Table of contents
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"Data beats emotions.â âSean Rad, Adly and Tinder founder
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âI knew that if I failed I wouldnât regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.â âJeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO
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âYou donât need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea.â âLarry Page, Google co-founder
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âA âstartupâ is a company that is confused about â 1. What its product is. 2. Who its customers are. 3. How to make money.ââDave McClure, 500Startups co-founder
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âAll humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA.â âReid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
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âBefore dreaming about the future or marking plans, you need to articulate what you already have going for you â as entrepreneurs do.â âReid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
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âThe fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.â âReid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
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âI donât look to jump over 7-foot bars â I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over.â âWarren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO
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âIn the end, a vision without the ability to execute it is probably a hallucination.â âSteve Case, AOL co-founder
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âDonât be cocky. Donât be flashy. Thereâs always someone better than you.â âTony Hsieh, Zappos CEO
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âEmbrace what you donât know, especially in the beginning, because what you donât know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.â âSara Blakely, Â SPANX founder
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âWhat do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone. Know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.â âDave Thomas, Founder, Wendyâs
- "No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you're playing a solo game, you'll always lose out to a team." -Reid Hoffman, Linkedin co-founder
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âAs long as youâre going to be thinking anyway, think big.â âDonald Trump, The Trump Organization president
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âWhether you think you can, or think you canât â youâre right.â âHenry Ford, Ford Motor Company founder
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âBehold the turtle, he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.â âBruce Levin
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âFearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.â âArianna Huffington, The Huffington Post Media Group president and EIC
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âRisk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.â âHoward Schultz, Starbucks CEO
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âDiligence is the mother of good luck.â âBenjamin Franklin
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âYou shouldnât focus on why you canât do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.â âSteve Case, AOL co-founder
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âThe way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.â âWalt Disney, Disney founder
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âA person who is quietly confident makes the best leader.â âFred Wilson, Union Square Ventures co-founder
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âWe are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform.â âPete Cashmore, Mashable founder and CEO
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âI like to pride myself on thinking pretty long term, but not that long term.â âMark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder
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âAlways deliver more than expected.â âLarry Page, Google co-founder
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âDonât limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.â âMary Kay Ash, Mary Kay Cosmetics founder
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âYou donât learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.â âRichard Branson, Virgin Group founder
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âI never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.â âBill Gates, Â Microsoft co-founder
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âEven if you donât have the perfect idea to begin with, you can likely adapt.â âVictoria Ransom, Wildfire Interactive co-founder
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âHigh expectations are the key to everything.â âSam Walton, Walmart founder
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âDonât take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give â with a few exceptions â generalize whatever they did. Donât over-analyze everything. Â I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.â âBen Silbermann, Pinterest founder
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âYou just have to pay attention to what people need and what has not been done.â âRussell Simmons, Def Jam founder
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âYou jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.â âReid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
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âDonât be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and donât let the bastards get you down.â âMichael Bloomberg, Bloomberg L.P. founder
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âEvery time you state what you want or believe, youâre the first to hear it. Itâs a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Donât put a ceiling on yourselfâ âOprah Winfrey, Harpo Productions, OWN founder
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âI made a resolve then that I was going to amount to something if I could. And no hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me. And I have done that ever since, and I win by it. I know.â âHarland Sanders, KFC founder
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âSo often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.â âCaterina Fake, Flickr co-founder
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âTrust your instincts.â âEstee Lauder, Estee Lauder founder
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âThereâs lots of bad reasons to start a company. But thereâs only one good, legitimate reason, and I think you know what it is: itâs to change the world.â âPhil Libin, Evernote CEO
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âIf youâre not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.â âRay Kroc, McDonaldâs founder
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âTheory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.â âJames Cash Penney, J.C. Penney founder
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âSustaining a successful business is a hell of a lot of work, and staying hungry is half the battle.â âWendy Tan White, MoonFruit co-founder and CEO
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âYour most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.â âBill Gates, Microsoft co-founder
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âIf you define yourself by how you differ from the competition, youâre probably in trouble.â âOmar Hamoui, AdMob co-founder
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âDesign is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.â âSteve Jobs, Â Apple Inc. co-founder, chairman and CEO
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âIf you just work on stuff that you like and youâre passionate about, you donât have to have a master plan with how things will play out.â âMark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder
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âWonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Donât tell.â âLisa Stone, BlogHer co-founder and CEO
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âIf youâre passionate about something and you work hard, then I think you will be successful.ââPierre Omidyar, Ebay founder and chairman
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âGet a mentor in the applicable field if youâre at all unsure of what youâre looking for.â âKyle Bragger, Forrst founder
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âWhen you find an idea that you just canât stop thinking about, thatâs probably a good one to pursue.â âJosh James, Omniture CEO and co-founder
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âYour reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career.â â Ryan Freitas, About.me co-founder
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âEvery time we launch a feature, people yell at us.â âAngelo Sotira, deviantART co-founder
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âBe undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.â âAnthony Volodkin, Hype Machine founder
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âMoney is like gasoline during a road trip. You donât want to run out of gas on your trip, but youâre not doing a tour of gas stations.â âTim OâReilly, OâReilly Media founder and CEO
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âIf you canât feed a team with two pizzas, itâs too large.â âJeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO
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âDonât worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.â âJeffrey Zeldman, A List Apart Publisher
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âChase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.â âTony Hsieh, Zappos CEO
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âThe value of an idea lies in the using of it.â âThomas Edison, General Electric Co-founder
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âMake every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.â âJack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder
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âYour work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.â âSteve Jobs, Apple Inc. co-founder, chairman and CEO
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âThe most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.â âIngvar Kamprad, IKEA founder
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âAlways look for the fool in the deal. If you donât find one, itâs you.â âMark Cuban, AXS TV chairman and entrepreneur
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âItâs not about ideas. Itâs about making ideas happen.â âScott Belsky, Behance co-founder
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âThereâs nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.â âJason Fried, 37signals founder
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âDonât worry about failure; you only have to be right once.â âDrew Houston, Dropbox founder and CEO
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âGet five or six of your smartest friends in a room and ask them to rate your idea.â âMark Pincus, Zynga CEO
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âIf thereâs something you want to build, but the tech isnât there yet, just find the closest possible way to make it happen.â âDennis Crowley, Foursquare co-founder
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âFail often so you can succeed sooner.â âTom Kelley, Ideo partner
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âNothing works better than just improving your product.â âJoel Spolsky, Stack Overflow co-founder
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âItâs not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.â âEdwin Land, Polaroid co-founder
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âWe are currently not planning on conquering the world.â âSergey Brin, Google co-founder
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âGet big quietly, so you donât tip off potential competitors.â âChris Dixon, Andreesen Horowitz investor
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âDonât try to be original, just try to be good.â âPaul Rand, Graphic Designer
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âItâs hard to do a really good job on anything you donât think about in the shower.â âPaul Graham, YCombinator co-founder
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âIf youâre interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them.â âRyan Freitas, About.me co-founder
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âEntrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.â âDavid Karp, Tumblr founder and CEO
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âBest startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch.â âMichael Arrington, TechCrunch founder and co-editor
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âI donât think an economic slump will hurt good ideas.â âRob Kalin, Etsy founder
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âThe last 10% it takes to launch something takes as much energy as the first 90%.â âRob Kalin, Etsy founder
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âDonât play games that you donât understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.â âTony Hsieh, Â Zappos CEO
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âIdeas are easy. Implementation is hard.â âGuy Kawasaki, Alltop co-founder and entrepreneur
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âEvery day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day.â âJoel Spolsky, Stack Overflow co-founder
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âI doubt Iâll ever go back to corporate work. Once you see the light, there is no turning back.â âMagnus Jepson, WooThemes co-founder
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âStay self-funded as long as possible.â âGarrett Camp, founder of Expa, Uber and StumbleUpon
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âTiming, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.â âBiz Stone, Twitter co-founder
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âThe only thing worse than starting something and failing⊠is not starting something.â âSeth Godin, Squidoo founder, author and blogger
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âWhen Iâm old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say âwow, that was an adventure,â not âwow, I sure felt safe.â "Â âTom Preston-Werner, Github co-founder
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âTurn a perceived risk into an asset." âAaron Patzer, Mint founder
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âAnything that is measured and watched, improves.â âBob Parsons, GoDaddy founder
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âFortunes are built during the down market and collected in the up market.â âJason Calacanis, LAUNCH Ticker founder
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âNo more romanticizing about how cool it is to be an entrepreneur. Itâs a struggle to save your companyâs life â and your own skin â every day of the week.â âSpencer Fry, CarbonMade co-founder
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âThe secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world." âMarc Benioff, Salesforce CEO
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âI try not to make any decisions that Iâm not excited about.â âJake Nickell, Threadless founder and CEO
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âSee things in the present, even if they are in the future.â âLarry Ellison, Oracle co-founder
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âIf youâre going to put your product in beta â put your business model in beta with it.â âJoe Kraus, Google Ventures partner
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âYou canât make anything viral, but you can make something good.â âPeter Shankman, HARO founder
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âItâs more effective to do something valuable than to hope a logo or name will say it for you.â âJason Cohen, Smart Bear Software founder
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âDonât worry about funding if you donât need it. Today itâs cheaper to start a business than ever.â âNoah Everett, Twitpic founder
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âIdeas are commodity. Execution of them is not.â âMichael Dell, Dell chairman and CEO
- "If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late." -Reid Hoffman, Linkedin co-founder