Seeking an acquisition from the start is more than just bad advice for an entrepreneur. For the entrepreneur it leads to short term tactical decisions rather than company-building decisions and in my view often reduces the probability of success.
The success of the young entrepreneur will be the key to India’s transformation in the new millennium.
Speed to fail should be every entrepreneur’s motto. When you finally find the one idea that can’t be killed, go with it.
A friend of mine, a Hispanic entrepreneur asked me a question sometime ago, he said, ‘When is the last time you saw a Hispanic panhandler?’ I think it’s a great question. I’ll tell you, in my life I’ve never once have seen a Hispanic panhandler, because in our community, it would be viewed as shameful to be out on the street begging.
A true entrepreneur doesn’t see an obstacle and thinks how long its going to take to conquer, they look at it and figure out how high they are going to jump and jump over it.
The stereotypical successful entrepreneur is Mark Zuckerberg – the young college dropout who dreamed up a crazy idea while in his dorm room.
Don’t buy into the 20-hours-a-day entrepreneur myth. You need to sleep 8 hours a day to have a focused mind.
There is a lot of interest in the arts, music, theatre, filmmaking, engineering, architecture and software design. I think we have now transitioned the modern-day version of the entrepreneur into the creative economy.
For a first-time entrepreneur, there’s nothing better than being in Silicon Valley because there is so much going on, and there’s such a large number of inventors, that even a B level idea or a C level idea could be nurtured and be given venture capital there.
The kind of products you envision as an entrepreneur is a function of your life experience.
You can’t be an entrepreneur and work in a public company anymore.
Most venture capitalists won’t read a business plan unless the entrepreneur is introduced to them by a contact.
I think a good entrepreneur has a very clear grasp of what the goal is, an unwavering sense of the goal, an utterly agile approach of getting there.
A successful entrepreneur can’t be afraid of failures or setbacks. An initial setback can be a great opportunity to take a new and more promising approach to any problem, to come back stronger than ever.
All I want to be is a wandering entrepreneur touching billions of lives. I am going to be the monk who never bought a Ferrari.
Just like any business is a living, breathing thing, an entrepreneur has to be able to adapt over time.
An entrepreneur without funding is a musician without an instrument.
An entrepreneur is someone who can make enough money to pay for their mistakes.
In December 1989, my mother died very suddenly, and that sparked a re-evaluation of what I was doing, and I realized I was mediocre at everything. I was a mediocre IBM employee, I was a mediocre entrepreneur, I was a mediocre artist. I decided that, although my mom wouldn’t be around to see it, I wanted to be great at something.
You don’t start a company because you want to be an entrepreneur or the fame and glory that comes along with it. You become an entrepreneur, and you create a company to solve a real problem. And by real problem, I mean a problem that is going to exist down the line.
You can’t be an entrepreneur for other people. You can’t start a company for other people. You have to love it more than you ever thought of loving something that wasn’t a human being. The demands will kick you down and rob your life – but yet, it is so rewarding.
An entrepreneur is someone who brings a pattern change.
My best advice to entrepreneurs is this: Forget about making mistakes, just do it.
Entrepreneur, make today count but don’t let the day count you.
There just isn’t anything more invigorating than to read an article or hear about an entrepreneur using the term ‘disruptive technology’ that makes no reference to me as the source. When it’s clear they really got the idea and they use it as if it were in everyday parlance, that’s the ultimate triumph.
The journey from employee to entrepreneur was a complex and taxing one for an immigrant like me.
When I finished school, I took my entire life savings – $5,000 – and invested it in a business. I was young. I was inexperienced. But I was an entrepreneur, and I was proud. And in six weeks, I was broke.
If I had one piece of advice to tell an entrepreneur, I always say, ‘You have to have emotional investment in what you’re working on.’ That’s what we lacked at Odeo.
I think the word ‘social entrepreneur’ is a really good description of what I am. What that means me to is that you have the entrepreneurial gift and spirit to create something out of nothing.
I always had this desire to be an entrepreneur, except I felt I didn’t really know what I was doing.
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