An industry begins with the customer and his or her needs, not with a patent, a raw material, or a selling skill

Creative people tend to pass the responsibility for getting down to brass tacks to others.

Kodak sells film, but they don't advertise film; they advertise memories.

Ideas are useless unless used.

An industry begins with the customer and his or her needs, not with a patent, a raw material, or a selling skill

You want to dig your well where you have the best chance of finding water with the least amount of digging

The oil industry is a stunning example of how science, technology, and mass production can divert an entire group of companies from their main task. ... No oil company gets as excited about the customers in its own backyard as about the oil in the Sahara Desert. ... But the truth is, it seems to me, that the industry begins with the needs of the customer for its products. From that primal position its definition moves steadily back stream to areas of progressively lesser importance until it finally comes to rest at the search for oil.