John Collison Quotes

When it comes to fundraising for a social enterprise, if you are pursuing your true passion, you'll learn to become great at your craft because you'll care so much about perfecting the skills necessary to make that dream a reality.

Raising money, like sausage-making, ain't pretty to see, and it would be just criminally naive to rely on the big hearts of big donors.

The secret to fundraising comes down to three magic words: before, more, and strategic.

There are so many similarities between a startup venture and a political campaign - the rhythm, the tempo, the hours, the intensity.

The bottom line is, I hear my donors, I hear our base out there, I hear the leadership. And we're taking steps to make sure that we're even more - how shall we say it - fiscally conservative in our spending and certainly making sure the dollars are there when it's time to run our campaigns.

I don't think anyone enjoys raising money, but for some reason I seem to have a knack.

I mentor a lot of CEOs and entrepreneurs, and when I see that product is the number-one thing, the only thing that matters, that's a real red flag.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

I prefer building rather than fundraising.

I approached fundraising as an opportunity to align myself with partners who have more varied experience and diverse backgrounds than I do to help bring Glossier to life.

At a startup, it's hard enough to get a single thing right, much less a whole bunch of things. Especially if the things you are trying to do are not only dissimilar but actively impede each other.

I'm always investing and building things at the same time.

When fundraising, your network is critical. Leveraging it early and often is the key. Don't make the mistake of waiting until you need money to engage sources of capital.

It's fairly common knowledge that a startup can't execute on two products simultaneously.

Your Dream, Vision, Purpose, and Mission all come together when you bring products to market - so make sure you're bringing your best.

Like most entrepreneurs, getting motivated to work has never been a problem for me; focus comes through delegating tasks to the best people you can find.

No matter what, once the doors are open for business, the entrepreneur has no choice but to be directing multiple attacks at once - raising money, writing software, prototyping, selling, collecting, training, and marketing.

As an entrepreneur and investor, I prioritize construction and collaboration. Whether it's a five-person start-up or a global giant, the companies that are most productive are the ones whose employees operate with a shared sense of purpose and a clear set of policies for responding to changing conditions and new opportunities.

That's the problem with so many organizations around entrepreneurship. They're driven by metrics that don't matter.

One of my philosophies of building companies is the importance of velocity.

No matter what, the entrepreneur must strive to be above average and, at the same time, understand what is driving those averages they are seeking to beat. Take the time to understand and test the metrics you are using, and then you can not only set the average, you can exceed it.

Nurturing a project from the ground floor is something I've been wanting to do.

If you ever hope to get ahead as an entrepreneur, the answer is not becoming an effective juggler, but in understanding and designing the systems to keep your team, not you, busy, busy, busy.

A startup, to a some degree, is a set of those challenges of, 'If you don't solve this, you're dead.'

Sometimes, when you're building a company, out of necessity there's just a gazillion things you have to learn and figure out.