‘In a great place to work, the culture becomes the CEO’ – 45 quotes from Indian startup journeys

From capability to culture, 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 November 12-18 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights. See also our compilation of quotes from India’s No.1 startup conference TechSparks 2018 here.

The real growth begins when the culture takes over even when the founder or a CEO isn’t around. In a great place to work, the culture becomes the CEO. - Prasenjit Bhattacharya, Great Place To Work India

Startups will continue to be a big part of India's growth no matter what happens to big founders or CEOs. - Mohandas Pai, Aarin Capital

You need people who have the attitude to evolve to the requirements that the market might require. - Anand Deshpande, Persistent Systems

It is tougher to promote yourself as a generalist than it is to be a real specialist – we can’t all be great at everything. - Sanket Patel, BlurbPoint Media

Skill and employability service with end-to-end solutions at an affordable price is a huge opportunity, yet to be tapped by online learning platforms. - Varun Saxena, Career Anna

While it’s essential for any founder to have that raging fire in their belly, it’s extremely important that they don’t let it burn to a point where it ultimately consumes them. - Apurva Purohit, Jagran Group

The sheer quantity of decisions you have to make is tremendous. And despite the quantity, they have to be quality decisions, because there is so much at stake. - Gaurav Kapur, Breakfast with Champions

The tougher part is that there is a gap between building an initial product and building a successful company; this is sometimes hard to appreciate. - Matt McIlwain, Madrona Venture Group

Practice doesn’t make you perfect. Only perfect practice makes you perfect. - Indranil Chakraborty, Stories at Work

The strongest component of AI is the human touch. AI serves human purposes and is developed by people. - Svetlana Sicular, Gartner

Today, employees must know how to use a PC and very soon, employees will have to know how to build a bot. - Mihir Shukla, Automation Anywhere

Chatbots have become an ideal AI-led tool used to gather data from the audience without being intrusive in nature. - Gautam Rege, Josh Software

Digital dexterity is a fundamental need to meet the needs of today’s digital consumers. If this is to be achieved, IoT is a fundamental imperative. - Shantanu Vilas Kulkarni, Amdocs India

There’s one fundamental flaw with Bitcoin and crypto in general. A Bitcoin is fundamentally a unit of energy. Large miners with computing equipment and power supply could technically control more nodes than smaller miners. - Varun Mayya, Avalon Labs

Private and hybrid cloud-based communication tools are the future. In addition to serving all your communication needs, they also leverage the capabilities of your existing architecture. - Amit Bathla, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

It is imperative that the various governments across the globe set out some rules of behaviour that tech corporations should adhere to, to stay in business in their states. - Amit Dua, ValueAppz

India spends about $160 billion on road logistics, twice compared to countries with an efficient transportation infrastructure. – Kushal Nahata, FarEye

India is a fertile ground for SaaS startups looking to get bootstrapped. There is a huge pool of technical and managerial talent, looking for challenging opportunities. - Ankit Dhudwewala, CallHippo

In the last ten years, more Indians are slowly gravitating towards building businesses around hardware, both mechanical and electronics. - Sujai Karampuri, T-Works

You can’t not have India in your mix. - Rose Tsou, Oath

Overseas funds generally skew the overall dynamics of the Indian startup ecosystem by investing larger amounts in a select few startups. – Sanjay Anandaram, Sattva Consulting

Today enterprises need marketers who are creative as well as technologists who can drive the next level of change. - Kalpit Jain, Netcore Solutions

Omnichannel retail and consumer commerce will redefine the shopping experience for customers. - Abhinav Pathak, Perpule

With more consumers coming online, especially in growing markets like India, it’s crucial to optimise your website for more engagement and sales from mobile visitors. - Rohan Ayyar, SEMrush

Fintech and digital payments are one of the most promising industries in India today. - Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart

People in villages water the fields at night because cheap power is available at night, but if you had cheap power during the day, farmers could actually do more work. - Inderpreet Wadhwa, Azure Power

With more awareness, increasing demand and more farmers turning organic, the difference in price is bound to decrease over time. - Gautham PB, Healthy Buddha

There is a growing consensus on the value proposition of biofuels and waste-to-energy amongst policymakers and industry. - Aditya Handa, Abellon Clean Energy

The workforce needs to be gender-balanced for the future wellbeing of our country, economically and socially. - Neha Bagaria, JFH

Investors are seeing amazing examples of women who manage to pull it all together beautifully. - Swati Bhargava, CashKaro

Diversity is the key to success and differentiation. - Julie Shin Choi, Intel

Over the last 6-8 years, we have seen more than 50+ corporate accelerators set up and working with startups. - Abhay Tandon, AbInBev

When entrepreneurs are placed in the same space, they can get to know one another and collaborate on complementary startups. - Karan Virwani, WeWork India

Startups are great innovators but doing large-scale delivery across geographies and across businesses needs a different kind of skill. - Avnish Sabharwal, Accenture

If companies start investing in wellness, they will not only prevent a lot of symptoms that decrease employee productivity but will also improve overall performance. - Marcus Ranney

A hostile work environment affects the physical and/or mental well-being of an employee. - Rashi Rajani and Jessica Katyal, Rajani Associates

There are tremendous opportunities if a business is ready to take the pain of making products that provide value to travellers. - Maanav Saraf, Gainwell Travel

Focusing on creating price wars is never sustainable. - Sahil Gilani, Gits Foods

Your customer is everything. Not just king, but the very reason to do what you do. - Nandini Vaidyanathan, 'Entrepedia'

The real asset for any company is its customers and an uncompromising attitude on quality will help the company build good customer relations. - Rituraj Sharma, Eco Mitram

Parents and teachers play a key role in making children sensitive and developing empathy towards others. - Prachi Munish, psychologist

Young people are effective champions for the issues which impact them most. – Laura Siegrist Fouche, UNICEF-India

Millennials today are not going to take unfair treatment. They will leave and they are. - Kishore Chand, UpYourGame

If life isn’t good to you, you can always strive hard to make it better. - Vinodh Raj

Artists should aim to remove the pain of viewers and bring them joy. - Swapan Das, artist

A small helping hand goes a long way in helping someone, who wants to rise, make that leap. - Sudha Murthy, Infosys Foundation

Until a significant amount of time passes by, you won’t realise how that little thing you do makes all the difference in your day. - Alicia Souza, illustrator

Most of life is comprised of shades of grey and the fun is in determining which shades of grey suit you and make you happy. - Deepti Kat, Lady Baga

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).