The customer determines at the end of the day who is successful and for what reason. —Jerry Harvey, inventor, entrepreneur Everyone talks about how entrepreneurship affords you freedom and independence to do what you want. No longer do you have to suffer the rigid and long hours of corporate America. Nor do you have a […]
View Post Apple, Bank of America, BlackBerry, Circuit City, Facebook, IBM, Jerry Harvey, likes, Verizon Wireless, Wells Fargo
You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak. —George Clooney, actor, director Have you ever listened to a CEO of a major company speak and wonder how in the world that person got to be CEO? Perhaps this “imposter” is not very articulate at all, or has no clue about the company and seems […]
View Post CEO, George Clooney, Steve Jobs
Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will. —Nelson Mandela, former president, South Africa Nothing is more irritating than hearing one of the many generalizations that permeate the business world and corrupt the minds of new entrepreneurs. You’ve heard them. You may even deal in these false aphorisms: “Follow your passion.” “Fake it […]
View Post Capital, Content Management System, Finances, Money, Nelson Mandela, Passion, Publishing, South Africa, Start-Up
I hate competition. —Marat Safin, tennis champion, Russian politician When entrepreneurs approach me to invest in their companies, I naturally want to know who their competitors are. It’s a basic question that any investor would ask. Some entrepreneurs answer the question thoroughly and confidently. They are not afraid to acknowledge what the competitive landscape looks […]
View Post Blockbuster, Harvard University, Marat Safin, N. Gregory Mankiw, Netflix
The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity. —Keith Ferrazzi, founder, CEO, Ferrazzi Greenlight I hate networking. Well, I should qualify my statement. I hate what networking has become in many instances. As a result, I have altogether stopped going to self-proclaimed “exclusive networking events,” because they yield such poor results and waste […]
View Post Ferrazzi Greenlight, Keith Ferrazzi
Eventually, the nerds and the geeks will have their day. —Judd Apatow, film producer, comedy writer Chances are that when you think of the most successful and wealthy entrepreneurs, you don’t think of a group of weird people. Instead, you probably think of well-respected and brilliant people who exhibit all the admirable qualities of well-rounded, […]
View Post Cass Business School, Cisco, dyslexia, Geeks, John Chambers, Judd Apatow, Julie Login, Kinkos, Mark Zuckerberg, Nerds, Paul Orfalea, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, The Economist, Virgin Group
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
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
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
I think, team first. It allows me to succeed, it allows my team to succeed. —LeBron James, NBA champion One of the most costly mistakes I have made as an entrepreneur is to rent high-end office space, thinking that it would foster growth through increased productivity and project a more professional image. It did none […]
View Post Buckhead, Prestige, Regus