Entrepreneurship

The sacrifice is perhaps a decade- and it's a total sacrifice- you may not see your kids, you may miss an entire cycle of your lives, but you're doing it to provide for them in the future in a way you never could if you were an employee.

Shark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate

Entrepreneurs that do it for greed of money fail. Entrepreneurship isn't about greed, it has nothing to do with that; what matters is personal freedom.

Shark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate

What motivates great entrepreneurs is fear of failure; and here's the thing – most entrepreneurs fail several times before they achieve success, and the more you fail, the more fear you have.

Shark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate

It taught me the difference between the two types of people in the world. Those that own the store, and those that scrape shit off the floor. You have to decide which one you want to be. I didn't want to scrape shit off the floor. I wanted to own the store.

Shark Tank investor, businessman, and former Canadian political candidate

Competition is great for consumers, but nothing destroys enterprise value faster than intense competition. To succeed in commerce, you need a great operating team focused on the nitty gritty details of the business.

Either as a startup founder or a venture capital investor, you should not care about what others believe to be exciting or overhyped. Do your own primary research and make up your own mind.

Great founders such as Brian Chesky of Airbnb, Drew Houston of Dropbox, or Adi Tatarko of Houzz, are all on a mission to build a product or service that corrects something that they believe the world got wrong. They are on a mission to correct a personal problem or personal pain.

I would love to say that we knew all the answers in advance, but the truth is that we discovered our product and opportunity, rather than planning for it.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

That's what entrepreneurship is all about–experimenting and finding a way of achieving some goal in the context of business. It's something I've always found fascinating.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

In business, you get incredible highs and lows… and it can take a decade of work before you start to see the story, and so having peer networks around you helps you realise other people have been through this.

Co-Founder of Atlassian & Technology Entrepreneur

I started my entrepreneurship journey straight out of college, and at the time my goal was simple. I didn't want a real job, and I didn't want to wear a suit…. Anything more than that was a bonus.

Co-Founder of Atlassian & Technology Entrepreneur

Another hugely common mistake is optimising your business for investors, and not customers and employees.

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

When you're starting out, your ambition shouldn't be defined by someone else's success criteria. That's something I struggled with, and still do.

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

In the same way that kids would benefit from healthy, happy parents- startups would benefit from healthy, happy founders.

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

One of the biggest myths in startup-land is this idea that the pinnacle of startups is building a venture-scale company, backed by venture capital, growing exceptionally fast and being OK with high failure rates as a result; in other words, returning a significant amount of capital to an investor rather than any other outcome.

Founder of Moz, SEO software company and industry thought leader

You have to be resilient and you have to find the right investors. Surround yourself with amazing investors who are experts.

Founder and CEO of Farfetch, luxury fashion e-commerce platform