‘Success is more fun after having failed before’ – 50 quotes from Indian startup journeys

From failure to fortune, 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 50 gems and insights from the week of March 5-11 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

Success is more fun after having failed before! - Harsha Kumar, Lightspeed India Partners Advisors

My secret recipe for success is never giving up. I believe Difficult is easy, Impossible just takes a bit longer. - ElsaMarie D'Silva, SafeCity

Being an entrepreneur is about having the vision to look beyond what is considered the norm. It is the gift to turn a problem into an opportunity. - Samara Mahindra, CARER Program

Surrounding yourself with colleagues and external partners who complement your limitations is a great way to break out of your comfort zone. - Kiran Ray Chaudhury, 80 dB Communications 

The realisation that you are only as good as your team is what will keep you grounded. - Anjali Pathak, Flavour Diaries

In Singapore, approximately one in five car commutes are three kilometres and under. There is huge potential to convert this segment of commuters into bike-sharing users. - Grab

The scale of the Southeast Asia opportunity is mind-boggling. A lot of people don't know that. - Amit Saberwal, RedDoorz

The investments in the Middle East are also picking up. This is more so because of Souq’s acquisition by Amazon. - Ritesh Tilani, Enhance

We need to move where the world is moving. Oil cannot be the only source and push for the economy. - Mohammed Hansari, Daamino

The startup ecosystem in India is one of the fastest growing ecosystems in the world. - Siddharth Balachandran, Airbus

If you want to change your art, change your habits. - Clement Greenberg

Art is about expression and meaning, but the impact can be just about the expression and emotion itself. - Varsha Ananda, CFA

Art shows you that 2+2 can be 4, or 6, or even 9. - Tejendra Singh Baoni, College of Fine Arts

Minority communities in India are known for their traditional skills, arts, and crafts, and have been widely acknowledged across the world. - Rajesh Agarwal, MSDE

Almost all small and medium businesses refuse to switch to easier methods of carrying out business, and hence convincing them is anything but easy. - Navrajvir Singh Chhabra, Merrchant

Drones have the ability to dramatically reshape the way enterprises work, and bring about significant gains in productivity and efficiency, across a wide variety of sectors. -  Sheetal Bahl, GrowX Ventures

Crime breeds crime in a vicious cycle, hence reformation and rehabilitation are the correct measures to intervene and break this. - Nitika Nagar, Healing Dove Foundation

An influencer is always expected to keep his cool in adverse situations and bring people to a common consensus. - Aditya Shrivastava, IPleaders

If a brand is dying it can be revived. But once it is completely dead it is difficult to revive it. - Prabhakar Mundkur, HGS Interactive

The financial services industry is at an inflection point owing to new technologies such as blockchain, - Raakhe Kapoor Tandon, ISME Ace

Everybody (all retailers, including online ones) will try out everything. There will be a lot of experimentation. Ultimately the customer will decide. - Kishore Biyani, Future Group

There’s a sweeping millennial change, which is marked by more people wanting to contribute to a measurable social change. - Arjun Ravi Kolady, GiveIndia

Things fall in place eventually. You have all your life to play safe. - Chondamma Cariappa, Sole Sisters

One of the greatest opportunities for entrepreneurs is in the SMB space. SMBs are looking at new ways to target and acquire customers and grow their businesses. - Manish Choudhary, Pitney Bowes

The foodtech industry is rapidly changing globally. With 1.3 billion people and only two percent of total food orders placed online, India is a market with massive potential. - Gautam Balijepalli, Foodpanda

It is important that startups make their own strategies to develop products and take it to the market, as every product is unique. - Prathistha Jain, Vibazone

People living in comfort hardly realise the pain and suffering of the hungry and the malnourished. - Mohd Sujathullah, Sultan Ul Uloom College

It is good to see startups, global companies, and the government coming together to partner to defy the odds and build a product ecosystem in India. - Sravanth Gajula, AdOnMo

Every individual is born with unique capabilities. Once you help them discover themselves and hone their qualities, they will be able to spread goodness all around. - Radha Eswar, ArtyPlantz

You do not have to give one up for the other. Be it at home or at the workplace, it all boils down to smart time and people management. - Rati Shetty, BankBazaar

Allow healthy eating habits and a daily exercise routine to become an ‘addiction’. - Neerja Birla, mPower

An important attribute of success is to be yourself. Never hide what makes you, you. –Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo

Selling is not a pushy, winner-take-all, macho act. It is an empathy-led, process-driven, knowledge-intensive discipline. – Subroto Bagchi, ‘Sell: The Art, The Science, The Witchcraft’

As we run out of greenery in cities, vertical gardens can turn urban areas into something natural and beautiful. They improve air quality and also provide health benefits. - Vincent Ambrose 

Stretch yourself and manage things in a part-time capacity. Going with your gut feeling is great, but you must be sure and understand what you’re getting into. - Rohit Shroff , Holidify

The lack of governance frameworks, along with scalability and security, is perhaps one of the biggest barriers to mainstream Blockchain adoption. – Ish Goel, GovBlocks

Point solutions will always limit a team, a product can scale up an idea. - Satyakam Mohanty, Lymbyc

The exposure to best practices around the globe and a generational shift in societal attitudes in India is leading us towards a positive change. - Apala Lahiri, Human Factors International

Life is not disconnected from death. Dying is a part of the process of living. - Justice Chandrachud

The biggest advantage of starting off in Mumbai was having to match up to its sophisticated, hard-to-satisfy consumer. - Javed Murad, White Owl Brewery

In the digital world of today, memories are short and relationships shorter. - Kaustubh Sonalkar, Essar Foundation

A good user experience provides good information, nice visuals and interactive design, and a strong impact. But indulgence of ML improves the experience exponentially. - Amit Dua, ValueAppz

There is an urgent need for innovative, cost effective and high quality sustainable solutions to be deployed, and social enterprises often have such solutions. - Anil Misquith, Samhita Social Ventures

Listen to your instincts, don’t suppress them. - Poornima Prasad, Terra Barn

Women have to just trust their abilities and run with it. Success, then, is just an eventuality. - Manisha Raisinghani, LogiNext

The essence of women empowerment lies in increasing the female representation in the social order to bring forth a level playing field. - Dr. Vibha Tripathi

Markets like India, which are comparatively less wealthy and developed, tend to render less enabling conditions for women’s advancement as entrepreneurs. - Manasi Narasimhan, Mastercard

Our diversity education initiatives should focus on both men and women to ensure that as a society we understand the economics and concept of ‘sharing the load’. - Seema Vijay Singh. NestAway

In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders. - Sheryl Sandberg

In order to empower our women we need 3Es. Encourage them, educate them and empower them economically. - Chanda Kochhar, ICICI Bank

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).