Steve Ells Quotes

When most people ask about a business growing, what they really mean is growing revenue, not just growing the number of people using a service. Traditional businesses would view people using your service that you don't make money from as a cost.

I have a hard time with businesses that don't make money at some point.

Why can't modern tech companies both grow and turn a profit at the same time?

Almost every ride we're profitable on. We make money on every ride.

If a company is profitable, the founder is in control. If it's not, investors are in control.

Profit is the most global aspect of a business, and it is cross-functional.

In my opinion MS is a lot better at making money than it is at making good operating systems.

I have always focused on the bottom line.

The same products, services or technologies can fail or succeed depending on the business model you choose. Exploring the possibilities is critical to finding a successful business model. Settling on first ideas risks the possibility of missing potential that can only be discovered by prototyping and testing different alternatives.

I consider each business investment based on concept and revenue.

The closest thing to a law of nature in business is that form has an affinity for expense, while substance has an affinity for income.

I truly believe that the combination of a strong top line together with a strong bottom line is what makes for a sustainable business.

I don't put Tesla in the Amazon category. They have not proved to me that, as a financial model and an economic model, it is going to work.

Your first job, as an owner and an entrepreneur, has to be to understand how the business is going to actually work.

If we want, we can be profitable, but we are focusing on growth. We don't comment on profitability, but we do look at it internally. And many of our Ola cities are profitable. But our focus across all cities is growth.

We have to have a business model that can be a sustainable and acceptable one to both regulators and the other stakeholders, clients, and investors.

I am not a big fan of investors asking for revenues upfront. Investors seeking numbers are being too myopic. However, I personally believe in creating a product with clarity in mind on how one thinks revenues can trickle in.

If we are not more efficient, we put ourselves in a position where prices need to rise or profits deteriorate in a way that makes us less attractive to investors.

Revenue cures everything in the business world.

At the end of the day, dividends are not being paid with margins; dividends are paid with earnings per share.

What investors want is growth, margin, and cash.

Our first fiscal year, we were profitable.

If you have a business that isn't growing the top line, it's very hard to deliver attractive returns to shareholders.

Our continued investment in productivity will add to our margins, and you'll see that reflected in the bottom line earnings.

Startups should be - if you graph their financial performance, it should be what's called a J curve. You start out at zero. you're not making any money; you're not losing any money.