Entrepreneur Quotations | Page 4

I learned I'm not a good executive. I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm creative. I have to go with my gut and do what I want to do.

The entrepreneurs that really make it are the ones that start with an idea but are ready to change it at a moment's notice.

For most of the 20th century, we didn't just enjoy economic success in Michigan, we defined it. Our innovators and entrepreneurs created the world's most productive companies, and our unions made sure that productivity led to broad middle class prosperity.

A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last.

Entrepreneurs must be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.

I want to be a serial entrepreneur: Incubate an idea, get it to a good state, and make that an enabler to get to the next state. It's every researcher's fantasy.

You know, being an entrepreneur is super hard work, and if you're not passionate about what you're doing, you're probably not going to succeed.

Failure is not about insecurity. It's about lack of execution.

My job involves a lot of different skills now - I'm as much entrepreneur and management consultant as anything else these days - but IA is still my favorite part of the work I do

Not everyone can be Gandhi, but each of us has the power to make sure our own lives count - and it's those millions of lives that will ultimately build a better world.

A little bit of good can turn into a whole lot of good when fueled by the commitment of a social entrepreneur.

You may be a redneck if . . . you think you are an entrepreneur because of the "Dirt for Sale" sign in the front yard.

The challenge is not just to build a company that can endure; but to build one that is worthy of enduring.

By going from the bottom-up again, we see where successes work, and you can also see where the status quo can be the biggest obstacle or roadblock to success. The kind of entrepreneurs in whom we need to invest are the kind who are willing to fight that status quo, bureaucracy, complacency, and corruption.

Entrepreneurs are the seekers of solutions, and that they will go into these places where both market and traditional aid has failed or traditional charity has failed.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a small business, or a Fortune 500 company, great marketing is all about telling your story in such a way that it compels people to buy what you are selling. That's a constant. What's always in flux, especially in this noisy, mobile world, is how, when, and where the story gets told, and even who gets to tell all of it.

A key part of helping startups is providing them with a G/SCORE that measures a company on the path to sustainability. We score companies from around the world and use Knoodle so they can easily sync video and presentations together for a more effective pitch. We send these pitches to judges all around the world and it's critical that we have a flexible tool that is easy to create, easy to deliver, and effective at letting audiences understand the entrepreneur and their innovation.

I believe in entrepreneurs. I believe in their ability to make positive change in the world.

As all entrepreneurs know, you live and die by your ability to prioritize. You must focus on the most important, mission-critical tasks each day and night, and then share, delegate, delay or skip the rest.

To stay vigorous, a company needs to provide a stimulating and challenging environment for all these types: the dreamer, the entrepreneur, the professional manager, and the leader. If it doesn't, it risks becoming yet another mediocre corporation.

What's the worst that could happen? Everyone turned me down; big deal.

Superior quality is a prerequisite to entering the game. By definition, an entrepreneur is undercapitalized relative to the status quo. Therefore, if you enter a product that is either at parity with the leaders, or not as good, you won't even get to the starting line.

My counsel to entrepreneurs is to 'own' a region, 'own' a market, 'own' a segment. Create something you can defend. Don't get hung up on the idea that you have to go national.

Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who's forging a bullet with your company's name on it. You've got one option now - to shoot first. You've got to out innovate the innovators.

Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes. Thus Intelligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) choices are not known, Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.

Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.

The problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur.

There now ensued a series of incidents which transported me to the opposite extremes of ecstasy and horror; incidents which I tremble to recall and dare not seek to interpret.

I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!

Remind yourself. Nobody built like you, you design yourself.

I want entrepreneurs to be engineers and scientists and designers; they don't necessarily have to be Internet entrepreneurs or retail entrepreneurs.

Marketing, when done well, is about story telling.

One of the big problems entrepreneurs run into is they get too comfortable,

I spend a lot of my downtime studying different businesses and learning from a lot of entrepreneurs when I'm not playing football. They can help me evaluate different ventures to see if they'll work. I was aggressive with my initial investments, trying to hit a homerun each time. But now, I'm stepping back and being more patient, giving them due diligence.

The world must become aware of the fantastic transformational power of social entrepreneurship and the Foundation will work as a catalyst in this effort.

Social media really grew up.

Where can we take no the product, but the idea?

The biggest mistake entrepreneurs can make is trying to do everything themselves. They usually blow up when they try. I did an inventory of every deal I've ever done and it turned out that every single deal I made money on was a partnership, and every colossal failure, where I lost millions, was something I tried to do by myself.

What are the most important qualities that make a successful entrepreneur? The ability to communicate. The ability to express your idea with certainty. That's how you become a leader-even if you are unsure, your ability to explain your vision and your direction is the attribute you need the most. ... Articulate your idea in 90 seconds or less....

An entrepreneur's life is always a continuous journey.

Once you know what you want and what is important for you to achieve, also define the values associated with it. What is important? That is something a lot of entrepreneurs pass by too quickly. For us, the things that were important were, No. 1, customer success. Nothing is more important to us than making sure every customer is successful in our service.

You have chosen the wrong path if it's not fun. And you are probably not taking enough risk if it's not hard and rocky sometimes.

But while my inner voice was clearly telling me I was at my core an entrepreneur, it's inconvenient to decide at twenty-three that you can't really work for other people.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, it's not a job, it's a lifestyle.

This one is for the boys in the polos Entrepreneur niggas & the moguls

It has to get ugly before it gets pretty!

I’m encouraging young people to become social business entrepreneurs and contribute to the world, rather than just making money. Making money is no fun. Contributing to and changing the world is a lot more fun.

All people are entrepreneurs, but many don't have the opportunity to find that out.

Entrepreneurs have two basic assets: their creativity and their relationships.

Having information that the other side doesn't have gives VCs an advantage... they take advantage of entrepreneurs who haven't been through this before... they were totally willing to take advantage of us.

Well you'd see a very dramatic change in the perspective of small businesses, entrepreneurs, middle-size businesses, and perhaps even some large multinationals. They'd say, you know what, America looks like a good place to invest again, a good place to take risk, a good place to hire again.

Equanimity is calamity's medicine.

The gladiator lays his plans after he enters the arena.

You can be totally committed to conservative principles - to individual liberty, a market economy, entrepreneurship and lower taxes - and still be a Green Conservative. You can believe that with the sound use of science and technology and the right incentives to encourage entrepreneurs, conservatism can provide a better solution for the health of our planet than can liberalism.

We tend to use a new technology to do an old task more efficiently. We pave the cow paths.

When people lose their jobs, they can either get another job or be entrepreneurs. In the music industry, a lot of people have attempted the latter by starting their own labels, but in the age of digital downloads, it's very difficult to succeed.

Fair Trade is a market-based, entrepreneurial response to business as usual: it helps third-word farmers developing direct market access as well as the organizational and management capacity to add value to their products and take them directly to the global market. Direct trade, a fair price, access to capital and local capacity-building, which are the core strategies of this model, have been successfully building farmers' incomes and self-reliance for more than 50 years.

To set us on the right course we need to create more opportunities for trade, particularly in developing countries, and we need to adjust global trade rules to better meet the needs of entrepreneurs in the 21st century,

We need to get rid of all remnants of bureaucracy and bureaucratic thinking, and start thinking like entrepreneurs again.

If you don't have jobs, it's hard to have other things like health and education.

People ask me all the time, 'How can I become a successful entrepreneur?' And I have to be honest: It's one of my least favorite questions, because if you're waiting for someone else's advice to become an entrepreneur, chances are you're not one.

Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.

Without question, the notion of the doctor as a legitimate fee-for-service entrepreneur, making his fortune from misfortunes of his patients, is old-fashioned, distasteful, and doomed.

The E Myth. Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business.

A true business opportunity is the on that an entrepreneur invents to grow him or herself. Not to work in, but to work on.

The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities.

Most entrepreneurs fail because they are working IN their business rather than ON their business.

Everywhere I go, I always look for creative entrepreneurs, whether it's artisans and craftsmen, small farmers and gardeners, or restaurateurs who use fresh, locally sourced ingredients. I admire the courage and self-reliance it takes to start your own business and make it succeed.

Free basic internet access should be like dialing 911 in the US or 100 in India.

My number one piece of advice is: you should learn how to program.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan understand that government does not create jobs. Entrepreneurs do.

We can tell that a good name is better than riches by those who prefer the riches.

A sadder but wiser man is a thousand times more agreeable to meet than the feller that never makes a mistake.

One of the commonest ailments of the present day is the premature formation of opinion.

Experience is a dear teacher but he delivers the goods.

Every startup should address a real and demonstrated need in the world. If you build a solution to a problem lots of people have, it's so easy to sell your product to the world.

Great products sell themselves.

Focusing on one thing and doing it really, really well can get you very far.

At SGI board meetings... Jim Clark's face would get red and he'd start shouting that an investor and board member had cheated him and his engineers.

Central planning didn't work for Stalin or Mao, and it won't work for an entrepreneur either.

Don't be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don't let the bastards get you down.

Being an entrepreneur isn't really about starting a business. It's a way of looking at the world: seeing opportunity where others see obstacles, taking risks when others take refuge.

Do not be concerned that you might set a target too high and fail. Be concerned that you will set it too low and succeed.

The problem isn't that Silicon Valley is keeping women down or not doing enough to encourage female entrepreneurs. The opposite is true. No, the problem is that not enough women want to become entrepreneurs.

Too many start up business fail simply because their owners continue to think and act like employees.

We don't become mediocre all at once, and we rarely do it on purpose.

Dig your well before you're thirsty.

When exactly were we brainwashed into believing that the best way to earn a living is to have a job?

Plans are great, but missions are better.

Most of the time, creative entrepreneurs lose interest long before their marketing message loses its power.

More process, less innovation. More operations, less innovation. More management, less innovation. More entrepreneurs, more innovation.

All artists are entrepreneurs. All entrepreneurs are artists.

How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?

The only thing worse than starting something and failing... is not starting something.

All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen.

Being an entrepreneur is an existential, not just a financial thing.

My parents were entrepreneurs. They ran a small ad agency in upstate New York.

We have a terror of seeming to exert ourselves, lest it be noticed that we exerted ourselves and did not succeed.

The past is rich in lessons from which we would greatly profit except that the present is always so full of Special Circumstances.

Fields can lie fallow but we can't; we have less time.