110 Inspirational Quotes For Startups
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Startups have always been hard. Even when you think you are putting in your best, it may not be enough to pull it off. Truthfully, most people fail. But don't give up on your dream just yet.
Here are some of the most important insights from amazing founders on building a great startup.
1. “Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” – Guy Kawasaki, AllTop Co-founder
2. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates, Microsoft Co-founder
3. “We have a “strategic” plan its called doing things.” – Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines Cofounder
4. “Make mistakes faster.” – Andrew Grove, Intel Co-founder
5. “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” – Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman
6. “Stay hungry. And bootstrap.” – Rob Kalin, Etsy Co-founder
7. “Learn early. Learn often.” – Drew Houston, Dropbox Co-founder
8. “We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder
9. “Your reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career.” – Ryan Freitas, About.com Co-founder
10. “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” – Thomas Edison, General Electric Co-founder
11. “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” – Scott Belsky, Behance Co-founder
12. “We are currently not planning on conquering the world.” – Sergey Brin, Google Co-founder
13. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston, Dropbox Co-founder
14. “Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO
15. “Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you.” – Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur
16. “Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors.” – Chris Dixon, Investor
17. “It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.” – Paul Graham, YCombinator Co-founder
18. “An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.” – David Karp, Tumblr founder and CEO
19. “I don’t think an economic slump will hurt good ideas.” – Rob Kalin, Etsy founder
20. “The best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch.” – Michael Arrington, TechCrunch founder
21. “Every day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day. – Joel Spolsky, Stack Exchange CEO
22. “Stay self-funded as long as possible.” – Garrett Camp, founder of StumbleUpon
23. “Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” – Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder
24. “The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something.” – Seth Godin, Squidoo founder, author and blogger
25. “When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say ‘wow, that was an adventure,’ not ‘wow, I sure felt safe.” – Tom Preston-Werner, Github Co-founder
26. “Turn a perceived risk into an asset.” – Aaron Patzer, Mint founder
27. “Anything that is measured and watched, improves.” – Bob Parsons, GoDaddy founder
28. “Fortunes are built during the down market and collected in the up market.” – Jason Calacanis, LAUNCH Ticker founder
29. “No more romanticizing about how cool it is to be an entrepreneur. It’s a struggle to save your company’s life – and your own skin – every day of the week.” – Spencer Fry, CarbonMade Co-founder
30. “The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.” – Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO
31. “See things in the present, even if they are in the future.” – Larry Ellison, Oracle co-founder
32. “If you’re going to put your product in beta – put your business model in beta with it.” – Joe Kraus, Google Ventures partner
33. “You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good.” – Peter Shankman, HARO founder
34. “It’s more effective to do something valuable than to hope a logo or name will say it for you.” – Jason Cohen, Smart Bear Software founder
35. “Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today it’s cheaper to start a business than ever.” – Noah Everett, Twitpic founder
36. “Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.” – Michael Dell, Dell chairman and CEO
37. “Data beats emotions.” – Sean Rad, Adly and Tinder founder
38. “I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO
39. “You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea.” – Larry Page, Google co-founder
40. “A ‘startup’ is a company that is confused about 1. What its product is. 2. Who its customers are. 3. How to make money.” – Dave McClure, 500Startups co-founder
41. “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
42. “All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA.” – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
43. “Before dreaming about the future or making plans, you need to articulate what you already have going for you – as entrepreneurs do.” – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
44. “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
45. “The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.” – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
46. “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars — I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over.” – Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO
47. “In the end, a vision without the ability to execute it is probably a hallucination.” – Steve Case, AOL co-founder
48. “Don’t be cocky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you.” – Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO
49. “Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things differently from everybody else.” – Sara Blakely, SPANX founder
50. “What 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.” – Dave Thomas, Founder, Wendy’s
51. “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.” – Donald Trump, The Trump Organization president
52. “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right.” – Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company founder
53. “Behold the turtle, he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.” – Bruce Levin
54. “Fearlessness 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.” – Arianna Huffington The Huffington Post Media Group president and EIC
55. “Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.” – Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO
56. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” – Benjamin Franklin
57. “You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.” – Steve Case, AOL co-founder
58. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney, Disney founder
59. “A person who is quietly confident makes the best leader.” – Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures co-founder
60. “We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform.” – Pete Cashmore, Mashable founder, and CEO
61. “I like to pride myself on thinking pretty long term, but not that long term.” – Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder
62. “Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page, Google co-founder
63. “Don’t 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.” – Mary Kay Ash, Mary Kay Cosmetics founder
64. “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” – Richard Branson, Virgin Group founder
65. “I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.” – Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder
66. “Even if you don’t have the perfect idea to begin with, you can likely adapt.” – Victoria Ransom, Wildfire Interactive co-founder
67. “High expectations are the key to everything.” – Sam Walton, Walmart founder
68. “Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give — with a few exceptions — generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.” – Ben Silbermann, Pinterest founder
69. “You just have to pay attention to what people need and what has not been done.” – Russell Simmons, Def Jam founder
70. “You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.” – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder
71. “Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities, and don’t let the bastards get you down.” – Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg L.P. founder
72. “Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.” – Oprah Winfrey, Harpo Productions, OWN founder
73. “I 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.” – Harland Sanders, KFC founder
74. “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” – Caterina Fake, Flickr co-founder
75. “Trust your instincts.” – Estee Lauder, Estee Lauder founder
76. “There are lots of bad reasons to start a company. But there’s only one good, legitimate reason, and I think you know what it is: it’s to change the world.” – Phil Libin, Evernote CEO
77. “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.” – Ray Kroc, McDonald’s founder
78. “Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.” – James Cash Penney, J.C. Penney founder
79. “Sustaining a successful business is a hell of a lot of work, and staying hungry is half the battle.” – Wendy Tan White, MoonFruit co-founder and CEO
80. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder
81. “If you define yourself by how you differ from the competition, you’re probably in trouble.” – Omar Hamoui, AdMob co-founder
82. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. co-founder, chairman and CEO
83. “If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out.” – Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder
84. “Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.” – Lisa Stone, BlogHer co-founder and CEO
85. “If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, then I think you will be successful.” – Pierre Omidyar, Ebay founder and chairman
86. “Get a mentor in the applicable field if you’re at all unsure of what you’re looking for.” – Kyle Bragger, Forrst founder
87. “When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.” – Josh James, Omniture CEO and co-founder
88. “An invention that is quickly accepted will turn out to be a rather trivial alteration of something that has already existed.” – Edwin Land, Polaroid co-founder
89. “Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.” – Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media founder, and CEO
90. “If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO
91. “Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.” – Jeffrey Zeldman, A List Apart Publisher
92. “Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.” – Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder
93. “Your 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.” – Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. co-founder, chairman and CEO
94. “The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.” – Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA founder
95. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder
96. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” – Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder
97. “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” – Elon Musk, Tesla founder
98. “You should never take more than you give.” – Elton John
99. “That’s the real trouble with the world. Too many people grow up.” – Walt Disney
100. “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” – James Cameron
101. “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon
103. “The product that wins is the one that bridges customers to the future, not the one that requires a giant leap.” –Aaron Levie, co-founder of Box
107. “Make something people want” includes making a company that people want to work for.” –Sahil Lavingia, founder of Gumroad.
108. “As an entrepreneur, you have to be OK with failure. If you’re not failing, you’re likely not pushing yourself hard enough.” –Alexa von Tobel, founder of LearnVest
109. “The strategy is to first know what you don’t know, the tactic is to grind, and the value is to remember: there are plenty of places to innovate.” –David Friedberg, founder of Weatherbill
110. “Even if you don’t have the perfect idea to begin with, you can likely adapt.” –Victoria Ransom, co-founder of Wildfire Interactive