Eric Ries Quotes

I've been good at product entrepreneuring.

While 'The Owner's Manual' is not a formula for guaranteed success by any means, we're confident it will help reduce the failure rate of most startups that use our Customer Development process.

I would say the more the better when it is comes to development and marketing. It's actually fun. For some it can be a frustrating thing.

I love building companies; I love making products.

What interests me is starting businesses on our own, finding ideas that we can support, and simply investing in invention.

I have no problem getting financing. I have a problem catching ideas that I fall in love with for the next feature.

The grim reality is that most start-ups fail. Most new products are not successful. Yet the story of perseverance, creative genius, and hard work persists.

To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.

It turns out that no undergrad class prepares you to start a startup - you learn most of it as you do it.

If you are planning to start a business, and if you want that business to have a hope of succeeding, be sure you are approaching your venture from a true Entrepreneurial Perspective.

In getting Under Armour started, like any business, I think, number one, you need a great idea.

Launching a successful product or startup has little to do with luck. Any business that gains traction on the market is the result of very careful strategizing and market analysis, not to mention the development of an original product or service.

As your competitors learn more, you'll need to learn, too.

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

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.

Creating the right advisory board for your startup can be the single most important step you take in building a new business.

A startup is not just about the idea: it's about testing and then implementing the idea. A founding team without these skills is likely dead on arrival.

There are some keys to success in the fad business. One is never give up. You need total motivation and the right kind of creativity. You also have to back the right activity. It is a disaster if you back the wrong idea with your energy. You not only lose money, but you take a big social risk.

'Bazillion Dollar Club' follows six struggling startups trying to get their products together.

The biggest problem I see with early-stage entrepreneurs is they get the idea in their head, and they leave it in their head. And they begin embellishing it in their head, making it more ornate. They add on the second story to their dream house - then add the tennis court and the turrets and the gargoyles.

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown.

If you want to build a startup that has a good chance of succeeding, don't listen to me. Listen to Paul Graham and others who are applying tons of data to the idea of startup success. That will maximize your chance of being successful.

No idea for a new growth business ever comes fully shaped. When it emerges, it's half-baked, and it then goes through a process of becoming fully shaped.

The goal wasn't to create a billion-dollar company. The goal was to create something useful where I could learn things.

In the movies, you want a good story and characters that are honest, but you are also looking for a good director who can lead the ship. That's how we look at business. Everybody has a great idea for a start-up, and so do their relatives, and they tell me, 'You gotta build it.' I say, 'I have to believe in it.'