I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It’s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.

If you’re entering anything where there’s an existing marketplace, against large, entrenched competitors, then your product or service needs to be much better than theirs. It can’t be a little bit better, because then you put yourself in the shoes of the consumer… you’re always going to buy the trusted brand unless there’s a big difference.

I’m in this business to be creative – I’ll even diminish it and say to be a content provider.

Over a 10-year period, 99 out of 100 new entrepreneurs will fail. Only one will be left standing as others get pushed out of the market or burn out from working so hard. It’s really sad.

Silicon Valley has some of the smartest engineers and technology business people in the world.

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

For me, it’s about becoming a mogul, owning my own projects, and establishing myself as a funding producer. That’s what’s big to me. The movies and all that stuff are great, but the fact that I’m in a position to do what I want to do, however I want to do it and when I want to do it is bigger.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

I’ve actually taken companies public, I’ve actually busted companies, I’ve actually gone broke.

If you can build a business up big enough, it’s respectable.

The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.

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 think that every artist – or anybody that’s in business – could benefit from a direct-to-consumer strategy, so I think that that applies to us as artists and content creators, too.

The problem with car dealerships is you’ve already decided what you want to buy before you even go there, and you’re really just going there to talk through some annoying negotiation.

I was approached about having my own network many, many years ago. There were some people who wanted to start up a network, and I didn’t want to get that involved in the business aspect of it.

People concerned about inflation today tend to buy big houses and nice cars.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

But, having a perfume and license, in general, is a financial necessity. A designer must, to reap back the money spent on prototypes and all that sort of thing.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

A true capitalist doesn’t have a job, because other people and other people’s money work for them.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

We, we – as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.

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

The art of delegation is one of the key skills any entrepreneur must master.

A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it.

By reading, you learn through others‘ experiences, generally, a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

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.‘

Good entrepreneurs are community builders, actively involved with their communities and dedicated to the community’s well being. If you’re dedicated to your community, it will be dedicated to you.

How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?

I own my own company, so I’ve never had businessmen telling me what to do or getting worried if something doesn’t sell. I’ve always had my own access to the public, because I started off making my clothes for a little shop and so I’ve always had people buying them.

I got an album concept called ‚Exit Strategy,‘ that might be one of my last ones. It’s a term they use in business when you build companies. You create an exit strategy as you make a company. You don’t wait till you’re five years in it; you create a exit strategy as you make the company.

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a young mogul. I’m blessed.

If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.

I built a company at the same time I built a career.

The greatest story of all is Colonel Sanders. He didn’t start until he was sixty-six on a freeway bypass for his chicken shop. Anything is possible!

Overcoming fear is the first step to success for entrepreneurs. The winners all exemplify that, and the hard work and commitment they have shown underlines what is needed to set up a business.

I feel that the best companies are started not because the founder wanted a company but because the founder wanted to change the world… If you decide you want to found a company, you maybe start to develop your first idea. And hire lots of workers.

I think, because I started Virgin when I was a teenager, it has become a part of me, like my family, and I am motivated by ambition for it, almost as if it were a child.

If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.

Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.

I just figured out that if I gave my all into this game – if I put everything into the fight business – then I would eventually run the fight business.

I don’t invest in ideas because ideas are a dime a dozen. I could steal the idea pretty quickly.

When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge.

What changed our lives forever was when Malcolm had the idea to sell rock ‚n roll records to trendy customers.

I always wanted to have a headphone line but I feel like I’m going to do more than just headphones eventually, but we want to wake the world up right now with this.

We don’t want to wait on someone to hire us and give us a check. We want to create our own opportunities.

My friends are people who like building cool stuff. We always have this joke about people who want to just start companies without making something valuable. There’s a lot of that in Silicon Valley.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

My task over the last two years hasn’t just been to stop the bleeding. My task has also been to try to figure out how do we address some of the structural problems in the economy that have prevented more Googles from being created.

There’s no reason why I can’t be a mogul. When I step into a room and I’m there to have a conversation, if it pertains to business, I want to be respected as a guy who knows what he’s talking about. And that, to me, holds more weight than anything else.

I base a lot of decisions on my gut, and going with an independent label was a good one.

The odds of me coming into the rocket business, not knowing anything about rockets, not having ever built anything, I mean, I would have to be insane if I thought the odds were in my favor.

While still working for others, your goal at some point must be to carve out little areas that you can operate on your own, cultivating entrepreneurial skills.

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.

As I followed my dream – stayed in-Spirit, that is, inspired – I made more money in the first year after I gave up my employment than I had made in the previous 35 years of my life.

In ‚Unfair Advantage: The Power of Financial Education‘ and ‚Why A Students Work for C Students,‘ I reveal the secrets of the wealthy and what schools will never teach you about money.

It’s safe to say headphones is a good business.

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.