Anything You Want

You don't need a plan or a vision

Do you have a big visionary master plan for how the world wil work in twenty

years? Do you have massive ambitions to revolutionize your industry?

Don't feel bad if you don't. I never did.

A  year  and  a  half  after  starting  CD  Baby,  it  was  just  me  and  John,  my  first

employee, running it out of my house.

One night, I decided I should think more about the long-term future of this thing.

I sat with my diary for a few hours of introspection. Afterwards, I wrote John an

email that went like this:

“I think there's a chance that this thing might be huge one day, so we better start

preparing for that now. I mean some day, we might have ONE

THOUSAND artists on CD Baby. We might need a third employee! That would

mean we'd need three computers here in the office, which would mean we'd need

to figure out how to network them together. We might even need to start moving

CDs into the garage, since eventual y they might fil up the living room. Yes, I

know it sounds grandiose, but I think things are headed that way.”

Years  later,  after  I  had  a  hundred  thousand  artists  and  eighty-five  employees,

John would often get a good laugh out of this letter I sent him in 1999.

Journalists would ask, “What's your long-term goal for CD Baby?”

I'd say, “I don't have one. I surpassed my goals long ago. I'm just trying to help

musicians with whatever they need today.”

So please don't think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people

today.