Sean O'Sullivan -Dragons Den

18 Truly Inspiring Quotes

It's official. A new dragon has entered RTE's 2012 series of Dragons Den.

Sean O'Sullivan - technology giant, seasoned investor, humanitarian, philanthropist, rock star, award winning film maker...the list goes on and on.

Whatever your own goals may be you right now I hope you will find yourself like me, utterly inspired by the breadth of Seans' vision, his values and his perspective on what is important in Ireland and the world right now.

Here is just a little of what he has to say:

On being an entrepreneur:

• "I think entrepreneurial activity is very much about trying to create some good in the world and creating an improved quality of life for people".




• "If you want to change the world it's good to start thinking big".




• "Confront unsolvable problems and solve them."




• "If there is something inside you that's saying 'no matter what, this is so frustrating, this is so terrible, I just cannot stand this...' - do it- because you have to , because you feel you have to."




• "Start where no one is. If you can invent a new marketplace you will get noticed."




• "Ideas, by themselves, are meaningless."




• "There is a period about eighteen months into a company, no matter what, sometimes it's 12 months.., where everyone thinks it's not working, we have to give up, we have to change. Sometimes you don't have to change, you just have to keep on keeping on."




• "There's a quote by Buckminister Fuller:- 'You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.' That's entrepreneurship. That's real, world changing, revolutionary...entrepreneurship. That's what we, as engineers, as inventors, have an obligation to do, because it's within our grasp to do it. It's a duty for us to do it even if it's a sacrifice for our personal lives and our families and everything else."




• "Don't do it for your ego...You're going to be serving people.You're serving your customer. You're serving your team. You're serving your staff. Your job as a founder is to sit in the back seat and try to help people you know, as much as you can".




• "Think about it. How can you be the entrepreneur of the year in your own community. How can you be involved in changing the world. How can you improve life on the planet?"

On the difficulty of letting go of what you believe in:

• "In Jumpstart, (the humanitarian organisation he set up) God had to tell me to get out of Iraq... I was blinded in my left eye... I had skin cancer... My co founder was assasinated..."

On finding a team for your company:

• "You can't look at someones resume and know that they are the people who are going to be part of the team. You have to look inside their soul."




• "I need to have more than one founder to anything that I do ...I have a lot of weaknesses... To build a team you need a full well rounded group of people to cover all the sides, from the organisational and administrative, to the analytical and logical, to the compassionate and the interpersonal. So to build a full well rounded team, you just have to ask 'How weak am I' and 'What other people do I need to fill out my weaknesses'?"

On failure

• "I only go after the big problems and that means I fail more often than most people do."

On getting finance for a new business:

• "Live on a shoestring until you can get some traction. Just do something amazing without getting financing. Don't worry about the financing. Do the amazing thing first. If you do something amazing and incredible first, you can find people who will want to back you."

On Cloud Computing - the biggest industry trend in the world right now:

• Cloud Computing. I trademarked that name in May of 1997...The funniest thing is I'd forgotten about it...I'm so busy."

On his near death experiences:

• "Trauma...makes you stronger. It makes you able to deal with challenges in a more relaxed way. I don't get stressed if I miss the train or anything like that. It's good to keep things in context. A lot of people blow things out of context so much in their daily lives."




• What is useful about these near death experiences...? It wakes you up. It makes you actually think 'What should I be doing with my next day','Am I doing the right thing today?', 'Am I doing the wrong thing today?', 'If my life is over tomorrow have I done the thing that's most meaningful with my life?', 'What is the purpose of my life?"

Quotes Source: October 2011 Sean O'Sullivan, Entrepreneur of the year speech at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York.

Sean's Latest Goal - The Globalisation Of Avego Ltd.

Could we really change our mindsets, and start to use our cars like private buses? To earn money as we drive? To share rides and radically reduce the amount of petrol and diesel we are consuming on the planet right now?

Sean believes we can. Read about his new company Avego here.




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