‘Waste is wealth’ – 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 December 23-29 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights. See also our compilation of 50 Quotes from Techsparks 2019 here.

In life, if you are going to put your blood, sweat, tears, money, and wealth into something, it has to pass the passion test. - Avnish Bajaj, Matrix India

String together your superpowers of collaboration, coachability, and conviction, and allow them to work wonders for you and your business. - Rajesh Sawhney, GSF Accelerator

When people undermine your dreams, predict your doom, or criticise, you remember they're telling you their story, not yours. - Cynthia Occelli, author

Believe in yourself, because there will be times no one else will. - Vivek Menezes, 'Mundo Goa'

As a spouse, the emotional support that you can give and the support system you can build around the entrepreneur is very crucial. - Sonia Gupta

Leadership is executed in every walk of life. - Asha Shekhar, Coca-Cola

A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain. – Mildred Struven

Make clear and measurable goals and focus all energies to attain it. Never let fear stop you. It is also important to allocate time, energy, and resources for personal development. - Naveen Kumar, Green Castle

India is now in the midst of a significant economic slowdown. - Ranil Salgado, IMF

People expect growth to come back in 2020. However, it depends on (how) consumer sentiments improve and the consumer has to feel richer than they are. - Debashish Mukherjee, A T Kearney

All our fairy tales are from abroad, we need something that resonates with Indian children. - Sudha Murthy, ‘The Gopi Diaries’

India is the third largest air travelling country in the world. - Boris Zha, HappyEasyGo

Dubai makes a great test-bed due to its wide demographic base and the diverse nationalities that reside there. - Ehteshamuddin PA, JunkBot

If we boast of our roots that give us our identity, then we must also learn to respect our arts, as that is what gives shape to our cultural heritage. - Sunil Kant Munjal, SAF

Middlemen who say that they work with artisans who follow traditional crafts often know nothing about the craft. - Meera Ramakrishnan, Zishta

The reality is that students struggle in exams because of the lack of practice. - Guruprasad Holla, QuizNext

An artist must have the soul of an adventurer, an innovator and an alchemist. More than anything, an artist must be a good conduit, a good sponge. - Ruchi Bakshi, SAF

With all the changes happening in the world, it is the music that cuts across all boundaries of hate created by politics and religion. - Ustad Amjad Ali Khan

An inclusive work environment will provide the platform to nurture and encourage women in tech. - Genefa Murphy, Micro Focus

Quality is a culture, a philosophy, a faith that needs to be practised over and over again. - Robin Banerjee, ‘Who Blunders and How’

One of the biggest magnets to attract top talent to early and growth-stage startups is promising wealth creation through ESOP. - Satheesh KV, MyStartupEquity

Managing performance and productivity is a top priority for a CEO. - Sandeep Chaudhry, PeopleStrong

The question is, how do you take ideas from the labs and translate it into innovations for the real world through entrepreneurship. - Yannis C Yortos, USC

Fashion apparel is a massive industry, accounting for four percent of the global GDP. - Ankiti Bose, Zilingo

Styling is a need for shoppers, especially in the purchase of fashion goods. - Yash Saxena, poshaQ

Technological solutions provide a feasible way to impact larger communities in a short span of time. - Padmaja Kolle, JPMorgan Chase

There are half a billion users still on feature phone that will potentially upgrade to smartphones. - Sumit Walia, Oppo India

Society will progress if there is a scientific temperament and love for mathematics,” said Mahidhara Davangere, Pramartha

The digital space has undergone rapid colonisation, thus resulting in intense competition and at times, unregulated use of personal data in the ecommerce space. - Harsha Razdan, KPMG India

People don’t typically realise there are thousands of apps using digital maps and that maps are a deep technology. Maps are often thought of trivially. - Rohan Verma, MapMyIndia

Everyone, no matter how young, has the potential to bring about change. We should not let anything stop us from helping those in need. - Chandini Grover, 'Kindness: The Universal Language of Love’

We are at the brink of a water crisis with an increasingly erratic monsoon and increasing extraction of groundwater. - Srinivas Ramanujam, Villgro Innovations Foundation

Our food these days has lower-yielding nutritional values. The type of food we eat and the challenges of a healthy lifestyle have changed significantly in recent years. - Ameve Sharma, Kapiva

Just remember to watch out for a revolution as you will see all the ecommerce companies use electric bikes for delivery. - Dhivik Reddy, GoGreenBOV

India alone has more than a $50-billion market for clean-energy solutions for rural livelihoods. - Arunabha Ghosh, CEEW

Access to capital in Indian companies for solar is limited. - Mathew Mazhuvanchery, Distributed Energy

Waste management and recycling is a massive and untapped space, where the stakeholders are often disjointed and disconnected. - Dev Raman, Triton

Waste is wealth and we need to do something to manage it. We should utilise it to create something better out of it. - Anand Chordia, Suhana Farms

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).

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