‘Growth and profitability are not mutually exclusive’ - 30 quotes from Indian startup journeys

From value to valuation, 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 30 gems and insights from the week of January 24 – 30 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights!

Organisations are giving top priority to cultural fitment. - Manish Bhatia, HR consultant

Does the candidate have the passion to learn new things on his own? Does the candidate care about his craft? - Atif Haider, Aircto.com

Working professionals have a constant need to reskill and certify themselves to remain competent in an ever-demanding and changing workplace. - Vijay Pasupaleti, GreyCampus

Email has nearly three times as many user accounts as Facebook and Twitter combined. - Amitabh Verma, AMP Digital

Growth and profitability are not mutually exclusive. - Sanjay Sethi, ShopClues

An entrepreneur can make a choice between focusing on valuation and value. - Sripati Acharya, Prime Venture Partners

Optimisation should come in the form of reliability. - Mithun Srivatsa, Blow Horn

Uniting startups in two global regions means more customers, more investments, and more growth. - Isidro Laso Ballesteros, Startup Europe

As an investor, you are just a part of someone’s journey. You’re not creating one for your own. - Bamasish Paul, Healthenablr

Investors make it difficult for startups created and led by women by often posing questions of marriage and motherhood. - Deepa Subramanian, Galerie De’Arts

Startup with a purpose that is beyond money, startup to make for India. - Vivek Pawar, Sankalp Semiconductors

In the online space today, Hindi doesn’t even feature in the top 10 languages, despite being among the most widely spoken. - Kalpnesh Gupta, Shabda Nagari

Women in general tend to credit their success to anything but themselves. Have confidence in your ability and courage. - Som Singh, investor

Women need to learn to take credit and recognition where it is due. Women also need to learn to promote themselves. – Sonali Sinha, SoaringEagles Learning

There is an increasing sensitivity among the startup fraternity while talking to the women who have started up. There is a sense of respect for them too. - Srijata Bhatnagar

We have implemented a mandatory training on unconscious bias. - Rohit Thakur, Microsoft India

The concept of social ride sharing gives you the opportunity to share a ride with people you’re comfortable with. – Anand Subramanian, Ola

Generally, profit margins for offline classroom coaching are in the range of 25–26 per cent, while online business gives margins in excess of 50 per cent. - Anil Nagar, Career Power

Good cash management is king. - Varun Rathi, Happay

Bootstrapping is a mindset. It teaches you discipline. - Divyan Gupta, Keshiha Services

Raising money requires that you focus all your time and energy on investor interactions at a time when your business needs you most. – Meeta Malhotra, Ray + Keshavan | Brand Unio

A company with strong poetry can result in burnout after the initial euphoria, and a company with all prose and no poetry can never achieve its destined greatness. - Bharati Jacob, Seedfund

Karnataka’s startups will have solutions for India. - RV Deshpande, Industries Minister

Bitcoin is not illegal in India. - Jincy Samuel, CoinSecure

Technology is indeed bringing about a disruption in the way we perceived and practiced democracy. - Saurabh Kumar, MCIT

For a new economic model to emerge, a close partnership between the state and the market is essential. – Ashutosh, AAP

While governments can be in the business of monitoring, they should have no role in telling people what to do. – Ratan Tata

There is no ‘I’ in a ‘TEAM’. - Ashish Kumar

Everybody has to contribute towards building and sustaining a strong culture. - Deepinder Goyal, Zomato

The world is a better place and it needs to be explored in the best way. - Swati Jain, PR consultant

While you may lure investors easily for for-profit ventures, it’s a herculean task to establish a non-profit venture and make it self-sustainable. - Apurva Bhandari, SankalpTaru

If you are working for a good cause, there is a divine force backing you. - Madhurita Gupta, MyVets Charitable Trust

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).