Quotes & Sayings About Starting Small

When we are going through the aftereffects of a bad jolt in loss of money or pride
and both are closely connected
we should get off to ourselves, make an honest appraisal of our shortcomings, and try to find our weak spots and bolster them up before starting in again. First on the program we should figure out a plan to eat. The money we have lost is a small matter; if we can keep our pride and strong faith in ourselves the battle ahead is half won before we start. — Sue Sanders

I became interested in making books, starting about 1965, when I did the Serial Project #1, deciding that I needed a small book to show how the work could be understood and how the system worked. — Sol LeWitt

How subtle is the relationship between the traveler and his luggage! He knows, as no one else knows, its idiosyncrasies, its contents ... and always some small nuisance which he wishes he had not brought; had known, indeed, before starting that he would regret it, but brought it all the same. — Vita Sackville-West

He looked in her eyes, and she wondered if she made a good decision starting something like that with a guy like Nero. She knew he was like a wolf. The man was definitely an animal, and he looked at her only as food. Yet that excited a small part of Elle, and that was what scared her the most — Sarah Brianne

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

Thinking about starting a small business? Assume everything will cost twice as much and take twice as long as you think it will. — Dave Ramsey

My mother once wrote a poem about rivers. They were women, she wrote. Starting out small girls, tiny streams decorated with wildflowers. They were torrents, gouging paths through sheer granite, flinging themselves off cliffs, fearless and irresistible. Later, they grew fat servicable, broad slow curves carrying commerce and sewage, but in their unconscious depths catfish gorged, grew the size of barges, and in the hundred-year storms, they rose up, forgetting the promises they made, the wedding vows, and drowned everything for miles around. Finally they gave out, birth-emptied, malarial, into a fan of swamps that met the ocean. — Janet Fitch

His entire aspect was menacing, starting with his chilling eyes and the pronounced bone structure of his face. He was tall and lean, but the skin on his arms was stretched over muscles that looked as taut as whipcord. The backs of his hands were bumpy with strong veins. His clothes and hair had snagged natural debris - twigs, sprigs of moss, small leaves. He seemed indifferent to all that, just as he did to the mud caked on his boots and the legs of his jeans. He smelled of the swamp, of sweat, of danger. — Sandra Brown

I'm starting to feel like an old man
alone in a small boat
In a snowfall of blossoms,
Only the south wind for company,
Drifting downriver, the beautiful costumes of spring
Approaching me down the runway
of all I've ever wished for.
Voices from long ago floating across the water.
How to account for
my single obsession about the past?
How to account for
these blossoms as white as an autumn frost?
Dust of the future baptizing our faithless foreheads.
Alone in a small boat, released in a snowfall of blossoms. — Charles Wright

Using a fisherman's net with large holes will only catch big fish; letting the smaller ones escape unharmed. It is a lot like life: focusing only on one golden opportunity lets the smaller ones slip away unnoticed. However, starting small will catch larger opportunities over time. — Adam Santo

doesn't matter if we don't mean to do the things we do. It doesn't matter if it was an accident or a mistake. It doesn't even matter if we think this is all up to fate. Because regardless of our destiny, we still have to answer for our actions. We make choices, big and small, every day of our lives, and those choices have consequences. We have to face those consequences head-on, for better or worse. We don't get to erase them just by saying we didn't mean to. Fate or not, our lives are still the results of our choices. I'm starting to think that when we don't own them, we don't own ourselves. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I would tell young people to start where they are with what they have and that the secret of a big success is starting with a small success and dreaming bigger and bigger dreams, I would tell them also that a young Black woman or a young Black man can't dream too much today or dare too much if he or she works hard, perseveres and dedicates themselves to excellence. — John H. Johnson

Teaching you to fight at all is an exercise in futility," Ty responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "Luckily for you, I enjoy things like banging my head against a wall."
"I enjoy banging your head against a wall too," Zane replied as tossed the balled-up tape at a nearby trash can. He let a small smile quirk his lips as he sat on the bench to unlace his shoes.
"Shut up," Ty grunted at him. But even though his back was still turned to him, Zane could hear a smile in his voice. "And cut it out with the damn cat jokes, huh? They're starting to catch on."
"Fine, fine. No reason to get catty about it," Zane told his partner with a barely concealed grin. — Abigail Roux

It's far more difficult being a small-business owner starting a business than it is for me with thousands of people working for us and 400 companies. Building a business from scratch is 24 hours, 7 days a week, divorces, it's difficult to hold your family life together, it's bloody hard work and only one word really matters - and that's surviving. — Richard Branson

There is small chance of truth at the goal, where there is not childlike humility at the starting-post. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

My music is just about story telling. I don't have much to say, and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just singing through conviction about what I love and what I care about, starting with the very small. — Sufjan Stevens

The whole world is global. With the Internet, it's like we're all living in a small village. We're starting more and more to realize there is no difference, we can work together, we can put aside our differences and work on our similarities and be successful in that way. — Shohreh Aghdashloo

We've been following many forms of democratized ownership, starting with co-ops, land banks at the neighborhood level, municipal ownership and state ownership of banks - there's a whole series of these that attempt to fill the small-scale infrastructure that can build up to a larger theoretical vision. — Gar Alperovitz

Small blogs are starting up big campaigns. — Jessica Valenti

You may start small but don't stay small — Bernard Kelvin Clive

Four Months of War in Cuba
The Spanish-American War lasted less than four months for the United States; however for Cuba this was only a small part of their War of Independence from Spain, which went through many phases starting with the Ten Years' War and lasted almost 20 years. The United States government originally was neutral, but became involved when the Spanish Governor forced thousands of Cubans into concentration camps. Americans joined the Cubans in their fight against the Spaniards after the USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor. During those tumultuous years, 5,180 Cuban insurgents died in battle and over 40,000 died from various diseases such as Yellow Fever. Colon Cemetery in Havana is one of the great historical cemeteries of the world and was built just in time to receive the victims of the Cuban Wars of Independence. — Hank Bracker

There is no guarantee that starting a small conversation will lead to something larger. But the failure to take any step at all, no matter how small, comes with an ironclad guarantee that we will not be part of helping change happen. — Parker J. Palmer

But now," he continued, "science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways - air, and water, and land - because of ungovernable science." He sighed. "This much is obvious to everyone. — Michael Crichton

For kids stuck in small towns everywhere who feel like you'll never escape, I hear you. We are all connected. We're all in this together. You are not alone.
No matter what happens, never *ever* give up.
Happiness is not limited. There's enough for everyone. You can start right now, today, to move toward a happier life. Your life is shaped by your choices. Make ones that will help you get where you want to go.
Find your place to belong. It may not be a physical place. At least, not yet. Maybe your place is somewhere you let your imagination take you. Maybe it's your vision of the way your ideal life will be.
Eventually, you'll find a real place that feels like home. Your whole world will open up in ways you kept believing were possible. And you'll be so happy you held on long enough to make it there.
So let's do this thing. Let's own what makes up unique. Let's refuse to allow haters to stop us from moving forward. Let's turn our dreams into reality.
Starting now. — Susane Colasanti

Never despise small beginnings, and don't belittle your own accomplishments. Remember them and use them as inspiration as you go on to the next thing. When you venture outside your comfort zone, wherever the starting point may be, it's kind of a big deal. — Chris Guillebeau

And from, you know, small ideas, bigger ideas emerge. So we're starting with suborbital space flights and we'll then go into orbital space flights and, you know, maybe one day we'll send people on a one-way voyage into the depths of space as per the science fiction trips. — Richard Branson

In the Twoleg nests around them, lights began to appear in the dark holes in the walls. Lionblaze heard a Twoleg shouting angrily, but the dogs went on barking and pounding at the fence. His belly lurched when he saw that the small brown-and-white dog had stuck its head through the gap and the wood around it was starting to splinter. The dark tabby she-cat darted forward and slashed her claws at the dog's nose. Yelping, it pulled back. — Erin Hunter

Oh. My. God." he murmured as it all ended in a crescendo complete with beautiful sparks and all the bells and whistles of fantastic makeup sex.
Five full minutes later he propped up on a an elbow and kissed the tip of her nose. "Can we fight again tomorrow?"
She smiled up at him. "I was thinking of starting an argument right now. — Carolyn Brown

Help each user personally. Sure that won't scale to a very large size, but when a startup is just starting out, it really helps you have an advantage as a small and nimble company. — John Collison

The problem [with genetic research] is, we're just starting down this path, feeling our way in the dark. We have a small lantern in the form of a gene, but the lantern doesn't penetrate more than a couple of hundred feet. We don't know whether we're going to encounter chasms, rock walls or mountain ranges along the way. We don't even know how long the path is. — Francis Collins

It just makes me realize how ... fleeting life can be. How quickly it all passes by. And it's strange to read something written by someone whose life was really just beginning then but who's dead now."
He nodded, looking like he was taking that in. But then he said, "That's kinda deep, Daisy."
She laughed, rolled her eyes. "Well, you asked. So if that's too deep for you, tell me about your fish."
"Well, they were small and blue and I feel emotional because their lives were really just starting but they're dead now. — Toni Blake

When you are starting a new business you don't want to go after giant markets. You want to go after small markets and take over those markets quickly. — Peter Thiel

When women gain control over spending, less family money is devoted to instant gratification and more for education and starting small businesses. — Sheryl WuDunn

Signs are small measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a sky, and colored by a thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge ... wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be. Just because Miss Brooke was hasty in her trust, it is not therefore clear that Mr. Casaubon was unworthy of it. — George Eliot

I did a lot of stuff before I became known for horror. I did a lot of small films in the '70s, in all kinds of styles. I worked with all kinds of people when I was just starting out: I was incredibly lucky. — Robert Englund

America has been very open to immigrants in terms of laws, getting loans - it has been helping immigrants more than it's been helping African Americans in starting a small business. That's key, whether you're starting a restaurant or a laundromat. — Marcus Samuelsson

If you want to be useful, you can always start now. It will be a humble prototype of your grand vision, but you'll be in the game. Start by teaching someone this week. Starting small puts 100% of your energy into solving real problems for real people. — Derek Sivers

I've lived on my own since 17, and when I found I wasn't working all the time, I ended up starting a small theatre company called Red One Theatre. — Joe Dinicol

The Engineering Question Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements? 2. The Timing Question Is now the right time to start your particular business? 3. The Monopoly Question Are you starting with a big share of a small market? 4. The People Question Do you have the right team? 5. The Distribution Question Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product? 6. The Durability Question Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future? 7. The Secret Question Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don't see? We — Peter Thiel

Room. "Glad to see you're awake," he said. "I was starting to think it was foolish to try and heal you without using blood - with wounds like that, anyway - but you proved me wrong." Will sat at a small table across from her. His silhouette was outlined by a roaring fire. The — H.M. Ward

Nothing could be seen whole or read from start to finish. What was seen begun - like two friends starting to meet each other across the street - was never seen ended. After twenty minutes the body and mind were like scraps of torn paper tumbling from a sack and, indeed, the process of motoring fast out of London so much resembles the chopping small of identity which precedes unconsciousness and perhaps death itself ... — Virginia Woolf

Our planning consisted of starting up our project by generating some income through t-shirts and small products. Then we worked our way up with art shows and art projects that I'm creating under our collective. Only then did we announce the comic book, because if we don't do these things before, no one is going to care what you're doing for the bigger project that you've got coming next. We worked it up in steps, and once we announced the comic project it all came together. — K. Guillory

There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified in placing the highest value on that station and association which is their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these fatal facts out of sight
for starting, trembling, quailing at the chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more our experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbor's conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed. — Charlotte Bronte

Student loan debt is crushing young people. And so they're not doing the things we would expect them to do. They're not moving out of their parents' homes in as big a numbers, they're not saving up money for down payments, they're not buying homes or cars or starting small businesses or doing any of the things that help move this economy forward. — Elizabeth Warren

MONOPOLY. Tesla started with a tiny submarket that it could dominate: the market for high-end electric sports cars. Since the first Roadster rolled off the production line in 2008, Tesla's sold only about 3,000 of them, but at $109,000 apiece that's not trivial. Starting small allowed Tesla to undertake the necessary R&D to build the slightly less expensive Model S, and now Tesla owns the luxury electric sedan market, too. They sold more than 20,000 sedans in 2013 and now Tesla is in prime position to expand to broader markets in the future. — Peter Thiel

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. - Mark Twain — David Allen

Another way Mother Nature builds resilience is by being very federal in how she self-organizes. She nests her communities - which are analogous to states, counties, and towns - within a flexible framework that makes the whole more than the sum of its parts. That is, she's built on trillions and trillions of small-scale networks, starting with microorganisms and building into bigger and bigger ecosystems. But each one is a little community, naturally adapting and evolving in order to survive and thrive. — Thomas L. Friedman

How about this? she retorted, her voice deceptively flirtatious, and in that small, stolen moment in his mind, he quickly spun and grasped her by the small of her back, pulled her close into to him, and made her his. And maybe she resisted at first before giving in, or maybe she didn't - maybe she'd wanted this just as long as he had. But none of that would matter, because they would finally be together, starting at that moment and for the rest of their lives. And they would love each other and raise children and make music, and life would suddenly be worth living, and Christ, how could anyone ever throw something like that away? — J. Tonzelli

I was having a bad day, and my friend said, 'Go wash your hair.' I thought it was really silly - but it made me feel so much better. It might be a small thing, but it works. Washing it off and starting over. — Kaley Cuoco

Paul's vision, though, is starting small, with actual communities in which reconciliation and justice has to be practiced - like the rich/poor distinction in the Corinthian church, for instance, or the projected reconciliation between Philemon and Onesimus. But he clearly believes (Ephesians 3) that communities like this send a signal to the wider world that Jesus is Lord - which is aimed at then the whole world coming into line. — N. T. Wright

Stealing equipment from a small-town fire station is such an easy, petty crime," Nick said. "It feels anticlimactic after starting the day in New York selling three stolen Rembrandts and outwitting the FBI."
"We could break into the International Bluegrass Music Museum," she said. "I hear that it's the Louvre of northwest Kentucky."
That got Nick's attention. "What have they got to see?"
"I was kidding! I was being sarcastic."
"Sarcasm isn't one of your strengths," he said. — Janet Evanovich

Epic things start with small humble steps. Pay respect to your beginnings. And if you're just starting out, know that it's OK to be sucky. To be small. To be messy and chaotic. Just make sure to never ever stop dreaming. — Vishen Lakhiani

Hunter was bipolar, for crying out loud. He had checked into the nut house on more than one occasion and, honestly, I was already starting to feel the anxiety of living together. I would need to get my martial arts skills up to par to deal with this lunatic. I knew that I would also need to pick up a copy of Kill Bill at my next convenience and take notes as I watched, just in case a fight happened to break out in the kitchen. Also, at night, I had decided that I would need to sleep with either a small pistol or a flamboyant hunting knife under my pillow for a quick grab, in case he skipped his meds one night and decided to kill me. I needed to be prepared for the unthinkable. — Chase Brooks

In China, a lot of the opening up of private entrepreneurship is happening because women are starting businesses, small businesses, faster than men. — Hanna Rosin

Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay. — Stephen Jay Gould

Lay plans for the accomplishment of the difficult before it becomes difficult; make something big by starting with it when small. — Laozi

It is important to stress that, in America at least, no matter how small and how badly off a particular stigmatized category is, the viewpoint of its members is likely to be given public presentation of some kind. It can thus be said that Americans who are stigmatized tend to live in a literarily-defined world, however uncultured they might be. If they don't read books on the situation of persons like themselves, they at least read magazines and see movies; and where they don't do these, then they listen to local, vocal associates. An intellectually worked-up version of their point of view is thus available to most stigmatized persons. A comment is here required about those who come to serve as representatives of a stigmatized category. Starting out as someone who is a little more vocal, a little better known, or a little better connected than his fellow-sufferers, a stigmatized person may find that the "movement" has absorbed his whole day, and that he has become a professional. — Erving Goffman

Once I had her clean, I wrapped her in a towel and carried her back to the bed. A small red bloodstain was on the sheets, and again the possessive monster inside me threw back his head and roared his pleasure. I stood there holding her and letting the proof I was the only man to be inside her wash over me.
Blythe turned her head, and I felt her stiffen in my arms. "Oh, I can clean that up," she said, starting to wiggle.
I pulled her tighter to my chest. "No. I'm going to dry you off and hold you some more. I like seeing that blood. I did that," The pleasure in my voice made Blythe smile. — Abbi Glines

But I believed in starting over. There was finally, I knew, only rupture and hurt and falling short between all persons, but, Shirley, the best revenge was to turn your life into a small gathering of miracles.
If I could not be anchored and profound, I would try, at least, to be kind. — Lorrie Moore

Every startup is small at the start. Every monopoly dominates a large share of its market. Therefore, every startup should start with a very small market. Always err on the side of starting too small. — Peter Thiel

There are many, many more small theater spaces than there were when I was starting out. — Tom Stoppard

But now science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways
air, and water, and land
because of ungovernable science. — Michael Crichton

As any small business owner knows, starting a business is not glamorous work. — Kevin McCarthy

The starting point of enlightenment, a goal that every person should strive for, is inner leadership. Leadership is far more than something businesspeople do at work. Leadership is all about personal responsibility, self-discovery, and creating value in the world by the people we become. Too many people spend their time blaming others for all that isn't working in their lives. We blame our spouses for our unhappy home lives; we blame our bosses for our distress at work; we blame strangers on the freeway for making us angry; we blame our parents for keeping us small. Blame, blame, blame, blame. But blaming others is nothing more than excusing yourself. Blaming others for the current quality of your life is a sad way to live. In doing so, all you're doing is playing the victim. — Robin S. Sharma

A lot of young people just starting out unskilled, as all Americans do when they're born here, come to this country, and so the business community is for immigration. Big businesses, small businesses, high-tech, low-tech, the communities of faith, and the Republican leadership. — Grover Norquist

But the more he strained to think, the clearer it became to him that it was undoubtedly so, that he had actually forgotten, overlooked in his life one small circumstance - that death would come and everything would end, that it was not worth starting anything and that nothing could possibly be done about it. Yes, it was terrible, but it was so. — Leo Tolstoy

I thought about how the past can become so small. An entire day, 24 separate, heavy hours, becomes the size of a tiny brown leaf falling from a tree. Before you know it, a whole year is just a pile of dead leaves on the ground. The year or so I'd spent in love with Chad was starting to feel so long ago, swept away by the wind. I knew that this year would soon feel far away too. — Kimberly Novosel

We must begin where we are and move forward immediately by starting small and capitalizing on what's at hand. — Mike Schmoker

Most cleantech companies crashed because they neglected one or more of the seven questions that every business must answer: 1. The Engineering Question Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements? 2. The Timing Question Is now the right time to start your particular business? 3. The Monopoly Question Are you starting with a big share of a small market? 4. The People Question Do you have the right team? 5. The Distribution Question Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product? 6. The Durability Question Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future? 7. The Secret Question Have you identified a unique opportunity that — Peter Thiel

Felicity was in the process of unpacking her valise on the bed. "Then let us make sure no one else makes that mistake," she said, pulling out ribbons and laces, a set of fancy hair combs and a few cosmetic pots. "Nanny Tasha always said a lady's age should be a mystery." Miranda closed her eyes. Truly, she was starting to wonder about Lord Langley's choice of nannies for his daughters. Most of what the girls repeated from their dear caretakers sounded more like the advice of an experienced Cyprian, not that of a doting governess for small, impressionable children. Felicity — Elizabeth Boyle

I'm out, surrounded in dark. But in the distance there is a small glow, a tiny light. Suddenly I'm standing alone, the space starting to brighten as the light grows. — Suzanne Young

I'm not the type of person to eat big hunks of meat. I think people are starting to realize that great things come in small batches. — April Bloomfield

Encino is a small community in the San Fernando Valley smashed up against and completely indistinguishable from all other Valley communities. You can drive from one to the other, passing the same dry cleaners, dubious sushi restaurants, and gas stations, without so much as a sign to mark your transition. It does, frankly, matter much where are you. If anything at all marks Encino from its clone neighbors, it's that it isn't aging quite as well. Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills have kept their figures and shown up on time for regular collagen injections while Encino is really starting to let itself go. — Ashley Ream

He sees our lineal success as a fortunate fluke: "Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay." Gould — Bill Bryson

He knew it would take as many years as could think of now to forget the tracks, no matter how deeply buried. Some morning in autumn, spring, or winter he kn he'd wake and, if he didn't go near the window, if he just lay deep and snug and warm, in his bed, he would hear it, faint and far away.
And around the bend of the morning street, up the avenue, between the even rows of sycamore, elm and maple, it the quietness before the start of living, past his house h would hear the familiar sounds. Like the ticking of a doe the rumble of a dozen metal barrels rolling, the hum of single immense dragonfly at dawn. Like a merry-go-round like a small electrical storm, the color of blue lightning, coming, here, and gone. The trolley's chime! The hiss like a sc fountain spigot as it let down and took up its step, and starting of the dream again, as on it sailed along its way, traveling a hidden and buried track to some hidden and buried destination. — Ray Bradbury

I mean, there are some amazing storytelling being done on the small screen right now. That's what so cool about being in television right now. Studios, networks are starting to throw more resources, better writers, more production values ... and to be part of that is awesome. — Ian Somerhalder

Over 80% of the poor are people who have small plots of land and grow their own food and they don't grow enough to sell much into the marketplace. So they will be hit hard by the worst in climate. They really get hit hard starting in the 20-year time frame and thereafter. — Bill Gates

I've always said from starting off, 'I don't mind if I'm in a big budget film or a huge play or something small in London playing for 50 people, as long as I'm doing what I love doing for a living.' — Dominic Sherwood

The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat. — Napoleon Hill

The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors. Any big market is a bad choice, and a big market already served by competing companies is even worse. This is why it's always a red flag when entrepreneurs talk about getting 1% of a $100 billion market. In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition, so it's hard to ever reach that 1%. And even if you do succeed in gaining a small foothold, you'll have to be satisfied with keeping the lights on: cutthroat competition means your profits will be zero. — Peter Thiel

1. The Engineering Question Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements? 2. The Timing Question Is now the right time to start your particular business? 3. The Monopoly Question Are you starting with a big share of a small market? 4. The People Question Do you have the right team? 5. The Distribution Question Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product? 6. The Durability Question Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future? 7. The Secret Question Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don't see? — Peter Thiel

Stop thinking," Brian whispered. He ran two fingers up under the edge of her T-shirt, teasing her stomach. "Let me make it good for you." Her stomach clenched at his light touch, and his words. "I don't get a say in it?" she teased. "Of course you do," he said, starting a slow, small, side-to-side rocking motion with his hips, brushing his hard dick against her, teasing her. "You can let me, or you can fight me. It can be crazy good when you fight it. — Samantha Kane

Do that which consists in taking no action;
Pursue that which is not meddlesome;
Savor that which has no flavor.
Make the small big and the few many;
Do good to him who has done you an injury.
Lay plans for the accomplishment of the difficult before it becomes difficult;
Make something big by starting with it when small.
Difficult things in the word must needs have their beginnings in the easy;
Big things must needs have their beginnings in the small.
Therefore it is because the sage never attempts to be great that he succeeds in becoming great.
One who makes promises rashly rarely keeps good faith;
One who is in the habit of considering things easy meets with frequent difficulties.
Therefore even the sage treats some things as difficult.
That is why in the end no difficulties can get the better of him. — Lao-Tzu

I thought there was an abundance of information on how to structure a business, but there was a shortage of concrete information on what it really takes to sustain a business. The more I would hear from the experts on how to start a business, the less it rang true for me and my personal experience of running a small enterprise. — Paul E. Casey

When contemplating the pursuit of a dream or the start of a new venture, too many people are hesitant to begin because they can't comprehend the entire journey. If that's where you find yourself right now, don't expect to understand what it takes to get to the top. Just take the next step. There's no shame in starting small; in fact, if you don't start small, you'll probably never start at all. — John C. Maxwell

Rule: Resist the temptation to clear up small things first. Remember, whatever you choose to do over and over eventually becomes a habit that is hard to break. If you choose to start your day working on low-value tasks, you will soon develop the habit of always starting and working on low-value tasks. This is not the kind of habit you want to develop or keep. The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually. Motivate — Brian Tracy

Starting small is the beginning of it all. — Rumont TeKay