E. F. Schumacher Quotes

People who run a ready-to-wear company are businessmen rather than production or design people.

The only way anyone's going to succeed is to build the product.

No matter what, once the doors are open for business, the entrepreneur has no choice but to be directing multiple attacks at once - raising money, writing software, prototyping, selling, collecting, training, and marketing.

I think it is really important to have a sense of business. As a designer you can get so wrapped up in the design and fashion side that you forget the business side.

I always knew I wanted to start my own line. Nights and weekends, I would work on my business plan.

I started my first business when I was 19. I learned a valuable lesson as a small business owner. You are the first one to work, last one to leave, and last one to be paid.

To be a designer today is to be an entrepreneur. Whether you're a two-man operation in Shoreditch or a 3,000-person, vertically integrated brand, you need to have the wherewithal to run your business through investment, considering everything from start-up funds to your exit plan or what it takes to go public.

Entrepreneurship is not really building a product, it's not having an idea, it's not being in the right place at the right time. It's fundamentally company building.

I knew nothing about sales, marketing or how to run a company. Nor did I have a desire to do any of those things.

There really is no shortcut just because you have a name, or you have some kind of access or some way you can solve all the problems. And I think one of the things I learned with FUBU, you have to understand that there's really only two ways of operating a business: more sales, or lower overhead.

All entrepreneurs make decisions. Some will go right, and some will not go that right.

Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.

I think running a business, doing what I've done for the last - since 1996, has taught me so many things because I started from just an idea and then had to figure out how to make it, market it, every single thing from soup to nuts on how to get a product done and out there.

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

When you say we're bringing a product to market, you make sure you execute.

I'm an inventor. I don't enjoy running the business.

My mom and I had a kids' clothing store called Smooch for six years, and I did all the buying before I even had kids.

Business is a string of seemingly impossible problems looking for solutions. Each problem you solve creates a new barrier to entry for your next competitor.

Most big companies work in stealth until they think they have a consumer product ready to go.

Invention is not enough. [Nikola] Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. You have to combine both things: invention and innovation focus, plus the company that can commercialize things and get them to people.

I'm just interested in building a company that doesn't necessarily change lives but adapts people's behaviour.

I mentor a lot of CEOs and entrepreneurs, and when I see that product is the number-one thing, the only thing that matters, that's a real red flag.

Your first job, as an owner and an entrepreneur, has to be to understand how the business is going to actually work.

The Big Dream of any entrepreneur really has very little to do with the entrepreneur. If you truly love repairing automobiles, chances are, you'll be a lousy business owner. Likewise, if you are fascinated by debits and credits, the dream of building an accounting firm with you at the helm is probably best left unfulfilled.

As an entrepreneur, you can have an instinct, and your instinct is right, but your idea you're substantiating that into is wrong, and the world is not ready for it.