99 Inspirational Quotes for Entrepreneurs

Are you an Entrepreneur? If so I’ve mined the internet for famous quotes on Entrepreneurship to inspire and motivate you. I’m sharing 99 of them which I liked the most. Please feel free to leave your valuable comments below and let me know what do you feel about the same!

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

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. – Vidal Sassoon

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

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. – Jim Rohn

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it. – Roy Ash

The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake – you can’t learn anything from being perfect. – Adam Osborne

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. – John C. Maxwell

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves. - E. Joseph Cossman

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. – Albert Einstein

You can’t ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new. – Steve Jobs

Live out of your imagination instead of out of your memory. – Fortune Cookie

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. – Maya Angelou

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said. – Peter F. Drucker

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

If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals. – Brian Tracy

The entrepreneur builds an enterprise; the technician builds a job. – Michael Gerber

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

Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up. – Thomas J. Watson

The link between my experience as an entrepreneur and that of a politician is all in one word: freedom. – Silvio Berlusconi

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way. – Napoleon Hill

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. – Bill Cosby

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

Tell everyone what you want to do and someone will want to help you do it. – W. Clement Stone

Success is not in what you have, but who you are. – Bo Bennet

Failure is not about insecurity. It’s about lack of execution. – Jeffrey Gitomer

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. – Henry Ford

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness. -  Napoleon Hill

Regardless of who you are or what you have been, you can be what you want to be. – W. Clement Stone

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said. – Jim Rohn

Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. – Albert Einstein

The best way to predict the future is to create it. – Peter Drucker

You can do anything you wish to do, have anything you wish to have, be anything you wish to be. – Robert Collier

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. – John C. Maxwell

For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth. – Bo Bennett

Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual. – Natalie Clifford Barney

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

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. – Henry Ford

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win. – Zig Ziglar

Every choice you make has an end result. – Zig Ziglar

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. – Jim Rohn

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. – Mark Twain

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are asking, What’s in it for me? – Brian Tracy

A goal is a dream with a deadline. – Napoleon Hill

Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice. – Peter Drucker

Tell the world what you intend to do, but first show it. – Napoleon Hill

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. – Ralph Nader

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know. – Jim Rohn

Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic. – Dale Carnegie

All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea. – Napoleon Hill

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit. – Napoleon Hill

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. – Confucius

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. – Andre Gide

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it. - Jim Rohn

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got! – Alan Scott

Vision without action is daydreaming and action without vision is a nightmare. – Anon

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. – Dale Carnegie

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. – Benjamin Franklin

If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal. – Zig Ziglar

The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch. – Jim Rohn

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way. – Christopher Morley

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

I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life.. it’s money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true. – Walt Disney

Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything. – W. Clement Stone

Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together. – Napoleon Hill

Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process. – Jim Rohn

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

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful. – Jeff Bezos

Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless. – Tim Blixseth

I’ve always worked very, very hard, and the harder I worked, the luckier I got. - Alan Bond

Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you. – Mark Cuban

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone. – Thomas Carlyle

You won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it. – John Lennon

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea. – Jim Rohn

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

If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share. – W. Clement Stone

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success – Henry Ford

Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have – Zig Ziglar

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. – Colin R. Davis

Success is how high you bounce after you hit bottom. – General George Patton

If you are going to ask yourself life-changing questions, be sure to do something with the answers. – Bo Bennett

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. – David Ogilvy

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. – Zig Ziglar

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm. In the real world all rests on perseverance. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. – Cicero

Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together. – Napoleon Hill

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. – Benjamin Disraeli

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. – Marion C. Garretty

I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success. – Jack Welch

You take on the responsibility for making your dream a reality. – Les Brown

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. – Michael Jordan

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. – Jack Welch

If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete. – Jack Welch

As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for. – James Cash Penney

Money won’t make you happy… but everybody wants to find out for themselves. – Zig Ziglar

It is always the start that requires the greatest effort. – James Cash Penney

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. – Jim Rohn

Warren Buffett Quotes On Investing

I was searching the entire web for some famous quotes said by the legendary investor Warren Buffett. I don’t know how many I’ve read. But I would like to share with you 79 of them which I find interesting and which do makes sense. If you are an investor then it’s a must read! And feel free to comment below if I’d missed something! Happy Investing!

‘Never invest in a business you cannot understand.’

‘Always invest for the long term.’

‘Buy a business, don’t rent stocks.’

‘Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.’

‘I really like my life. I’ve arranged my life so that I can do what I want.’

‘We will only do with your money what we would do with our own.’

‘If you don’t feel comfortable owning something for 10 years, then don’t own it for 10 minutes.’

‘I am a better investor because I am a businessman and a better businessman because I am an investor.’

‘Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.’

‘The Stock Market is designed to transfer money from the Active to the Patient.’

‘Stop trying to predict the direction of the stock market, the economy, interest rates, or elections.’

‘I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for ten years.’

‘I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.’

‘For some reason, people take their cues from price action rather than from values. What doesn’t work is when you start doing things that you don’t understand or because they worked last week for somebody else. The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it’s going up.’

‘We don’t get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we will wait, we’ll wait indefinitely.’

‘As Buffet said in the speech, "He’s not looking at quarterly earnings projections, he’s not looking at next year’s earnings, he’s not thinking about what day of the week it is, he doesn’t care what investment research from any place says, he’s not interested in price momentum, volume or anything. He’s simply asking: What is the business worth?’

‘Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise.’

‘Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.’

‘When asked how he became so successful in investing, Buffett answered: ‘we read hundreds and hundreds of annual reports every year.’

‘When a management team with a reputation for brilliance joins a business with poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.’

‘Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise.  Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices.’

‘Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing.’

‘Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.’

‘You’re neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You’re right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right – that’s the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don’t have to worry about anybody else.’

‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.’

‘The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.’

‘Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.’

‘I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.’

‘Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.’

‘Our favorite holding period is forever.’

‘Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.’

‘Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.’

‘Unless you can watch your stock holding decline by 50% without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market.’

‘The critical investment factor is determining the intrinsic value of a business and paying a fair or bargain price.’

‘Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid.’

‘Risk can be greatly reduced by concentrating on only a few holdings.’

‘It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.’

‘An investor should ordinarily hold a small piece of an outstanding business with the same tenacity that an owner would exhibit if he owned all of that business.’

‘Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be misappraised.’

‘In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.’

‘If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.’

‘Cash never makes us happy, but it’s better to have the money burning a hole in Berkshire’s pocket than resting comfortably in someone else’s.’

‘A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.’

‘I never buy anything unless I can fill out on a piece of paper my reasons. I may be wrong, but I would know the answer to that. "I’m paying $32 billion today for the Coca Cola Company because." If you can’t answer that question, you shouldn’t buy it. If you can answer that question, and you do it a few times, you’ll make a lot of money.’

‘The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.’

‘You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.’

‘It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.’

‘You ought to be able to explain why you’re taking the job you’re taking, why you’re making the investment you’re making, or whatever it may be. And if it can’t stand applying pencil to paper, you’d better think it through some more. And if you can’t write an intelligent answer to those questions, don’t do it.’

‘Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.’

‘An investor needs to do very few things right as long as he or she avoids big mistakes.’

‘Do a lot of reading’ (On how to determine the value of a business)

‘The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.’

‘Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.’

‘The fact that people will be full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.’

‘You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.’

‘Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.’

‘I do not like debt and do not like to invest in companies that have too much debt, particularly long-term debt. With long-term debt, increases in interest rates can drastically affect company profits and make future cash flows less predictable.’

‘We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet.’

‘I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.’

‘Turnarounds seldom turn.’

‘If at first you do succeed, quit trying on investing.’

‘I don’t measure my life by the money I’ve made. Other people might, but certainly don’t.’

‘Anything can happen in stock markets and you ought to conduct your affairs so that if the most extraordinary events happen, that you’re still around to play the next day.’

‘You shouldn’t own common stocks if a 50 per cent decrease in their value in a short period of time would cause you acute distress.’

‘With few exceptions when a manager with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor economics, it is the reputation of the business which remains intact.’

‘The business schools reward complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.’

‘It’s not debt per say that overwhelms an individual corporation or country. Rather it is a continuous increase in debt in relation to income that causes trouble.’

‘A great investment opportunity occurs when a marvelous business encounters a one-time huge, but solvable problem.’

‘You do not adequately protect yourself by being half awake when other are sleeping.’

‘We like to buy businesses, but we don’t like to sell them.’

‘Money to some extent sometimes let you be in more interesting environments. But it can’t change how many people love you or how healthy you are.’

‘It’s us fun being a gorse when the tractor comes along, or the blacksmith when the car comes along.’

‘Enjoy your work and work for whom you admire.’

‘With enough insider information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year.’

‘Read Ben Graham and Phil Fisher read annual reports, but don’t do equations with Greek letters in them.’

‘In a commodity business, it’s very hard to be smarter than your dumbest competitor.’

‘A hyperactive stock market is the pickpocket of enterprise.’

‘Valuing a business is part art and part science.’

‘Chains of habits are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.’

Thinking about starting a business? Make sure you’re cut out for it first.

In this bleak economy, lots of people are contemplating striking out on their own — whether they’re frustrated job seekers or people who are already employed but getting antsy about their company’s prospects.

For some people, entrepreneurship is the best option around, a way to build wealth and do something you love without answering to somebody else. But it’s also a huge financial gamble — and some people, unfortunately, will discover too late that it’s not the right fit for them.

Building a successful business can take years filled with setbacks, long hours and little reward. Certain personalities thrive on the challenge and embrace the sacrifices. But it can be a hard switch for someone who has spent years sitting in a cubicle with a steady paycheck.

So, how can you figure out whether you’re suited for self-employment? We spoke with entrepreneurship researchers, academics and psychologists to come up with a list of questions you should ask yourself before making a big leap. Entrepreneurs, of course, come from all sorts of backgrounds, with all sorts of personalities. But our experts agreed that certain attributes improve the odds people will be successful and happy about their decision.

Keep in mind that any self-analysis is only as useful as the truthfulness of the answers — and most people aren’t exactly the best judges of their own character. So, you might enlist a friend’s help.

Here, then, are 10 questions to ask to see whether you’re up for the challenge of entrepreneurship.

1. Are you willing and able to bear great financial risk?

Roughly half of all start-ups close within five years, so you must be realistic about the financial risks that come with owning a business — and realize that you could very well lose a sizable chunk of your net worth.

Consider how much you’ll have to ante up and how losing it would affect your other financial goals, such as having a sound retirement or paying your kids’ college tuition. Weigh the importance of starting a business against the sacrifices you might face.

Entrepreneurs should be sure that "if they lose this capital, it either won’t destroy their financial situation, or they can accept the concept of bankruptcy," says Scott Shane, an entrepreneurship professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "Some people thrive on the financial risk; others are devastated by the thought of losing even $10,000."

And don’t assume you’ll be able to lower your risk substantially by finding investors. Less than 10% of start-up financing comes from venture capitalists, angel investors and loans from friends and family combined, Prof. Shane says. And that’s true even in good economic times. Banks, meanwhile, often won’t lend to start-up founders without a proven track record. When they do, they generally require the founders to guarantee the loan or credit line with their personal savings or home — an incredibly risky proposition.

2. Are you willing to sacrifice your lifestyle for potentially many years?

If you’re used to steady paychecks, four weeks’ paid vacation and employer-sponsored health benefits, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise.

Creating a successful start-up often entails putting in workweeks of 60 hours or more and funneling any revenue you can spare back into the business. Entrepreneurs frequently won’t pay themselves a livable salary in the early years and will forgo real vacations until their business is financially sound. That can often take eight years or longer, says William Bygrave, a professor emeritus of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.

Even if you can steal away, it’s hard to find somebody who can fill in for you. Many entrepreneurs must tow along their cellphone and laptop, so they can be available to answer questions from clients or employees.

Jennifer Walzer learned those lessons the hard way. In 2002, after being laid off from a $100,000 consulting job when the company closed, she started Backup My Info! Inc., which sells online data-backup services to businesses.

For the first year, the New York-based company brought in just $29,000 in gross revenue. Ms. Walzer didn’t pay herself a salary until the third year, and even then it was a slim $30,000. She could have taken more out, but she wanted to shovel as much money into the business as possible to keep it financially sound.

Having no income for two years meant that Ms. Walzer had to be extremely frugal; she virtually never ate out or went on vacations or clothes-shopping trips. Twenty-nine years old at the time, she says, "I got very jealous of my girlfriends who got home at 5 o’clock every night and could go out gallivanting and pretty much do whatever they pleased." She’d occasionally meet friends for coffee instead of drinks, since coffee was less expensive.

Now that her business generates about $2 million in annual revenue, the tables have turned. Ms. Walzer says she earns more from the business than she did as a consultant, and "I have friends who are struggling to keep their jobs because they have bosses."

3. Is your significant other on board?

Don’t ignore the toll running a business will take on your loved ones. Failed ventures frequently break up marriages, and even successful ones can cause lots of stress, because entrepreneurs devote so much time and money to the business.

"I’m always surprised at the number of husbands who start a business and don’t tell their wives," says Bo Fishback, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

You can avoid the heartache by talking at length with your spouse and family about how the business will affect home life, including the time commitment, changes in daily schedules and chores, financial risks and sacrifices. They must also understand the huge financial gamble they’re making with you.

4. Do you like all aspects of running a business?

You better. In the early stages of a business, founders are often expected to handle everything from billing customers to hiring employees to writing marketing materials. Some new entrepreneurs become annoyed that they’re spending the majority of their time on administration when they’d rather be focused on the part of the job they enjoy, says Donna Ettenson, vice president of the Association of Small Business Development Centers in Burke, Va.

"All of a sudden, they have to think about all these things they never had to think about before," she says.

Jeromy Stallings, the 33-year-old founder of Ninthlink Inc., a San Diego interactive-marketing firm with 15 employees, always felt he had plenty of passion for entrepreneurship and self-motivation. But when starting his agency in 2003 and hiring his first couple of employees, he realized he wasn’t prepared for the day-to-day challenges of managing other people.

Mr. Stallings had assumed his passion would rub off on employees and they would do their jobs as enthusiastically as he did. But some clients started calling him directly, complaining that his employees weren’t returning phone calls or that projects were behind schedule.

"My clients were saying, ‘We love your passion, we love your skill, we’re just having a really hard time with your management style,’ " he says.

So, Mr. Stallings turned to peers, mentors and guidebooks for help. He realized he needed to work more closely with employees and create a more structured project-management system. "I didn’t really have a plan in place for how they spend their time," he says.

5. Are you comfortable making decisions on the fly with no playbook?

With a new business, you’re calling all the shots — and there are a lot of decisions to be made without any guidance. You might not be used to that if you’ve spent years working in corporate America, says Bill Wagner, author of "The Entrepreneur Next Door," a book that lays out the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.

"For most entrepreneurial ventures, there’s no structure," he says. "You’re going into a business, and nobody has told you how to be successful."

Mr. Wagner has surveyed more than 10,000 entrepreneurs to find out what traits distinguish successful start-up founders from less-successful ones. Among other things, most entrepreneurs he interviewed said they liked making decisions. He doesn’t rule out the idea that less-decisive people could become better at the leadership role. It’s just that they will have to work a lot harder at it.

6. What’s your track record of executing your ideas?

One of the biggest differences between successful entrepreneurs and everyone else is their ability to implement their ideas, says Prof. Bygrave of Babson College. You might have a wonderful concept, but that doesn’t mean you possess that special mix of drive, persuasiveness, leadership skills and keen intuition to actually turn the idea into a lucrative business.

So, examine your past objectively to see whether you have assumed leadership roles or initiated solo projects — anything that might suggest you’re good at executing ideas. "Were you senior class president? Did you play varsity sports?" Prof. Bygrave suggests asking.

You might even find clues back in your childhood, he adds: "A lot of successful entrepreneurs were starting businesses when they were still kids."

7. How persuasive and well-spoken are you?

Nearly every step of the way, entrepreneurship relies on selling. You’ll have to sell your idea to lenders or investors. You must sell your mission and vision to your employees. And you’ll ultimately have to sell your product or service to your customers. You’ll need strong communication and interpersonal skills so you can get people to believe in your vision as much as you do.

If you don’t think you’re very convincing or have difficulty communicating your ideas, you might want to reconsider starting your own company — or think about getting some help.

In 2007, Brad Price left a $135,000-a-year job as an associate at a Baltimore law firm to purchase a PuroClean Emergency Restoration Services franchise, which cleans up property damage such as mold and flooded basements. A former Naval officer, Mr. Price felt he was very self-motivated and a good leader. But he was less comfortable cold-calling and striking deals — something he’d never had to do in previous jobs.

"There’s a big difference in waiting for the phone to ring and getting an assignment and having to make the phone ring," says the 33-year-old Mr. Price.

Mr. Price says he now has his wife handle the marketing and networking. "My wife is very good at that, ‘Hey, next time a call comes in, how about you give it to us?’ " he says.

8. Do you have a concept you’re passionate about?

Every morning you want to jump out of bed eager to get to work. If you’re not that exuberant about how you’ll be spending your time — or the business concept itself — running a business is going to be a rough ride.

Ms. Ettenson of the Association of Small Business Development Centers has coached many prospective entrepreneurs about their chosen business. She always asks why they’re doing it. If they suggest it’s mostly for the prospect of making a lot of money or because they’re tired of working for someone else, she steers them toward something more in line with their interests or avoiding self-employment altogether.

"If you hate doing paperwork, the last thing you want to do is become a bookkeeper," Ms. Ettenson says. "If you’d rather be outside taking people into the wilderness, then that’s the type of business you should be in."

But it’s also usually wise to find a business in an industry you are very familiar with; it will be much harder to succeed if you know little about the field. Mr. Fishback at Kauffman says he has steered a doctor and other professionals away from starting restaurants because they often don’t grasp how difficult and risky restaurant ownership is. And they’d be competing against restaurateurs with years of experience.

9. Are you a self-starter?

Entrepreneurs face lots of discouragement. Potential buyers don’t return calls, business sours or you face repeated rejection. It takes willpower and an almost unwavering optimism to overcome these constant obstacles.

John Gartner, an assistant clinical-psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of the book "The Hypomaniac Edge," theorizes that many well-known entrepreneurs have a temperament called hypomania. They’re highly creative, energetic, impatient and very persistent — traits that help them persevere even when others lose faith.

"One of the things about having this kind of confidence is they’re kind of risk-blind because they don’t think they could fail," Prof. Gartner says. And, he adds, "if they fail, they’re not down for that long, and after a while they’re energized by a whole new idea."

You don’t have to be as driven as, say, Steve Jobs to succeed. But somebody who gets deterred easily, or too upset when things go wrong, won’t last.

10. Do you have a business partner?

If you don’t have all the traits you need to run the show, it’s not necessarily a hopeless endeavor. Finding a business partner who compensates for your shortcomings — and has equal enthusiasm for the business concept — can help mitigate the risks and even boost the odds of success.

David Gage, co-founder of BMC Associates, an Arlington, Va., business-mediation practice, points to a Marquette University study of 2,000 businesses. The researchers found that partner-run businesses are far more likely to become high-growth ventures than those started by solo entrepreneurs.

The key, Mr. Gage says, is finding a partner who prefers handling different aspects of the business, so you’re complementing each other — and not constantly at each other’s throats.

Someone who likes to take risks and be in the spotlight, for instance, might choose a cautious partner who prefers to work in the back room. "If they’re willing to work with that person, and not just look at them as a wet blanket, then it can be great," Mr. Gage says.

But taking on a partner isn’t a light decision. Many partnerships split due to conflicts over everything from attitudes about money to miscommunication and contrasting work ethics. Mr. Gage recommends that potential partners spend several days hashing out the specifics of the business and how the arrangement will work to see if they’re compatible.

Source: Wall Street Journal

It sometimes seems that few people are completely familiar with this, even though they may work for you and watch you go through it. It’s not because they are unintelligent or absent-minded, but because of the deeply-lodged notion that we all pick up from our years of working for someone else: that somewhere “up there,” is the paycheck god, an omniscient, all-powerful corporate entity with deep pockets who pays the bills. Your employees will rarely seem to make the connection that you are it. The buck stops with you.

Here’s how the trouble starts: You set up your business along with all the taxes, payroll, insurance and other necessary evils. You also need products to run your daily operations. All these payments have to be made on time or your employees will quit, your insurance will cancel, your customers will fire you and the IRS will levy your bank account. Your creditors, whoever they may be, probably aren’t going to be terribly forgiving, and furthermore, you owe it to your staff to pay them reliably and on time. So here you are with all these payments that have to go out, but your customers are perpetually late in paying you, which leaves you, obviously, in a horrible bind.

For example, let’s say you run a cleaning or landscaping service and you invoice your customers at the end of the month with thirty day terms, meaning that they have thirty days to pay you. Now let’s say that you charge them $100 per month (just to keep it simple) and your payroll runs you about 40% of your total sales. By the time that customer pays you, instead of having $100 dollars to work with, you, in effect, only have $20 because you have already covered two months worth of the payroll spent on their services ($80) and at this point, you have only received one month’s payment. Now add in your other expenses such as insurance, taxes and office space and you can see how you will quickly run into a big problem paying the bills. It is important stay a step ahead of this phenomenon. Here are a few tips to help you:

Set up your payroll cycle so that your employees are paid twice a month, rather than weekly or bi-weekly. There are 52 weeks in the year and 12 months, which means that if you pay on any kind of a weekly schedule (every Friday or every other Friday, for example), you will have at least two extra payrolls per year. In these months, your expenses will be extra high, but your receivables will most likely be the same, creating a huge cash crunch for you. Having set payroll days, such as the first and the fifteenth of each month, will help you stabilize your cash flow against your expenses and will spread out the impact that the longer months will have on your finances.

Have a budget in place and always be looking at least one month ahead to predict upcoming cash flow problems. Pay your bills when they are due and in the amount due, never a day early or a penny more. Keeping your cash in your own bank account for as long as you can may well be the difference between survival and extinction if things get rough.

Do not openly offer thirty-day terms. Your invoice should state somewhere that payment is due either immediately or within seven days. It should also impose a late charge after 30 days. Unfortunately, collections is all part of the game in any business you operate for yourself. Don’t let your customers get behind, especially commercial clients, as you can really get burned this way. Aggressively begin your collections process (phone calls, late fees, letters) at 31 days. If the bill is still not paid at 45, threaten suspension of service or other collection action and at 60 days, prove that you mean it.

Try to synchronize your billing schedule against the due dates of your expenses. In other words, don’t bill all your clients at the first of the month, but rather stagger your billing cycle so that you can expect some of your larger payments to be coming in from your clients as your larger expenses are going out to your creditors. The IRS and other similar organizations that suffer from burgeoning excess, red-tape strangulation and total social myopia will tell you that “theoretically,” you shouldn’t have to do this. If you receive all your payments at the same time, then later in the month, the money should still be sitting in the bank. Nice theory — it sounds logical, but reality makes unexpected demands on limited cash resources all the time. If this theory were as good as it sounded, wouldn’t it simplify things immensely if companies only paid their employees once per year, after they’d collected their profits? Employees could then pay their bills once per year and be done with it. Hmmm…. well it sounds good anyway.

For smaller clients, make it clear that you expect to be paid upon completion of the work. Be sure to have ready a pre-printed receipt if you are working at their home and not in your own location. You’d be surprised at how much a constant influx of these smaller payments can really help to buoy up a shoe-string business.

Have a reserve fund somewhere if you can. A savings account or a revolving line of credit that you can access if you get into a crunch may just make the difference between whether or not you join the long line of disgruntled ex-entrepreneurs or not. Take money from these sources until you get paid, but be certain that you put it back so that it will be there for next time!

Mind the tax-man. While getting behind in some of your bills may cost you a few extra bucks, getting behind in your taxes will cost you an arm and a leg in penalties and late fees (and they never go away). If you have to make a choice about what gets paid on time, be sure the tax man gets his due first.

Be pro-active in dealing with current or upcoming cash-flow problems. It seems that you just go, go, go all the time when you operate your own business, but if you expect to survive, you must find some time to think.

If a venture firm and all goes well, they will provide you funding for growth in return for an equity share in the business, often a controlling share. At one point, they will ask you for a business plan.

Venture investors do not want to see the same plan that you might write as an operating guide to building the business.. Venture investors are very straightforward in what they want to learn from a business plan:

1. What is the investment proposition?
2. Do you have a convincing plan for business growth?
3. Can the management team execute the plan?

Investment Proposition: Remember the distinction between your focus and that of the VC. Your primary concern is business; the VC’s primary concern is money. You want to succeed at launching and building the business of your dreams. The VC wants to invest money and extract multiple gains. To the VC, your business is a means to his end. In your business plan you must define the investment proposition by answering three questions:

1. How much money are you seeking?
2. What are you offering in return?
3. What are the exit options for the VC?

Be very clear and sure about how much funding you are raising. This number should tie into your business plan projects. How do you intend to use the money and over what timeframe? Usually businesses seeking early stage capital will have to offer a significant share of the business in return. VCs will frequently want in excess of 50% of the company. When can the investors expect to cash in their investments and how?

Growth Plan: What is your business model? What kind of growth do you expect, how will it be achieved, how will funds be applied, and what are the expected results of each investment subproject? Two very important questions to address are: how will the business be scaled for growth and how will the pacing and timing of expenditures and revenue impact cash flow and profitability? For a business to rapidly expand by 5 or 10 times, management controls and systems must be put in place. The infrastructure of the company must be able to support and control rapid growth.

Management Execution: Identify the management team and demonstrate that they are the right team to execute. As a company grows, the skills and management practices required change. The VC will want to explore whether the current management team has a growth vision and the execution skills to actualize the investment proposition. No matter how brief, view every interaction as an opportunity to demonstrate command and mastery of the knowledge and skills your investors are seeking.
You would be well served to address the above questions in a concise and clear investment summary of 2 to 4 pages as the first part of your plan. Speak directly to your VC keeping your sentences simple and to the point.

As you probably know almost all global markets (especially the emerging markets) are correcting and all of them have corrected sharply. It doesn’t matter whether you are from India or China or USA, the recent fall in stocks would have affected you.

I’m sure that you must be in a panic situation now even I’m in a panic situation. So that made me to write this blog post. I started investing in Stock Market back in 2005. But I didn’t make any significant amount of returns. In fact I have booked losses several times in range of 5 to 20% and then quit the stock market for some time. But I decided to enter stocks again back in January and started building a portfolio. I started with Mutual Funds too but when the markets fell sharply. I asked myself "Why should I invest in Mutual Funds when the Stock Market is attractive?" that made me to invest directly in stocks. And I began to buy quality stocks on every dip. The result: the stock market crash never ended it and it’s falling day by day. And I’m sitting at a loss of 10%.

But should I sell and book the losses and get out of the market? I entered the market with a long term perspective and that made me to stay in the market.

When I first started investing in stock I was a short term player. Whenever a stock in my portfolio moves up 5 to 10% I book my profits and some of them even jumped 50% in less than a month, I booked my profits. While some of them dropped 10 to 20% and I booked my losses and got out from the markets. I lost more money than I gained from the market. That made me to quit stock market. But I used to watch the stocks whenever I get time but didn’t invested in stocks for a long time, not because they dropped 20% or I booked my losses. It’s because the same stocks began to move up very sharply with the market in less than a month the stocks which I sold off were up by over 20% my acquired price. And in six months some of them shot up by 100% and some by 500% and some by 1000%. And I learned a great lesson!

Now, many of you might have actually lost their patience and sleep. The situation is even worse for me and others who entered the stock market in the past two months. Your losses could be anywhere between 10% to 50%.

But now I am not that panic or I have decided not to panic will continue to hold all my quality stocks.

1. Stop Listening To Stock Market Analysts

Almost all stock market analysts in the media confuse you instead of giving a solution. Some will say the market will move up from next month onwards and some will say we are in a bear market and so on. So stop listening to them as you wont get any relief from their words. Have faith in yourself! Peace and hope are all within you. It doesn’t mean to buy a stupid company and hold that for long. I suggest you to study the market thoroughly and do your home work and analysis. Pick stocks which are fundamentally strong and if some analysts are recommending the same stock then consider that as a plus point. Don’t buy stocks only because of someone’s recommendation.

2. Don’t Look At Your Portfolio Every Single Minute

Another big mistake investors make is that they used to track their portfolio every single minute and seconds. A fall makes then feel worse and a slight rise in stock prices makes them feel better or happy. But this should be discontinued. How about tracking the fundamentals of the company when they announce their quarterly results? If your company is growing – then be happy. If they are reporting losses continuously then exit from that stock. Sooner or later the prices of your shares will settle around its fundamental value. And please stop following rumors about fundamentally strong companies.

Suppose you hold a Fixed Deposit (or Certificate of Deposit) with a bank then would you look at its value daily? Absolutely no, use that same principle when you invest in stock market.

3. Be Patient

It’s very common that you invest all your money at once instead of investing the same in a systematic manner. So chances are that you running out of cash when the stock market corrects sharply. But even then be patient and continue to hold your stocks.

4. Speak To Actual Investors Who Have Experience

Instead of interacting with analysts or stock brokers, speak with real investors who have been in the market for long time and ask about how they have survived in the market and how they have created their wealth.

 5. Stop Following Crazy Tips By Others

Stop following Hot tips which promise you to make you a millionaire in months. Yes it could really be a hot tip for Billionaires who would end up as millionaires in case they do follow the tip.

6. Understand The Market Cycles

Every and every asset class has a cycle whether its Stock Market or Real Estate or Gold or Silver all move in cycles. Realize the fact that no asset class will go only in one direction. If you go back to its history then you can see several instances when stocks prices have actually moved up and down. But over the longer period of time every asset class will reward its investors.

Stock markets, mutual funds, real estate all move in cycles. Please realize that nothing can keep going up forever in a single direction. There will be phases when prices will come down and again move up. If you go back into history you will see several instances when stock prices came down, however over a period of time quality companies always reward investors. Understand market cycles, and don’t become a slave to them.

7. Follow The ‘Guru’

Warren Buffett is an American investor, businessperson and philanthropist. He is the richest person in the world according to Forbes Magazine with an estimated current net worth of around US$62 Billion. He known as the world’s greatest investor or “Oracle of Omaha”. If you are an investor then the Wikipedia article of Warren Buffett is a must read.

He simply invested in quality stocks which have some value for longer term. He invested in Gillette, for the simple reason that he believed that men won’t stop shaving. So it makes sense to follow him. He entered the stock market when he was just eleven. He bought three shares of Cities Service at $38 per share, and shortly after buying the stock it fell to $27 per share. But he held his shares and sold for $40 per share when it was rebounded. But he regretted for that as the Cities Services shares shot up to $200. So that taught him one of the basic lessons of investing "patience is a virtue".

Happy Investing!

A nicely designed and pretty appealing pink color website called WhateverLife.com is owned by 17 year old girl “Ashley Qualls”. It is a site that offers MySpace layouts, graphics, and most impressive magazine for teens making million-dollar business. With over 60 million page views and 7 million monthly visitors, she makes over 70 thousand dollars a month with advertising affiliate programs such as Google’s AdSense. The most impressive part of Ashley’s Million-Dollar Business is the only significant source of revenue so far is advertising on Web.

Ashley started WhateverLife.com as a hobby when she was 14 years old, with just about 8 dollars borrowed from her mother. Today after three years she could manage to drop out school make over $1 million a year, offering a lifestyle to her family member that was never known earlier. Recently the teen CEO of WhateverLife.com got 4-bedroom house and built herself a home-office in the basement. Ashley found herself interested in graphic website designing and soon after that she grabbed the online social network craze. As and when the demand increased, the supply was simultaneously increased from Ashley’s website. Till date, she has offered the designs, which are cheery, colorful and unique with lots of hearts – Ashley’s favorites.

At the age of 17 Ashley is very much an Internet Professional who even allows companies run by tenderfoot entrepreneurs to battle, in spite of of funding, place, size, or experience–and she believes that cleverness is ageless. Her MySpace page layouts are obtainable free of cost, so only major source of her revenue is advertising. It is no doubt that Ashley is different from recent crop of high-profile teen entrepreneurs. She is a person that comes up with a right idea at right time. Teen girls generally, cut and paste the HTML code designed by Ashley in WhateverLife.com in order to achieve a new look. "It is all about giving girls what they desire," Ashley says

During 2005, her site traffic mounted to the extreme, it was then she owned her own dedicated server. Simultaneously, she approached Google AdSense to supplies ads to the site and share revenue. As the site traffic improved, the earnings were improved. Ashley’s first check was for $2,700, next was for $5,000 and third was for $10,000. The hard work done by Ashley is extremely remarkable, and hence she was paid off well. Many might also think that Ashley lost her playful childhood working hard towards her successful business, but yet she does not think so.

Many internet savvy people make money blogging or they may desire to scratch internet marketing to generate profit, but just a 17 year old Ashley used creativity and her hobby to reach success at this age. I believe dedication is what required achieving that you desire in life. Ashley says – “If you concentrate on where your heart is, then you would certainly head in the right direction”. One only need to research the desired market, consult those with more experience, learn the business and be strategic to achieve your goals. I am pretty impressed by the success story of Ashley and I would love to learn from her experience!

Microsoft Reports 27% Revenue Growth; Fastest First Quarter Since 1999

REDMOND, Wash. — October 25, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $13.76 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, a 27% increase over the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $5.92 billion, $4.29 billion and $0.45, respectively.

“This fiscal year is off to an outstanding start with the fastest revenue growth of any first quarter since 1999,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “Operating income growth of over 30% also reflects our ability to translate revenue into profits while making strategic investments for the future.”

Microsoft profit rises on PC demand

Microsoft posted a rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, boosted by healthy demand for personal computers loaded with its Windows operating system and strong sales of its “Halo 3″ video game.

The world’s largest software maker said net profit in its fiscal first quarter totaled $4.29 billion, or 45 cents per diluted share, versus $3.48 billion, or 35 cents per diluted share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 27 percent to $13.76 billion in the three months ended September 30.

Analysts, on average, had forecast 39 cents per share in first-quarter profit on revenue of $12.54 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Market research firms Gartner and IDC said global PC shipments rose about 15 percent in the September quarter, which helped Microsoft as well as the quarterly results of chip maker Intel.

Microsoft also enjoyed strong sales of “Halo 3,” the latest installment of its flagship shooter franchise. The blockbuster game title racked up more than $300 million in its first week of sales after its September 25 debut. Consumers also purchased the Xbox 360 console to play the game, vaulting the game machine past rival consoles in September.

For the current quarter, Microsoft forecast earnings in a range of 44 cents to 46 cents per diluted share on revenue of $15.6 billion to $16.1 billion.

Analysts, on average, were forecasting earnings per share of 44 cents a share on revenue of $15.5 billion in Microsoft’s fiscal second quarter, according to Reuters Estimates.

The holiday quarter is a crucial one for Microsoft as it aims to spur adoption of new computers running its latest Windows Vista operating system. Its entertainment arm also counts on the December quarter generating twice as much revenue as any other quarter of the year.

Microsoft also raised full-year earnings estimates to a range of $1.78 to $1.81 per share from a previous range of $1.69 to $1.73. It also raised its full-year revenue estimate range by almost $2 billion, to $58.8 billion to $59.7 billion.

Wall Street analysts, on average, were forecasting fiscal 2008 earnings of $1.73 per share on revenue of $57.3 billion.

As of the close of Wednesday trade, Microsoft shares had fallen about 1 percent since it reported quarterly results in July compared with 2 percent declines for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

Source: Reuters