‘Founders in many ways are incurable romantics’ – 30 quotes from Indian startup journeys

From personality to pitch, 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 29 – February 4 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights. 

If you don’t build your own moat which can truly hold you steady, someone else is going to come and eat your lunch. - Deep Kalra, MakeMyTrip

No matter what field you choose, you need to work day in and day out to shine in life. – Deepshikha, ‘A Pinch of Life’

The same skills that allowed you to come up with a new idea and pull through might not help you run a large public company. - David Hitz, NetApp

There is a fine line between stability and stagnation. – Santanu Roy, ANSR

Even if one plant wilts and dies, I feel as if I have lost my life. – Padma Shri Vanajeevi Ramaiah

Disruption can happen in low-tech industries too. – Pavan Soni, IIM-B

Humans resist change – machines don’t. - Abhijit Bhaduri, ‘Digital Tsunami’

My only competition is against myself. – Byju Raveendran

The decision to quit our jobs and start up was an easy one. The hard part was convincing our parents. - Rohan Vadgaonkar, Carnot

Business cards of today should be a lot more useful than they are now. - Anand Ammundi, WizCard

The minute you start addressing an issue that’s very painful for people, they start relying on you to provide a solution. - Shilpika Gautam, WaterAid

If you look at the combined market share of all organised players in online managed rental it is less that 10 percent. - Narasimha Murthy, angel investor

Founders in many ways are incurable romantics. - Praveen Rajaretnam, Wooplr

It is time India has a proper policy to deal with oil spills and their impact, especially with stress on water transport. - Renuka Chowdhury, MP

Businesses fundamentally require tangible proof of ROI to start deploying software into their long-existing legacy systems. - Prabhu R, WebNMS

The year 2016 will be remembered as the year of boldness and unprecedented moves like demonetisation and passage of the GST Bill by the Central government. - Anurag Jain, KredX

The problem of startup tax on domestic angel investors still persists. – Alok Patnia, TaxMantra

Increased digital transactions through Aadhaar Pay and the BHIM app will help easy documentation and traceability of transaction history of SMEs. - Archit Gupta, ClearTax.in

The budget seems to be more in continuation, formalising things that were done during demonetisation in an adhoc manner. - Sanjay Swamy, Prime Venture Partners

Digital transactions have not really benefited SMEs, as there are no wallets for them. - R Narayan, Power2SME

Many SMBs do not even have websites, although their products are globally competitive. - Pawan Gupta, Connect2India

In the past 10 years, India has absorbed approximately $100 billion in VC/PE investments. In the next five years, India needs over $200 billion of investments. - Sudhir Sethi, IDG Ventures India

Entrepreneurship is about passion - it’s not just another job. – TiE Bangalore panel

Being the first mover doesn’t give anyone the entitlement to own the market. – Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital

Technology has the power to not only improve transparency in trading, but also improve productivity and liquidity. - Amit Gupta, TradingBells

Ridesharing products are the future of urban mobility. - Christian Freese, Uber

Let the better player win. Let market forces decide how the end game is played out. For the Indian consumers, it doesn’t matter one bit! - T N Hari, BigBasket

Startups in financial inclusion that offer loans without collateral help change lives. - Raman Kumar, CashE

A support group is important because no one other than someone going through what you have really understands. - Sashi Venkat

Empowerment, freedom, happiness, and contentment are within us as individuals and have nothing to do with outsiders. - Anna Chandy, Live Love Laugh Foundation

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).