‘If there’s no lane already out there for you to follow, create your own lane’– 50 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 50 gems and insights from the week of January 6-12 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights. See also our compilation of Top Entrepreneurship Quotes of 2019 here.

The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself. – Steve Maraboli

There is no other teacher but your own soul. - Swami Vivekananda

If you have an idea, no matter how old you are, you have the power to change the world. - Samaira Mehta, Coder Bunnyz

If there’s no lane already out there for you to follow, create your own lane! - Raja Kumari

Don’t wait for the ‘right moment.’ If you want to do it, put in the right kind of effort and positivity. - Suruchi Parakh, Suruchi Parakh Couture

There is only one word standing between you and your dreams – and that is patience. - Saad Khan

Obsess about customers, not competitors. - Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Self-esteem and a healthy mind are every person’s right. - Paras Daithankar, Tava-Mitram

Every business has the usual hiccups, but the thrill of overcoming them that and come out as a winner is unmatched. - Toral Singh, Studs and Stones

Sharing mistakes committed helps to identify the learnings. It is a great measure to tread on to the stepping stone of success. - Robin Banerjee, ‘Who Blunders and How’

Take wrong turns. Go off trail. Be curious about exploring the unknown. - Jugal Mistry, Bombay Troopers

There is nothing more important than taking things in your stride, for both entrepreneurs and sports people. - Rohit Sharma

You really are doing the entrepreneurship journey with your significant other. They might not be coming to the office, but they’re equally involved in the journey. - Dheeraj Pandey, Nutanix

More organisations will invest more money into conducting hackathons to crowdsource ideas on product innovation, create a strong employer brand, and hire the best talent – all at the same time! - Siddhartha Gupta, Mercer|Mettl

The bar for innovation keeps rising, but what must be created must be a force for good and a force for growth. - Fama Francisco, P&G

Teams are very important. You need people who are motivated intrinsically, especially for products like gaming and education. - Prakash Ramachandran, BYJU'S

While it is true that open spaces tend to be more active and buzzing, they are a great source of growing one’s network as well. - Anand Vemuri, 91springboard

Ghosting candidates, or even thinking about it, could be bad for one's employer brand. - Sashi Kumar, Indeed India.

The only way you can reduce inequality in a country like India is through creation of jobs, and creation of jobs with reasonable income. - Narayana Murthy, Infosys

The next set of reforms in India includes e-invoices and reconciliations. - Yash Raj Agrawal, GimBooks

The corporate innovation market in India is growing rapidly. - Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Venture Catalysts

Providing more Indian consumers with access to credit is crucial to helping individuals grow and succeed. - Prashanth Ranganathan, PaySense

In 2018, five of the top 10 fundraises have gone to fintech startups as investors are now seeing the same picture as entrepreneurs in this country. - Sanjay Swamy, Prime Ventures

Unfortunately, in the past, what has happened is growth at all cost has been getting funded in various ways. - Avnish Bajaj, Matrix India

There are many consumer lending companies that are trying to solve the credit constraint in the retail commerce space, but there aren’t many consumer leasing platforms. - Geetansh Bamania, Rentomojo

With the fragmented and unorganised channel, payment reliability is one of the biggest problems in India. - Vaibhav Gupta, Udaan

OTP-based authentication is one of the biggest points of friction in online card transactions. - Ranjith Boyanapalli, Flipkart

Today, online shopping is the new retail therapy. - Honey Bajaj, Sarvagany Collections

Consumers are now looking at jewellery as an investment option. - Gautam Singhvi, co- The Diamond Factory

The Indian real estate sector has attracted institutional investments worth $30 billion between 2009 and 18. There has never been a better time to take the plunge. - Venkata Ramana, Near Estate

Out of India’s $15B+ personal care market, online channels contribute to only 3-5 percent. - Ishaan Mittal, Sequoia Capital India

Currently, crop insurance covers only 20 percent of the cropped area in India. The government wants to raise this number to 50 percent by 2022. - Mallikarjun Kukunuri, Niruthi

Businesses in India are ready to buy SaaS applications and experiment with them because of flexible payments and scalability. - Vinodh Rajaraman, EagleOwl

China is a country that is on steroids when it comes to the internet, and the market is very deep. There are 400 million people who buy products in China, compared to maybe 80 million in India now. - Tej Kapoor, Fosun RZ Capital

There are too many barriers to accessing quality healthcare, ranging from financial constraints and geographic access to cultural norms and perhaps most importantly, lack of awareness. - Victor Mohan, Reach Lives

With 1.2 million small retailers in India, the omnichannel play has never been more relevant than today in India and for online ecommerce led players to grow into Tier III and IV cities. - Amit Sharma, ShopX

Gaming is the new prime time. - Vaibhav Agrawal, Lightspeed

The next decade will see a wave of disruptive consumer brands from India, taking pole position at the global level, many of which will cross Rs 1,000 crore in top line. - Bharat Sethi, Rage Coffee

The Indian decorative paints industry is a Rs 70,000 crore market and growing at 15 percent year on year. - Kumar Varma, Super Surfaces

While there is a lot of work being done by many startups in the market for truck discovery, it is mostly in metros and Tier-I cities. There are no consolidated pan-India players for city logistics. - Prasad Sreeram, COGOS Technologies

We really need to look at the judiciary and also have more women in the court as well as female lawyers. - Shoko Noda, UNDP

When it comes to women’s participation in the urban workforce, we are behind countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. - TR Ramachandran, Visa

It's not about the next election, it's about the next generation. - Chaitanya Prabhu, Mark Your Presence

Bengaluru has emerged as the city of choice for tech entrepreneurs over the last 10 to 15 years, and now boasts of several unicorns. - Ravishankar G V, Sequoia Capital

The steep learning curve associated with data science is evidently the reason behind the ever-increasing demand and shortage of supply of data scientists in India. And therein lies its potential. - Pradeep Chopra, Digital Vidya

If you want to be relevant in business and understand all this discussion about AI, you have to do it or else you will be a dinosaur very quickly. - Mark Cuban

The skeptics have always been there, and they’ve always been wrong. The best days of the digital world still lie ahead. - David Moschella, ‘Seeing Digital’

Good code not just improves the software impacting billions of users but also tremendously increases the work satisfaction levels of coders. - Mitul Bid, Coditas Technologies

Hotel rooms are a perishable commodity; like airline seats, they need to be sold at the right time, at the right price, and to the right customers, to get maximum benefits. - Siddharth Goenka, Aiosell Technologies

There are over 300,000 fitness apps globally but most of them fail to address the fundamental problem of behavioural change. - Jitendra Chouksey, SQUATS

Learning is a space where sustainable long-term growth translates to a larger good. - Byju Raveendran, BYJU's

Game-based learning programs keep students engaged longer than traditional teaching methods. Learning through playing is going to be even bigger in 2020 than it was in 2019. - Arpit Jain, StudyPad

When there’s some kind of intervention and when somebody’s monitoring the bins, people tend to be on their best behaviour, or at least they try to make more of an effort to segregate the waste. - Divya Ramachandran, Skrap

Art is subjective to each individual, while design's main purpose is to be of consistent meaning for everyone. - Gazal Roongta

Art in India is evolving and spreading its wings, and has potential to reach much greater heights. - Deepthi Bhide

Creativity is what will separate the winners from the also-rans in the emerging world of business – and in life. - Josh Linkner, ‘Disciplined Dreaming’

YourStory Media 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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