In his latest memoir, “How about never, is never good for you?“, Bob Mankoff, the New Yorker magazine’s cartoon editor since 1997 and the co-founder of its cartoon bank shares how he reverse-engineered his side project in cartoons into a trajectory to the top. Self-education and tenacity leads to seeing rejection, not as a deterrent, but as a springboard for entrepreneurship. It is in rejection, that we find time and time again, the success stories of these entrepreneurs. Now even research undertaken by Cornell and John Hopkins university have shown that people who are able to shrug off rejection and blazing their own individual trails experience heightened levels of creativity, commercial success and problem solving.
We now take air travelling for granted but nonetheless of our complacency for human flights, they were a thing of mystery and fascination in the earlier days. The business of modern flights were also a task of electrifying human spirit from the engineers to the businessmen and the fearless test pilots and everyone else associated with them. We all love to hear the David Goliath story and it makes a case for Boeing to take on the big guys and eventually defeat the slow-moving industry behemoths. Entrepreneurs and Startup guys are nothing less than the shepherd David who has everything against him, and yet with his courage and passion, brings down the Goliath.
For every Entrepreneur and startup guy, it is nothing but a battle against the industry giants trying to slay you off in the simplest manner, it is a battle against time and oneself. Entrepreneurs need to continuously innovate and evolve to stay in the battle for the long-term. There will be times in the life of an entrepreneur when things won’t fall out according to plan, it rarely does! But great success stories are the ones that talk less about the final success, but more about the struggles and obstacles that they faced en route to their goal. To rise up and show up everyday no matter what the circumstances are what goes into the making of an entrepreneur with relentless work-ethic. But it isn’t always easy when the times are hard, and every once in a while, there is a need for a small nudge of inspiration from somewhere.
If you are an Entrepreneur or a startup guy on the look for inspiration, here are the best 51 quotes to inspire you and get things going.
1. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Peter Drucker, Author/Management consultant
2. “Watch, listen, and learn. You can’t know it all yourself. Anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity.”
Donald Trump, Chairman of The Trump Organization
3. “Everyone should pull their
finger out and start a business and to 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 Bennatyne, Author/TV personality
4. “Your reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career.”
Ryan Freitas, About.me co-founder
5. “Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.”
Anthony Volodkin, Founder of Hype Machine
6. “Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.”
Jeffrey Zeldman, A List Apart
7. “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 do.”
Steve Jobs, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc
8. “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
9. “Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you.”
Mark Cuban, AXS TV Chairman and Serial-Entrepreneur
10. “There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.”
Jason Fried, Founder of 37signals
11. “If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.”
Jeff Bezos, Chairman and CEO of Amazon
12. “If there’s something you want to build, but the tech isn’t there yet, just find the closest possible way to make it happen.”
Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare
13. “It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.”
Paul Graham, Co-founder of YCombinator
14. “The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something.”
Seth Godin, Entrepreneur, author and blogger
15. “You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good.”
Peter Shankman, Founder of HARO
16. “You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea.”
Larry Page, Co-founder of Google
17. “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”
Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of LinkedIn
18. “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars — I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over.”
Warren Buffet, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
19. “Don’t be cocky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you.”
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
20. “Embrace what you don’t
know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can
become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing
things different from everybody else.”
Sara Blakely, Founder of SPANX
21. “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, Wendy’s
22. “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right.”
Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company
23. “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.”
Donald Trump, Chairman of The Trump Organization
24. “Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.”
Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO
25. “I’ve missed more than
9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been
trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and
over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
Michael Jordan, NBA Legendary MVP
26. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.”
Drew Houston, Co-founder and CEO of DropBox
27. “Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.”
Nelson Mandela, South African leader
28. “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.”
Richard Branson, Virgin Group founder
29. “Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”
Stephen R Cowey, Author
30. “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, Co-founder and CEO of Facebook
31. “One can get anything if he is willing to help enough others get what they want.”
Zig Ziglar, Motivational speaker and Author
32. “A person who is quietly confident makes the best leader.”
Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures co-founder
33. “Always deliver more than expected.”
Larry Page, Google co-founder
34. “I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.”
Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder
35. “Even if you don’t have the perfect idea to begin with, you can likely adapt.”
Victoria Ransom, Co-founder of Wildfire Interactive
36. “Get a mentor in the applicable field if you’re at all unsure of what you’re looking for.”
Kyle Bragger, Forrst founder
37. “Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.”
Lisa Stone, Co-founder and CEO of BlogHer
38. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. co-founder, chairman and CEO
39. “If you define yourself by how you differ from the competition, you’re probably in trouble.”
Omar Hamoui, AdMob co-founder
40. “Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.”
James Cash Penney, Founder of J.C. Penney
41. “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.”
Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s
42. “There’s lots of bad
reasons to start a company. But there’s only one good, legitimate
reason, and I think you know what it is: it’s to change the world.”
Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote
43. “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
44. “I made a resolve then that
I was going to amount to something if I could. And no hours, nor amount
of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that
there was in me. And I have done that ever since, and I win by it. I
know.”
Harland Sanders, Founder of KFC
45. “Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don’t let the bastards get you down.”
Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg L.P. founder
46. “You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.”
Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of LinkedIn
47. “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, Founder of Pinterest
48. “High expectations are the key to everything.”
Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart
49. “Every time we launch a feature, people yell at us.”
Angelo Sotira, Co-founder of deviantART
50. “We’re not really good at knowing what we want, and we are quick to say ‘This sucks!’. That’s where the opportunity lies.”
Gary Vaynerchuk, Founder of Wine Library TV
51. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
Walt Disney, Founder of Disney
So, here we come to the end of this series of inspirational quotes for every Entrepreneur and startup guys.
Always remember, “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” Use
everything against you to steer you closer to your dreams and goals.
Did we miss out on any of your favorite
quotes on Entrepreneurship and Startups? Feel free to shout out your
thoughts and comments below.
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