I remember flying in, driving down 101 in a cab, and passing by all these tech companies like Yahoo! I remember thinking, 'Maybe someday we'll build a company. This probably isn't it, but one day we will.'
The entrepreneurial journey starts with jumping off a cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down.
In general don't start a startup you're not willing to work on for ten years.
When I started Mediaite, I didn't expect it to become the business that it's become.
I started my entrepreneurial journey right out of college. At the age of 21, I incorporated my first business: a PR firm based in New York City.
I started Dell 28 yrs ago with $1000. Revenues in 1984 were $6 million. Last year $62.1 billion. Impossible is nothing.
When I started off, I was working in a shed behind my house. All I had was a drill, an electric drill. That was the only machine I had.
I always think about the fact that PewDiePie, who has tens of millions of followers, started with zero. All of my favorite creators started with zero. And all it takes is one video to dive deep, and you are officially a YouTuber. So you've got to make that first video. It's not going to be your best, but you will learn as you go.
People say doing a startup is like a marathon. It's actually a roadtrip at night with no headlights. You think you're going to Toledo but you're actually going to Miami and you might not have enough gas so you might need to buy gas from someone who might take you out if you aren't driving well
Our goal is simply to make entrepreneurship more accessible to everyone around the world throughout the entrepreneurial journey, from inspiration to IPO.
So March 2010, we launched Pinterest, and we were at 3,000 accounts. And that wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't started building Pinterest actually in November 2009. And that alone wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't left my job to start a company in May 2008.
I started The Body Shop in 1976 simply to create a livelihood for myself and my two daughters, while my husband, Gordon, was trekking across the Americas. I had no training or experience and my only business acumen was Gordon's advice to take sales of £300 a week. Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.
It wasn't until we got our first office in Palo Alto where things became more like a company. We never went into this wanting to build a company.
I founded Eventbrite when I was 25 and had exactly five professional years under my belt. Perspective was lacking; idealistic views were not. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into, and I'm beyond thrilled I took the leap from a comfortable corporate career into the abyss of founder-hood and entrepreneurship.
I never dreamed I could build a $100 million company. I just happened to build a $1 million company that became a $5 million company, and so on.
None of our family businesses were focused on technology. It was '93 when I came out of law school, and the Internet was taking hold. So I started New World Ventures.
The story of Airbnb is really the underdog story in many ways.
I don't really have a blueprint to follow besides watching interviews. Well, I guess the blueprint I do follow is Def Jam, in a way, just because it started in a small space, which is so similar to how we started.
I love working with really early stage startups where the outcome is still in doubt. Maybe they'll go on to greatness, or maybe they'll never get off the runway at all.
I really want to work for myself and build a business from nowhere.
I understand the highs and lows of building a global business from the ground and taking that initial product idea all the way to the market.
I started small with commercials and print.
It was a chance encounter with a biotech entrepreneur from Ireland that got me started as an entrepreneur in India, because I partnered this Irish company in setting up India's first biotech company.
Everybody starts with creating or acquiring certain property in order to create the material to work with. When we started our business, we thought first of all about development, how to grow, and we managed to do this, even with all the difficulties and all the difficult rules that were implemented in Russia at that time.
I wouldn't call Loopt a failure. It didn't turn out like I wanted, for sure, but it was fun, I learned a lot, and I made enough money to start investing, which led me to my current job. I don't regret it at all.
