Startups, Inventors & Entrepreneurs Quotes
- The page contains money quotes from entrepreneurs, inventors, and startup founders about business, innovation, and making money
- Many of the quotes emphasize the importance of believing in your ideas, taking risks, and being driven to succeed
- Quotes discuss the need to understand customer needs and create products/services people want to buy
- Inventors note that inventions alone may not make money and commercial success is also important
- Startup founders emphasize the importance of developing a viable business model and figuring out how to make money
- The page provides definitions of terms like “startup” and “invent” for context of the quotes
‘Go for Broke’ faith – These folks are willing to put almost every dime of THEIR money into the pot, because they so believe in what they are doing” — Terry Starbucker
Definition of Invent: create or design (something that has not existed before); be the originator of.
“An invention can be so valuable as to be worthless to the inventor” — Eli Whitney
“They made money for others, but seldom for myself, for I was unfortunately situated not having much time and little money with which to promote my inventions” — King C. Gillette
“People who want to make a million borrow a million first” — Sophie Kinsella
“Our definition of success is that the founders get rich. If half the startups we fund succeed, then half of you are going to get rich and the other half are going to get nothing” — Paul Graham
“You just can’t keep pouring money down an endless hole and never recoup any of it. It’s got to be a business” — Don Bluth
“The point in which I am different from most inventors is that I have, besides the usual inventor’s make-up, the bump of practicality as a sort of appendix, the sense of the business, money value of an invention” — Thomas Edison
“Innate Understanding of the value of EVERY dollar – No dollar lost (or gained) is unimportant; there are no rounding errors in a start-up” — Terry Starbucker
“Most inventors who have an idea never stop to think whether their invention will be saleable when they get it made. Unless a man has plenty of money to throw away, he will find that making inventions is about the costliest amusement he can find” — Thomas Edison
“Most people who get rich tend to be fairly driven. Whatever their other flaws, laziness is usually not one of them” — Paul Graham
“Ben Franklin may have discovered electricity – but it is the man who invented the meter who made the money” — Earl Wilson
“A ‘startup’ is a company that is confused about
1. What its product is.
2. Who its customers are.
3. How to make money”
— Dave McClure
“I love how these entrepreneurs will raise the stakes with less than a perfect hand – i.e. like talking about the latest version of a product that is really still in someone’s head. Putting that bet down is like a self-fulfilling prophesy – this hand WILL be Aces… eventually” — Terry Starbucker
“Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success” — Thomas Edison
“If you can just avoid dying, you get rich. That sounds like a joke, but it’s actually a pretty good description of what happens in a typical startup” — Paul Graham
“Speaking of millions, entrepreneurs nurture the BHAG – the big hairy audacious goal – like a mother hen looking after her chicks. They protect and defend it as if their life depended on it (and come to think of it, in some situations, it does)” — Terry Starbucker
“You know, a lot of people are just interested in, in building a company so they can make money and get out” — Arthur Rock
“I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent. My main purpose in life is to make money so that I can afford to go on creating more inventions” — Thomas Edison
Definition of Startup: a new entrepreneurial business venture, seeking to meet a need by developing a viable business model around a product or service.
“Bust your ass and get rich” — Mark Cuban
“I am a sort of middleman between the long-haired and impractical inventor and the hard-headed businessman who measures all things in terms of dollars and cents. My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others” — Thomas Edison
“No suits, no briefcases, no tons of cool acronyms, no executive assistant, (sometimes) no office, (sometimes) no money, no huge staff – just them. And their dream. And their love of the dream” — Terry Starbucker