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.
Going to the Portland Trail Blazers, who actually took the time to invest in me, was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me in my career. I got to a small market where I could focus on basketball, basketball, basketball. No distractions.
It's important for us to know that our worth isn't defined by how well we do in our sport.
Playing the game is a form of winning the game. In those competitions, we win by being resilient.
I have had a few turning points, the first day I entered a gymnastics school at age 6.
...ultimately it come down to, are you making or are you destroying? If you try very hard to create ways of living, create dreams of what is possible, then you win. If you don't, you may make a fortune in ten years, but you're not going to be read in twenty years, and that's that.
Start with a growing market. Swim in a stream that becomes a river and ultimately an ocean. Be a leader in that market, not a follower, and constantly build the best products possible.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.