Quotes About Startups

Was I going to start companies outside of Shutterstock or inside? Going public kind of meant I was going to start them inside, and I kind of thought this through and decided that if I was going to do that, I was going to continue to operate Shutterstock like it was an incubator of startups.

I think extreme secrecy is a bad sign in all startups. Very few startups die because they tell you exactly how their technology works. On the long list of startup killers, that's pretty far down. Though on the list of entrepreneur fears, it's pretty high.

I have met with hundreds of young fashion designers, hundreds of fashion startups, hundreds of CEOs and business leaders. All I do is get to ask questions of professionals in the industry. I learn from every conversation. It is the best education I could have.

I was always really interested in startups and fascinated by what they were working on.

We want to nurture startups on our platform, just like we did in the old world.

If I had a do over, I'd indubitably start investing in startups earlier in life!

Since most startups operate at a break-neck pace, with a concept to prove or a product to launch within a rapidly shortening runway of financing, company culture often gets shoved aside. This is a big, big mistake: Nobody serious about their business should put culture in the corner.

I've been all over the world meeting with companies and startups and entrepreneurs. And I tell you, they are more similar than different.

I worry about whether SBA programs are still doing what they are meant to do - support lenders who fund good business startups and good expansion plans.

Not all startups are alike. One of the key ways they differ is in the relationship between a startup's new product and its market.

Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money. Therefore startups trade off certainty for speed, adopting 'good enough decision making' and iterating and pivoting as they fail, learn, and discover their business model.

Most of the largest software companies in the world today are based on Oracle, and they were once startups.

Collaborating with startups and other technology companies can be very beneficial because it broadens the scope of services we offer to clients while allowing us to serve clients together.

Quality and a great product matters, in startups, and in accelerators.

Cultivating a global incubator network would help people from all backgrounds bring creative ideas to market and launch startups that generate more jobs - and would also align to the growing interest among youth for entrepreneurship.

I have seen a lot of now-great companies at their earliest stages, and these early-stage startups are not built by the senior people who know how to run and scale big-company machines.

There is a glass ceiling for the Indian startups. If I want to meet the PM, it won't be as easy as a foreign guy coming to India. I understand that dynamic, and we need to make sure government sees us as major contributors to society, which is not full there.

Cool innovation might happen in startups, but they often lack the resources or the deep expertise in the problems they want to address.

It's a common case with high-growth startups where the co-founding team breaks up - generally, it's hard to get the team to persist. It's easy to stick with it when you have known the person for decades either as a friend or family.

Slow investing can have the same impact on startups that slow food has had on cuisine: good things come to those who wait.

In the commercial world, big companies mostly die within a few decades because they cannot maintain an internal system to keep them aligned to reality plus startups pop up.

For most people, startups are a risky endeavor and something to be avoided. Many are hesitant to quit their secure jobs and try to start a company from scratch.

Startups can be the most conservative organizations in the world. We spend so much energy nurturing our delicate egos against naysayers and self-doubt that we can hardly admit mistakes. This is especially true of first-time CEOs.

Startups alternate between nostalgia for the garage and millennial longing for a lucrative exit. But what I always keep in mind is how disconnected and purposeless I felt before Redfin or my earlier startup, Plumtree. All I ever wanted was to get into a situation where I could win. Everybody has that dream.