Customer service is the new marketing.

You're free to do anything you want with your company. It's more like art. You don't have to follow any norms. It's an expression of how you feel the world should be. When you make a company, that's your little place to make your own little utopia.

If anybody ever called our number, it would be picked up in less than 2 rings with a friendly voice answering, CD Baby. From 7 am to 10 pm, there was always somebody to pick up a call in 2 rings. No voice mail system; no routing to different departments. We treated our customers like our best friends. You don't route your best friend's call to an automated system!

The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task at hand covers both bases, but not often.

Five years after I started CD Baby, when it was a big success, the media said I had revolutionized the music business. But 'revolution' is a term that people use only when you're successful. Before that, you're just a quirky person who does things differently.

I realized why I need to start a new company. Not for the money. Not because I'm 'bored'. But because a company is a laboratory to try your ideas.

How you do anything is how you do everything. Your "character" or "nature" just refers to how you handle all the day-to-day things in life, no matter how small.