Richard Branson

Everyone needs something to aim for. You can call it a challenge, or you can call it a goal. It is what makes us human. It was challenges that took us from being cavemen to reaching for the stars.

Past failures unlock future successes

The truth is this: the Earth cannot provide enough food and fresh water for 10 billion people, never mind homes, never mind roads, hospitals and schools.

If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it. You must love what you do.

A good leader leads from the front. Don't get stuck in the office. Get out, meet people and listen to their stories.

A good idea for a new business tends not to occur in isolation, and often the window of opportunity is very small. So speed is of the essence.

We need every person on Earth to acknowledge that climate change is real and encourage each other and our leaders to address the challenge.

Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents. It is in our hands whether our children and their children inherit the same world. We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment.

The ability to bounce back after a setback is the single most important trait an entrepreneurial venture can possess.

To be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running, and if you have a good team around you and more than a fair share of luck, you might make something happen. But you certainly can't guarantee it just by following someone else's formula.

Rather than getting nostalgic...embrace the new opportunities and challenges available to you now.

No failure means no risk, which means nothing new

At Virgin, we have always backed the power of the entrepreneur and inventor to find solutions to tricky problems. Why should climate change and the battle against carbon be any different?

In the same way that I tend to make up my mind about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, I also make up my mind about whether a business proposal excites me within about thirty seconds of looking at it. I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.

Be willing to use yourself to get out there and put the company on the market. If you have to make a fool of yourself, make a fool of yourself, but make sure that you end up on the front pages, not the back pages. In time, it's possible that your company will stand out from the crowd, and you'll be successful.

It's rare for a startup to make money immediately, so you need to make sure that you have enough saved or that you have another income stream that can support you.

I may be a businessman in that I set up and run companies for profit, but when I try to plan ahead and dream up new products and new companies, I'm an idealist.

The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them - preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.

I never set out to be a businessman

Communicate your passion clearly, concisely and with genuine conviction.

Your brand or your name is simply your reputation, you have to fight in life to protect that as it means everything. Nothing is more important.