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The Outsider

October 14, 2015 |  

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Derek Sivers sold CD Baby for $22 million dollars and decided to do something interesting with the money.

As an independent musician, Derek Sivers was blocked from selling his music through mainstream distribution channels, so he decided to start a company that would give his band, and other artists like him, a way to sell their music online.

The business grew as Sivers entered into distribution deals with iTunes and Amazon.

Ten years later, Sivers sold CD Baby for a cool $22 million dollars – and you’ll never believe what he did with the money.

Our guest

Originally a professional musician and circus clown, Derek Sivers created CD Baby in 1998. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians. In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby for $22M and gave the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. He is a frequent speaker at the TED Conference, with over 5 million views of his talks. Since 2011, he has published 34 books, including Anything You Want, which shot to #1 on all of its Amazon categories.

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