Quotes About Entrepreneurship

The saying was that Madam Walker made the money, and her daughter - my great-grandmother - spent it.

I hope that people will be inspired by Madam Walker's story. I hope that they will see her as a complex human being, and that they will want to dig more deeply, that they will want to know the details of her life.

Madame Walker selected Indianapolis as the headquarters for her growing business more than a century ago in 1910 because of its central location and thriving black business community.

A lot of people think Oprah is channeling for Madam Walker, and there are lots of parallels.

Madam C.J. Walker was the first person to devise and scale a business model that addressed the hair care and beauty needs of women of color while also challenging the myopic ideals of the beauty industry at that time.

I like to compare the attitude and energy of an emerging start-up to that of the early hip-hop era. From working at labels like Bad Boy and Ruff Ryders, walking into the Def Jam offices, A Touch of Jazz and things like that, the vibe is that off making something out of nothing and making things work, and that's what I love about start-ups.

Here in Silicon Valley, I have taken part in hundreds of conversations trying to convince people to dive in and become entrepreneurs. All too often, innovators with good, safe, jobs are unwilling to put their family's access to health care at risk by walking away from company-backed medical insurance.

I don't like sitting still at a desk and often conduct business on my Blackberry or in walking meetings.

People from all walks of life and all over the world look at me and know my humble beginnings and know that everything I've done has been through hard work. People respect me as a marketer and brand builder.

A founder plays a magical role at the company: they invented or, as in my case, co-invented it. If and when a founder walks out the door, there is something spiritual that walks out the door, too.

One of the great things about moving to Silicon Valley is that you're surrounded by all these people who've done it before. This place is an assembly line that takes a couple of twenty-somethings and walks you through everything you need to learn.

I want to have an empire. I like being in front of the camera, performing - but I would like to get to a place where I'm also executive producing and bringing other people along. People of all different walks of life, highlighting their voices.

Atlanta is home to so much Black entrepreneurship - there's no better place to grow up as a Black creative with a dream.

The only way to make podcasting a real big business would be if you could somehow get the top seven podcasters to team up and make a mega-network.

Working for a big company is, I believe, much risker than it looks.

I'm a big fan of what Salesforce has achieved.

Before I got my big hit, I was selling beats for $500.

I think the big thing about Groupon is just people had never seen anything grow quite so fast.

I think if you're an entrepreneur, you've got to dream big and then dream bigger.

I'm not going to launch a bikini business and then give up bikinis, am I?

We like companies that can get big and powerful on $50 million or less and not two, three, four or five billion.

If you're the water boiler king of China, you're selling a billion water boilers.

The way to build billion dollar companies is to first build something people love. There isn't really a shortcut there.

We need young Frenchmen who want to become billionaires.