Quotes About Entrepreneurship

We opened one, store number 8 in Morrilton, Arkansas, that was really a sight. We rented this old Coca-Cola bottling plant. It was all broken up into five rooms, and we bought some old fixtures from a failing Gibson's store for $3,000. We hung them by baling wire from the ceiling. We had clothes hanging in layers on conduit pipe all the way to the ceiling, and shelves wired into the walls. But this was really a small, small town, so number 8 was another experiment. We

Now, Charlie, here's what you do: on this feature bin you put three for $1.00 panties, and on this one you put four for $1.00. And you put these nylons right in between the two of them. And then watch em sell.' And they did. Like crazy.

We've got our first ad from the July 29, 1950, Benton County Democrat on display today down at our Wal-Mart Visitors Center. It's for the Grand Remodeling Sale of Walton's Five and Dime, promising a whole bunch of good stuff: free balloons for the kids, a dozen clothespins for nine cents, iced tea glasses for ten cents apiece. The folks turned out, and they kept coming. Although we called it Walton's Five and Dime, it was a Ben Franklin franchise

It's true that I was forty-four when we opened our first Wal-Mart in 1962, but the store was totally an outgrowth of everything we'd been doing since Newport—another case of me being unable to leave well enough alone, another experiment. And like most other overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making.

I'd get up early in the morning and milk the cows, Mother would prepare and bottle the milk, and I'd deliver it after football practice in the afternoons. We had ten or twelve customers, who paid ten cents a gallon. Best of all, Mother would skim the cream and make ice cream, and it's a wonder I wasn't known as Fat Sam Walton in those days from all the ice cream I ate.

Nobody wanted to gamble on that first Wal-Mart. I think Bud put in 3 percent, and Don Whitaker—whom I had hired to manage the store from a TG&Y store out in Abilene, Texas—put in 2 percent, and I had to put up 95 percent of the dollars. Helen had to sign all the notes along with me, and her statement allowed us to borrow more than I could have alone. We pledged houses and property, everything we had. But in those days we were always borrowed to the hilt.

Hello, friends, I'm Sam Walton, founder and chairman of Wal-Mart Stores. By now I hope you've shopped in one of our stores, or maybe bought some stock in our company.

And this is a very important point: without the computer, Sam Walton could not have done what he's done.

You start with a given: free enterprise is the engine of our society; communism is pretty much down the drain and proven so; and there doesn't appear to be anything else that can compare to a free society based on a market economy

I was impressed with the giant Carrefours stores in Brazil, which got me started on a campaign to bring home a concept called Hypermart—giant stores with groceries and general merchandise under one roof.

could a Wal-Mart-type story still occur in this day and age? My answer is of course it could happen again. Somewhere out there right now there's someone—probably hundreds of thousands of someones—with good enough ideas to go all the way.

Sam wouldn't let us hedge on a price at all. Say the list price was $1.98, but we had only paid 50 cents. Initially, I would say, 'Well, it's originally $1.98, so why don't we sell it for $1.25?' And he'd say, 'No. We paid 50 cents for it. Mark it up 30 percent, and that's it. No matter what you pay for it, if we get a great deal, pass it on to the customer.' And of course that's what we did." It

I believe that network marketing is one of the smartest business models on the planet!

you should never make a loan to someone who is following his passion.

When I was a commercial loan officer for a large bank in San Francisco, my boss taught us that you should never make a loan to someone who is following his passion. For example, you don't want to give money to a sports enthusiast who is starting a sports store to pursue his passion for all things sporty. That guy is a bad bet, passion and all. He's in business for the wrong reason. My

Good ideas have no value because the world already has too many of them. The market rewards execution, not ideas.

There is a lot of interest in the arts, music, theatre, filmmaking, engineering, architecture and software design. I think we have now transitioned the modern-day version of the entrepreneur into the creative economy.

I started out mopping floors, waiting tables, and tending bar at my dad's tavern. I put myself through school working odd jobs and night shifts. I poured my heart and soul into a small business. And when I saw how out-of-touch Washington had become with the core values of this great nation, I put my name forward and ran for office.

My dad and my uncles owned a bar outside of Cincinnati. I worked there growing up, mopping floors, waiting tables.

I have ways of making money that you know nothing of.

That's the American Dream: to make your life into something you can sell.

No longer is someone coming to hire you, to invest in your company, to sign you, to pick you. It's on you to make the most important decision in your life: Choose Yourself!

Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems.

Entrepreneurship is a life idea, not a strictly business one; a global idea, not a strictly American one.