‘You have to become the jockey, not the horse’ – 40 quotes from Indian startup journeys

From power to leadership, 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 40 gems and insights from the week of May 28 – June 3 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

A happy workforce is a winning workforce. - Jagrati Shringi, Voylla

Having a lot of smart people on the team is a recipe for failure if their effort and motivation is not aligned. - Pramod Jajoo, Kalaari Capital

The major advantage of giving ESOPs to key employees of the company is that it aligns them to the vision of the company and they take on ownership. - Jenil Shah

When you are running a company, every single day throws up a new, unexpected challenge. - Priyanka Kanwar, Kite

It’s important that we publicly share, nay, showcase our past follies in the hope that it will be useful to someone. - Krishnan N

Success and failure are just relative terms. Take failures in the same spirit as success. It is a part and parcel of growing every day, for every day is a challenge. - Shikha Suman, Medimojo

Adversity can open up opportunity. Adversity should not just be accepted but embraced and even welcomed. - Punkaj Gupta, multiple sclerosis patient

When you realise that the work you do is making a very real and positive impact in the lives of others, every challenge you face feels entirely worth it. - Ishaan Sethi, Delta

Hackathons are the real watering holes of the startup world. - Luke Sequeira, Numadic

You literally get a different perspective of things when you change your lens. - Shankar Subramaniam, Jaga Chitra

In China, women own 20 percent of all small businesses. - Apurva Purohit, Jagran Prakashan

Despite the huge number of artisans, and the direct impact of the industry on the rural lives and the women, the industry is not well organised. - Ihitashri Shandilya, MITHILAsmita

India is an important source of talent when it comes to startups. - Ritu Mehrotra, Booking.com

Rajasthan is emerging as the startup hub of our country by collaborating with innovation, digitisation and technology. - Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje

Rajasthan is a digital state. Everyone thinks that this would be true for the southern states, but Rajasthan has led e-governance initiatives. - Mohandas Pai, Aarin Capital

India is undergoing an entrepreneurial transformation with startup programmes like Startup India and Connect India making inroads into the psyche. - Sauvik Banerjjee, Tata CLiQ

To make a mark as a data scientist, it is imperative that you develop the right business acumen needed for business growth. - Shweta Gupta, Digital Vidya

Data Analytics is the next big thing in education, and industry leaders need to take steady steps to initiate this within the sector. - Atul Temurnikar, Global Schools Foundation

India is poised to lead the data revolution, given the enormous amount of data being generated by over 1 billion people. - Harriet Green, IBM

We can't just get products from international markets and retro-fit it to India. Making things for daily life in India is crucial. - Mehernosh Pithwalla, Godrej Security Solutions

Adoption of advanced technology transformation and innovative strategies in the practice of law will help ring in a social and economic change in the country. - Jeremie Eskenazi, Wonder.Legal

Insurance is highly under-penetrated in India, and it needs product innovation to reach the masses. - Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital

The Indian hardware ecosystem is still a large enough playground, where younger startups can prove themselves. - Sai Prasanth

For the startup ecosystem to succeed, we need to have a strong partnership between accelerators, industry and universities. - Nirupa Shankar, Brigade Real Estate Accelerator Program

All facts and figures are set to show growth in the power of the Indian consumer, and ecommerce players are hoping to capture this. - Ameen Khwaja, LatestOne.com

While bike-sharing cannot exist anywhere alone without government and regulatory support, it is more important in India. - Dexter Sim, Ofo

From an Indian context, low-cost 5G chips can change the ecosystem with faster sharing of data and services. - Madhan Sondur, Mymo Wireless

The beauty of sound-wave systems as a means to convey information lies in the fact that this technology can be enabled on any of the 730.7 million mobile phones in the country. - Himaghna Dey Sarkar, ToneTag

TV spirituality does not give access to deities upfront. The virtual experience allows a person to make offerings of virtual flowers, fire, incense and water. - Bobby Reddy, angel investor

Moving AI from text to voice is one keen challenge. India is reasonably comfortable with texting and opening it to speech will take it to a completely different level. - Madhivanan Balakrishnan, ICICI Bank

The insurance industry is ripe for innovation as data and technology embed themselves in the ecosystem. - Ashish Dhawan, ChrysCapital

Startups in the core engineering field are great at technology, and they have to figure out making money from the product. - Naganand Doraswamy, IdeaSpring Capital

Startups are now more focused on customer acquisition than chasing funding. It's about getting your initial anchor clients, getting your business, and market validation early on. - Seema Kumar, IBM

Why do investors always have such short-term vision? Can’t they work with both pinch-hitting CEOs and visionary founders to build a larger company? - Satyaprakash Pati

The gig economy ushered in a new way of being productive for seniors after their retirement. - Soham Thacker, FixPocket

Co-working spaces will give your resources countless opportunities to network, collaborate, and learn something new. - Devendra Agarwal, InstaOffice

Online and offline are not an either-or strategy for consumer brands anymore. You need both. - Kanwaljit Singh, Fireside Ventures

Attention spans have now become so low that you need to get in front of your potential buyers multiple times at the slightest hint of interest. - Varun Mayya, Avalon Labs

Content is king, but distribution is God. - Bhavik Vasa, EbixCash

There is so much capability in each of us, and tech provides the opportunity for us to claim that visibility. - Anubha Verma, RentSher

You have to become the jockey, not the horse. - Raghunandan G, TaxiForSure

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).