Edward Conard Quotes

A successful designer must be a gambler.

In the media business and as a creative executive, if you don't take risks, you're dead in the water. Calculated risk-taking is essential for success.

I have always believed that the risk takers are eventually rewarded.

Artists, writers and people in creative fields are entrepreneurs by necessity. Nobody gives them a paycheck or picks up their medical insurance. The ones who succeed learn to think and act like 'independent operators.' I think people who are technically 'employees' have to think this way as well. The company is not looking out for you.

Everyone does a style book, and I wanted to write a business book for people that didn't think they would like a business book.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

Business [compared to government] has an advantage in that we know that if we don’t take risks, it’s about survival … Business has to also stand behind government leaders who take risk.,, That’s what leadership is about.

Entrepreneurship is not only about starting businesses but is an attitude to life.

The cool thing about a start-up - this is sort of the entrepreneur side of me - is that you can make it grow as much as you can. Or you can squander the talent as much as you want. But it's up to you.

I'm not one for conventional wisdom. I founded my label in 1998, but after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, my Japanese backers pulled out, and I couldn't afford to produce the line myself. I needed fresh ideas from someone who understood technology, since that was the direction the business was going.

If life was so easy that you could just go buy success, there would be a lot more successful companies in the world. Successful enterprises are built from the ground up.

Immigration keeps this country young, it keeps it dynamic, we have entrepreneurs and strivers who come here and are willing to take risks, and that's part of the reason why America historically has been successful.

Like many of my fellow entrepreneurs, I didn't create Hearsay Social with my co-founder Steve Garrity because it would be fun and easy, but because we're at our best when faced with enormous challenges.

I've always been an entrepreneur, but it's never been about the money. I like a challenge, the harder the better.

I love the business of business; I love the risk raking.

Creativity and business acumen don't always go hand in hand.

I think Coran Capshaw is such a brilliant entrepreneur and he always thinks about new stuff; the biggest stuff you can imagine. I know he's working on a lot of things for me at the moment, and I think it will definitely help my career to go to the next level.

Life is like the monkey bars: you have to let go to move forward. Once you make the decision to leap into entrepreneurship, be sure to loosen your grasp on old concepts so you can swing your way to new ones.

I actually think every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they recognize it or not.

Give me an entrepreneur with a lot of courage, gusto and who iterates rapidly, and I will back that person day in and day out.

I believe that a creative career is only as good as the risks that you take with it.

I am looking for unknowns who are passionate and mission-based. But I don't try to tout the next great thing I want to get in front of, because I don't set that course. The entrepreneurs do that.

A life lesson for me is, how do you muster the courage to take on a new risk? Whether it's starting up a business or taking on a new project or expedition. I think the risks that we take are all relative to the risk-taker.

One of the things that I'm really proud of is that I have really good timing. It's very easy for me to see what's coming up and it's no coincidence that I went headfirst into wine and then headfirst into new media - none at all.

The TED Fellowship exposed me to a set of youngsters who had wilder ideas than I did - and almost all of them were pursuing their wild and crazy ideas without fear of failure.