Delphine Arnault Quotes

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.

I had to learn everything about manufacturing, patents and how to run a business, and eventually I came up with an prototype that worked.

We don't really want to work for a corporation; however, we do aspire to one day make a barbecue sauce that doubles as a cologne, and we would like to promote that ourselves. We would like to create a cologne barbecue sauce benchmark of success.

I can't understand the conditions of a corporate product being designed and getting millions. I admire it, it's great, but I don't know how to do that.

In this industry, you have to have passion. It's tough; there's no mercy. But I just love cars - I love to bring a new car to market. And every time I do this, it gets a little easier.

I think my sister and I just focus on working hard. We started off working with Wal-Mart on our first clothing line as an extension of our personal brand when we were 12, and we got to learn about being aware of what was in the market and what wasn't.

It's all about producing products people want.

If you get out there and push and you really work your brand like a business you will be successful.

Having my own label, I have to look at things in a realistic, bottom-line manner.

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

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.

Along the way, I learned the key to launching a company. It's all about storytelling.

One of the people who most influenced me was Ben Shapiro, a marketing professor at the business school. He used to rant and rave and pound his fist: 'It's all about the customers!' And he was right. He was also right that, at that time, retailing was devoid of really talented people; he urged me to go in that direction.

It's much harder these days as a start-up to do physical devices.

One of my business partners would remind me that no fashion line lasts forever, that we would hit the down curve eventually, and that we needed to look for new brands that complement the first one.

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

I would say, as an entrepreneur everything you do - every action you take in product development, in marketing, every conversation you have, everything you do - is an experiment. If you can conceptualize your work not as building features, not as launching campaigns, but as running experiments, you can get radically more done with less effort.

Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.

I can't understand the conditions of a corporate product being designed and getting millions. I admire it, it's great, but I don't know how to do that. I have to have the wheel.

Where I know I wanna go is being consistent on business, and that's just making another artist, my clothing line - capitalizing off the moment. I wanna be consistently doing that - capitalizing off every move I make.

I'm looking for best practices constantly. Apple has beautiful design, beautiful product, incredibly functional. But mostly it's about picking product, getting behind it, marketing it and introducing it to a customer. What they've done just inspires me.

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.

Entrepreneurship is like a computer game in which you have to master every level before achieving success. Startups repeatedly stumble and have to go back to the drawing board. The best way to skip some levels and to increase the odds of survival is to learn from others who have already played the game.

I would love to have my own shoe line. That I would absolutely love.

Every entrepreneur needs ideas, vision, and creativity - no matter what the product or service. Not only that, but the product should truly delight customers and become an essential part of their lives.