When you're travelling, your day is jam-packed. I just don't have time to whip out a PC all the time. But I can whip out a BlackBerry and tweet. I keep a constant diary of where I'm at and why I'm there.

Many blue-collar families struggling to pay rent would be happy to skip paying optional union dues.

Know everything about the companies and people you are going to be negotiating with. Insist on getting the names of everyone participating in the negotiations. Leave no stone unturned; find out as much as you can.

My partners... taught me that in order to create wealth, I needed to pair up with people whose strengths compensated for my weaknesses.

I remember failing reading in school at a young age, and you just kinda get left behind and I felt helpless.

(On soft launches) It allows you to test your assumptions and see which ones you got right, and more, importantly, which ones you got wrong. A big hard launch is expensive. Getting even one thing wrong can force you to go out of business.

Imagine how foolish you'd look if, like one clever salesman who once pitched to me, you tried to license your product to a big industry player without knowing they just launched a competing product. With the right background research, he could have avoided that and other landmines - and so can you.