Quotes About Entrepreneurship

If I have to be compared to somebody, it is to Martha Stewart.

Ultimately, our competitive advantage is that we're the most creator-first company on the planet.

People assume that all artists make for terrible business people, but I'm in complete charge of my own career.

Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism.

I just want to make things that people want to buy. I have no confusion about this.

Without a story, people aren't going to connect to what you're telling, what you have a pain point about. It's so important for them to know why you've created the company, without that connection to the broader vision that you have - why are you going to do it? What are you going to accomplish?

I've learned, like with anything else, business is only as good as your connections and your resources. And some of the resources that I have are the fact that I work with huge artists.

Regarding managing people, I am lucky to be surrounded by good, smart friends, some of whom own their own companies or have worked in ones and can lend experience.

For myself, I never thought that I'd ever be able to even buy a house. Sometimes when you don't have it, and you're not surrounded my entrepreneurs, you don't think about it.

When we started NFL Films, there were no focus groups, there were no demographic studies, there were no surveys. Every decision that we made, we made with our hearts, not with our heads. And, in the very beginning, we really didn't even have a business plan.

Entrepreneurship is like a computer game in which you have to master every level before achieving success. Startups repeatedly stumble and have to go back to the drawing board. The best way to skip some levels and to increase the odds of survival is to learn from others who have already played the game.

I always read about these stories of entrepreneurs - it's like they're in the desert with no water, and they're the ones that survive. But I've been really fortunate to have people on my team who are optimistic about the future and who know that if you work through hard times that there's usually something good at the end.

You know what kind of companies generally survive? Companies that make more money than they spend. I know, duh, right?

Designing is so easy - it's the business that is hard. That's why you really have to respect Ralph Lauren - look at what he's done. Anybody who can sustain themselves should be applauded.

It's extremely hard to build a company with a product that everyone loves, is free and has no business model, and then to innovate a business model. I did that with Kazaa, had half a billion downloads but that wasn't a sustainable business.

A social entrepreneur finds market-based solutions for change. Because without a market-based solution, without a sustainable solution, you go nowhere.

I believe that at some point we should come up with a business model that would make us sustainable.

When everybody starts a company, they are so energized and passionate about it. And what happens is that a lot of times maybe that's not sustainable.

Vince McMahon is one of my all time idols in terms of building a brand and sustaining a great company.

Being a social entrepreneur is a balancing act between growing and sustaining a business while also growing the company's ability to give back.

Vinod Khosla is best known for shunning convention and taking massive risks on companies he calls 'black swans' -companies with a near-complete chance of failure. But, if they succeed, the world will be forever changed.

I discovered at age 13 that if a spoon had 'Sterling' on the back, it was worth money. I'd run around a swap meet and find 20 in a day, make 75 to 100 bucks by finding silver spoons.

I swear to God, if my kids, when they're 18, if they come to me and say, 'Dad, I love pumping gas. I love getting up in the morning, I love grabbing the handle, I love the smell of the gas station,' I'd say, 'Go for it,' because if you love it that much at 18, he's probably going to end up owning 25 gas stations by the time he's 30.

Unless you have fixed costs, you don't need any capital to create a prototype. Ideally, your co-founders, with sweat equity, can create the product themselves.