Entrepreneur Experience Quotes

I have had some great successes and great failures. I think every entrepreneur has. I try to learn from all of them.

Entrepreneurship is “risky” mainly because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.

Back in 2001, my first start-up was mentioned in the 'New York Times' and 'USA Today.' I figured that would drive thousands of visitors to the site and tons of new business. Instead, only a handful of people visited our site, and not much business came of it at all.

Having information that the other side doesn't have gives VCs an advantage... they take advantage of entrepreneurs who haven't been through this before... they were totally willing to take advantage of us.

Numerous studies, and my own experience as a serial entrepreneur, have proven that companies with a diverse management team provide greater financial returns to investors.

Generally speaking, experience counts for something. So you'd expect entrepreneurs who've been through the ups and downs of a tech startup to have an advantage over the newcomers. Or at least have an equal chance at success. But in fact the opposite may be true. A number of venture capitalists I've spoken with have said that too many "old guard" entrepreneurs are not being bold enough in their business decisions, and it's hurting their startups.

It was while starting my business that I saw my first glimpse of government's impact on business.

About 10 million people start a business each year, and about one out of two will make it. The average entrepreneur is often on his or her third startup.

In every business I had ever started, even ones that had totally failed, I had kept good relations with the investors.

If you look at most successful startups, they're run by people in their mid to late forties, who've gone through the trenches multiple times and had multiple failures, so they understand.

I love Notting Hill and Westbourne Grove - there is so much life and vitality around Portobello and Ladbroke Grove. It has come up a lot since I started Virgin more than 40 years ago, but there is so much character.

Acquiring customers at the start is one of the hardest things you'll ever experiences as an entrepreneur.

Starting my business has been very hard work. I have received no help from any officials at all.

When it comes to the challenges of being an entrepreneur and a female, specifically a female entrepreneur, it's something that we really have been living for a long time in a different pool.

I didn't realize how hard it was to run a small business.

What the entrepreneur gets on 'Dragons' Den' is direct access to people with masses of experience who can actually make quick decisions.

My advice is never let a publicist call you a 'visionary.' I've hung out with the visionaries at the famed Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. I've been a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur. I wouldn't touch 'visionary' with a 10-foot pole.

Well, as we built the business in the 1990's, as I said, I enjoyed that.

That Will Never Work' is my chance to share all the secrets I've accumulated in a 40 years career as a entrepreneur - secrets that can help anyone turn their dream into a reality.

The kind of products you envision as an entrepreneur is a function of your life experience.

I work with tiny companies, so I don't really live in unicorn world, to be honest.

If you look at the ecosystem, entrepreneurs as a class have gotten younger, younger, and younger. They also as a class have become less and less and less experienced. The good part about that is that you're unlocking this ability to start a company to so many more people. That's an amazing positive. The negative is they're coming to that job with dramatically less experience than they've ever had. So there needs to be someone around the table that can then help them.