Impact investing starts from the other end. It starts with an issue… this could be a problem, a social issue or so on. Impact investors start with an issue and then try to build a viable, sustainable financial model around that.
— Nick O’Donohoe“This is transforming the whole of our economy and we are seeing more companies making decisions across those dimensions of risk-return-impact and being judged on the basis of the profit and impact they create. It really turns our economies away from risk-return (where they create profit without counting the huge damage they cause) to risk-return-impact.”— Sir Ronald Cohen
Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing
The quote archive
Wisdom in fragments
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
For businesses to survive, let alone brands, you need a secure and stable base. You need secure economic and social conditions to reduce risk.
— Rita CliftonLeading brand strategist and founding partner of Interbrand
Brands create demand and, most importantly, they create secure demand. If you have a loyal customer, that gives you more security of income, earnings and employment.
— Rita CliftonLeading brand strategist and founding partner of Interbrand
China realises that he who owns the brand, owns the wealth… For nations, brands give economic control, security and choice and are therefore extremely important.
— Rita CliftonLeading brand strategist and founding partner of Interbrand
The starting point is to realise that brand, in whatever type of organisation, is the most important and sustainable asset you've got. People may leave or die, buildings may dilapidate or fall down, products and services may become obsolete… The thing that lives on is brand.
— Rita CliftonLeading brand strategist and founding partner of Interbrand
If you don't spend a lot of money on something and it doesn't work out… is it really a 'failure'? Most entrepreneurs start a lot of different ventures. Some work better than others, but that's totally normal and expected.
— Chris GuillebeauAuthor of "The $100 Startup" and lifestyle design expert
What really is risky?! In many ways I think it's actually much safer to take things into your own hands rather than trusting your destiny to an uncertain jobs market.
— Chris GuillebeauAuthor of "The $100 Startup" and lifestyle design expert
Entrepreneurs have to focus on how a business makes money and focus on that rather than the expense side of the business. That also allows you to start quicker and instead of deferring your idea, you could get to market in 30 days.
— Chris GuillebeauAuthor of "The $100 Startup" and lifestyle design expert
I think it's about usefulness! People talk of 'following your passion' but there are plenty of things people are passionate about that nobody will pay them money for, so you can't just tell someone to just follow their passion. The missing piece? usefulness… We say the magic formula is: Passion + Usefulness = Success.
— Chris GuillebeauAuthor of "The $100 Startup" and lifestyle design expert
If you take a trade that follows your process exactly and if that trade loses money, that was not a bad trade. It's only a bad trade if you deviate from your process and lose money. I would go further and say that if you deviate from your process and make money, it's still a bad trade.
— Jack SchwagerAuthor of Market Wizards & Hedge Fund Expert
If you asked most people to categorise good trades and bad trades, you would find the answers to be quite simple… If it makes money it's a good trade, and if it loses money, it's a bad trade. That's not true at all…
— Jack SchwagerAuthor of Market Wizards & Hedge Fund Expert
This is a great analogy as the key to successful trading really is the space between trades! It's not just a matter of making the right trades… but also not doing anything when things aren't right.
— Jack SchwagerAuthor of Market Wizards & Hedge Fund Expert
It's a matter of finding an approach that works for the individual. A person has to know whether they are comfortable with fundamental or technical, long term or short term, certain types of markets, wider risk or less risk… You can go through a whole checklist of things and find it's different for each individual.
— Jack SchwagerAuthor of Market Wizards & Hedge Fund Expert
The diversity of strategies people use is truly remarkable, I saw people using completely different strategies to the degree that if I had set out to invent 15 different strategies for a fictional work…. I couldn't have made the strategies more different to the ones I saw in real life! This illustrates a point I have made in all my works insofar as there really is no 'holy grail' or single style that is most effective.
— Jack SchwagerAuthor of Market Wizards & Hedge Fund Expert
If you look at the decade which ended in 2009, our estimate is around US$8 trillion. As previously mentioned, we believe this is a very conservative estimate because there are major parts of illicit flows that are not included in that figure.
— Raymond BakerThese models depend entirely on government statistics. They automatically leave out many forms of illicit money such as drug trading, human trafficking, some forms of trade mispricing and so forth. That is why we feel our estimates are very conservative.
— Raymond Baker