Jon Oringer Quotes

I found it very helpful not to do the venture round. Instead, I started with very little money, a few thousand dollars, and I did every job myself. I was the first photographer. I was the first customer service rep. I was the first online marketing person.

A savvy entrepreneur will not always look for investment money, first.

I started LearnVest with a tiny savings account where I paid designers, technologists, and even bartered... Because I started with paying for things myself with my own savings, it sharpened my focus of how to spend money.

Startups are often very undercapitalised, but I found that to be very beneficial because it forces you not to throw money at problems. Instead, you learn all the nuts and bolts of what you're doing and become an expert.

That's part of being an entrepreneur - you watch your pennies.

We started in our living room on a card table in our living room, and we have a multi-million dollar company and we know it can be done without borrowing a dime. It takes a while to get it started and to turn the wheel over, but the next time it's easier and the next few hundred times, it's easier than that. Have a budget where you reinvest a percentage of every dollar you earn to grow it.

Economy consists in a due and proper application of the means afforded according to the ability of the employer and the situation chosen; care being taken that the expenditure is prudently conducted.

I have seen entrepreneurs ask for hundreds of millions of dollars on a concept and try to sell because of 'their passion' for an idea. If the idea is that good, why wouldn't I cut you out and hire someone who is just as passionate for much, much less?

Business is all about risk taking and managing uncertainties and turbulence.

Unlike Marvel, we are not setting up redundant organizations for expertise that exists. We will track all DC properties to measure financial success.

Basically if you study entrepreneurs, there is a misnomer: People think that entrepreneurs take risk, and they get rewarded because they take risk. In reality entrepreneurs do everything they can to minimize risk. They are not interested in taking risk. They want free lunches and they go after free lunches.

I keep my overhead as low as I can.

Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.

One thing I'm so grateful for is sidestepping the usual venture capital, private equity route. My friends who have gone that way are many times beholden to their boards of directors, to 'sell' ideas to a team.

A hardware startup with no funding is a risky venture.

The tools used by economists to analyze business firms are too abstract and speculative to offer any guidance to entrepreneurs and managers in their constant struggle to bring novel products to consumers at low cost.

In the private sector, you have a budget and you stick to it.

The right algorithm is to put off seeking funds for as long as physically possible. And in an ideal world, a startup would never have to seek funds at all.

I've said it for four decades - work 'on' your business, not just 'in' your business!

Quit being 'busy' and start actively owning and operating your company, and you'll be able to understand where the money is coming from and how to make more of it.

As it turns out, I can see I'm quite a business-minded person as I've developed.

I've been investing in and funding myself since day one.

Starting a business from scratch and having little money in the bank focuses your mind in a way that running a multibillion-dollar business never does. It brings the key drivers of performance into sharp relief. I promise.

Being bootstrapped is great. You own 100 percent of it. But the downside is that you aren't able to move as fast as you want.

We're so used to financing things on our own that we always have a plan in place to sort of scale our ideas.