Powerful words matter in the unpredictable and high-pressure world of startups and business. A well-timed quote can shift your mindset, spark fresh energy, or remind you why you chose this path in the first place.
This mega-list of quotes for entrepreneurs contains wisdom from the people who know best—tech founders and CEOs, business leaders, authors and speakers, academics and researchers, historical business figures, venture capitalists and investors, social entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders in the new digital economy, marketing and brand experts, and some insightful words from a few left-field sources too.
Whether launching your first product, scaling a team, facing a tough decision, or dreaming big about the future, there’s something in this collection for you.
The quotes are grouped to make it a little bit easier to browse.
Many of them could fit comfortably into more than one category. But to keep things simple, it’s just the best fit, a judgment call, so none are repeated.
Categories—Quotes for Entrepreneurs
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- Starting and Taking Action
- Customer Focus, Marketing, and Brand
- Entrepreneurial Mindset
- Business and Growth
- Failure, Mistakes, and Rejection
- Goals, Dreams, and Vision
- Hard Work, Discipline, and Perseverance
- Personal Effectiveness
- Innovation & Creativity
- Inspiration, Motivation, and Encouragement
- Success & Achievement
- Passion & Purpose
- Practical and Tactical
- Risk Taking & Fear
- Leadership and Team
Starting and Taking Action
- “My advice for anyone thinking of starting their own business is, above all, don’t wait. If you get an idea in the shower in the morning, try to make it the next day.”
— Harley Finkelstein, entrepreneur and president of Shopify - “Any time is a good time to start a company.”
— Ron Conway, investor and philanthropist - “Everyone should pull their finger out and start a business and believe in themselves. There is nothing else to it. Anyone can make a £100m. But most people don’t go out and try. They just stand in the pub and complain.”
— Duncan Bannatyne, entrepreneur, philanthropist and author - “If you’ve got an idea, start today. There’s no better time than now to get going. That doesn’t mean quit your job and jump into your idea 100% from day one, but there’s always small progress that can be made to start the movement.”
— Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram - “Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.”
— Mark Cuban, entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor - “Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give – with a few exceptions – generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.”
— Ben Silbermann, co-founder and executive chairman of Pinterest - “People don’t take opportunities because the timing is bad, the financial side unsecure. Too many people are overanalyzing. Sometimes you just have to go for it.”
— Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder, President, and COO of Cloudflare - “Everything started as nothing.”
— Ben Weissenstein, entrepreneur and founder of Fresh Right Hand - “What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.”
— Dave Thomas, founder and CEO of Wendy’s - “When in doubt, bootstrap. Using your own personal resources is the easiest way to start a business. You don’t have to convince investors about the merits of your idea. You just have to convince yourself.”
— Ryan Holmes, founder of Hootsuite - “‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually,’ just do it and correct course along the way.”
— Tim Ferriss, author, entrepreneur and podcaster - “Build–Measure–Learn. The fundamental activity of a startup is to turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and then learn whether to pivot or persevere. All successful startup processes should be geared to accelerate that feedback loop.”
— Eric Ries, author (The Lean Startup), blogger, and entrepreneur - “As a founder, your first job is to get the first things right, because you cannot build a great company on a flawed foundation.”
— Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund - “The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”
— Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese - “Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”
— Napoleon Hill, self-help author - “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
— Dale Carnegie, writer and lecturer - “Action cures fear.”
— David J. Schwartz, motivational author and coach - “When you’re at the beginning, don’t obsess about the middle, because the middle is going to look different once you get there.”
— Chip Heath, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University) / Dan Heath, senior fellow at the CASE center, Duke University - “Actions—and data—speak louder than words.”
— John Doerr, investor and venture capitalist - “As you start the company, you start spending spending spending ahead of revenue. But then you come out of it and very quickly you should become a company that spends less than it makes. And what I mean by very quickly, is that window of time should be in that 6 to 8 year time frame, 5 to 8 years. And the reason is because if you build your business model correctly it’s almost unavoidable.”
— Chamath Palihapitiya , venture capitalist and entrepreneur - “When you start a company everything is going to feel like a mess. And it really should. If you have too much process, too much predictability, you are probably not innovating fast enough and creatively enough.”
— Keith Rabois, tech executive and investor - “The challenge in a startup is you hit a lot of turbulence, and you want people who understand that it’s just turbulence and not a crisis.”
— Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of 23andMe - “Well, if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, I would say, find something you’re obsessive about. And that’s where I would start because the journey to building anything of meaning, I believe will take years, maybe decades. And so, I think unless you are maniacally focused on it, I think it is difficult to maybe make it all the way through all the ups and downs and so find something that you’re obsessive about.”
— Tony Xu, co-founder and CEO of DoorDash - “Too often, a newer entrepreneur half-heartedly tries one offer in one market, doesn’t make a million dollars, then mistakenly thinks “this is a bad market.” Most times that’s not actually the case. They just haven’t found a Grand Slam Offer yet to apply to that market.”
— Alex Hormozi, Entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and founder of Acquisition.com - “You have to value your ideas enough to share them. You have to believe that the smallest idea has the potential to change people’s lives. If you don’t believe that now, start with the smallest project you can think of to begin to prove to yourself that your ideas can make a difference.”
— Tiago Forte, productivity expert and author - “It doesn’t matter whether the Dow is 5,000 or 50,000. If you’re an entrepreneur, there is no bad time to start a company.”
— Guy Kawasaki, author, venture capitalist, and marketing expert - “In most cases, startups that try to enter a hot market have lower performance than those that avoid chasing the latest trend.”
— Ethan Mollick, professor of management (entrepreneurship and innovation) at Wharton - “There’s an entrepreneur right now, scared to death, making excuses, saying, ‘It’s not the right time just yet.’ There’s no such thing as a good time. I started an apparel-manufacturing business in the tech-boom years. I mean, come on. Get out of your garage and go take a chance, and start your business.”
— Kevin Plank, founder and CEO of Under Armour - “Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.”
— W. Clement Stone, businessman, philanthropist, and self-help author - “Start with the assumption that the best way to do something is not the way it’s being done right now.”
— Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box - “Don’t wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you. No one expects you to get it right in the beginning, and you’ll learn more from your mistakes than you will from your early successes anyway. So stop worrying so much and just look at your best bets and go.”
— Jacqueline Novogratz, entrepreneur, author, founder and CEO of Acumen - “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
— Walt Disney, founder of Disney - “Do it now; or later may become never.”
— Dean Graziosi, author, entrepreneur, and investor - “If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.”
— Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox - “It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.”
— James Cash Penney, entrepreneur and founder of the JC Penney stores - “I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”
— Madam C.J. Walker, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist - “Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.”
— Seth Godin, author and entrepreneur - “When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.”
— Josh James, founder and CEO of Domo - “When you start a company, it’s more an art than a science because it’s totally unknown. Instead of solving high-profile problems, try to solve something that’s deeply personal to you. Ideally, if you’re an ordinary person and you’ve just solved your problem, you might have solved the problem for millions of people.”
— Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb
Customer Focus, Marketing, and Brand
- “The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build–the thing customers want and will pay for–as quickly as possible.”
— Eric Ries, author (The Lean Startup), blogger, and entrepreneur - “Of the most successful startups, nearly everyone has a clearly identifiable marketing flywheel that brought awareness and traffic from the right audiences and helped those people convert to a sale or a signup at the right time.”
— Rand Fishkin, Co-founder and CEO of SparkToro, Co-founder and former CEO of Moz, and author - “Your personality is your natural weapon against distraction, competition, and commoditization. The more value you add, the less you have to compete on price, and the less likely you are to become a commodity.”
— Sally Hogshead, author and thought leader in the science of fascination - “Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.”
— Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb - “What you need to succeed in a startup is not expertise in startups. What you need is expertise in your own users.”
— Paul Graham, computer scientist, writer, entrepreneur and investor, co-founder of Y Combinator - “Brands are all about trust. That trust is built in drops and lost in buckets.”
— Kevin Plank, founder and CEO of Under Armour - “If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will.”
— Sam Walton, business magnate, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club - “Make your product so simple that users already know how to use it, and you’ve got a winner.”
— Nir Eyal, investor, lecturer, and author of “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” - “There’s no great mystery to satisfying your customers. Build them a quality product and treat them with respect. It’s that simple.”
— Lee Iacocca, automobile executive, former CEO of the Chrysler Corporation - “Don’t try to be all things to all people. Concentrate on selling something unique that you know there is a need for, offer competitive pricing and good customer service.”
— Lillian Vernon, founder, chairwoman, and CEO of the Lillian Vernon Corporation - “Simply put, there is no substitute for meeting and listening to dissatisfied customers directly.”
— W. Chan Kim, business theorist and professor of strategy and management - “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”
— Michael LeBoeuf, author, speaker, and professor emeritus of management (University of New Orleans) - “Be nicer to your customers than your competitors.”
— Richard Reed, Co-Founder of Innocent Drinks - “Every customer interaction is a marketing opportunity. If you go above and beyond on the customer service side, people are much more likely to recommend you.”
— Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, founder and former CEO of Slack - “A good reputation is measured by how much you can improve the lives of others.”
— George Eastman, photography pioneer, founder and former president of the Eastman Kodak Company - “When looking at trends I always ask myself basic and timeless questions about business, and the one I seem to always come back to is, ‘How is this different than anything else in the marketplace?’”
— Daymond John, founder, president, and CEO of FUBU, and an investor on the TV series, Shark Tank - “Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value. It is the art of helping your customer become better off. The marketer’s watchwords are quality, service, and value.”
— Philip Kotler, marketing professor emeritus at Kellogg School of Management, author, and consultant - “Sometimes you have to experiment with a lot of ideas and see which one sticks. If you’re unsure, let the market decide.”
— Dorie Clark, communication coach and executive education professor at Columbia University - “The most important decision is how to position your product.”
— David Ogilvy, Advertising executive, the “father of advertising” and founder of Ogilvy & Mather - “People don’t want to connect with brands. They want to connect with each other. Fascinating companies create more opportunities for people to connect with each other, through the brand.”
— Sally Hogshead, author and thought leader in the science of fascination - “A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless.”
— David Aaker, Brand Strategist, author, and Vice Chairman at Prophet
Entrepreneurial Mindset
- “All humans are entrepreneurs, not because they should start companies, but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA, and creation is the essence of entrepreneurship.”
— Reid Hoffman, entrepreneur and co-founder of LinkedIn - “Being an entrepreneur isn’t just a job title, and it isn’t just about starting a company. It’s a state of mind. It’s about seeing connections others can’t, seizing opportunities others won’t, and forging new directions that others haven’t. It’s about being entrepreneurial wherever you are and in whatever you do. It’s about having the courage to give in to passion for an idea that makes your heart race.”
— Tory Burch, Fashion designer, executive chairman and chief creative officer of Tory Burch LLC - “Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble-making individual.”
— Natalie Clifford Barney, author, playwright, poet - “Passion, creativity, and resilience are the most crucial skills in business. If you’ve got those, you’re ready to embark on the journey.”
— Jo Malone, founder of Jo Malone London and Jo Loves - “Whatever you do, be different – that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.”
— Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop - “Wherever there is change, and wherever there is uncertainty, there is opportunity!”
— Mark Cuban, entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor - “‘Life is struggle.’ I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle.”
— Ben Horowitz, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author - “I work under the assumption that we have no idea how to build companies yet, and that 50 years from now people will look back at the companies of today and they will seem like the black-and-white footage of the first hockey games. We have no idea how to build the best companies yet.”
— Tobi Lütke, co-founder and CEO of Shopify - “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”
— Robert Fritz, author - “What makes a great founder? The most important characteristics are ones like unstoppability, determination, formidability, and resourcefulness. Intelligence and passion also rank very highly. These are all much more important than experience and certainly ‘expertise with language X and framework Y’.”
— Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI - “As an entrepreneur you have to feel like you can jump out of an airplane because you’re confident that you’ll catch a bird flying by. It’s an act of stupidity, and most entrepreneurs go splat because the bird doesn’t come by, but a few times it does.”
— Reed Hastings, co-founder, former CEO, and current executive chairman of Netflix - “In the journey of an entrepreneur, the most important thing is self-belief and the ability to convert that belief into reality.”
— Mukesh Ambani, chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries - “What entrepreneurs and artists have in common is that they give the world something it didn’t know it was missing.”
— Daniel H. Pink, business, work, creativity, and behavior author - “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”
— Dr. Carol S. Dweck, psychologist and author - “There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different.”
— Alfred P. Sloan, former president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors - “What an entrepreneur does is to build for the long run. If the market is great, you get all of the resources you can. You build it. But a good entrepreneur is always prepared to throttle back, put on the brakes, and if the world changes adapt to the world.”
— Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, founder of Khosla Ventures - “Two hugely undervalued attributes of startup execs – a problem-solving attitude and a lack of fear.”
— Sarah Guo, investor, and founder and managing partner at the venture capital firm Conviction - “Entrepreneurship is really hard and painful — I’m not sure I’d recommend it for anyone who can’t handle the extreme stress. The coping mechanisms are the usual ones, unfortunately. The happiest entrepreneurs that I know seem to be able to treat it as a game. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for me.”
— Naval Ravikant, entrepreneur and investor - “What does an entrepreneur do? The first thing is they’ve given themselves permission to see a problem. Most people don’t want to see problems… Once you see a problem and you keep looking at it you’ll find an answer.”
— Bill Drayton, social entrepreneurship pioneer and founder of Ashoka - “If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, ‘This sucks. I’m going to do my own thing.'”
— Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia and 1% for the Planet - “Entrepreneurs’ greatest asset is their contrarian way of thinking, their tendency to zig when others zag, to go in a new direction. But many people don’t give themselves permission to get going for fear that they will be called crazy. I say not only is crazy a compliment, but if you’re not called crazy when you start something new, then you’re not thinking big enough.”
— Linda Rottenberg, co-founder and CEO of Endeavor - “I think entrepreneurship is combining a passion with the tenacity to problem-solve and the fearlessness to fail.”
— Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite - “The best entrepreneurs are not the best visionaries. The greatest entrepreneurs are incredible salespeople. They know how to tell an amazing story that will convince talent and investors to join in on the journey.”
— Alejandro Cremades, entrepreneur and author of “The Art of Startup Fundraising” - “It’s a lonely road for those of us who choose to be remarkable, and the path of convention can sometimes be appealing. That path is paved with safe lives, middle of the road monotony, and little chance of failure. But where’s the fun in being like everyone else out there?”
— Chris Guillebeau, blogger, entrepreneur, and author - “Truly original thinkers tend not to be entrepreneurs who’ve spent 10 years at Cisco and can be trusted to know what they’re doing. They tend to be 26 years old and highflying. They often have a very childlike mind, with some naivete. We’re impressed by people who don’t know what can’t be done.”
— Steve Jurvetson, founder and MD of Future Ventures - “Entrepreneurship is not only a mindset but a skillset.”
— Mitchell Kapor, founding Partner of Kapor Capital and Co-Chair of the Kapor Center - “Entrepreneurs are the true heroes in a free-enterprise economy, driving progress in business, society, and the world. They solve problems by creatively envisioning different ways the world could and should be. With their imagination, creativity, passion, and energy, they are the greatest creators of widespread change in the world. They are able to see new possibilities and enrich the lives of others by creating things that never existed before.”
— John Mackey, conscious capitalism advocate, co-founder of Whole Foods - “If you want to be an entrepreneur, it’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle. It defines you. Forget about vacations, about going home at 6pm. Last thing at night you’ll send emails, first thing in the morning you’ll read emails, and you’ll wake up in the middle of the night. But it’s hugely rewarding, as you’re fulfilling something for yourself.”
— Niklas Zennström, tech entrepreneur (co-founder of Skype, Joost, Kazaa), founder and CEO of Atomico vencture capital
Business and Growth
- “There is nothing as satisfying in entrepreneur land than having a profitable growing sustainable business that doesn’t need another dime of anyone else’s capital.”
— Fred Wilson, Venture capitalist (co-founder of Union Square Ventures) and blogger - “The market is continuously growing. The stock market grows at 9 percent per year. If we aren’t growing at 9 percent per year, we are falling behind. ‘Maintenance,’ in the most generic sense, would be 9 percent growth year over year. Furthermore, if you’re in a growing marketplace, then you might have to grow at 20-30 percent per year, just to keep up, or risk falling behind. So you can see how maintenance is a myth.”
— Alex Hormozi, entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and founder of Acquisition.com - “It’s up to you to dictate your business’s rate of growth as best you can by understanding the key processes that need to be performed, the key objectives that need to be achieved, the key position you are aiming your business to hold in the marketplace.”
— Michael E. Gerber, author and founder of Michael E. Gerber Companies small business skills training - “The value of a company is the sum of the problems you solve.”
— Daniel Ek, chairman and CEO of Spotify - “Founders too often view raising capital as a transaction, when it is actually a very deep relationship. They think of money as money, when there is actually smart money, dumb money, high-integrity money, and low-integrity money.”
— Chris Dixon, entrepreneur and investor, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz - “Conscious capitalism is about more than simply making money—although it’s about that too. It’s about creating a successful business that also connects supporters to something that matters to them and that has great impact in the world.”
— Blake Mycoskie, entrepreneur, philanthropist, author, founder of Toms Shoes and co-founder of Madefor - “There are a lot of people building small ideas now. There’s an idealization of being an entrepreneur, but the most important thing is to have a really great idea.”
— Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook, Asana, Good Ventures, and Open Philanthropy - “Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.”
— Ken Blanchard, author, business consultant, and motivational speaker
Failure, Mistakes, and Rejection
- “Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”
— Dale Carnegie, writer and lecturer - “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.”
— Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox - “Fail often so you can succeed sooner.”
— Tom Kelley, author and partner at IDEO - “Failures are life’s way of nudging you and letting you know you are off course. Trying new things and not being afraid to fail along the way are more important than what you learn in school.”
— Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx and philanthropist - “Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.”
— William C. Durant, co-founder of General Motors and Chevrolet - “I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”
— Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon - “If you tune it so that you have zero chance of failure, you usually also have zero chance of success. The key is to look at ways for when you get to your failure checkpoint, you know to stop.”
— Reid Hoffman, entrepreneur and co-founder of LinkedIn - “In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
— Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook and Meta Platforms - “It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed. You only have to be right once.”
— Mark Cuban, entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor - “Make mistakes faster.”
— Andrew Grove, businessman, engineer, and former CEO of Intel Corporation - “No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.”
— Tony Robbins, life and business strategist, author, and philanthropist - “Show me a person who never made a mistake, and I will show you a person who never did anything.”
— William Rosenberg, founder of Dunkin’ Donuts - “The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake- you can’t learn anything from being perfect.”
— Adam Osborne, author, book and software publisher, computer designer, and entrepreneur - “We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes – understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.”
— Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post - “You have to see failure as the beginning and the middle, but never entertain it as an end.”
— Jessica Herrin, CEO and Founder of the Stella & Dot Family of Brands - “Set stretch goals. Don’t ever settle for mediocrity. The key to stretch is to reach for more than you think is possible. Don’t sell yourself short by thinking that you’ll fail.”
— Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, chemical engineer, and writer - “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.”
— Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr - “The hardest part about being an entrepreneur is that you’ll fail ten times for every success.”
— Adam Horowitz, screenwriter and producer - “Mistakes are great, the more I make the smarter I get.”
— Buckminster Fuller, architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist - “Wear your failure as your badge of honor.”
— Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google - “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
— Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, investor, and philanthropist - “Finding out that you are wrong is even more valuable than being right, because you are learning.”
— Amy C. Edmondson, Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School - “It doesn’t matter what your probability of failure is. If there’s a 90% chance of failure, there’s a 10% chance of changing the world.”
— Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, founder of Khosla Ventures - “You will inevitably fail, and you need to have the courage and the persistence to get back out there, learn from your mistakes, and try again.”
— Jane Chen, co-founder of Embrace - “Most entrepreneurs fail because they are working IN their business rather than ON their business.”
— Michael E. Gerber, author and founder of Michael E. Gerber Companies small business skills training - “Success Comes Through Rapidly Fixing our Mistakes Rather than Getting Things Right the First Time.”
— Tim Harford, economist, journalist, and broadcaster - “Take risks. Ask big questions. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes; if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not reaching far enough.”
— David Packard, co-founder and former president, CEO, and chairman of the board of Hewlett-Packard
Goals, Dreams, and Vision
- “Many people dream about being an entrepreneur, starting their own business, working for themselves, and living the good life. Very few, however, will actually take the plunge and put everything they’ve got into being their own boss.”
— Fabrizio Moreira, politician, entrepreneur, and speaker - “An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.”
— David Karp, founder of Tumblr - “Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.”
— Tony Hsieh, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, former CEO of Zappos - “I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt”
— Phil Knight, co-founder and former CEO of Nike - “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.”
— Farrah Gray, businessman, investor, author, columnist, speaker - “Set a goal to achieve something that is so big, so exhilarating that it excites you and scares you at the same time.”
— Bob Proctor, self-help author and lecturer - “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”
— Tony Robbins, life and business strategist, author, and philanthropist - “First comes the shy wish. Then you must have the heart to have the dream. Then, you work, and work.”
— Estée Lauder, co-founder of the Estée Lauder Companies - “I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. Since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition.”
— Larry Page, computer scientist, entrepreneur, co-founder of Google - “If you don’t take the time to get really clear about exactly what it is you’re trying to accomplish, then you’re forever doomed to spend your life achieving the goals of those who do.”
— Steve Pavlina, self-help author, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur - “If you always think about your dreams or goals, work steadfastly towards them and continue to challenge yourself, you will definitely be able to realise those dreams or goals.”
— Tadashi Yanai, founder and president of Fast Retailing - “Live the present intensely and fully, do not let the past be a burden, and let the future be an incentive. Each person forges his or her own destiny.”
— Carlos Slim, investor and business magnate - “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”
— David Bach, finance expert and author - “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
— James Clear, expert in behavioral science, writer, and entrepreneur - “When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say ‘wow, that was an adventure,’ not ‘wow, I sure felt safe’.”
— Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of Github - “If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.”
— Brian Tracy, motivational public speaker, self-development author, and founder/CEO of Brian Tracy International - “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”
— Seth Godin, author and entrepreneur - “Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.”
— Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO - “My dream—the solution—is that we would have a National Entrepreneur Day, with the following message: Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty. You are at the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you.”
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Essayist, statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and author - “You don’t have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.”
— Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies
Hard Work, Discipline, and Perseverance
- “If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work.”
— Sallie Krawcheck, co-founder and CEO of Ellevest - “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
— Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple - “Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.”
— Thomas Edison, inventor and entrepreneur - “There is no royal flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for whatever success I have attained has been the result of much hard work and many sleepless nights.”
— Madam C.J. Walker, entrepreneur, philanthropist, activist - “Success comes down to hard work plus passion, over time. If you work really, really hard over a long period of time, it will pay off.”
— Stanley Tang, co-founder of DoorDash and author - “There’s no lotion or potion that will make sales faster and easier for you – unless your potion is hard work.”
— Jeffrey Gitomer, author and business trainer - “Almost by force of habit, successful people simply do more. As a result, they experience not only greater financial rewards for their extra efforts but also a personal transformation, becoming more self-confident, more self-reliant, and more influential with those around them.”
— Jack Canfield, motivational speaker, corporate trainer, and entrepreneur - “We live in the kind of society where, in almost all cases, hard work is rewarded.”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator - “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
— Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker - “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
— Stephen King, author - “One form of perseverance is the daily discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday.”
— Angela Duckworth, academic, psychologist, and author - “Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.”
— Patrick Lencioni, business management author - “Always do your best. What you plant now you will harvest later.”
— Og Mandino, author - “When I thought I couldn`t go on, I forced myself to keep going. My success is based on persistence, not luck.”
— Estée Lauder, co-founder of the Estée Lauder Companies - “Everyone experiences tough times, it is a measure of your determination and dedication how you deal with them and how you can come through them.”
— Lakshmi Mittal, Executive chairman of ArcelorMittal - “If something is important enough, or you believe something is important enough, even if you are scared, you will keep going.”
— Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, and serial entrepreneur - “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
— Thomas Edison, inventor and entrepreneur - “You must be very patient, very persistent. The world isn’t going to shower gold coins on you just because you have a good idea. You’re going to have to work like crazy to bring that idea to the attention of people. They’re not going to buy it unless they know about it.”
— Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines - “Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.”
— Jack Ma, entrepreneur, philanthropist, founder of the Alibaba Group
Personal Effectiveness
- “Your attitude not your aptitude will determine your altitude.”
— Zig Ziglar, author, salesman, and motivational speaker - “1) Control your destiny or someone else will; 2) Face reality as it is, not as it was or you wish it were; 3) Be candid with everyone; 4) Don’t manage, lead; 5) Change before you have to; 6) If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”
— Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, chemical engineer, and writer - “The question I ask myself almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?”
— Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook and Meta Platforms - “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
— Stephen R. Covey, educator, entrepreneur, and author - “Less mental clutter means more mental resources available for deep thinking.”
— Cal Newport, computer scientist & productivity author - “Getting things done, and feeling good about it, means being willing to recognize, acknowledge, and appropriately manage all the things that have your consciousness engaged. Mastering the art of stress-free productivity requires it.”
— David Allen, productivity expert and author - “Doing, not learning to do, is the essence of entrepreneurship.”
— Guy Kawasaki, author, venture capitalist, and marketing expert - “Wake up early and tackle the day before it tackles you. Be on offense, not defense.”
— Evan Carmichael, YouTuber and founder of EvanCarmichael.com - “I am always able to keep a laser focus on one thing at a time without getting distracted. It helps that I try to break everything I do into small, achievable tasks.”
— Luis von Ahn, founder of reCAPTCHA, and co-founder and CEO of Duolingo - “I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.”
— Ginni Rometty, former CEO and Chairman of IBM - “Intuition is critical in virtually everything you do. But, without relentless preparation and execution, it is meaningless.”
— Tim Cook, CEO of Apple - “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
— Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker - “Have the end in mind and every day make sure you’re working towards it.”
— Ryan Allis, tech entrepreneur, owner and chairman of Hive Digital - “Without great solitude no serious work is possible.”
— Pablo Picasso, painter, sculptor, printmaker - “What are important qualities to be successful? The most important quality is courage.”
— Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle - “The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business – or almost anywhere else for that matter.”
— Lee Iacocca, automobile executive, former CEO of the Chrysler Corporation - “You have a choice in life. You can either live on-purpose, according to a plan you’ve set. Or you can live by accident, reacting to the demands of others. The first approach is proactive; the second reactive.”
— Michael S. Hyatt, author, business coach, founder and chair of Full Focus - “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at your highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”
— Greg McKeown, author, public speaker, podcaster, and researcher - “The truly gifted negotiator, then, is one whose initial position is exaggerated enough to allow for a series of concessions that will yield a desirable final offer from the opponent, yet is not so outlandish as to be seen as illegitimate from the start.”
— Robert Cialdini, author and Professor of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University - “You can’t be normal and expect abnormal returns.”
— Jeffrey Pfeffer, business theorist, author, and professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford - “Here is the ultimate advice for young, would be startup founders reduced to two words: just learn.”
— Paul Graham, computer scientist, writer, entrepreneur and investor, co-founder of Y Combinator - “Spend eighty percent of your time focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday.”
— Brian Tracy, motivational public speaker, self-development author, and founder/CEO of Brian Tracy International - “Work hard but work smart. Always. Every day. Nothing is handed to you and nothing is easy. You’re not owed anything … No job or task is too small or beneath you. If you want to get ahead, volunteer to do the things no one else wants to do, and do it better. Be a sponge. Be open and learn.”
— Bobbi Brown, Make-up artist, entrepreneur, author, and Founder of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics - “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson, fiction and travel author, essayist, and poet - “If you live for weekends and vacations, your shit is broken.”
— Gary Vaynerchuk, entrepreneur, author, speaker, and internet personality - “Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.”
— Michael E. Gerber, author and founder of Michael E. Gerber Companies small business skills training - “What makes a decision great is not that it has a great outcome. A great decision is the result of a good process, and that process must include an attempt to accurately represent our own state of knowledge. That state of knowledge, in turn, is some variation of ‘I’m not sure.'”
— Annie Duke, former professional poker player, author, and decision strategist - “Excellence is the product of high aspirations and low ego.”
— Adam Grant, organizational psychologist, author, and professor at the Wharton School - “Always deliver more than expected.”
— Larry Page, computer scientist, entrepreneur, co-founder of Google - “If you don’t value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents. Value what you know and start charging for it.”
— Kim Garst, author, online business strategist, speaker - “Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.”
— Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker
Innovation & Creativity
- “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.”
— Gary Hamel, management consultant and author - “People think innovation is just having a good idea, but a lot of it is just moving quickly and trying a lot of things.”
— Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook and Meta Platforms - “The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity, whether it’s in the arts, sciences, or business.”
— Teresa Amabile, professor at Harvard Business School - “Creativity is a renewable resource. Challenge yourself every day. Be as creative as you like, as often as you want, because you can never run out. Experience and curiosity drive us to make unexpected, offbeat connections. It is these nonlinear steps that often lead to the greatest work.”
— Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter - “Every day, you have to get up with new energy and new ideas to contribute to pushing the organization forward.”
— Abigail Johnson, CEO of Fidelity Investments - “Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.”
— Mae Jemison, engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut - “Embrace the unknown and embrace change. That’s where true breakthroughs happen.”
— Jensen Huang, co-founder of Nvidia, President and CEO of Nvidia Corporation - “There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.”
— Brené Brown, author and academic - “Most big breakthroughs are contrarian ideas that people dismiss and ridicule from the start.”
— Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase - “If you’ve invented something new but you haven’t invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business — no matter how good the product.”
— Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund - “All it takes is one new insight or idea – strongly acted on – to take you to a completely different place.”
— Robin Sharma, author and speaker in leadership and personal mastery
Inspiration, Motivation, and Encouragement
- “The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think.”
— Marc Andreessen, former software engineer, co-author of Mosaic, co-founder of Netscape, and venture capitalist - “My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long university education that I never had – every day I’m learning something new.”
— Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group - “Your potential is limitless. You are unique, valuable, capable, and worthy of the dreams in your heart. Most of all, you have what it takes to transform and transcend whatever challenges you face.”
— Marie Forleo, entrepreneur, speaker, writer, and podcaster - “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.”
— Mark Twain, writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer - “It is astonishing what you can do when you have a lot of energy, ambition and plenty of ignorance.”
— Alfred P. Sloan, former president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors - “You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.”
— Steve Case, co-founder of AOL - “Decide what you want. Believe you can have it. Believe you deserve it and believe it’s possible for you. And then close your eyes and every day for several minutes, and visualize having what you already want, feeling the feelings of already having it. Come out of that and focus on what you’re grateful for already, and really enjoy it. Then go into your day and release it to the Universe and trust that the Universe will figure out how to manifest it.”
— Jack Canfield, motivational speaker, corporate trainer, and entrepreneur - “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.”
— Thomas Edison, inventor and entrepreneur - “Believe that there are no limitations, no barriers to your success – you will be empowered and you will achieve.”
— Ursula Burns, former CEO of Xerox - “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
— Napoleon Hill, self-help author - “It’s time for you to move, realizing that the thing you are seeking is also seeking you.”
— Iyanla Vanzant, speaker, lawyer, spiritual teacher, author, life coach, and television personality - “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
— Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company - “You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can’t go wrong. The world is behind you.”
— Josephine Baker, dancer, singer, and actress - “Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.”
— Mary Kay Ash, founder Mary Kay Cosmetics - “You will either step forward into growth, or you will step back into safety.”
— Abraham Maslow, psychologist - “I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.”
— Oprah Winfrey, talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist - “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
— Vincent Lombardi, American football coach and executive - “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
— Peter F. Drucker, management consultant, educator, and author - “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
— Mark Twain, writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer - “Let your joy be in your journey, not in some distant goal”
— Tim Cook, CEO of Apple - “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right”
— Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
Success & Achievement
- “Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”
— Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist - “To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business and your business in your heart.”
— Thomas J. Watson, former CEO of IBM - “You renew yourself every day. Sometimes you’re successful, sometimes your not. But it’s the average that counts.”
— Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft - “Remember: if the most unique ideas were obvious to everyone, there wouldn’t be entrepreneurs. The one thing that every entrepreneurial journey has in common is that there are many, many steps on the road to success.”
— Tory Burch, fashion designer, executive chairman and chief creative officer of Tory Burch LLC - “The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.”
— Ingvar Kamprad, founder of Ikea - “Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.”
— Napoleon Hill, self-help author - “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”
— Henry David Thoreau, essayist, poet, naturalist, and philosopher - “What’s the secret to success? It’s no secret. You need a winning attitude, honesty and integrity, and a burning desire to succeed.”
— Dave Thomas, founder and CEO of Wendy’s - “Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves – their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.”
— Peter F. Drucker, management consultant, educator, and author - “Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach.”
— Charles Duhigg, journalist and author - “Successful people know that small things done repeatedly have great power.”
— Laura Vanderkam, author, blogger, speaker, and podcaster - “Lucky people don’t make successful people; people who completely commit themselves to success seem to get lucky in life.”
— Grant Cardone, businessman, equity fund manager, real estate investor, and business author - “In my opinion, no one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or ‘get rich’ in business by being a conformist.”
— J. Paul Getty, founder of the Getty Oil Company - “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out.”
— Robert Collier, self-help author - “In order to be successful, you have to make sure that being rejected doesn’t bother you at all.”
— Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management - “We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in order to be successful, you have to make sure that being rejected doesn’t bother you at all.”
— Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post - “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”
— Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker - “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
— Conrad Hilton, businessman and founder of the Hilton Hotels chain - “The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.”
— Robert Kiyosaki, entrepreneur and author - “What differentiates the success stories from the failures is that the successful entrepreneurs had the foresight, the ability, and the tools to discover which parts of their plans were working brilliantly and which were misguided, and adapt their strategies accordingly.”
— Eric Ries, author (The Lean Startup), blogger, and entrepreneur - “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
— Albert Schweitzer, theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician - “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”
— Peter F. Drucker, management consultant, educator, and author
Passion & Purpose
- “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you doIf you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
— Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple - “If your work isn’t mission-driven or emotionally resonant to you, it will be very hard to maintain passion and focus over a long period of time, which is critical in entrepreneurship.”
— Jennifer Hyman, co-founder and CEO of Rent the Runway - “The life purpose of the true social entrepreneur is to change the world.”
— Bill Drayton, social entrepreneurship pioneer and founder of Ashoka - “I wanted to build something that was my own, something I could point to and say: I made that. It was the only way I saw to make life meaningful.”
— Phil Knight, co-founder and former CEO of Nike - “Life-fulfilling work is never about the money – when you feel true passion for something, you instinctively find ways to nurture it.”
— Eileen Fisher, fashion designer and entrepreneur - “I want people to be entrepreneurs, but I want them to do it for the right reasons, because they think they can change the world, because they think they have got something of value to give to the world. Not because they think they can make a lot of money.”
— Pierre Omidyar, tech entrepreneur, philanthropist, founder and former chairman of eBay - “Social entrepreneurs come from all levels of society and from communities in nearly every country of the world. They all share the same underlying drive and passion to see their ideas through. Many of them have had a huge effect on the world, yet most people have not even heard of them – a trend we hope to change.”
— Jeff Skoll, founder of Participant Media and the Skoll Foundation, first president of eBay - “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”
— Oprah Winfrey, talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist - “One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.”
— Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon - “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.”
— Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank founder, microfinance pioneer, and Nobel Peace Prize winner - “There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.”
— Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, self-development author and speaker
Practical and Tactical
- “Always plan for the fact that no plan ever goes according to plan.”
— Simon Sinek, author and speaker - “Done is better than perfect.”
— Sheryl Sandberg, tech executive, philanthropist, and writer - “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
— Stephen R. Covey, educator, entrepreneur, and author - “I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.”
— Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook and Meta Platforms - “Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.”
— Zig Ziglar, author, salesman, and motivational speaker - “Just because you have a good hand today doesn’t mean it’s good tomorrow. And some of the things we’re doing may become very disadvantageous at some point.”
— Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase - “I think in business, you have to learn to be patient. Maybe I’m not very patient myself. But I think that I’ve learned the most is be able to wait for something and get it when it’s the right time.”
— Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH - “Don’t think outside the box. Go box shopping. Keep trying on one after another until you find the one that catalyzes your thinking. A good box is like a lane marker on the highway. It’s a constraint that liberates.”
— Chip and Dan Heath, Professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, Senior Fellow at the CASE center, Duke University - “Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it.”
— Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company - “Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.”
— Sam Walton, business magnate, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club - “There is no single right answer or path forward, but there is one right way to frame the problem.”
— Clayton Christensen, academic, business consultant, and author - “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
— Michael Porter, economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher - “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.”
— Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva and ProFounder - “Ask three questions for every idea: a. How would I get paid with this idea? b. How much would I get paid from this idea? c. Is there a way I could get paid more than once?”
— Chris Guillebeau, blogger, entrepreneur, and author - “Working on a startup is a balancing act: being crazy enough to believe your idea can take off but not crazy enough to miss the signs when it’s clearly not going to.”
— Mike Krieger, co-founder of Instagram - “One of the important lessons of the Internet is, how easy it is to get things done completely shapes what gets created.”
— Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe - “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.”
— Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company - “I’m always tweaking, always trying to make it better, constantly moving the levers and dials.”
— Steve Ells, founder and co-CEO of Chipotle - “Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors.”
— Chris Dixon, entrepreneur and investor - “Listen to the people on the ground. They have all the solutions in the world.”
— Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College - “From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.”
— Franz Kafka, novelist and short-story writer - “An idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements.”
— Scott Belsky, entrepreneur, author and co-creator of Behance - “Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.”
— Tony Hsieh, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, former CEO of Zappos - “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.”
— Coco Chanel, fashion designer and businesswoman, founder of Chanel - “Expect change. Analyze the landscape. Take the opportunities. Stop being the chess piece; become the player. It’s your move.”
— Tony Robbins, life and business strategist, author, and philanthropist - “Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.”
— Anthony Volodkin, founder of Hype Machine - “Run toward the hardest problems. This approach has helped me to learn a tremendous amount from both success and failure.”
— Lisa Su, president and CEO of AMD - “If you have a problem, you’ve got to solve it. Because that problem is going to get bigger in six months. It could get bigger in two years. But it’s not going to get smaller with time.”
— Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors - “When you are running a business, there is a constant need to reinvent oneself. One should have the foresight to stay ahead in times of rapid change and rid ourselves of stickiness in any form in the business.”
— Shiv Nadar, founder and chairman of HCL Technologies
Risk Taking & Fear
- “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.”
— Ray Kroc, former CEO of McDonald’s - “Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. ‘Here, open it, it’s perfect. You’ll love it.’ Opportunities — the good ones — are messy, confusing and hard to recognize. They’re risky. They challenge you.”
— Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube - “Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no resistance.”
— Steven Pressfield, author - “Taking risks, breaking the rules, and being a maverick have always been important but today they are more crucial than ever.”
— Gary Hamel, management consultant and author - “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
— John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, business magnate, and philanthropist - “The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”
— Debbi Fields, founder and spokesperson of Mrs. Fields Bakeries, and author - “You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.”
— Michelle Obama, attorney, author, and former First Lady of the United States - “Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.”
— T. Harv Eker, author, businessman, and motivational speaker - “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”
— Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, and serial entrepreneur - “There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.”
— Ray Goforth, Executive Director for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace - “In times of despair, you may believe the cynic who tells you that one person cannot make difference – and there are times it may be hard to see your own impact. I beg you to remember that it is not possible at this time or any time to know the end results of our efforts.”
— Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snapchat - “Don’t let procrastination take over your life. Be brave and take the risks. Your life is happening right now.”
— Roy T. Bennett, author
Leadership and Team
- “Company culture is my number one priority. It’s more important than the team, the product, the business model, or the investors. All of those things can be fixed and made better over time. But culture has to be established on Day 1.”
— Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom - “Put the right people in the right places, and then you trust them to do the right stuff.”
— Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber - “Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.”
— Jim Collins, researcher, author, speaker, and consultant in business management and growth - “One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists.”
— Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company - “I define leadership as: Emotionally, you own your business. You own it with passion. And you either have or you don’t have an economic investment. But when you have all three of those, you are the boss from Day One, and you care every single day more than anyone.”
— Mickey Drexler, CEO of Alex Mill, former CEO and chairman of J.Crew Group, former CEO of Gap Inc - “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
— Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple - “Everyone has an idea. But it’s really about executing the idea and attracting other people to help you work on the idea.”
— Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Block, founder of Bluesky - “There’s nothing more invigorating than being deeply involved with a small company and a young team of founders out to do something incredibly special.”
— Michael Moritz, venture capitalist, philanthropist, and author - “The key to all great VCs is the way they connect with entrepreneurs, work with entrepreneurs, and build value together with entrepreneurs. And you cannot learn how to do that without actually working with entrepreneurs.”
— Fred Wilson, venture capitalist (co-founder of Union Square Ventures) and blogger - “Good leaders organize and align people around what the team needs to do. Great leaders motivate and inspire people with why they’re doing it. That’s purpose. And that’s the key to achieving something truly transformational.”
— Marillyn Hewson, Chairman, President and CEO of Lockheed Martin - “You have to get comfortable giving up control, and you find people who do things better than you do. Quora now does better with the team we have built.”
— Adam D’Angelo, co-founder and CEO of Quora