Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty. —Plato, Greek philosopher If I had listened to my intuition, I could have saved myself some trouble. I would have heeded the many clues that the shoddy owners of the mom-and-pop business gave me. I would have run out of their dubious restaurant as fast […]
View Post Plato
Inspiration comes from all different places. —Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO, DreamWorks Animation. Oprah Winfrey is known for making guests on her show cry. However, this time, she was the one who would shed tears, overcome by the significance and serendipity of the moment. In 2007 I stumbled upon a television special titled Oprah’s Roots: An African […]
View Post Academy Award, Atlanta, Baltimore, Berklee College of Music, Boston, Charlotte Phelan, Courage, Family, Georgia, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Herbie Hancock, Los Angeles, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oprah Winfrey, The Help, United States, Wynton Marsalis
Two heads are better than one. —John Heywood, English playwright. One of my favorite events in the Summer Olympic Games is the 4×100 meter relay. In this event, a team runs 400 meters total, once around a regulation athletics track, with four teammates running 100 meters each. Currently, Jamaica holds the world record time of […]
View Post Bill Gates, Eduardo Saverin, Fear, Google, Greed, Jamaica, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Johnson, Olympic Games, Olympics, OmniPublisher, Paul Allen, Pride, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Track & Field, Usain Bolt, World Record, Yohan Blake
Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music. —William Stafford, poet For the past two years, I have had the privilege of being an instructor for the Teenpreneur conference, a two-day program that has taught thousands of teens the vital concepts of entrepreneurship. Along with other instructors who are entrepreneurs, I […]
View Post Capri Investments Capital, Quintin E Primo III, Teenpreneur, William Stafford
Competition is very good. . . . It’s what makes one strive to be better. —Christine Lahti, actress, film director. Ninety-five percent of the time, arrogance leads entrepreneurs to believe that they have no competition in the marketplace. However, on rare occasions, arrogance isn’t the true cause of this belief. Instead, arrogance is an effect […]
View Post Back to the Future, Contrave, DeLorean, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, New York Times, Orexigen Therapeutics, Road and Track, Segway, Zipcar
Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools. —Albert Einstein, German physicist. Entrepreneurship is a humbling exercise in learning how to deal with your negative feelings, so as to do what’s best for your company. One of the most difficult feelings to tame is anger caused by a prospective customer who finds no value in […]
View Post Albert Einstein, The Godfather
Timid salesmen have skinny kids. —Zig Ziglar, author, motivational speaker Reality hit us like a Mack truck and stopped us dead in our tracks. Although we reached our goal of creating OmniPublisher, one of the first content management systems built specifically for newspapers and other periodicals, we realized that we forgot to include the most […]
View Post Apple, Eduardo Saverin, Facebook, George Cloutier, Goldman Sachs, Mack Truck, Mark Zuckerberg, Netflix, OmniPublisher, Pandora, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Twitter, Webvan, Zig Ziglar
Everybody can tell you how to do it, they never did it. —Jay-Z, recording artist, entrepreneur. Since I started my business, I have been fortunate to have excellent mentors who have helped me to grow as an entrepreneur. In fact, not only have they been great advisers, but they have also brought me valuable clients. […]
View Post Advisory Board, Angel Investor, Board, Fear, Initial Public Offering, Mentors, Mentorship, Venture Capitalist
You don’t pay taxes. They take taxes. —Chris Rock, comedian, actor I was anxious out of my wits as I sat in my chair waiting for the calculations to tabulate. I had dreaded this day ever since the previous January, when I knew I had only three months left until the deadline. On that early […]
View Post Chris Rock, EIN, IRS, Taxes
All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. —Walt Disney, founder, the Walt Disney Company. As he approached the middle of the basketball court, Michael Jordan had tears in his eyes. It was halftime during his final NBA All-Star Game in 2003, a highly emotional moment for sports fans […]
View Post Ashton Kutcher, Atlanta, Atlanta Hawks, Basketball, Harrisburg, Isaiah Thomas, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Morehouse College, NASA, NBA, NBA All-Star Game, Nelly, Nick Cannon, Pennsylvania, Shaquille O’Neil, spider dribble