‘Great things never come from staying in your comfort zone’ – 60 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 60 gems and insights from the week of February 3-9 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.

There is nothing known as perfect. Happiness lies in truly accepting yourself. - Tahira Kashyap Khurrana

Be manically focused and you will acquire skills with time. What matters is how much you own the problem, think of different solutions, and be open to new ideas. - Sriram Kannan, Routematic

Curiosity and hard work can take you places. - Narsimha Chary

Never underestimate the power of a sport. Never think it’s “too late” to learn something new. - Kica Founder, Aneesha Labroo

Startups are a very important piece of a large innovation economy. - Sharad Sharma, iSPIRIT Foundation

Ultimately, you are building a business to succeed, and you are not building a business to just raise money or to manage your VC. - Avnish Bajaj, Matrix India

Selling the company is not the end of the journey. Delivering a safe acquisition for the buyer is. - Amrish Rau, PayU

The trick to learn before entering the Indian market is how to reduce the cost and then the price. - Sanjay Anandaram, TiE Bangalore

India has made great strides in increasing the productivity of farmers, but the post-harvest supply chain is inefficient. - Mohnish Sharma, HaraBaag

India is a total of different countries - each state is different. - Lars Schmidt, Swarovski

The blue-collar consumer and the emerging gig-economy segments are today not serviced by traditional banks and NBFCs. - Nikhil Banerjee, SuperMoney

India has been home to 25 unicorns, and we believe that the zest from the fintech startup ecosystem will help us discover more startups that can take the number to 100 by 2025. - Suniti Nanda, Mumbai Fintech Hub

Both rentals and property management are multi-billion-dollar opportunities, but currently under-served in India. - Tanuj Shori, Square Yards

Startup India is being undermined purely for tax policies. New India cannot afford to sacrifice her future at the altar of such perverse and adverse tax policies. - TV Mohandas Pai & Siddarth Pai

India has $2 trillion of wealth in private hands. Less than one percent is invested in the startup ecosystem. We need High Networth Individuals (HNIs) money going into startups. - Kris Gopalakrishnan, Axilor

Indian corporates don’t look at a startup as a strategic play, and what they can add to the ecosystem holistically. - Raj Mashruwala, Prime Venture Partners

Access is not just a function of cost and data penetration, but also about social mores and age-old discriminatory practices. - Abhijeet Mehta, Quest Alliance

Technology is the prime mover and India is facing serious problems both in terms of technology and policy reforms. - Ramesh Chand, NITI Aayog

Northeast India is a multicultural area where people have still preserved their local culture and tradition, something which is of interest to global tourists. - Pema Khandu, CM, Arunachal Pradesh

The current digital experience of offline merchants is broken at many levels and the engagement with customers is non-existent. - Tej Kapoor, Fosun RZ Capital

There is a fairly large opportunity in catering to the audio content needs of the regional language user. - Piyush Kharbanda, Vertex Ventures

India will be successful in innovation only when people take ownership of problems and become risk-takers. - Harish Hande, SELCO

Companies in India spending money to grow market share should be conscious and cognisant about the kind of customer base they are attracting. - Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm

India sells 20 million bicycles every year and yet the bicycle category has remained stagnant with minimal innovation and trifling brand connect with consumers. - Sachin Chopra, AlphaVector

We have a long way to go when compared to other developing countries, where public healthcare spending stands at around 2 to 2.5 percent of their GDP. - Gaurav Gupta, Navia Life Care

There are 3,000 EV manufacturers in China selling 40 million bikes every year. In India, we sell only about 100,000 EV bikes from 10-odd OEMs. - Mohit Yadav, REVOS

The country has a very high cost of logistics, and India spends around 14 percent of its GDP on the transport and logistics sector. - Rajesh Yabaji, BlackBuck

One of the biggest challenges working with government bodies is the lack of transparency and an efficient consistently adopted standard operating process. - Upma Kapoor, Teal & Terra

The benefits of taxation relief on ESOP should be expanded to companies at various stage of growth. - Mitesh Shah, BookMyShow

India is very strong in IT, SaaS, pharma and healthcare, food businesses, skilling and so on. All these are good prospects for Japanese companies. - Kazuya Nakajo, JETRO

Since India has the highest number of SMBs, they need all the help they can get in adopting the latest technologies. - Christopher Richard, G7 CR Technologies

Currently, 24 percent of the workforce at MSMEs are women, the total employee count being 11 crore. - Saundarya Rajesh, AVTAR Group

In India, only 4 percent of MSMEs have access to a formal source of finance, whereas the number in a country like Vietnam is 37 percent. - Manish Sinha, D&B

The world has millions of SMBs who form the core of the world’s economy. They are the entrepreneurial pulse. - Kirti Srivastava, GetPY

The electronic industry has huge potential both in terms of manufacturing in India and job creation, and will provide a major impetus for growth. - Rajesh Uttamchandani, Syska Group

Technology as an enabler has a lot of potentials to further innovate how learning can be made personalised and impactful. - Byju Raveendran, BYJUs

The business world is really recognising the power of APIs. - Abhinav Asthana, Postman

It takes three zeroes to scale AI adoption within an enterprise – zero distance to information and insights, zero disruption to business operations, and zero latency to business processes. - Balakrishna D R, Infosys

Data management and protection will play a key role to safeguard citizens’ data from cyber-breaches. - Sandeep Bhambure, Veeam Software

The universal truth is that people want a responsible, convenient, and safe ride with good drivers at the wheel. - Simon Smith, Ola

The adoption of print-on-demand allows authors and publishers to work with a zero-inventory model, enabling them to only print a book when an order is received. - Naveen Valasakumar, Notion Press

More people from other countries are seeking out places where they can both enjoy a vacation and obtain medical treatment at a reasonable price. - Anurav Rane, PlanMyMedicalTrip.com

For someone struggling from a severe disease, like cancer, managing the acute illness goes beyond what the doctor does for the patient. - Meena Ganesh, Portea Medical

What separates a good interaction from a run-of-the-mill one is personalisation, which can leave a lasting impact on customers. - Kevin Binu, Muthoot Healthcare

If you create a platform where people can get together, you can solve a lot of issues. - Shubhanshu Shekar Shukla, DRISTI

This obsession that we have had with maximising profit for shareholders alone has led to incredible inequality and planetary emergency. - Marc Benioff, Salesforce

Figures quoted by the UNDP and the IPCC suggest that 80 per cent of people displaced by the climate crisis are women. They are all the more vulnerable due to non-climatic factors. - P Sainath

Competence is not an issue. It is networking where women end up missing out. - Meenakshi Lekhi, MP

It’s encouraging that we, in India, have a better ratio of women in the ICT workforce at about 34 percent – but less than 1 percent are in the C-Suite. - Jaya Jagadish, AMD

Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes holistic development to be an all-rounder. - Ramaseshu Botu, Gomake

We need to realise that we should not disturb the natural habitat of animals for our comfort or greed. - Bichitranand Biswal

Humans can be selfish or unaware of the damage they inflict on the environment, and should confront their inner demons. - Ami Patel, KGAF

Chicken feather fibre is much softer, lighter, and durable as compared to any other natural fibre. - Mudita Srivastava, Khanak Design Studio

All the populists around the world, whether it’s Erdogan or Modi or Trump, are gifted storytellers. They can tell a false story well and the only way they can be fought is by telling a true story better. - Suketu Mehta, ‘This Land is Our Land’

We must encourage newer generations to interact with the arts and expose them to this cultural and artistic diversity as much as possible. - Smriti Rajgarhia, Serendipity Arts Foundation

There is lot of potential in youngsters and they can take our Indian design language to the world. - Sangeeta Boochra

It doesn’t matter where you come from, but what matters is your creativity and the meaning one can derive from it. - Shekhar Kapur

Do not do it for fame and money because nothing in life can ever guarantee you fame and money. - Shakti Mohan, NY Bae X Shakti

Films and life are like clay, waiting for us to mould it. - Shirley MacLaine

Learning lessons from mistakes and making them an acceptable part of an organisation’s culture can lead to the biggest breakthroughs of all. - Ankur Jindal, Tata Communications

The reinvention of one's self is important. There is so much to do in the second innings. - Leander Paes

Don't think too hard and don't think too long! Just take the plunge. - Pompey Chakravarty, Clay Factor

You will hear so many negative comments, that you really need to develop a thick skin as there is no other way out. - Tazeen Kapadia, Lagom

Great things never come from staying in your comfort zone. Step out and explore. - Saurabh Rathore, Gobble Me Good

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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