Peter Jones Quotes

I think a lot of people are getting bored of audition-based shows, along the lines of 'Strictly Come Dancing' or 'The X-Factor'. I know I am. But 'Dragons' Den' will have a longer shelf-life than all of them because it's fundamentally real in a way that other shows aren't.

One of my goals is that, at a dinner party some time in the future, someone will say, 'Oh, my nephew is starting a ready-to-wear brand', and 20 people will turn around and say, 'Is he? Can we invest?' in the same way that, now, if you were to say, 'My nephew is starting a mobile app,' everyone would say, 'Oh, smashing! Can I invest?'

Running a real business is exacting, daunting, repetitive work. Even in Silicon Valley.

The more entrepreneurs in the world that are getting their ideas financed, the more great companies there are going to be that we can all invest in.

One of the things that struck me is how authentic 'Shark Tank' is. I don't know how more real it can be. You have no prior knowledge about the entrepreneurs.

Shark Tank's participatory. There's so many people on Twitter for this show, and they all feel like they're in the tank, making calls on this stuff.

Having been a fan of 'Dragons' Den' since it first aired in 2005 I was absolutely delighted and proud to have the opportunity of becoming a Dragon myself.

I think just calling up a VC and saying 'I want to pitch you' is an enormous waste of time.

I really have become very interested at working with and helping entrepreneurs at the early stages of their growth.

I have this passion for building things, so I always wanted to build a startup. I always wanted to start my own company.

For all founders, going public is a momentous milestone that has to be experienced to be fully understood. It is the culmination of years of hard work and personal sacrifice.

When I started InMobi, I was on the road raising funds. I faced 20 rejections. But when I got the funds, they came from best venture capitalists.

I remember looking up to most any venture capitalist as someone who could make my little company happen with a single million-dollar check.

Almost anything worth doing involves some measure of risk - from learning to ride a bike, moving to a new city, and certainly, starting your own business. The point is that no one has ever started a business or created a new product with a guarantee of success.

We always saw ourselves in careers as entrepreneurs or angels.

When you have a failed pitch, you meet many more venture capitalists than you really want to.

What Techstars is fundamentally a global ecosystem in which entrepreneurs are enabled and empowered to bring new technologies to the market.

Certainly when I was starting, it required being in a community where, when you tried to rent a building, and they looked at your balance sheet and saw it was negative, that didn't scare them away.

Los Angeles has always been one of America's most entrepreneurial cities, but it is hard to recognize this because of how hardwired, literally, 'entpreneurism' has become.

I don't love it when people come in and say, 'We need a woman on our board,' or 'Can you invest in this new shopping app because you like to shop?' But whatever gets me in the deal.

You have to get out there and compete. You have to work hard. People aren't just going to come knocking on your door and say, 'Please let me invest $1 billion in your back yard.' You need to be able to go and match the pitch and close the deal.

Finding initial funds is the primary barrier most entrepreneurs face. Many people don't have three or six months' worth of savings to free themselves up to do months of unpaid legwork.

Our goal is simply to make entrepreneurship more accessible to everyone around the world throughout the entrepreneurial journey, from inspiration to IPO.

Graduating business school, I had $150,000 of debt. An investment firm offered me a steady job, but it didn't feel right. It was 2007 in Silicon Valley, and I dreamed of starting an Internet company.

Starting a company and being a founder is really hard, and most companies fail. You really have to have a deep commitment and belief in it and be willing to see it through many ups and downs.