Quotes & Sayings About Good Business Ideas

The idea that business is strictly a numbers affair has always struck me as preposterous. For one thing, I've never been particularly good at numbers, but I think I've done a reasonable job with feelings. And I'm convinced that it is feelings - and feelings alone - that account for the success of the Virgin brand in all of its myriad forms. — Richard Branson

While good business ideas are plentiful, many entrepreneurs struggle to understand payroll taxes, health care and other thorny issues ... In other words, they don't have the financial literacy to scale their businesses and attract investors. — Daymond John

People are bad at looking at seeds and guessing what size tree will grow out of them. The way you'll get big ideas in, say, health care is by starting out with small ideas. If you try to do some big thing, you don't just need it to be big; you need it to be good. And it's really hard to do big and good simultaneously. So, what that means is you can either do something small and good and then gradually make it bigger, or do something big and bad and gradually make it better. And you know what? Empirically, starting big just does not work. That's the way the government does things. They do something really big that's really bad, and they think, Well, we'll make it better, and then it never gets better.
Building Fast Companies for Growth, Inc. September 2013 — Paul Graham

We must reject the idea ... Well-intentioned, but dead wrong ... That the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become "more like a business." Most businesses ... Like most of anything else in life ... Fall somewhere between mediocre and good. — James C. Collins

I am passionate about what design can do - how far it can support the new ideas and the new ways of living of this 21st Century. Good design accelerates this exciting future where manufacturing is local, materials and processes are cradle to cradle, business models are both socially and financially driven. — Yves Behar

Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them. — Seth Godin

People get hired based off of a certain look or something like that and they have no intention of paying their dues or even respecting the business. It's not a good idea to do that. — CM Punk

The way to be successful in the software world is to come up with breakthrough software, and so whether it's Microsoft Office or Windows, its pushing that forward. New ideas, surprising the marketplace, so good engineering and good business are one in the same. — Bill Gates

Despite our policy of candor, we will discuss our activities in marketable securities only to the extent legally required. Good investment ideas are rare, valuable and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are. — Warren Buffett

The best way to get a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. — Linus Pauling

I have discovered there are only a handful of good ideas in the whole world. You already know them. You have heard them your entire life. Here are some of the main keys to being more successful:
Take personal responsibility.
Things change, so be flexible.
Work smart and work hard.
Serve others well.
Be nice to others.
Be optimistic.
Have goals; want something big for yourself.
Stay focused.
Keep learning.
Become excellent at what you do.
Trust your gut.
When in doubt, take action.
Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.
Enjoy all you've got.
Above all keep it simple. — Larry Winget

SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. This is a good one, he says enthusiastically. I'm in it, and I think you should be, too. — Warren Buffett

And when a woman does fail, she is more likely to believe it's personal - she sucked - while men view it as circumstantial (the business sucked). It's not all bad. Women's fear of failure may prompt them to become better informed; they take the time to read up on their ideas so they can supply evidence. But then of course
there's the feedback loop: People who fear failure are less likely to put forward ideas, to take intellectual risks, and more likely to quit. They tend to avoid new challenges in favor of sticking to what they're already good [at]. — Jessica Bennett

The conventional wisdom in our business is that you have to grow and keep moving to survive. We never grew, always stayed tiny, and it serves us very well over the years, allowing us to pick and choose projects, and keeping our financial independence from our clients. We actually have a rather good track record, because we do select projects carefully. Most of our ideas don't eat dust but glimpse the light of day because we find it much more helpful to spend some serious time and effort before we start working on a project, rather than suffer through it afterwards. — Stefan Sagmeister

It's important not to overstate the benefits of ideas. Quite frankly, I know it's kind of a romantic notion that you're just going to have this one brilliant idea and then everything is going to be great. But the fact is that coming up with an idea is the least important part of creating something great. It has to be the right idea and have good taste, but the execution and delivery are what's key. — Sergey Brin

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. — Howard Aiken

If you hear a good idea, capture it; write it down. Don't trust your memory. Then on a cold wintry evening, go back through your journal, the ideas that changed your life, the ideas that saved your marriage, the ideas that bailed you out of bankruptcy, the ideas that helped you become successful, the ideas that made you millions. What a good review-going back over the collection of ideas that you gathered over the years. So be a collector of good ideas for your business, for your relationships, for your future. — Jim Rohn

Christians have no business playing around with ideas of the devil as a fun-loving, beer-swigging guy who just wants you to have a good time. — Pedro Okoro

All good management is the expression of one great idea — Robert Heller

Share your success stories with others. Don't brag, but don't hide your light. People want (and need) to be inspired and instructed. I know I want to follow and learn from successful people. Isn't that the basis for every business and self-help book? People will also give you good ideas to build on your own wins when you share openly. And when you write out your wins to an audience, your own ideas start to grow within you. Will you try? What's a win you've had lately? Don't be shy about it. — Richie Norton

In the advertising business, a good idea can inspire a great commercial. But a good insight can fuel a thousand ideas, a thousand commercials. — Phil Dusenberry

When I first started out in the entertainment business, I made a list of people I thought it would be good to meet. Not people who could give me a job or a deal, but people who could shake me up, teach me something, challenge my ideas about myself and the world. — Brian Grazer

The only person you can trust with a good idea is a fool; he will not know what to do with it. The last person you trust with a good idea is a shrewd person; he will take advantage of it better than you would. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Don't be afraid if your idea is crazy, because good things come from crazy ideas. (p. 96) — Injap Sia

When starting a new business, people get blinders on. They have an idea, they stick to the idea, but they don't test it or check with their potential audience to see if this is a good idea. It happens all the time. Talk to your customers, see what they like and what you can change or not change. — JJ Ramberg

It was my idea that if you started any kind of business, you should begin somewhere near where you hoped to end. In other words, if I wanted to make really good clothes to order, I would start out making good, and therefore expensive, clothes to order. If I started making inexpensive clothes, I thought probably I'd die making them. — Elizabeth Hawes

Keep things informal. Talking is the natural way to do business. Writing is great for keeping records and putting down details, but talk generates ideas. Great things come from out luncheon meetings which consist of a sandwich, a cup of soup, and a good idea or two. No martinis. — T. Boone Pickens

Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that techincally inept business types are known as suits. — Paul Graham

I am aware that success is more than a good idea. It is timing too. — Anita Roddick

If you were a man, you'd go into business
for yourself. I know a fellow who started out last year with just a
canoe. Now he's got more women than you can shake a stick at, if
that's your idea of a good time. — Groucho Marx

Connection is the triumphal cry these days. Connection has made people arrogant, impatient, hasty, and presumptuous ... I don't doubt that instant communication has been good for business, even for the publishing business, but it has done nothing for literature, and might even have harmed it. In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there is too much) with ideas (of which there are too few). I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected. — Paul Theroux

I think corporations should give more attention to this suffering and should wait to invest until there is a responsible government in Burma. I do not think it is a good idea to separate economics from politics; in fact, I do not think economics can be separated from politics It's quite understandable that many business concerns think only about their own profits It's up to the public to put as much pressure as it can on these companies, through shareholder resolutions and public actions. — Aung San Suu Kyi

RESIGN! It's the way to show you mean business.
If people constantly reject your ideas/ what you have to offer, resign.
You can't keep fighting and losing that makes you a problem.
If you are good, and right for the job, resignation will not be accepted.
You'll be re-signed in your own term.
If they accept your resignation, you were in the wrong job, and it's better for you to move on.
It takes courage, but it is the right move. — Paul Arden

A good idea for a new business tends not to occur in isolation, and often the window of opportunity is very small. So speed is of the essence. — Richard Branson

Our popular economics writers, however, are not in the business of giving their readers a ringside seat on the research action; with no exception I can think of, they use their books to do an end run around the normal structure of scholarship, to preach ideas that few serious economists share. Often, these ideas are not just at odds with the professional consensus; they are demonstrably wrong, and sometimes terminally silly. But they sound good to the unwary reader. — Paul Krugman

When you find an idea that you just can't stop thinking about, that's probably a good one to pursue. — Josh James

Someday, you need to build a business that's difficult to replicate. This is an important part of a good idea. — Sam Altman

If you wish to find, you must search. Rarely does a good idea interrupt you — Jim Rohn