Eric Ries Quotes

The entrepreneurs that really make it are the ones that start with an idea but are ready to change it at a moment's notice.

Nobody has a crystal ball, and part of evolving a business plan is to say, 'I might have said we're going left, but I see the opportunity and we're going right.'

So companies have to be very schizophrenic. On one hand, they have to maintain continuity of strategy. But they also have to be good at continuously improving.

By the way, intelligence to me isn't just being book-smart or having a college degree; it's trusting your gut instincts, being intuitive, thinking outside the box, and sometimes just realizing that things need to change and being smart enough to change it.

Entrepreneurs … benefit greatly from being willing to fail, willing to experiment. Good entrepreneurs tend to be stubborn on the vision but flexible on the details. They’re persistent on what they’re trying to accomplish, but they are willing to rewrite the details as needed as they learn and as things fail.

Being an entrepreneur isn’t just a job title, and it isn’t just about starting a company. It’s a state of mind. It’s about seeing connections others can’t, seizing opportunities others won’t, and forging new directions that others haven’t.

Never accept or be too comfortable with the status quo, because the companies that get into trouble are historically the ones that aren't able to adapt to change and respond quickly enough.

I always roll with the way things are, so as soon as one decision happens, you just realign and move on and make another decision.

I try to be very aware of opportunities as they arise. But I don't sit around staring at my navel and thinking about my brand development.

Our next CEO needs to thrive in a highly dynamic environment, to be capable of accelerating what is working very well for Cisco and disrupting what needs to change.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Let's all strive to be more entrepreneurial, and I think we'll all be in a better place.

It was a hallmark of Nelson Mandela's leadership that being open to change made him appear not weaker, but even stronger.

Moving with the times is an important idea for strategy today.

A subset of CEOs is that of entrepreneurs. And the classical definition of an entrepreneur is an individual who pursues opportunity without regard to the resources currently controlled. That sounds like a very different person than one might expect an analytical investment manager to be.

Someone once described entrepreneurship to me as a series of happy accidents.

Most people who go into business for themselves and, therefore, believe they are entrepreneurs, are doomed to struggle because they don't have a true Entrepreneurial Perspective. They have a Technician's Perspective.

Build a company that changes the way things get done!

Being an iconic food company can be both a blessing and a curse. It can be a curse if, amidst change, you maintain the status quo. It is a blessing if you leverage the change coupled with capability to seize new opportunities.

To get an Army that's already fighting a war to change in stride to a total different military strategy on the ground - and to get everybody on the same page - was accomplished by the sheer force of Dave Petraeus' will.

I've often thought of successful entrepreneurs as individuals who have just the right expertise - at just the right moment - to solve the emerging problems of their time.

I think I've changed my business strategy every year since 2003. You have to be watching the horizon constantly. The rug has been pulled out from under our feet so many times.

Entrepreneurs typically have an instinct for smelling opportunity, but that same killer instinct can quickly turn to weakness when it becomes a distraction from primary goals.

For organisations, flexibility is a must to cope with fluctuations in demand and remain competitive, and people must be able to develop adaptable attitudes to quickly embrace evolving business conditions, new business opportunities, and shifting strategies.

AAP is like a start-up. You do roles you would have never imagined.