Believe it or not, it has been three years since we last posted an article full of quotes from entrepreneurs. Previously, we shared motivational quotes to inspire business owners and Pixar quotes with lessons that apply for small business. Now, we’re looking to the Founders and CEOs of some of 2016’s most innovative companies for startup pearls of wisdom. From Airbnb to Whisper, our alphabetical order list of 19 quotes are sure to encourage all entrepreneurs no matter what stage they’re in with their small business to keep pursuing their dreams. (And how did we settle on the number 19, anyway? We pulled it from today’s date — a happy coincidence.)
1) “If you want to create a great product, just focus on one person. Make that one person have the most amazing experience ever.” — Brian Chesky, Co-Founder, Airbnb
2) “There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.” — Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon
3) “Focus on that one thing you do and do it well.” — Matt Salzberg, Founder and CEO, Blue Apron
4) “Be creative, not perfect.” — Whitney Wolfe, Founder and CEO, Bumble
5) “I think a lot about how ideas spread, how information spreads, why is it that something you’re really proud of and you spend a lot of time creating sometimes doesn’t go anywhere, and something that you kind of do on the side, on a lark, ends up getting shared and passed around and having this big impact.” — Jonah Peretti, Founder, Buzzfeed
6) “Don’t listen to people who tell you it’s a bad idea. Listen to your heart. If everyone shared your passion, someone would have already done it!” — Alli Webb, Co-Founder, Drybar
7) “I learned to push the envelope when it comes to asking questions or making requests. And if you hear ‘that’s not possible,’ then to ask ‘what is possible,’ instead of just saying thank you and leaving.” — Emily Weiss, Founder, Glossier
8) “We saw that a thousand results weren’t necessarily as useful as 10 good ones.” — Sergey Brin, Co-Founder, Google
9) “When you’re starting a company, almost anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and it will probably look like and feel like you made the absolute wrong decision to start the company. If you’re not absolutely determined to solve a problem or see something through, it might not make sense to keep going. You have to find a way to keep going.” — Logan Green, Co-Founder and CEO, Lyft
10) “Luck comes in many forms—and often looks bad at first. I always look back on the deals that we didn’t do and the things that didn’t work out, and realize what seemed like a bummer at the time was really lucky. … If you have some plan and it doesn’t go that way, roll with it. There’s no way to know if it’s good or bad until later, if ever.” — Evan Williams, Founder, Medium
11) “But as an entrepreneur you have to feel like you can jump out of an aeroplane because you’re confident that you’ll catch a bird flying by. It’s an act of stupidity, and most entrepreneurs go splat because the bird doesn’t come by, but a few times it does.” — Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix
12) “As a company, you need to get to the future first, ahead of your customers, and be ready to greet them when they arrive.” — Marc Benioff, Founder and CEO, Salesforce
13) “Be opportunistic. Be open, really listen and assess what kind of response the product gets and evolve in a way that makes sense.” — Stewart Butterfield, Founder, Slack
14) “I’m not an inventor. I just want to make things better.” — Daniel Ek, CEO, Spotify
15) “If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.” — Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla Motors
16) “Entrepreneurship is not a leap of faith. It’s really project management and hundreds of very small decisions…” — Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Warby Parker
18) “Great brands are like great stories. And every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. … There is no such thing as an overnight success. You have to get up and put your work boots on every single day.” — Kevin Plank, CEO, Under Armour
19) “Too many people spend too much time thinking about their ideas and plans and not actually enough time doing. Instead of writing up all these plans … business plans and PowerPoint presentations and lists, just focus on what your actual goal is and just do it.”—Michael Heyward, CEO, Whisper
Did we leave off a quote from a buzzworthy entrepreneur you love? Share a comment below and let us know!