Business 2.0: How to Succeed

Business 2.0 asked 50 of the brightest minds in business how they do what they do. Check it out. Lots of golden nuggets in there.

Here's a list of my favorite quotes. Also added them to my Zaadz quotes tagged with how to succeed. Something to think about while working on that conscious capitalism thing :)

Sergey Brin
Co-founder, Google
Succeed With Simplicity

"We are focused on features, not products. We eliminated future products that would have made the complexity problem worse. We don't want to have 20 different products that work in 20 different ways. I was getting lost at our site keeping track of everything. I would rather have a smaller set of products that have a shared set of features."

Chris DeWolfe
Co-founder, Myspace
Keep Social Networks Social

"The key is to be true to your community's norms and values. You can't just force yourself on people and try to sell them something they don't want - that's good advice for marketers generally, but particularly on community-driven sites like MySpace. You have to find ways to add value to your members' lives while being consistent with your brand's identity."

Rachael Ray
Chef, Author, and Entrepreneur
Turn Your Passion Into an Empire

"I've also learned that you can't be all things to all people. Whatever it is that you're successful at, that has to be the No. 1 goal.

Chad Hurley
Co-founder, YouTube
Give Your Startup a Fighting Chance

"As you start building the product, don't assume that you know all the answers. Listen to the community and adapt. We had a lot of our own ideas about how the service would evolve. Coming from PayPal and eBay, we saw YouTube as a powerful way to add video to auctions, but we didn't see anyone using our product that way, so we didn't add features to support it."

Howard Schultz
Chairman, Starbucks
Dare to Be a Social Entrepreneur

"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."

Michael Scott
Regional Manager, Dunder-Mifflin Paper Co.
Avoid a Staff Mutiny (With Chocolate, if Necessary)

"Nowadays I find chocolate and/or chocolate-based snacks to be great motivators. Everyone loves chocolate. If someone has a lot of work to do, put a piece of fudge in a glass container (so they can see it) and let them know that if they accomplish their tasks, they can eat the fudge. You'll definitely get a reaction!"

Andre Agassi
Co-founder, Agassi Graf Development
Stage a Great Second Act

"You have to understand who you are and figure out a way to communicate it. It might be in a different industry, but it's about what pumps the blood through your veins, what makes you excited, what pushes your buttons. And then discovering the best way to communicate that, no matter how big or small; it's what you stand for, what you believe in, and what reflects who you are."

Kevin Rose
Founder, Digg
Let the Users Run the Show

"Letting users control your site can be terrifying at first. From day one we were asking ourselves, "What is going to be on the front page today?" You have no idea what the system will produce. But stepping back and giving consumers control is what brought more and more people to the site. They have a sense of ownership and discovery at the same time. If you give users the tools to spread and share their interests with others, they will use them to promote what is important to them."

Stephen Covey
Vice Chairman, FranklinCovey; Author, The 7 habits of Highly Effective People
Strive for Moral Authority

"Most people define greatness through wealth and popularity and position in the corner office. But what I call everyday greatness comes from character and contribution."

Muhammad Yunus
Founder, Grameen Bank; Winner, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
Seek Big Rewards in Small Ideas

"Business is about problem-solving, but it does not always have to be about maximizing profit. When I went into business, my interest was to figure out how to solve problems I see in front of me. That's why I looked at the poverty issue. I got involved in lots of things to address it, and one of them was money lending with loans and credits and savings accounts, and in the process I created Grameen Bank. So you can also have social objectives. Ask yourself these questions: Who are you? What kind of world do you want?"

Donald Trump
Chairman, Trump Organization
Obsess About Solutions, Not Problems

"The image of success is important, but even more important is the ability to focus on solutions instead of on problems. That way, you'll never be thinking like a loser, and you probably won't look like one either."

Reed Hastings
Co-founder and CEO, Netflix
Turn Your Biggest Weakness Into Your Greatest Asset

"Truly brilliant marketing happens when you take something most people think of as a weakness and reposition it so people think of it as a strength."

Craig Newmark
Founder and Chairman, Craigslist
Trust Your Customers and They'll Love You in Return

"We are a very open, very democratic site, which means we get all sorts of people. We do get some bad guys who are a few fries short of a Happy Meal. So we have to enlist the aid of our community to help us. The lesson implicit in this is that people will help you out and behave in a really good way. If you trust them, they will respond to that trust."

Fred Wilson
Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures
Build a Blog That Builds Your Business

"I also like to use a sensational headline. Many people read blogs in aggregators, which generally show only the headline. So you have to give people a reason to click through. Blogs need to be real and personal. Reading it should be like hanging out with you. I play music for my readers. I show them videos I like. I tell them what I did over the weekend. And I tell them what is happening in the technology, Internet, and VC markets."