150+ Best Quotes For Starting A New Business

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Updated: January 19th, 2023

150+ Best Quotes For Starting A New Business

Starting a business can be equally exciting and stressful. Motivational quotes are an excellent way to look back and reflect upon the reasons why you started your venture.

Quotes are a great way to convey a feeling and the 'why' behind your brand. They can also be used as taglines, trademarks, slogans, and more.

The following quotes will help your business along and prepare you for the future ahead.

Inspirational Quotes For Starting A New Business

If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to build theirs. – Tony Gaskin

Great companies start because the founders want to change the world… not make a fast buck. – Guy Kawasaki

It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. – Babe Ruth

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. – Oscar Wilde

So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard. – Caterina Fake

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. – Gandhi

Believe you can and you’re halfway there. – Theodore Roosevelt

Behold the turtle, he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. – Bruce Levin

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. – Albert Schweitzer

Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop. – Jeffrey Zeldman

No more romanticizing about how cool it is to be an entrepreneur. It’s a struggle to save your company’s life, and your own skin, every day of the week. – Spencer Fry

Trust your instincts. – Estee Lauder

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress. – Charles F.Kettering

Criticism is the best sign you’re onto something. – Michael Lopp

If there are nine rabbits on the ground and you want to catch one, just focus on one. – Jack Ma

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I’m Possible – Audrey Hepburn

No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team. - Reid Hoffman

If you have an urge to build something that could change the world, don’t focus on the money, but on the legacy, you’ll leave behind. – Alexander Tamas

Turn a perceived risk into an asset. – Aaron Patzer

Stop selling. Start helping. – ZigZiglar

Every day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day. – Joel Spolsky

Learn early. Learn often. - Drew Houston

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over. – Richard Branson

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. – Bill Cosby

The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise. – Maya Angelou

You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good. – Peter Shankman

Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success. – Biz Stone

Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction. – Warren Buffet

Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you. – Tony Hsieh

Stay self-funded as long as possible. – Garrett Camp

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. – Lao Tzu

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. – Colin Powell

Be specific enough to be believable and universal enough to be relevant. – Ann Handley

I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been. – Wayne Gretzky

It’s never too late to be who you might have been. – George Eliot

Even if you don’t have a perfect idea, to begin with, you can likely adapt. – Victoria Ransom

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door. – Kyle Chandler

Don’t make decisions based on fear. – Jake Nickel

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. - Warren Buffet

Don’t try to do it all. It’s better to be awesome on one of two-channel than to extend on six. – Cameron Chapman

You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea. – Larry Page

Success is what comes after you stop making excuses. – Luis Galarza

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. – Steve Jobs

If you’re going to put your product in beta, put your business model in beta with it. – Joe Kraus

Make mistakes faster. - Andrew Grove

Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve. – Mary Kay Ash

The things you regret most in life are the risks you didn’t take. – Lewis Carroll

Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations. – Tim O’Reilly

If you’re going through hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. – Mahatma Gandhi

Risk more than others think is safe. Dreaming more than others think is practical. – Howard Schultz

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. – David Brinkley

Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. - John Lennon

Motivational Quotes For Starting A New Business

Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did. – Sarah Cardwell

If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan for how things will play out. - Mark Zuckerberg

Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read. – Leo Burnett

Get a mentor in the applicable field if you’re at all unsure of what you’re looking for. – Kyle Bragger

I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. – Bill Gates

Above all, you want to create something you’re proud of. – Richard Branson

Don’t be cocky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you. - Tony Hsieh

I don’t think an economic slump will hurt good ideas. – Rob Kalin

The only way to win at content marketing is for the reader to say, This was written especially for you. – Jamie Turner

Every piece of your content should be excellent, be excellent, enough that customers are compelled to share it. – Joe Pulizzi

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. – Peter Drucker

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. - Bill Gates

If you’re not a risk-taker, you should get the hell out of business. - Ray Kroc

You should never take more than you give. - Elton John

Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors. – Chris Dixon

Anything that is measured and watched, improves. – Bob Parsons

When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think. – Bob Parsons

The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. – Mark Caine

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

Grow a thick skin and be prepared to take criticism. – Mark Forrester

Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you. – Mark Cuban

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. – Pablo Picasso

Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once. – Drew Houston

Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small. – Tim Ferriss

If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough. – Mario Andretti

Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. – Stephen R. Covey

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. – Winston Churchill

It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower. – Paul Graham

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. – Walt Disney

It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. – Scott Belsky

Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well. – Jack London

The best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch. – Michael Arrington

You’re not going to enjoy every minute of the journey, but the success you’ll find at the end will make it all worth it. – Muhammad Ali

Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. - Guy Kawasaki

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. - Elon Musk

The key to success for everything in business, science, and technology is never to follow the others. – Masaru Ibuka

If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, then I think you will be successful. – Pierre Omidyar

A startup is a company that is confused about What its product is, Who its customers are, and How to make money. – Dave McClure

Be passionate about the culture and the business, and remain positive because it inspires others. – Barry Liber

Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today it’s cheaper to start a business than ever. – Noah Everett

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. – Eleanor Roosevelt

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. – Thomas A. Edison

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over. - Warren Buffet

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. – Robert Collier

The secret to successful hiring is this look for the people who want to change the world. – Marc Benioff

I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but by how high he bounces when he hits bottom. – George S. Patton

For the next thirty days, think, talk, act, walk, smell, and feel like business is booming and it will. – Mark Victor Hansen

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else. – Albert Einstein

Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph: a beginning, a struggle, and a victory. – Mahatma Gandhi

I like to pride myself on thinking pretty long term, but not that long term. – Mark Zuckerberg

You just have to pay attention to what people need and what has not been done. – Russell Simmons

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. – Vince Lombardi

As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big. – Donald Trump

Most people are searching for a path to success that is both easy and certain. Most paths are neither. – Seth Godin

It’s quite fun to do the impossible. – Walt Disney

Helpful Quotes For Starting A New Business

An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and wants to create. – David Karp

You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down. – Reid Hoffman

Forget about your competitors, just focus on your customers. – Jack Ma

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. – Reid Hoffman

Always deliver more than expected. – Larry Page

It’s better to be happy doing something you love, even if you don’t find success right away. – George Burns

Don’t spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity, that you miss the right opportunity. – Michael Dell

We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform. – Pete Cashmore

All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA. - Reid Hoffman

When it gets difficult is often right before you succeed. – Chris Garrett

The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something. – Seth Godin

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – Winston Churchill

Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me. – Arianna Huffington

Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning. – Robert Kiyosaki

When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue. – Josh James

Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things differently from everybody else. – Sara Blakely

Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect. – Jack Dorsey

Before dreaming about the future or making plans, you need to articulate what you already have going for you as entrepreneurs do. - Reid Hoffman

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. – Mark Twain

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success. - James Cameron

The value of an idea lies in the using of it. – Thomas Edison

Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless. – James Cash Penney

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. – Steve Jobs

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. – Woody Allen

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful that’s what matters to me. - Steve Jobs

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. – George Edward Woodberry

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door. – Adrienne Gusoff

Fortunes are built during the down market and collected in the upmarket. – Jason Calacanis

It is never too late to be what you might have been. – George Eliot

I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. – Steve Jobs

We are our choices. Build yourself a great story. - Jeff Bezos

In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed. – Sid Caesar

Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao-tzu

Diligence is the mother of good luck. – Benjamin Franklin

We have a strategic plan its called doing things. - Herb Kelleher

Stay hungry. And bootstrap. - Rob Kalin

Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead. – Nelson Mandela

An invention that is quickly accepted will turn out to be a rather trivial alteration of something that has already existed. - Edwin Land

High expectations are the key to everything. – Sam Walton

I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying. – Jeff Bezos

Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress. – Seth Godin

It’s more effective to do something valuable than to hope a logo or name will say it for you. – Jason Cohen

Any time is a good time to start a company. – Ron Conway

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about. – Benjamin Franklin

Don’t think of pitching. Think of offering. The offer is better than a pitch. – Sonia Simone

See things in the present, even if they are in the future. – Larry Ellison

Your reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career. – Ryan Freitas

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed. – Michael Jordan

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain

When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say wow, that was an adventure, not wow, I sure felt safe. – Tom Preston-Werner

Sustaining a successful business is a hell of a lot of work, and staying hungry is half the battle. - Wendy Tan White

A person who is quietly confident makes the best leader. – Fred Wilson

You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions. – Steve Case

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas A. Edison

meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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