Julia Hartz Quotes

You want roles that challenge you and that scare you a little and where you can really discover something, even about yourself, that maybe you didn't understand.

I wouldn't call Loopt a failure. It didn't turn out like I wanted, for sure, but it was fun, I learned a lot, and I made enough money to start investing, which led me to my current job. I don't regret it at all.

I've seen women afraid to stretch for things. They avoid opportunities they don't feel qualified for yet. Instead, they should grab risky opportunities that will force them to grow on the job and learn to do it.

In this business, it's important to constantly do things that you don't know how to do. I love touring and making records, but I've learned how to do that, so sometimes you just have to dive in and try it.

I really chose a path after 'Grown Ups' of doing different things that I hadn't tried before, and just trying to take on those challenges.

What always drove me was my curiosity. That's what made me join Booking and not be afraid to leave a very successful job and then go into a startup.

One of the most brilliant parts of being a first-time founder is that you experience everything for the first time. It never gets old.

As I began to take risks, leaving my very comfortable and secure job and taking this first leap into fashion, every subsequent risk became easier to take because I began to see the kind of opportunity and excitement that risk-taking offered.

I started The Body Shop in 1976 simply to create a livelihood for myself and my two daughters, while my husband, Gordon, was trekking across the Americas. I had no training or experience and my only business acumen was Gordon's advice to take sales of £300 a week. Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.

We had this unbelievable faith that no business has done, quite frankly, and we tripped along the way doing it, but within two years, we were in 40-plus countries. So we ran at an amazing pace, and this is where venture capitalists play a role. Making Groupon into what it is today, we had no role in it; the entrepreneurs did it.

I'm just riding this train as long as I can. As long as I'm having fun, I'll do it. When it stops being fun, I'll try something else. Maybe I'll open up a chain of Popeye's Chicken.

Doing startups is all about making mistakes.

I wanted to be my own boss. I was fascinated by airlines and how I could change travel for the average person. Then I wanted to diversify.

At some point in your career, maybe you, too, have made the life-altering decision to start anew. If so, you know first-hand how exciting, challenging, and sometimes disorienting the first 30, 60, 90 days can be.

So March 2010, we launched Pinterest, and we were at 3,000 accounts. And that wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't started building Pinterest actually in November 2009. And that alone wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't left my job to start a company in May 2008.

I call myself an accidental entrepreneur. I was all set to take up a brewing job in Scotland when a chance encounter with an Irish entrepreneur led me to set up a biotech business in India instead.

Later on in life, I discovered that in order for me to be successful, I had to have a challenge. I can't do a nine to five job.

I'd never done a sitcom until the 'Michael J. Fox Show.' I'd never even guest starred in one until then. So it was definitely a learning curve, which is what I wanted. I wanted to do something new, to challenge myself.

Everything I've done I've always kind of jumped in headfirst, and it's been a learning curve. Even MuchMusic, I had never done live television before, and all of a sudden you show up, and they're like, 'You ready kid? Let's go.'

If it scares me, it means I'm supposed to do it.

I've come to a real understanding of the enormity of what owner entrepreneurs do in founding great businesses. They are rare and a thing of art in many ways.

I did the 'right' thing and got a corporate job on Wall Street. That did not last long. I felt like I was throwing all my years of hard work and relationship-building down the toilet. I eventually quit, went and bought a camera, and built a website. That was the birth of KarenCivil.com.

When I dropped out of school at 19 to start my first job in Hollywood, I didn't know anything, and I had no idea where I'd end up. Thankfully, I was attached to some smart and forgiving people who let me learn under them.

We were lucky that when we were making the transition from children's to prime time a lot of other presenters our age shied away from that arena.

People are starting companies at young ages. They fail fast, learn a lot, and keep going.