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Business Quotes by Eric Ries

40 Business quotes by Eric Ries

All Business quotes Eric Ries’s page

Eric Ries reminds us that a startup’s success hinges on truly knowing its customers and the market it serves. He points out that many new businesses stumble because they build products nobody wants, and that forecasting is often wildly off. He also notes that venture capital isn’t bad, but it doesn’t guarantee a hit.

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At IMVU, we opened up our board meetings to the whole company.

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“Entrepreneurship is a kind of management.”

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The only person who can put you out of business, in the early days, is yourself.

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Entrepreneurship is not really building a product, it's not having an idea, it's not being in the right place at the right…

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“Energy invested in success theater is energy that could have been used to help build a sustainable business.”

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The goal of every startup experiment is to discover how to build a sustainable business around that vision.

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We need to reengineer companies to focus on figuring out who the customer is, what's the market and what kind of product…

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The problem with entrepreneurship is we are often working really hard producing high quality products that no-one wants. The creation of stuff…

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Entrepreneurs can't forecast accurately, because they are trying something fundamentally new. So they will often be laughably behind plan - and on…

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Most phenomenal startup teams create businesses that ultimately fail. Why? They built something that nobody wanted.

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Leadership requires creating conditions that enable employees to do the kinds of experimentation that entrepreneurship requires.

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You know how people always talk about how vision is the key to entrepreneurship and perseverance and really seeing what other people…

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As an entrepreneur, I knew that if my company failed, I could always try again. So I often felt that the only…

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“The rate of growth depends primarily on three things: the profitability of each customer, the cost of acquiring new customers, and the…

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If your goal is to make money, becoming an entrepreneur is a sucker's bet. Sure, some entrepreneurs make a lot of money,…

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Here in Silicon Valley, I have taken part in hundreds of conversations trying to convince people to dive in and become entrepreneurs.…

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The United States is locked in a new arms race for that most precious resource - the future entrepreneurs upon whom economic…

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Prove to yourself that your business, in micro-scale at least, creates value. If you believe it, you'll find it that much easier…

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A lot of entrepreneurs hate big companies. But if you hate them so much, why are you trying to build a new…

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“After more than ten years as an entrepreneur, I came to reject that line of thinking. I have learned from both my…

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I would say, as an entrepreneur everything you do - every action you take in product development, in marketing, every conversation you…

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There was a study done in the early 20th century of all the entrepreneurs who entered the automobile industry around the same…

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“In my Toyota interviews, when I asked what distinguishes the Toyota Way from other management approaches, the most common first response was…

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“asked him to imagine the following: If I selected an employee of the company at random, from any level or function or…

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“Entrepreneurs are everywhere. You don’t have to work in a garage to be in a startup. The concept of entrepreneurship includes anyone…

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“One remarkable part of the SnapTax story is what the team leaders said when I asked them to account for their unlikely…

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“The Lean Startup is a set of practices for helping entrepreneurs increase their odds of building a successful startup.”

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It doesn't matter if you call it a boom or a bubble. The startup business moves in cycles, and what goes up…

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The Lean Startup has evolved into a movement that is having a significant impact on how companies are built, funded and scaled.

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Products a start-up builds are really experiments…Learning about how to build a sustainable business is the outcome of those experiments [which follow]…

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There is no greater country on Earth for entrepreneurship than America. In every category, from the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, where…

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Entrepreneurs always pitch their idea as 'the X of Y,' so this is going to be 'the Microsoft of food.' And yet…

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There is much that public policy can do to support American entrepreneurs. Health insurance reform will make it easier for entrepreneurs to…

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Most entrepreneurs don't need as many customers as they think. A lot of people think 10 is too few for a sample.…

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There's nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital. What…

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Most start-up companies fail and it is smart public policy to help entrepreneurs increase their odds of succeeding. But, the biggest loss…

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It was 1999, and we were building a way for college kids to create online profiles for the purpose of sharing... with…

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“You cannot be sure you really understand any part of any business problem unless you go and see for yourself firsthand. It…

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“People are accustomed to thinking of accounting as dry and boring, a necessary evil used primarily to prepare financial reports and survive…

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The attributes for entrepreneurs cut both ways. You need the ability to ignore inconvenient facts and see the world as it should…

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More by Eric Ries

The lesson of the MVP is that any additional work beyond what was required to start learning is waste, no matter how important it…

HubSpot has used the lean startup method to build a spectacularly successful company. What I particularly love about HubSpot is that they are so…

By the time that product is ready to be distributed widely, it will already have established customers.

It was 1999, and we were building a way for college kids to create online profiles for the purpose of sharing... with employers. Oops.…

Except in very narrow cases, where there's breakthrough science that needs patent production, worrying about competitors is a waste of time. If you can't…

“waiting too long to release can lead to the ultimate waste: making something that nobody wants.”

There's nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital. What differentiates them…

“In the Lean Startup model, every product, every feature, every marketing campaign—everything a startup does—is understood to be an experiment designed to achieve validated…

Learning is the essential unit of progress for startups.

“...a long-term reputation is only at risk when companies engage in vocal launch activities such as PR and building hype. When a product fails…

The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about…

Every startup has a chance to change the world, by bringing not just a new product, but an entirely new institution into existence.

Entrepreneurs can't forecast accurately, because they are trying something fundamentally new. So they will often be laughably behind plan - and on the brink…

Meritocracy is a good thing. Whenever possibly, people should be judged based on their work and results, not superficial qualities.

The lean startup method is not about cost, it is about speed.