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4min chapter
#125: Derek Sivers on Developing Confidence, Finding Happiness, and Saying "No" to Millions
The Tim Ferriss Show
How Did Seedy Baby Come About?
karl sagan: There's so much more to o business than just the money. i started seedy baby, like the end of 97, beginning of 98. It took me six days to build the site and get it up in running. I was profitable in the second month of business, when i sold over a 400 dollars of sides. They said, you know, we want to invest in your company s well, why? they said, so you could grow it faster. And i said, no, i'm not interested. I don't want to sell. So that lasted for ten years.
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Speaker 2
And comparable might be zappos, for instance, in theirat service. And what was the anecdote that got spread around? The anecdote was you could call up zappos for anything, even if it was unrelated to the product. You could call them up and say, yes, i'm looking at the website, but i'd actually really like a piza delivered to my house. And they would figure out how to do it. And on the serious analytical side, you say, oh, my god, that's such a waste of human and capital resources. And can you imagine if everybody called to order pita, which, of course, does a fal is never going to happen, ever. And a they got, i mean, probably millions of dollars of free publicity just by making that, ok? And how long did that take? What? Not long at all. A es,
Speaker 1
you know what t meant. It's, it's, i don't mean to sell my new a to whatever, but it's the right to do for the world, right? It's like, just put aside the numbers for a bit. It's the right thing to do. It's cool it makes people happier. It makes the people working there happier, which makes them more into the whole feeling of what they're doing. There's so much more to o business than just the money.
Speaker 2
Tell me about, i remember reading about this, but i think we might have talked about it at one point, which was when people would call seedy baby trying to offer you financing. How did those go?
Speaker 1
Well, you so remember i started seedy baby, like the end of 97, beginning of 98. So it was the first dot com boom, and so much money was flying around, and everybody was trying to push money at everyone who had a dot com on their domain name or had anything going on. So of course, me with an actual, like, profitable, running business, that was really the only game in town. By the way, like back when i started it, if you were a musician that wanted to sell your music on line, there was a guy named derrick in new york that could do it for you, and that was it. There were no other businesses that do it. Some showed up, like, a year or two later, but at first i had no competition at all. I was it. So yet tons of money was a shoved direction. And i entertained the first few calls, and they said, you know, we want to invest in your company s well, why? They said, so you could grow it faster. I said, but i don't want to grow it faster. They said, well, you know, don't you want to scale or get your get more resources? I said, no, i have all the resources i need. I'm good. I was profitable, you know, since the first month in business, because my up costs were a 495 dollars, is what it cost me to start the business and get it running. It took me six days to build the site and get it up in running, and it was profitable in the second month of business, when i sold over a 400 dollars of sides. That second month in business, i was profitable ever since. And i just didn't need the money. And so yet, people kept offering, and they would wave these big dreams in my face, thinking it was going to distract or entice me, but it just didn't. And i remember, oh, i doubt you remember a m p three dot com was a big deal. And like, 19 99 through a two thousand two or so, they were like the big daddy of independent streaming music on line and downlods. And so they had all i think yet they had an ipo, they were public, and m p three dot com was interested in buying sed baby. And they asked what my price would be. And i said, just not interested in selling and they said, come on. Everybody's got their price. And i said, no, i'm not interested. I'm having fun. They said, come on, even billions of dollars and i said, wha are you karl sagan? No, i don't want to sell.
Speaker 2
There's just nothing
Speaker 1
in it for me. I'm enjoying what i'm doing. I don't ned the money. So after that point, like, after the first year or two, i just taught my customer service people, like, if you get any calls from investors or, i m whatever, v c firms, or any that, please just tell them, no, like, don't even send them my way. I'm just, we're just not interested. So that lasted for ten years.
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