30 Inspirational Quotes for Startups and Entrepreneurs

When you want to fulfill your dream you give your hundred percent, and when you are inspired to fulfil that dream you give everything. Inspiration is that tiny flicker which makes you work harder, fight against your fate and break stereotypes. Here, we bring you the 30 inspirational quotes for startups and entrepreneurs to keep you motivated when things seem gloomy and hopeless. Keep working hard, be inspires, and keep inspiring!  

1. “No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long-term if you don’t have a sufficiently good product.”

–Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator and co-founder of Loopt 

2. “The last 10% it takes to launch something takes as much energy as the first 90%.”

–Rob Kalin, co-founder of Etsy 

3. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.”

–Drew Houston, Dropbox Co-Founder and CEO 

4. “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, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Apple 

5. “The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.”

–Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO 

6. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”

–Michael Jordan, NBA Legendary Basketball MVP 

7. “It’s almost always harder to raise capital than you thought it would be, and it always takes longer. So plan for that.”

–Richard Harroch, Venture Capitalist and Author  

9. “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, Amazon Founder and CEO 

10. “Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.”

–Jack London, Author 

11. “As an entrepreneur, you have to be OK with failure. If you’re not failing, you’re likely not pushing yourself hard enough."

–Alexa von Tobel, founder of LearnVest 

12. “Even if you don’t have the perfect idea to begin with, you can likely adapt.”

–Victoria Ransom, co-founder of Wildfire Interactive 

13. “Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.”

–Anthony Volodkin, founder, Hype Maching 

14. “If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

–Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors 

15. “Sustaining a successful business is a hell of a lot of work, and staying hungry is half the battle.”

–Wendy Tan White, co-founder and CEO of MoonFruit 

16. “Projections are just bullshit. They’re just guesses.”

–Jason Fried, Founder, 37Signals 

17. “Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.”

–Guy Kawasaki, Alltop Co-Founder and Entrepreneur 

18. “If you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.”

–Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

19. “If you’ve got an idea, start today. There’s no better time than now to get going. That doesn’t mean quit your job and jump into your idea 100% from day one, but there’s always small progress that can be made to start the movement.”

– Kevin Systrom, Instagram 

20. “I don’t have big ideas. I sometimes have small ideas, which seem to work out.”

– Matt Mullenweg, WordPress 

21. “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

–Wayne Gretzy, Hockey Star 

22. “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

–Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Co-Founder and Venture Capitalist 

23. “It’s not about how many years of experience you have. It’s about the quality of your years of experience.”

– Jacob Cass, Logo of the Day 

24. “There’s no committee that says, ‘This is the type of person who can change the world – and you can’t.’ Realizing that anyone can do it is the first step. The next step is figuring out how you’re going to do it.”

– Adora Svitak, Flying Fingers 

25. “Don’t make decisions based on fear.”

– Jake Nickell, Threadless 

26. “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”  

–Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister 

27. “User experience is everything. It always has been, but it’s undervalued and underinvested in. If you don’t know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board.”

–Evan Williams, Co-Founder, Twitter 

28. “What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.”

–Dave Thomas, Founder, Wendy’s 

29. “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, Mary Kay Cosmetics Founder 

30. “I’ve also learned that the biggest lessons came from my biggest mistakes.”

– Gurbaksh Chahal, RadiumOne