Quotes for Entrepreneurs - June 2008

June 29th, 2008 Sean Murphy

Continuing my twitter experiment from April and May I try to select a good quote every couple of days that is applicable to the challenges of entrepreneurship. Here are my choices for June:

“Starting a business? Don’t call VCs: call on customers and figure out how to solve a problem they are willing to pay for.” Greg Gianforte (slightly paraphrased from SandHill.com interview to fit in Twitter’s character count)

“Create more value than you capture.” Tim O’Reilly

“Communities already exist…think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do.”
Mark Zuckerberg (quote from slide 29 of Neil Perkins slideshow “What’s Next in Media“)

“Identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”
Chartered Institute of Marketing’s definition of Marketing

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
Michael Jordan

“Skrenta’s Law of VC Fundraising: seeking VC funding for a new market creates new competitors.”
Rich Skrenta, condensed from this paragraph in his  “Spice Girls VC” blog post

“I formed a theory that the process of seeking VC ended up calling your own competitors into existence. You’ll meet with many more VCs than the 1-2 who end up funding you. But after seeing a company or two get funded in your space, the VCs who passed or weren’t able to get in decide they want to have a bet in the space too. Fortunately they have the benefit of having heard your pitch and the opportunity to personally grill you at length on your approach.”

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