There's an energy and excitement when you're building a company. You have so much tail wind. You're planting new seeds. But it's also scary, because there's no safety net.
Interpretation
Building a company is both exhilarating and risky, offering opportunities and uncertainties.
In this quote, Howard Schultz captures the dual nature of entrepreneurship. While there is a thrilling momentum and the opportunity to innovate and grow when starting a company, there is also an inherent risk due to the lack of guaranteed security or safety nets. This combination of excitement and fear is what characterizes the entrepreneurial journey.
In practice
During a business seminar on entrepreneurship, this quote can inspire budding entrepreneurs to embrace both the excitement and challenges of building their ventures.
The rules of engagement around building a brand have changed significantly over the past 10 to 15 years. Where companies at one time could spread their message through traditional marketing, consumers now seek an enduring emotional connection with the companies they patronize. The foundation of that connection is the most important characteristic of building a world-class brand: trust. Trust with your people and trust with your customers.
The future of America is not an entitlement. We have been given a treasure chest of gifts and opportunities, but some people are being left behind, and success is not sustainable unless it is shared.
Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.
While their service is ending, our responsibility is just beginning!
In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity or you can pick yourself up and say listen, I have to be responsible for myself.
When I first discovered in the early 1980s the Italian espresso bars in my trip to Italy, the vision was to re-create that for America - a third place that had not existed before. Starbucks re-created that in America in our own image; a place to go other than home or work. We also created an industry that did not exist: specialty coffee.
Being an entrepreneur is simply going from one mistake to the next. You must have the fortitude to continue on.
I would rather have a lucky general than a smart general.... They win battles, and they make me lucky.
If you look at most successful startups, they're run by people in their mid to late forties, who've gone through the trenches multiple times and had multiple failures, so they understand.
I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom. Seventy-five of us worked twenty hours every day and slept only four hours - and thrived on it.
To create an extraordinary quality of life, you must create a vision that's not only obtainable, but that is sustainable.
When I talk about a successful program, define that. It's not just winning the national championship every year because nobody can do that.
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