Mann ki Baat: At the heart of PM Modi’s recognition of YourStory is your story

About eight minutes into Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s 51st Mann Ki Baat address to the nation on Sunday, the congratulatory messages started to come in for all of us at YourStory. This was around the time the Prime Minister mentioned YourStory in his address and recognised websites like ours for telling inspiring and positive stories.

The Prime Minister said,

“I am glad that nowadays, we have many websites that tell us inspiring stories… YourStory.com tells us the success stories of young innovators and entrepreneurs beautifully."

Watch PM Modi's Mann ki Baat address in the video below

For all of us at YourStory, it is a huge honour to receive this kind of recognition and endorsement from the Prime Minister himself. 

It is indeed a validation of the hard work and perseverance of the YourStory team, both our past and present team members; of the faith and trust placed in us by our mentors, investors, partners, clients, and well-wishers; and, of the love and respect we've enjoyed from our readers and from the Indian startup ecosystem. 

For me and my team, it is also a validation of our conviction to tell positive and inspirational stories of entrepreneurs and innovators in our country, to give a voice to so many aspiring entrepreneurs and dreamers, and to celebrate their achievements and enable their success.

Which is why I strongly believe that this recognition by the Prime Minister is really a recognition of the many entrepreneurs, innovators, and dreamers whose stories we have made it our mission to tell. An acknowledgement of all of you entrepreneurs and innovators whose extraordinary achievements have shaped not only the Indian startup ecosystem but also the new and emerging India as we know it.

For me, the success of YourStory is tied to the success of every entrepreneur whose stories we’ve written or talked about.

These have been stories of perseverance, grit, determination, resilience, resolve, fortitude, drive, and ambition. Stories that have been brought to you from every nook and corner of India. Stories that matter. Stories that inspire and ignite the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Indeed, throughout YourStory’s journey in the past decade, entrepreneurs and innovators have been at the heart of YourStory’s existence and positive and inspirational storytelling has remained our unwavering commitment to you. And it will remain so because I firmly believe that we need more inspirational, positive stories in a world that’s increasingly filled with negativity.

To quote Prime Minister Modi himself from his latest Mann Ki Baat address,

“Can we join hands in one endeavour? Let us share such websites amongst ourselves. Let’s come together to make positivity viral. I do believe that by doing so, more and more people will get to know about our heroes who brought a change in society. Spreading negativity is fairly easy. But some really good work is being done around us, in our society.”

So, here’s to all the entrepreneurs, innovators, dreamers, achievers, disruptors and changemakers, who’ve enabled us, at YourStory, to bring you 10 years of powerful, inspiring, and positive stories. And here’s to many more years and decades of such positive storytelling.

And I would be remiss if I didn't thank the many, many (hundreds of thousands of) well-wishers, who in the last ten years, have selflessly encouraged us, rooted for us, or simply given us a pat on our backs to carry on. And you know who you are. Thank you to each one of you.

With love,

Shradha