A biography for Andy Dunnhasn’t been written yet.
“Every company can use someone advocating loudly for the customer.”
“A company that can't fire people well is like a forest that never has a fire. It becomes overgrown, full of weeds, and it fails.”
“At Bonobos, we believe in the future of men.”
“Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time.”
“The only reason courage exists is because sometimes it is required.”
“Only by being obsessed with little things do amazing things emerge.”
“I don't feel I'm better than any man out there or that I have anything to teach, and the more I learn about myself, the less comfortable I feel saying anything at all.”
“Too many entrepreneurs think their valuation is the real economic price of their company. It's not. It's not a real economic price unless you are selling 100%.”
“We do not talk enough about spirit in business, yet it is what moves employees, customers, and shareholders alike.”
“A good idea is not enough. It must be the fit of a particular idea for a particular entrepreneur and, ideally, unfair advantages in why said particular entrepreneur is going to address said particular idea.”
“We built Bonobos, with more than a few dozen customers and counting, and the industry we were disrupting didn't seem to care. Then we 'sold out' to Walmart. Abracadabra. The red carpet rolled open.”
“The general rule is that entrepreneurs need the fear of their brand's demise to make it magic. It is too safe to do it as a corporate subsidiary.”
“Since its founding, I've been friends with ModCloth's cofounders and many of its executives and investors. I have long imagined we would one day belong under one roof with that brand as a force in the future of apparel.”
“Entrepreneurs are not that special. If you are one, stop drinking the Kool Aid, and if you aren't, definitely don't drink it.”
“Marc Lore has been a mentor of mine for a long time. He taught me how to hire people and how to do the hardest thing in business, which is to make a great culture. I believe Marc is the most innovative and ambitious e-commerce entrepreneur on the planet.”
“A founder plays a magical role at the company: they invented or, as in my case, co-invented it. If and when a founder walks out the door, there is something spiritual that walks out the door, too.”
“The prescience of the founding fathers continues to astonish me. They were freedom fighters. They made America. They gave us this magical country. They also were slaveowners - which is confusing to their legacy. How could such brilliant men have only secured freedom for themselves, but not their wives or their slaves?”
“I'm not naive enough to believe it's in our nature to step outside our comfort zones.”
“Your sympathy is worthless to people in need without action.”
“Culture is an output of a bunch of inputs that have to come together the right way. Specifically, it is the collision of people and their context, how they interact with each other in that context, and then how that context evolves based on those interactions as they multiply.”