, would your website be covered with advertising?

11. Resist the urge to punish everyone for one person’s mistake.

12. If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff.

13. Don’t try to impress an invisible jury of MBA professors. It’s OK to be casual.

14. No matter what business you’re in, it’s good to prepare for what would happen if business doubled.

15. In the end, it’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have.

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

17. There’s a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner.

18. Never forget that you can make your role anything you want it to be.

19. Anything you hate to do, someone else loves it. Find that person and let them do it.

20. Why he gave his company away to charity: I get the pride of knowing I did something irreversibly smart before I could change my mind. Most of all, I get the constant, priceless reminder that I have enough.

21. Whatever you make, it’s your creation, so make it your personal dream come true.

So, what do you think? Are you working towards being happy?  What’s your favorite idea from the list?  Let us know in the comments below.