‘The human mind has power that people do not realise’ – 45 quotes from Indian startup journeys
From home improvements to student entrepreneurship, witness the memorable journey of Indian entrepreneurship in these excerpts and stories! StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous post here). Share these 45 gems and insights from the week of March 22-28 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights!
Failing sometimes is not bad as long as you can learn from the mistakes. Failures are the stepping stones for success.
- Venkat Maroju, SourceTrace
We try, we learn, we fail and this is how we succeed.
It was our failures that helped us become strong and resilient. It was a daunting experience, but I learnt from it.
- Vandana Mehrotra, Meteonic
Life is an opportunity and not doing things you truly wants to do is a bigger opportunity loss.
- Anand Ramdeo, Planned Departure
In urban areas we have absolutely no responsibility in our consumption and this is something that has to change.
– Sujatha Ramni, Daana Network
If you try to make a change in the system it is a long and tough journey.
- Mayank Dhanuka, Origo Commodities
There are 60 million people with disabilities in India. How do we extend digital dividends to them as well?
- Rumi Mallick Mitra, NASSCOM Foundation
I receive many mails from young people who say they don’t want to join multinational companies and love the idea of being able to work in their hometown doing something related with the environment.
- Prateek Tiwari, The Living Greens
Most good startups are flexible, take more risks and move fast. The ability to see an instant outcome of your effort excites me.
- Harsha Kumar, Ola
I want to create something that the world can remember me for even when I am not around.
- Mansi Gupta, Tjori
We currently have 100K sellers on Snapdeal and are looking to scale this to 250,000 sellers by the end of this year and one million within the next three years.
The economy stays segment is a large, unorganized and fragmented market.
- Bejul Somaia, Lightspeed India
With the growing risk of infectious diseases such as urinary tract infection or other infections, we wanted to only list the cleanest toilets available.
Existing paper-based feedback forms are boring, not intuitive; customers don’t have any incentive to fill the forms.
The television and broadcast industry in India needs an overhaul since customers desire experiential content on a device of their choice, at a time of their liking.
Something significant has happened in the last five years in Chennai. A large number of B2B SaaS product companies have emerged successfully.
- Suresh Sambandam, OrangeScape
We just need to see the popularity of gaming in China to appreciate what can possibly be done in India.
Fashion discovery is an untouched space in India.
After the recent e-commerce boom, we took a plunge since non-tech savvy customers also have started buying online.
- Meenakshi Bhat, KashmirOneStop
After a home and a car, furniture is probably the third highest investment an average individual makes in his lifetime.
Home improvement is an extremely unorganised industry.
Only eight-to-five percent of the entire retail market in the country is point-of-scale-enabled.
- Bhaskar Venkataraman, JusTransact
Need is the mother of invention.
For Flipkart and Snapdeal, mobile traffic is already in excess of 75%. The number is above 80% for Myntra and above 85% for Zomato.
Always monitor the reach and engagement of your app and figure out how to get more users.
We wanted to be the best company in India and are now chasing the dream to become the best in the world.
I invented my own language and style for the strokes that the batsmen played.
- Sushil Doshi, Hindi cricket commentator
Everyone said it was a stupid idea; it wouldn’t work. This did not discourage me. It, in fact, gave me the impetus to work harder and make it work.
At the architecture college, I did a project with bread carts, which I stole from across town.
The human mind has power that people do not realise.
- Gaurav Siddharth, bicycle adventurist
We believe the future of healthcare will be defined by personalized insights derived from large and original data sources.
- Euan Thomson, Khosla Ventures
Listening is where all the magic is.
Separate the problem from the solution. Focus on what your customer wants but, not on what you think.
Be creative. Be quirky. Be a business that talks to people, and not just sells all the time.
- Kamya Aggarwal, Meraki Consulting
It is not easy to catch the customer’s attention even if you’re a lion. Unless you’re a blue lion, in which case you will surely stand out.
The biggest concern I had when firing people is the guilt. However, soon enough I realized that not firing them is even more immoral.
Our initial hires will be people who take initiative and can wear multiple hats proficiently.
Startups are vital to technology innovation and India is a hotbed of startups.
- Manish Choudhary, Pitney Bowes Software India
Startup Oasis in Jaipur enabled us to come up to speed fast providing access to our first customers, service providers, experienced mentors, potential business partners and investors.
The founders in your batch are the biggest advantage of going to Y Combinator, you can learn from them the most.
One shouldn’t only work hard, but should rather work smart.
- Gaurav Singhal, Ananya Dhuddu, PatraCode
Although India has been supplying teas to the world for the past 200 years, we haven’t witnessed the emergence of any premium tea brand operating on a global scale.
India must make up for much time lost.
– Lee Kuan Yew, former PM of Singapore
What may be offensive and annoying to one may not be to another. That is what renders 66A unconstitutional and vague.
I believe that when you go to every place you need to give something back. You take so much from every destination, why not give something back?
- Rutavi Mehta, travel adventurist
Be a solo traveller at least once in a lifetime, and you’ll find ‘you.’
– Hiranand, traveller/entrepreneur
Ask questions, be curious and don’t get stuck on GPA 9.0.
As a nation we should aim for 10% of students in every batch to become entrepreneurs right after graduation.
- Rashmi Bansal, author
YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).