(p. 23) Mr. J. R. Simplot had entered the food processing business, without any clear notion of how to produce dried onion powder or flakes. Once again he followed his lifelong precept of entrepreneurship: “When the time is right, you got to do it.” His rationale is written more elegantly in metal on a small plaque that has stood on Simplot’s desk–and has greeted him each time he pulls up his chair–for some twenty-five years: Nothing will ever (p. 24) be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome. The objections to signing a contract for delivery of 500,000 pounds of dried, powdered, or flaked onions–without drier, pulverizer, or flaker, or any clue of how to build them–seemed altogether prohibitive. But J. R. Simplot struck when the time was right.
Source:
Gilder, George. Recapturing the Spirit of Enterprise: Updated for the 1990s. updated ed. New York: ICS Press, 1992.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
J. R. Simplot was truly a self-made man and a font of entrepreneurial aphorisms. Thanks for the reminder.