Gina McKee Quotes

Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.

When you found a company, you have the original vision, you make all the original decisions, you know every employee, you kind of know every aspect of the product architecture and its limitations.

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.

I'm not going to launch a bikini business and then give up bikinis, am I?

You need to invent things and you need to get them to people. You need to commercialize those inventions. Obviously, the best way we've come up with doing that is through companies.

One of my top tips for aspiring entrepreneurs: Tell everyone you know about your idea. This runs contrary to the instinct that most people have, because they're afraid someone is going to 'steal my ideal.' Ideas alone are worth very little; it's in the execution and market feedback that companies are made.

If you're clear on what you believe, you have a great foundation to go make a market.

One of my earliest ventures was when I was nine years old. I realized there was a shortage of pencils at school, so I started Rent-a-Pencil. But I made a fundamental mistake. Everybody stole my pencils.

When trying to start a company, your enemy isn't criticism, anger or insults. Your enemy is apathy.

A big part of the accelerator is to help scientists become entrepreneurs. I like to think about each business being built on three major areas: creating the value, creating the product, and extracting the value. We provide help in each of these areas.

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

When you're starting a new business, you don't need to know much about it. A lot of the work is blocking and tackling - it's the same type of stuff no matter what sector you're in.

It's important for founders to think about how they would build their company from scratch - again.

When you're starting your own business it's really important to think through your plan: what's the idea, why is it relevant to the market, how much money you are going to invest, how are you going to tell people about it.

I had sold products in flea markets before and I thought a cleaning product would be a good idea. So, in 2006, I came up with the ShamWow! I had seen this type of product at fairs, but it wasn't well marketed. And from there, I went to this factory in Germany that made them for me.

I'm in a unique position, reviewing products for a living, as well as having a successful cosmetics company.

We make interesting companies and real businesses. It's not social networks for cats.

Build something, make something, test something, sell something. Learn for yourself if your idea is a good one.

Many people decide to jump from niche to niche, as they cannot find success immediately with the niche that they have chosen for their online business.

When I started Atom Factory, the idea was to do something small yet powerful. That name resonated with the mission.

Everything I am is cause of Paris. She like paved the way for me. A girl like me who is literally famous for nothing - Paris Hilton taught us how to make that a business, you know what I mean?

We're not really in the business to sell ourselves. We want to sell what we work on.

If the day ever comes when I think something is okay simply because district schools do it, I hope my board fires me.

Having my name on a cosmetics line has always been a dream, one I'm excited to share.

In their infancy, startups need geniuses who fit their current tight-knit culture and will iterate quickly as they push towards an ambitious vision - and they need a scaffolding of advisors, strategists, early users, and product-thinkers around these savants to guide them.