I love meeting contributors and hearing how we inspire them to create art. I'm also proud of creating hundreds of jobs.

In the early days, start-ups make the main mistake of hiring people to do the work that they could do themselves.

I shot images of everything I could find over the course of a year. I would go all over the world and take pictures. In a day, I could easily take thousands.

I don't own a helicopter because I want someone to bring me places quickly. I own it because it's an incredible machine that I like to fly and learn about. I like the complexity of it.

I've little in common with the scene in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. I'm a New Yorker.

All businesses need images to sell their products and services.

Many entrepreneurs have shifted their focus to pursuing VC funding as a primary strategic priority instead of concentrating on generating value for their users. This is worrisome because raising capital alone is misleading as a benchmark for success.

Many entrepreneurs think that cash is the ultimate solution to all of their problems: the one thing standing between them and their dreams.

Every time someone downloads a picture, the photographers get paid about 30% of what we charge.

I wanted a CFO with public company experience; I needed an HR department, new office space, and a board which could help me grow the business. Insight, the private equity firm I chose, helped me with all that.

Instagram is great for us because it's encouraging people to shoot more stuff. Some of those snappers will become professional, and they may choose to sell their photos through us.

Each time I went to create my website, I needed imagery. It was complicated to get, the process was expensive, I had to negotiate rights. I knew there had to be a better way.

To make a computer do something that would take a human a long period of time was always interesting.

It turned out it was really easy to create commercial stock footage.

Try to rally up as many people as you can with as much information as you can to try to get it to appear in front of the right people in the organization who are the decision-makers to greenlight the project.

We have a lot of customers in Japan, but they don't quite get the local content that they always need, so we want to encourage all of our product teams to start thinking globally.

To ensure we are meeting the demands of existing customers while also attracting new users, we remain focused on building cutting-edge technology and introducing new and innovative product offerings.

On average, an e-commerce client who evolves into a premier enterprise client increases their annual spend by 10 times in that first year.

Shutterstock's ability to cultivate a healthy and expanding marketplace for both customers and contributors remains a key competitive advantage and a crucial component of our sustained growth.

We significantly increased our global presence in 2014. During the year, we expanded the number of languages in which we serve customers to a total of 20.

We believe PremiumBeat will accelerate our mission to make licensable music accessible to every creator.

In 2013, we opened our first international office in London and established a European hub in Berlin.

It's typical for video customers to often use licensed music - whether a soundtrack, background music, or sound effects - to complement their video projects.

I needed to make the buyer happy: I needed to provide a price point and sort of a model that was attractive to them. But I also needed to make the contributor happy.

Anyone can contribute images, and we sell them to designers and agencies all over the world.

I found it very helpful not to do the venture round. Instead, I started with very little money, a few thousand dollars, and I did every job myself. I was the first photographer. I was the first customer service rep. I was the first online marketing person.

I think that initial independence is very important; that's what being an entrepreneur is all about.

I think, as an entrepreneur, you have to see the unlimited amount of potential but concentrate on your day and just keep building.

Offset and Skillfeed are examples of products launched in 2013 that have expanded our opportunity with both large enterprises and across new content types.

The greatest gift of leadership is a boss who wants you to be successful.

The simple things can be really powerful.

Pushing for excellence is a fight. You have to fight to hire the right employees, fight to get the supplies you need, to move line items around. Being a great manager means pushing to get those few extra inches every day. It's almost like a football game - the team that wins sometimes wins by just inches.

I think success is a relative term. If you're a caveman, success is capturing an elephant. Success is achieving better than the norm. Success is being exceptional. It's exceptional reputation, exceptional income, and exceptional respect.

Failure is an awful thing, and when I look at the common denominator of failure, it seems to always be the same thing: excuses.

The word 'mixology' adds $3 to the price of any drink.

You ever see a bar with 200 beautiful women go broke? But I've seen a lot of bars with great DJs go broke.

When you're on-stage, you're expected to perform in the bar business. You shake hands. You smile. You're all positive energy: you add to your environment. When you walk in the door to the back of the house, that's like a stage door. You're off-stage now.

When I was running the Troubadour, there was this transition from the classic singer/songwriter Jackson Browne types to bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, and Fear. Those are just some that come to mind. Oh, and Adam Ant! The Fear fans wanted to 'crush' the Ants. These guys hated each other.

Leadership is a trait; it's not a skill.

Don't open a bar if you think all you need to be is social and greet the customers. You have to run a business.

You have to connect with your market and your employees. First, understand that what your market says is fact and what you say is opinion. Then, take the time to create a good connection with your employees. Without those two key connections, your business will be stuck in mediocrity forever.

A plate of food hits the table, lands right in front of you. One of two things happens. Either you sit up and look at it and react to it, or nothing happens. If nothing happens then that restaurant is stuck in mediocrity forever.

The right personality with a weak resume can be filled in. That's the employee who will become great.

Bars are about experience and interaction; so often, the people make the bar.

Bars need to be conceived and built for the local audience, not the personal tastes of the owner. Huge mistakes are made with regard to market research and concepts. Research and capital are paramount!

There has been a black hole in the bar business in Las Vegas, particularly on the Strip in tourist areas.

Don't build a bar for yourself. Build it for your customers. It's all about them: the walls, the finishes, the textures, the food, the beverages, literally everything has to be for them.

Make no mistake: confrontation is unavoidable in business.

Human interaction is something that I believe, as humans, we crave for. And that is where bars and social environments come into play.

A bar is a factory, a marketing organization, and a service organization all in one.