Starting Small: An Interview with the Founder of CDBaby

CDBaby started in 1998 when an unknown musician taught himself how to code. Derek Sivers wanted to sell his own CDs online so he built CDBaby using a tiny amount of HTML knowledge and a PHP book. When someone placed an order he received an email and processed everything manually.

Seven years later CDBaby has a staff of 40, is home to 100,000 independent musicians with total sales of over 1.7 million CDs, and Derek is still the only programmer.

This interview by microISV is a neat look at the technical side of his experience.

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About Me: My name is Rob Walling and I'm a software developer living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. I write about hiring, managing, and motivating software developers, in addition to random outbursts on improving development skills and software startups.

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