Business Entrepreneurs Quotes & Sayings

Thinking outside the box only works if you know everything inside it. Don't compare your chapter 1 to someone else's chapter 20. That's the biggest mistake young entrepreneurs do and end up getting disappointed. The ones you call conventional are the business models, which have been optimized and modified at various stages over a long period of time. You need to work hard and be a bit more patient. — Nitin Sharma

In times of recession there are massive opportunities and fortunes to be made, so for new up and coming entrepreneurs, this is the time to go and start a business. — Richard Branson

The restaurant business is robust and successful precisely because individual restaurants are vulnerable and short-lived. Taleb wishes that society honoured ruined entrepreneurs as richly as it honours fallen soldiers. — Matt Ridley

Entrepreneurs who dip into soccer also keep making the same mistakes. They buy clubs promising to run them "like a business" and disappear a few seasons later amid the same public derision as the previous owners. — Simon Kuper

There is much that public policy can do to support American entrepreneurs. Health insurance reform will make it easier for entrepreneurs to take a chance on a new business without putting their family's health at risk. Tort reform will make it easier to take prudent risks on new products in a number of sectors. — Eric Ries

At any rate, planning in this sense means all-around planning by the government and enforcement of these plans by the police power. Planning in this sense means full government control of business. It is the antithesis of free enterprise, private initiative, private ownership of the means of production, market economy, and the price system. Planning and capitalism are ut- terly incompatible. Within a system of planning production is conducted according to the government's orders, not according to the plans of capitalists and entrepreneurs eager to profit by best filling the wants of the consumers. — Ludwig Von Mises

Most small-business owners have no financial education when they started. They weren't trained to be entrepreneurs. — Robert Kiyosaki

I'm a writer. I could not or would not ever run a business. I don't even have a secretary. And contrary to some of the stereotypes, entrepreneurs are not loners. I am. — Peter Drucker

Entrepreneurs don't write a 100-page business plan and execute it one time; they're always experimenting and adapting based on what they learn. — Thomas Friedman

Imagine discovering a continent so vast that it may have no end to its dimensions. Imagine a new world with more resources than all our future greed might exhaust, more opportunities than there will ever be entrepreneurs enough to exploit, and a peculiar kind of real estate that expands with development. Imagine a place where trespassers leave no footprints, where goods can be stolen infinite number of times and yet remain in the possession of their original owners, where business you never heard of can own the history of your personal affairs ... — John Perry Barlow

It's not about having a Silicon Valley attitude - it's about having an entrepreneurial attitude. It's about partnering with other organizations in and around your area. It's about thinking big with entrepreneurs that sit next to you in your coworking space. It's about collaborating with tech gurus, social media wizards and community leaders at cool business events. It's the people that make a community an entrepreneurial one - not the location - and it's up to you to contribute. — Brad Feld

The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business. — John C. Maxwell

"(Big name research firm) says our market will be $50 billion in 2010." Every entrepreneur has a few slides about how the market potential for his segment is tens of billions. It doesn't matter if the product is bar mitzah planning software or 802.11 chip sets. Venture capitalists don't believe this type of forecast because it's the fifth one of this magnitude that they've heard that day. Entrepreneurs would do themselves a favor by simply removing any reference to market size estimates from consulting firms. — Guy Kawasaki

As entrepreneurs, time is our most valuable commodity (MVC). Money will come and go, but once you've invested your time into something, that time is gone forever. It stands to reason that if there are any actions we can take as business owners to free up more time in our daily routines, we should take them. — Chris Ducker

The art the wealthy use in business is to jump. — Ehab Atalla

Microwork gives marginalized people a chance to earn a living by playing a vital role in the business processes of big companies. In parallel, the organization assists local entrepreneurs in running microwork centers, helping to grow a new pool of business talent across the developing world. — Leila Janah

thousand CEOs, business owners, and highly successful entrepreneurs about their businesses and how they lead companies through good times and bad. One of the most important questions I ask them is "What's the biggest worry keeping you awake at night? — Jason Jennings

We had this unbelievable faith that no business has done, quite frankly, and we tripped along the way doing it, but within two years, we were in 40-plus countries. So we ran at an amazing pace, and this is where venture capitalists play a role. Making Groupon into what it is today, we had no role in it; the entrepreneurs did it. — Peter Barris

Remember too that business entrepreneurs can be iconoclasts, hermits, and even cranks. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, reportedly wasn't Mr. Warm-and-Fuzzy in person. He was a perfectionist. But whether they innovate with computers or with education, business and social entrepreneurs share a sense of wonder, curiosity, and the ability to scan for opportunity. They are prone to resilience, either through practice or nature, and it pays off for them. So they keep looking at the world with wide-eyed anticipation for more opportunities to test their mettle, to create new things and ways of accomplishing goals and meeting needs. — Pamela Price

I strongly believe in the fact
that there's still plenty of money and plenty of private equity capital
available around the globe. What are in short supply are great entrepreneurs
and great teams. A trading opportunity or a company's biggest
challenge is and has always been the team behind it. There's enormous
change under way in every facet of the world. Some is technology
driven, some is market driven. All that change creates unprecedented
opportunity, but to take full advantage of such opportunities I mostly
focus on the team. The right teams and right people behind those
opportunities always win. There is no secret sauce. Trading and investing
has, in my experience, boiled down to building relationships and
exchanging value. It consists of striking the right balance between
backing and interacting with the right teams with the right business
model at the right time and with the right amount of money. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

Businesses grow when they are well loved! — Blaze Lazarony

This is the basis for the most important critique of microfinance. The poor are not entrepreneurs. The idea that more than a few will turn tiny loans into a viable business is simply unrealistic. — Ian Smillie

If you just work on stuff that you like and you're passionate about, you don't have to have a master plan with how things will play out. — Mark Zuckerberg

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. — Reid Hoffman

One of biggest lies in politics is the lie that Republicans are the party of big business. Big business does great with big government. Big business is very happy to climb in bed with big government. Republicans are and should be the party of small business and of entrepreneurs. — Ted Cruz

While others were dreaming about it - I was getting it done. — Nathan W. Morris

Closing the gap for women entrepreneurs should be a priority for the federal government - and yet the Small Business Administration has failed in their promise to women business owners. — Ruben Hinojosa

Apparently, sir you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, 'does' have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs - "we" entrepreneurs - have set up all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now. — Aravind Adiga

Its easier to start a global business than a local one, make your business one where you can work from anywhere in the world — Roger James Hamilton

It was actually very difficult., especially during the first five years of the start-up stage, when all the odds seemed to be against us - this is probably true for most entrepreneurs. To succeed, you really have to put your heart and soul into it. (p. 71) — Injap Sia

Don't worry about failure; you only have to be right once. — Drew Houston

That's why people who seek out group flow often join startups or work for themselves. Serial entrepreneurs keep starting new business as much for the flow experience, as for the additional success. — Steven Kotler

The Jews had, as a matter of fact, long been all along the most ingenious entrepreneurs. It was only our own future that we had never built upon a business basis. — Theodor Herzl

Generally speaking, experience counts for something. So you'd expect entrepreneurs who've been through the ups and downs of a tech startup to have an advantage over the newcomers. Or at least have an equal chance at success. But in fact the opposite may be true. A number of venture capitalists I've spoken with have said that too many "old guard" entrepreneurs are not being bold enough in their business decisions, and it's hurting their startups. — Michael Arrington

Your business is based upon your commitment! — John Di Lemme

Over the past century, researchers have studied business entrepreneurs extensively..

In contrast, social entrepreneurs have received little attention. Historically, they have been cast as humanitarians or saints, and stories of their work have been passed down more in the form of children's tales than case studies. While the stories may inspire, they fail to make social entrepreneurs' methods comprehensible. One can analyze an entrepreneur, but how does one analyze a saint? — David Bornstein

We'll have a national dispute - debate about it, and the goal should be to bring in - to help respectfully appeal to those voters that can make the difference, the ones who are not going to be entrepreneurs, are never going to be - run a - be a CEO in some big business, and they know it, but they would like to have their Social Security, they would like to have Medicare as they paid for all their years, and they'd like rising wages rather than falling wages. — Jeff Sessions

Do more and understand that all wealth came from poor people either as the entrepreneurs or the consumers who buy the product that keeps the entrepreneurs in business. — John Hope Bryant

The tools used by economists to analyze business firms are too abstract and speculative to offer any guidance to entrepreneurs and managers in their constant struggle to bring novel products to consumers at low cost. — Ronald Coase

I think entrepreneurs are born and not created, and so I think you see a lot of similarities among entrepreneurs in different parts of the world. Their backdrop may be very different, but their drive to create a business and to create jobs remains very much the same, whether it's in Silicon Valley or Kandahar or Kabul. — Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

You don't need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea. — Larry Page

Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service. It is capable of being presented as a discipline, capable of being learned, capable of being practiced. Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation, the changes and their symptoms that indicate opportunities for successful innovation. And they need to know and to apply the principles of successful innovation. — Peter Drucker

Logic and reason are the naphthalene balls we use to pack them away into a sandook called 'Someday'. But when that day comes we are too old, too poor, too tired or too lazy. — Rashmi Bansal

Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business. — Michael Gerber

Business is a creative and therefore spiritual endeavor. Great entrepreneurs enter the field of business in the same way great artists enter the field of art. With their business creation, entrepreneurs express their spiritual desire for self-realization, evolutionary passion for self- fulfillment, and creative vision of a new world. The entrepreneur's business is their artwork. The creation of business is as creative as any creation in art. In fact, building a business may be the most creative human activity. — Yasuhiko Kimura

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

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

My best friend Jerry started a boat-washing business, and it was one of the most critical experiences of my life. I got to meet a lot of people who were entrepreneurs. My parents were schoolteachers, and I was now meeting people who owned companies. I realized that if this guy can do it, why can't I? — Bill Rancic

There are no bad business and investment opportunities, but there are bad entrepreneurs and investors. — Robert Kiyosaki

One of the newest figures to emerge on the world stage in recent years is the social entrepreneur. This is usually someone who burns with desire to make a positive social impact on the world, but believes that the best way of doing it is, as the saying goes, not by giving poor people a fish and feeding them for a day, but by teaching them to fish, in hopes of feeding them for a lifetime. I have come to know several social entrepreneurs in recent years, and most combine a business school brain with a social worker's heart. The triple convergence and the flattening of the world have been a godsend for them. Those who get it and are adapting to it have begun launching some very innovative projects. — Thomas L. Friedman

Zach is part of an exploding movement of social entrepreneurs who offer new approaches to supporting women in the developing world. Aid workers function in the context of an aid bureaucracy, while social entrepreneurs create their own context by starting a new organization, company, or movement to address a social problem in a creative way. Social entrepreneurs tend not to have the traditional liberal suspicion of capitalism, and many charge for services and use a business model to achieve sustainability. Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Conventional wisdom suggests the primary motivator for entrepreneurs is money or wealth creation and, in fact, much of the political debate tends to center around what kind of tax or regulatory policy changes will turn corporate suits into small business adventurers overnight. — Chip Conley

What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up, and remake the world for the better. — David Bornstein

The vocation of pastor(s) has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans. — Eugene H. Peterson

As a Shark, I've been in the tank with these entrepreneurs and I can tell you Rachel gets right to the heart of how they succeeded," said Barbara Corcoran in her endorsement of the book. "'Shark Tank MOMpreneurs' is a must read for anyone looking to learn the inside secrets of getting on 'Shark Tank' and landing a deal, or getting the publicity that's essential for any successful business. — Rachel A. Olsen

Managers will work for a salary. Entrepreneurs create new businesses. Many people have capital, but instead of making money for business they build houses for rent. It's easy money to collect rental. — John Gokongwei

Very few entrepreneurs start their business on the back of market research. Instead, they have tremendous zeitgeist, honed by paying attention to where they are. — Margaret Heffernan

The fastest way to get kicked out of a venture capitalist's office is to say that you want to build a business that grows steadily, focuses on employees, and creates wealth over the long term. Entrepreneurs with such ambitions are considered pariahs. — Vivek Wadhwa

Entrepreneurs always begin the journey believing that they have the next big idea. They dream of the fame and fortune that awaits them if only they had the funding to pursue it. But the reality is that as the product is built and shared with customers, flaws in their concept are discovered that - if not overcome - will kill the business. — Jay Samit

Entrepreneurs don't ask for permission. They act per a mission. — Ryan Lilly

We tend to think that innovation comes from bureaucratic funding, through planning, or by putting people through a Harvard Business School class by one Highly Decorated Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (who never innovated anything) or hiring a consultant (who never innovated anything). This is a fallacy - note for now the disproportionate contribution of uneducated technicians and entrepreneurs to various technological leaps, from the Industrial Revolution to the emergence of Silicon Valley, and you will see what I mean. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In order to succeed in business a man does not need a degree from a school of business administration. These schools train the subalterns for routine jobs. They certainly do not train entrepreneurs. — Ludwig Von Mises

The thing I preach constantly is do your research; build your knowledge base. Don't just go into business on a whim or a prayer - and don't think 'I'm an entrepreneur so I have to take risks'. Entrepreneurs don't take risks. They take calculated risks; only the good ones. — Theo Paphitis

There's one thing I've learned about entrepreneurs' business plans. Every one is wrong. — Josh Kopelman

Entrepreneurs are willing to work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week. — Lori Greiner

Networking is all about connecting with people. But then again, isn't that what life is about? The more time you can find to get out of the office and build true friendships, the farther your startup will go. Entrepreneurs need to remember to spend as much time working on their business as they do in their business. — Jay Samit

What America is thirsting for now is a battalion of strong, down-to-earth 'doers' - managers, frontline activists, business and social entrepreneurs engaged in tackling America's manifold problems of unemployment, education, and competitive slouch. — Tina Brown

Savvy entrepreneurs adopting an abundance mindset realize there's enough business to go around. The next time you're networking, consider approaching someone you think is a competitor. Explore the possibilities of referring business to them. — Lisa A. Mininni

The pace of change for entrepreneurs is rapidly accelerating, and the cost and risk of launching a new business and getting off the ground is just amazing. The ability to gain user feedback really quickly and adapt to what your consumers want is totally different with the web as it is now. But finding a new market, helping people and taking that original idea and turning it into a business is really exciting right now. — Matt Mickiewicz

What entrepreneurs quickly learn is that they need to price their product at least 2.3 times its cost to allow for at least one 50 percent margin for them and another 50 percent margin for their retailers (1.5 x 1.5 = 2.25). That first 50 percent margin for the entrepreneur is really mostly covering the hidden costs of doing business at a scale that they hadn't thought of when they first started, — Chris Anderson

No idea for a new growth business ever comes fully shaped. When it emerges, it's half-baked, and it then goes through a process of becoming fully shaped. I've developed tests that I'm hoping can help entrepreneurs manage that shaping process, so that the business plan that comes out the other end has a very high probability of success. — Clayton Christensen

Steve Jobs is the most epic entrepreneur of all time. He served as a guiding light for any emerging businessperson who wanted to learn how things should get done. He'll be looked at as one of the best business leaders of all time, and certainly one of the best tech entrepreneurs. — Aaron Levie

My best ideas come in the shower, where I'm showered with water, but also ideas. — Ryan Lilly

Entrepreneurs see the "no diving" sign and back-up to get a running start. — Ryan Lilly

The successful entrepreneurs on the free market will be the ones most adept at anticipating future business conditions. Yet, the forecasting can never be perfect, and entrepreneurs will continue to differ in the success of their judgments. If this were not so, no profits or losses would ever be made in business. — Murray Rothbard

A well-dressed, self-assured business executive steps into a quiet corner of the conference room, crowded with people. Everyone there is aware of her presence. She's dark-haired, petite, and alluring. She is quick to smile, and when she does, her whole face lights up. Her enthusiasm is infectious. Young men and women nod as they pass by, briefly breaking off their conversations with colleagues. The executive looks down at her compact electronic device and quickly texts: "Smile. Talk into the mic. Good luck. — Jill Bryant

Many entrepreneurs do not realize that many of the problems their businesses face today began yesterday, long before there was a business. — Robert Kiyosaki

There is a clear connection between developing the skills and talents of young people, and our economic success as a province. Initiatives like the Make Your Pitch competition and the Ontario Social Impact Voucher help us nurture the next generation of business leaders. We will continue creating an inviting environment for our next generation of entrepreneurs, ensuring they develop the right skills needed to succeed in a globally competitive economy and build the future of Ontario. — Brad Duguid

Society can't wait. It's sad there are so many entrepreneurs, business successes and venture capitalists who give no thought to society. — Les Wexner

Entrepreneurs bring to business ... creativity. — Wayne Rogers

In business the 80/20 principle is behind any innovation, any extra value. It is an entrepreneurial principle, a formula for value creation utilized not only by entrepreneurs, but by most managers and organizations. — Richard Koch

Successful entrepreneurs may hate hierarchies and structures and try to destroy them. They may garner the disapproval of MBAs for their creativity and wildness. But they have antennae in their heads. When they walk down the street anywhere in the world, they have their antennae out, evaluating how what they see can relate back to what they are doing. It might be packaging, a word, a poem, or even something in a completely different business. — Anita Roddick

When President Obama speaks about raising taxes on the rich, he speaks about high-income employees and small business owners, not entrepreneurs who build big businesses. — Robert Kiyosaki

By simply capitalizing on core strengths and knowledge, companies and entrepreneurs can engage in an emerging business model that will enable them to create - and demonstrate - real, sustainable social impact in society. — Muhammad Yunus

The franchise model is great, because most people who are entrepreneurial want flexibility and time to do what they love. A lot home business entrepreneurs struggle because they have to do everything. — Rory Vaden

China's economy became more complex. By now there is a large number of small- and medium-sized companies that work quite differently from big, state-owned enterprises. They don't follow any long-term business plan and don't rent office space for years to come. They start out and need an office right away, for a week, a month or half a year, and they want to be among other entrepreneurs like themselves. — Zhang Xin

Thought Leadership
"The new economics for industry, government, education" Book by W. Edwards Deming
"In God we trust. All others must bring data."
William Edwards Deming,
Statistician, Professor and Author
#smitanairjain #leadership #womenintech #thoughtleaders #tedxspeaker #technology #tech #success #strategy #startuplife #startupbusiness #startup #mentor #leaders #itmanagement #itleaders #innovation #informationtechnology #influencers #Influencer #hightech #fintechinfluencer #fintech #entrepreneurship #entrepreneurs #economy #economics #development #businessintelligence #business — W. Edwards Deming

I didn't really do many business ventures throughout my career because I would have an idea and then before I'd have a chance to make something of it, I'd see someone else do it. I just liked to watch my fellow artists become entrepreneurs and be people who can inspire the next generation. I did that more with my songs. — Nas

Interest in the arts among entrepreneurs, inventors, and eminent scientists obviously reflects their curiosity and aptitude. People who are open to new ways of looking at science and business also tend to be fascinated by the expression of ideas and emotions through images, sounds, and words. — Adam M. Grant

The problem is that many entrepreneurs start with good intentions to create a new mindset system but then slack off. The solution is to make that system part of your daily routine. — Lisa A. Mininni

Unlearn your knowledge about what WAS working to understand what is working NOW — Roger James Hamilton

As entrepreneurs, we often get pressured into hiring an industry executive. While it's good to hire people with experience, it can also be a stumbling block because they think about the business the same way everyone else does. — Blake Mycoskie

Entrepreneurs are all unique. One way to build a business and turn it into a brand is to know who you are. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

The payouts for starting a business are just terrible when you account for risk. A tiny minority of entrepreneurs ever get rich. And the majority of entrepreneurs would probably make far more money, and have more stable personal relationships, if they just worked for someone else. — Michael Arrington

The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that's hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator. — Peter Thiel

I think many people go to business school and learn ways to play it safe, ensuring that they avoid some of the pain that entrepreneurs endure while taking less calculated risks. — Sophia Amoruso

The goal is to build a profitable business, not maintain an expensive hobby that will leave you in the poorhouse. — Dawn Fotopulos

The government itself cannot create jobs. Jobs are created by business people and entrepreneurs. — Tom Marino

What separates sports from entrepreneurism, however, is that in business we constantly have to overcome undefined and unpredictable challenges. Athletes train for specific events and conditions, whereas entrepreneurs generally have little idea what they will encounter along the way. — Naveen Jain

Every new rule, mandate, and regulatory edict is one more obstacle that small business owners, entrepreneurs, and job creators have to swallow. — Marsha Blackburn