‘Fluidity is the key to conquering life’ – 40 quotes from Indian startup journeys

Launched in 2014, 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 August 19-25 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights. See also our compilation of Top 50 Quotes from 2018 here.

The faster you move, the faster you iterate, and the more time you will have to find the right niche and fit for your product. - Mukund Jha, Dunzo

People, your teams, your employees, and even your customers are a business’s greatest asset. - Ashish Hemrajani, BookMyShow

The best way to come up with unlimited hacks of your own is to put your user first in your marketing campaigns. Do what is useful for the user and you will be aligned with everyone’s interest in mind. – Deepak Kanakaraju, OptinChat.com

The only way you are going to have success is to have lots of failures first. - Sergey Brin, Google

Data shows that 65 percent of startups fail because of leadership issues. - Paul Ravindranath G, Google India

Entrepreneurs need freedom from the state, the sector should be less regulated. - Former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

From a best practices perspective, every startup should be ahead of the curve and ensure that they are compliant with data privacy. This is the first time product managers and lawyers have to work together. - Nehaa Chaudhuri, Ikigai Law

Any organisation looking to leverage edge computing must adopt a holistic strategy from the edge to the core to the cloud. - Kris Day, Dell

Technology has to be seen as an enabler of privileges, not a privilege itself. - Rahul Singh,

NRAI President

Reviews are getting more acceptance across the world and more so in the pre-saIe reviews, which are research and expert-driven. - Vir Sanghvi, EazyDiner

A true assistant can help address the information overload, declutter information, help the user focus on important tasks, and provide peace of mind. - Sapna Grover, Microsoft India

Autonomous weapons will inevitably become scalable weapons of mass destruction, because if the human is not in the loop, then a single person can launch a million weapons or a hundred million weapons. - Stuart Russell, University of California, Berkeley

Today there is no tool or product to address the packaging and labelling issue end to end. -  Naganand Doraswamy, IdeaSpring Capital

UPI 2.0 is a non-starter because RBI has blocked its biggest feature recurring billing. - Vishwas Patel, PCI

Specifically in India, there is a lot of ambiguity on how this transition (towards EVs) is going to take place. There are lot of grey areas right now. - Rudratej Singh, BMW India

Both the startup ecosystem as well as the corporate setup in India need to get together to achieve inclusivity. - Amitesh Jha, Ekart

India is an extremely competitive and difficult environment, especially if you are not living there every day. - Semil Shah, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Smaller cities offer growth opportunities, as they are untapped or under-serviced markets. - Aman Kumar, Kalagato

The need for use of ‘data science’ and ML is even more pronounced in the wealth management industry. - Ashish Kashyap, INDwealth

By FY24, we expect digital advertising to be the largest medium with 39.5 percent share of total ad pie, surpassing TV. - Girish Menon, KPMG

India is one of the most dynamic fintech markets in the world. - Shivani Siroya, Tala

The weight profile of a single shipment is actually very different from what it is in B2C. - Amod Malviya, Udaan

The rest of the world goes fishing with at least two sonars on board, just in case one gives trouble. When it comes to India, though, sonar penetration is almost zero. - Balaji K, InCEve Electronics

Creating value for customers in an age-old traditional construction market is one of the hardest and unique problems to solve. - Prashanth Prakash, Accel

Student experience for college admissions both for India and international and allied services are broken and underserved. - Dheeraj Bhatia, Kips Learning Solutions

The $8.3 billion worth of PE/VC investments in India in July 2019 is the highest value of monthly investments by PE/VC funds ever recorded. - Vivek Soni, EY

This is the best time to build a product that not only analyses vernacular content but also gives smart recommendations to make it emotionally engaging. - Sharmin Ali, Instoried

The shift to online has hurt many general trade retail stores, who have no means of digitisation or having an advantage over online stores and organised players. - Sanjay Kaul, Sofyx

The concept of craft beer paired with great food and good music is the perfect recipe for any go-to-place with family and friends. - Arundeep Singla, The Brew Estate

With the growth of technology within the industry, a line of new businesses that is focused only on wedding technology is just on the horizon too. - Alim Morani, Dome Occasions

The time is now to go greener by making choices that are good for people and the planet. - Ian Somerhalder

Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest - the lungs which produces 20 percent of our planet’s oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis. - French President Emmanuel Macron

Water User Associations (WUA) play a crucial role in creating a sense of ownership of water resources and the irrigation system. - Pearl Tiwari, Ambuja Cement Foundation

If you connect to spirituality when approached through religious texts, it could be difficult to understand. But if it is simplified as spiritual intelligence, then it becomes very easy. -Anju Sharma, ‘Corporate Monk’

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. - Mother Teresa

Life is an exam where the syllabus is unknown and question papers are not set. Nor are there model answer papers. - Sudha Murthy, Infosys Foundation

Subjecting yourself to new environments will give you access to different perspectives and all this builds up as you meet more people. - Naveen Tewari, InMobi

Fluidity is the key to conquering life. - Abhigna Kedia

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).

ALSO READ

The Top 10 Books of 2018 for Entrepreneurs