Jessica Jackley Quotes

My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision. Everyone put their money on the table, and that got us $60,000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name.

In the movies, you want a good story and characters that are honest, but you are also looking for a good director who can lead the ship. That's how we look at business. Everybody has a great idea for a start-up, and so do their relatives, and they tell me, 'You gotta build it.' I say, 'I have to believe in it.'

If someone doesn't believe enough in your product to put money in to it, then you should rethink how good the product is.

How many times have you been out for a beer or dinner and people are coming up with business ideas? Everybody wants to think they've got that great business idea.

When we got ready to ship out Firefox 1.0, the last set of things we did was to make it appealing to a consumer, to add the polish of a world-class product to it.

Projects can take years to exhibit proof-of-concept and a few more years to be converted into commercial realities.

I started the site when I was 19. I didn't know much about business back then.

A good story often increases the salability of an item without increasing its actual value.

Apple has beautiful design, beautiful product, incredibly functional. But mostly, it's about picking product, getting behind it, marketing it, and introducing it to a customer. What they've done just inspires me.

When I explained my business model to my family, they asked if I was going to open a travel agency.

We make interesting companies and real businesses. It's not social networks for cats.

The creation of 'Into The Gloss' took less than a month. Glossier took twelve months and about a million dollars to hire the team, work with the chemists, order the inventory, get an office - you know, the whole thing.

I did not plan... the Cube as a competitive item.

If I had been out in the industry instead of being a college kid who had an idea for another T-shirt, I would have been too scared to do anything.

When you're starting a new business, you don't need to know much about it. A lot of the work is blocking and tackling - it's the same type of stuff no matter what sector you're in.

You can get good at finding access in the entertainment business. But the ideas, the narratives themselves, they are the only things that are going to be of any value.

Most entrepreneurs come up with a product, or they come up with an idea and they think they can be successful with it. But if they don't know the financial side of their business and understand credit and working capital and what it takes money-wise, you can't be successful. The product is just a product.

Making movies seemed so impossible as far as getting my ideas funded.

I decided on a chocolate business. I love the history of chocolate and making it and the fact that people of any gender, age, and race enjoy it. I found a space in Brooklyn that had not been used in 30 years. Then I talked to an investor who wanted more than 50 percent of the business.

The challenge is, in terms of a canon like 'X-Men,' it's more like 'Harry Potter' and Hogwarts, or 'Game of Thrones.' It needs time and space to evolve and to bring the reader or viewer in and give them a result that's worth the investment of that time.

Building a successful business requires a combination of human capital, financial resources, market opportunity, persistence, community support, and even luck.

I think you can give a pure artistic product if you understand how to build your own industry.

In just a few years, I have turned my small company into a multi-million dollar makeup empire.

I'm a firm believer of the venture capitalist-style approach to solving problems. Rather than doing many small things that you hope add up, it's much more effective to work on projects that are high risk and high reward.

The idea of having a narrative guiding the viewer through and grasping their attention is a really compelling thing.