100 Startup Quotes to Inspire Bold Beginnings
Building a startup takes more than a good idea. It takes resilience, belief, and an appetite for risk.
Whether you’re knee-deep in product testing or pitching your vision to investors, the journey can feel both exciting and uncertain.
These startup quotes capture the highs, the lows, and the raw ambition behind some of the world’s most impactful ventures.
If you need a reminder of why you started, or just a spark to keep moving forward, you’ll find it here.
Top Startup Quotes
The best way to predict the future is to create it. ~ Peter Drucker
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. ~ Reid Hoffman
Make something people want. ~ Paul Graham
Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. ~ Guy Kawasaki
The most valuable businesses of coming decades will be built by entrepreneurs who seek to empower people rather than try to make them obsolete. ~ Peter Thiel
A startup is a company designed to grow fast. ~ Paul Graham
If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large. ~ Jeff Bezos
Startups don’t fail because they lack a product; they fail because they lack customers and a profitable business model. ~ Steve Blank
Fail fast, fail often. ~ Silicon Valley mantra
Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once. ~ Drew Houston
Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success. ~ Biz Stone
The secret to getting ahead is getting started. ~ Mark Twain
The best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch. ~ Michael Arrington
Don’t try to be original, just try to be good. ~ Paul Rand
The only thing worse than starting something and failing is not starting something. ~ Seth Godin
If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on. ~ Sheryl Sandberg
Fail often so you can succeed sooner. ~ Tom Kelley
Vision without execution is hallucination. ~ Thomas Edison
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. ~ Chinese Proverb
A goal without a plan is just a wish. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Innovation & Disruption Quotes
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. ~ Steve Jobs
Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer. ~ Nolan Bushnell
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. ~ Bill Gates
If you’re going to put your product in beta – put your business model in beta with it. ~ Joe Kraus
The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow. ~ Ingvar Kamprad
You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. ~ Richard Branson
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. ~ Nolan Bushnell
What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world. ~ Simon Sinek
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Innovation is taking two things that exist and putting them together in a new way. ~ Tom Freston
There’s a way to do it better—find it. ~ Thomas Edison
Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time. ~ Bill Gates
Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity—not a threat. ~ Steve Jobs
The enterprise that does not innovate ages and declines. And in a period of rapid change such as the present, the decline will be fast. ~ Peter Drucker
Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. ~ Theodore Levitt
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. ~ John Maynard Keynes
You can’t solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level. ~ Albert Einstein
Innovation comes from saying NO to 1,000 things. ~ Steve Jobs
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. ~ Albert Einstein
Growth & Scaling Quotes
Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together. ~ James Cash Penney
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. ~ African Proverb
The only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness. ~ Jeff Bezos
Sustaining a successful business is a hell of a lot of work, and staying hungry is half the battle. ~ Wendy Tan White
You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea. ~ Larry Page
If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, then I think you will be successful. ~ Pierre Omidyar
Always deliver more than expected. ~ Larry Page
The question I ask myself almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’ ~ Mark Zuckerberg
If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering. ~ Jeff Bezos
Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. ~ John D. Rockefeller
The best ventures really do require constant vigilance and iteration. ~ Sam Altman
Startups are not for everyone. But when it works, the impact on the world can be profound. ~ Sam Altman
The most important single thing is to make yourself known to people. ~ Jay Abraham
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. ~ Benjamin Franklin
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic. ~ Peter Drucker
If you’re not growing, you’re dying. ~ Lou Holtz
Growth and comfort do not coexist. ~ Ginni Rometty
Scaling is not just about more. It’s about growing smartly, efficiently, and in the right direction. ~ Reid Hoffman
Comfort and growth rarely coexist. ~ Jocko Willink
Founder Mindset Quotes
Stay hungry, stay foolish. ~ Steve Jobs
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right. ~ Henry Ford
Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage. ~ Niccolò Machiavelli
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. ~ Ayn Rand
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. ~ Mark Twain
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ~ Thomas Edison
Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ~ Winston Churchill
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. ~ Vidal Sassoon
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. ~ Steve Jobs
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus. ~ Bruce Lee
Opportunities don’t happen. You create them. ~ Chris Grosser
Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning. ~ Robert Kiyosaki
If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time. ~ Steve Jobs
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
What would you do if you weren’t afraid? ~ Sheryl Sandberg
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. ~ Henry Ford
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. ~ Steve Jobs
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. ~ Henry Ford
The entrepreneur builds an enterprise; the technician builds a job. ~ Michael Gerber
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will. ~ Vince Lombardi
Startup Funding Quotes
Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations. ~ Tim O’Reilly
Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you. ~ Tony Hsieh
Bootstrapping is a way to do something about the problems you have without letting someone else give you permission to do them. ~ Tom Preston-Werner
The best time to raise money is when you don’t need it. ~ Richard Harroch
Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase. ~ Fred Wilson
Raising venture capital is the easiest thing a startup founder is ever going to do. ~ Mark Suster
The ability to raise money is not the same as the ability to make money. ~ Anonymous
Fundraising is a necessary evil, not a badge of honor. ~ Anonymous
The best kind of money is revenue. ~ Anonymous
Investors invest in lines, not dots. ~ Mark Suster
The best way to raise seed capital is to build a prototype that runs. ~ Naval Ravikant
Investors are looking for entrepreneurs who can articulate a clear vision and path to profitability. ~ Anonymous
The best way to convince investors is to create a product that sells itself. ~ Anonymous
Funding should be a catalyst for growth, not a substitute for a business model. ~ Anonymous
Raising money is a full-time job with a side hustle of building a company. ~ Anonymous
The goal is not to raise money. The goal is to build a great company. ~ Anonymous
Investors don’t fund ideas; they fund execution of ideas. ~ Anonymous
The best pitch deck is traction. ~ Anonymous
Fundraising is a means to an end, not an end in itself. ~ Anonymous
The best investor is a customer who pays you. ~ Anonymous
