Entrepreneurial Advice Quotes

What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your business model is.

If you own a wonderful business...the best thing to do is keep it. All you're going to do is trade your wonderful business for a whole bunch of cash, which isn't as good as the business, and you got the problem of investing in other businesses, and you probably paid a tax in between. So my advice to anybody who owns a wonderful business is keep it.

My father always said working for somebody else never amounted to anything. You have to be an entrepreneur

Beware of advice about successful people and their methods. For starters, no two situations are alike. Your dreams of creating a dry-cleaning empire won't be helped by knowing that Thomas Edison liked to take naps.

When I started my company in the U.S. I was always told by my mentors, 'If you want to start a tech company, you need a technical co-founder,' because outsourcing just doesn't work. It is too slow, it is too expensive, and the product is going to change a lot.

I've helped some of my classmates on how to strategize to get to the next level of their businesses. And it's interesting, because here I am sitting there from the entertainment industry and the fashion industry, and I'm giving a billionaire that has a business that's been in his family for 300 years - I'm giving him advice about strategy!

I gave 738 Rotary Club speeches, and it was just driving me crazy, so someone said, 'Why don't you charge money?'

I don't have just one role model - rather, pieces of inspiration from many different entrepreneurs. One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that it naturally enables you to build a village of advisors and role models.

I have always been a huge believer in the inestimable value good mentoring can contribute to any nascent business

Do your homework or hire wise experts to help you. Never jump into a business you have no idea about.

When I read about young designers selling 51 percent of their company to someone else, I cringe. I want to say, 'Don't do it - call me first.'

One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.

You have venture capitalists. We view them as experts who also help finance your company and give directions and also some pretty candid discussions about what you have to do better.

The quickest way to become a millionaire in the airline business is to start out as a billionaire.

If the investors themselves are not sophisticated, if they themselves are not putting a lot of their own money to work, if they themselves don't understand the continuum of capital and how different parts of the capital structures react differently, then they're basically worthless. They're not going to give great advice to these entrepreneurs who then need it. So that is unfortunately the cycle we're in and we have to break the cycle.

Steve Jobs once asked me for some advice about retail, but I said, 'I am not sure at all we are in the same business.'