Entrepreneurs

"On the platforms that we launched we were just trying to talk about the issues and shine a light on people doing great work who weren't getting much exposure at the time,”"

"Connect people. It’s also my favorite thing to do. Because I travel so much for work I have amazing opportunities to meet so many people, and I’m constantly connecting them when I can see there’s synergy in their work"

"I started Knock Knock with the desire to write and design at the same time and to create products that had fun yet substantive editorial content in not-necessarily-book formats. The early 2000s constituted a marketplace moment when there was very little voice-driven product; instead, newly ascendant big-box retailers were targeting a lowest common denominator."

"This may sound obvious, but as entrepreneurs and founders, we’re wired differently. It’s often that difference that propels us to start a business in the first place. We care deeply about what we’re doing. When we begin bringing others onto the team, it’s easy to assume they will think like you. We think they will care as much as us, which simply isn’t the case. It took me some time to realize the benefit of this."

"I wanted something very ambitious, and I didn’t know what that was when I was really little. I just said, “I want to be President of the United States.” That seems like the top, right? I was hungry to try hard things. I was hungry to know what I was capable of."

"I learned a valuable lesson that day. You never know where solutions might come from. Anyone on your team might come up with an idea that can impact thousands of people worldwide. You just have to be willing to listen, try, make mistakes, and see what happens."

"Another way to look at it is the function of Congress. We see that it just continues to decline down from 750 to 250 bills. The left-hand chart here on enacted, so the productivity of Congress, the delivery of the product to Americans continues to go down. And not only is the amount of product, so to speak, in terms of policy going down, but we don't see any correlation between the preferences of citizens and the policies come out. This is actually relatively old data."

"One of the most core ways to look at this is through the trust in government, which has continuously trended down since the 1960s. And is pretty stubbornly low in the 20s across administrations now. This is from Pew, long term research that they've been doing polling of American people."

"“I was like, ‘I don’t want to just be in a job, where I put my head down, no one wants to hear any of my thoughts for 5 to 10 years, and then someone will let me have an idea,” Beauchamp said in an interview for POLITICO’s"

"I think making a conscious effort to look at the problems those entrepreneurs are solving and generally just getting out of the "bubble," which means people may not look like a young white guy coding or running a startup. It might look like a mom of 3 who is changing careers"

".” Finally, I liked the idea of focusing on nurturing a creative studio where we got to make what we wanted and then foist it onto the marketplace to live or die, rather than working with clients or sticking to one widget. A studio felt creative enough for me to swallow what I imagined as the castor oil of business (I was an artiste, you know, and a liberal—I didn’t think we were meant to do business)."

"If you want to be a leader in business, sometimes that means taking calculated risks. You want members on your team who have ideas, won’t back down from a challenge, seek out new growth opportunities and develop plans to make it a reality. Will the plans always be successful? No. But sometimes it’s what you learn from a failure that will ultimately lead to greatness."

"Never put all your eggs in one basket” Never give too much work to one employee or vendor. It can leave you very vulnerable if something goes awry."

"“One of the things that we don’t rely enough on is our own capacity to harness our grit"

"I’m a strong believer in business with a purpose. I actually create specific SKU’s that are committed to giving a portion of proceeds to causes such a breast cancer treatment, children’s causes , the environment, Veterans, Puerto Rico to name a few. My company is green conscience and leaping bunny certified. Every bottle someone buys not only helps them feel more beautiful but has a purpose behind it."

"Encouragement goes a long way! Recognizing people’s hard work and dedication only makes them want to give more to you and their job. You’re only as good as your employees are so giving them what they need to be their best is only going to help your company in the end. Bosses that are belittling or controlling to make themselves look better only end up hurting themselves in the end"

"Sometimes the best deals you’ll make are the ones you won’t.” Sometimes moving past disappointment is tough but I’ve come to realize if something doesn’t work out, later on I’ve seen why it was best."

"It’s crucial to determine the resilience of your employees. There is a reason everyone is familiar with the old business adage “sink or swim.” The business world is tough. Mistakes will be made. Projects will fail. Problems will arise. You need staff members who can bounce back from adversity stronger, not staff members who give up and go home"

"Of course the first initial reaction is to deny everything, and to come out making sure your side… when I saw the way I’m objectified and dragged through the press with all these misquotes and misinterpretations of who I am. If I’d looked a different way or if I was a man, I wouldn’t be objectified this way…”"

"Boris never, ever gave me favouritism. Never once did I ask him for a favour. Never once did he write a letter of recommendation for me. He didn’t know about my asking to go to trips. He only knew me as an extremely passionate entrepreneur of the London tech scene."

"The goal - at least the way I think about entrepreneurship - is you realize one day that you can't really work anyone else. You have to start your own thing. It almost doesn't matter what the thing is. We had six different business plan changes, and then the last one was PayPal."

"We all feel viscerally that it's really a barrier to American competitiveness over the long term. So they did polling of Harvard Business School alumni over the years. This is looking at comparing 2011 and 2019 polling. And what that polling alumni basically said is that people see the political system and the education system and the healthcare system as basically areas that are diminishing American competitiveness."

"On the bus, he had a book of short stories. I think it was Voltaire, I remember striking up a conversation about classic literature and Shakespeare, we immediately bonded over this kind of mutual love of classic literature and particularly Shakespeare.”"

"Knock Knock is known for being a pioneer in a product revolution that brought voice and point of view to the gift industry. Also, everybody knows us for putting the fun in functional with multiple choice—multiple-choice pads, cards, stickies. Why write when you could just tick a box? Putting the fun in functional definitely characterizes Knock Knock’s products—a lot of our stuff makes productivity and work fun."

"I think there are very few people who have a capacity to see the future. So it can be difficult when you are talking about something where nothing about it exists yet"

"If that one didn't work out, if we still had the money and the people, obviously we would not have given up. We would have iterated on the business model and done something else. I don't think there was ever clarity as to who we were until we knew it was working. By then, we'd figured out our PR pitch and told everyone what we do and who we are. But between the founding and the actual PayPal, it was just like this tug-of-war where it was like, "We're trying this, this week." Every week you go to investors and say, "We're doing this, exactly this. We're really focused. We're going to be huge." The next week you're like, "That was a lie."

"Venture capitalists, with the exception of people like Don Valentine, would tell you that they'd rather fund a great team than a great idea. The reason is that if they have a bad idea, great teams can figure out a better one. Mediocre people even with a great idea can screw it up in its execution. Or if they have a bad idea, then they aren't going to be in a position to think about how to change it. They're just going to pursue it blindly"

"Apparently sprinters reach their highest speed right out of the blocks, and spend the rest of the race slowing down. The winners slow down the least. It's that way with most startups too. The earliest phase is usually the most productive. That's when they have the really big ideas. Imagine what Apple was like when 100% of its employees were either Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak"

"“I think for mothers, the number one thing is to understand that it’s okay to ask for help,” Latinas, especially moms, feel like because their moms raised four kids as immigrants with nothing and they cooked every day. I honestly don’t know how they did it. We feel like we have to do the same thing, we can’t complain, we can’t have these issues, and we can’t feel pain or ask for help because we have to be able to do everything by ourselves, which is not true. We need to remember that our moms who were able to do all that have a community around them of primas, of support."

"[Guelaguetza] is our home and we serve the food that we grew up with. It’s not fancy food. It’s not fusion food. It’s not new Californian food. It’s not new Mexican food. It’s not innovative. It’s just traditional food that I grew up eating, just very high quality. So, that’s how the menu of the restaurant was inspired. Just foods that we grew up eating off the road [in Oaxaca]. Everything you find here at the restaurant is what you can find in Oaxaca"

"Understand why you are doing everything that you do. When you are purpose-driven, it is not about the to-do list, It is about achieving a bigger thing that can get ten things out of the way. It’s about deciding if this thing that you are doing is taking you a step into your purpose or away from it and if it is taking me away from it, then why am I bothering with it."

"ability and can also be so nurturing. You need to understand that what you have is very powerful. As a woman you are ahead of every man that you meet. So you need to understand that it’s a plus. You need to learn how to navigate your womanhood and take advantage of it and earn people’s trust. I can’t give you that.’"

"We Googled everything and found out how to do things,” “I feel like so many times people make things more complicated than they should be. Like, it’s not that complicated. People were asking us for the micheladas. We’ve been serving the micheladas since we opened. People would come in and ask if they could buy the mix from us so we would fill up empty tequila bottles and sell them and they would come back every weekend. By then, we had opened our online store where we shipped our mole so we started thinking about what else we could sell in our store."

"This is why as writers we need to give it all, to be open and true. The reader (as a wise traveller) will distinguish between fake and authentic and will only keep on reading if they feel the writers’ is truthful in her story."

"Writing is opening our mental/emotional life to others; it is to invite people/readers to see what is in our head. We want readers to feel comfortable, entertained, nurtured, by our writing. We want readers to linger, to be amused, questioned sometimes, identified. It is a very private space between the writer and the reader."

"Sometimes no just means not right now. Once I set my sights on something, I am locked in and pressing for the best possible outcome. As such, it can be disheartening for things to not go as planned, despite the hard work. As I’ve grown in my role as CEO, I’ve had to take a step back and analyze why “right now” wasn’t the “right time”. It’s this perspective that maintains my optimism and allows me to press on to continue innovating for our consumers."

"It’s important that you find investors that fall in line with your business interests. Choose one revenue model that you want to focus on, state what you want clearly and simply."

"Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. You do not always want to be the one with the best ideas in the room."

"Hospitality has been enshrined by many religions and cultural practices. It comes from the idea of the Greek gods to be able to visit mortals using a human guise -of travellers and foreigners- and be welcome and protected by the hosts. A reader is a god in disguise, and we want to be sure we are honouring them as we would like to be honoured."

"One of the most interesting aspects of working in this industry, and one that never gets old, is the consumer buy in. It’s much easier to measure buy in through sales reports. But, when it comes to grassroot events, forecasting turnout is always an unknown. For us, our first Target in-store event"

"Someone who wants to grow with me, that doesn’t just live but wants to learn and progress in every area of his life. A life lover. Someone honest and most importantly someone with a big heart and a pure soul."

"I love what I do and I’m a workaholic, so for sure men who don’t like alpha women will not be very attracted to this side of my personality. I don’t think I will ever be a housewife type of girl, I feel that I will want to work, achieve and create value for others even when I’m 80 years old. Not everyone likes that, and it’s totally fine with me"

"But isn’t that life too? I’m an incredible life lover, that’s why I do and create so much. I love every single bit of my job…and this is just the beginning. Wait and see."

"Taking a vote or poll is a great simple way to take a decision, but it doesn't help a group find consensus. It actually polarizes people and highlights the differences between them. People end up getting entrenched in their views."

"Beyond individual intelligence, nature has also cultivated intelligence through swarms. For example, bees, birds and fish act in a more intelligent way when acting together as a swarm, flock or school"

"We focus on a unique form of artificial intelligence called artificial swarm intelligence"

"Investors need to know that you are well informed about the product you’re pitching. Know your numbers when presenting, what has been your ROI thus far? How much do you need to carry out your next endeavor? Get investors who not only give money but also invest time into your project."

"I’ve learned that it’s all about balance. I am not perfect and will never be perfect at everything, but I do the best I can and keep on moving. Its very tough, but I believe that women have the innate capability to handle it all.The modern African woman doesn’t have to choose between a career or a family."

"We take the sense of touch for granted. Think about it: Without it, you're missing one of the basic senses that enables you to interact with the world."

"You have the sense of touch because you need it."