‘Beauty lies in how we feel about ourselves’ – 35 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 35 gems and insights from the week of May 18-24 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights. See also our special compilation of quotes related to India’s coronavirus responses here.

You can’t just sit at home waiting for the opportunity to come. - Jaideep Ahlawat, Paatal Lok

High performers can accomplish many things, but great leaders accomplish even more because they inspire and align others. - Madge Meyer, 'The Innovator's Path'

The most important trait would be the ability to accept repeated failures and to carry on nevertheless. - Suresh Venkat

Once you set your own rhythm and pace, you can start working smart and reap the benefits. - Payal Singhal

When you show them you are focussed, the mindset of the other person also changes. - Archana Khosla Burman, Vertices Partners

Entrepreneurship is a long journey. You will fail 100 percent if you think two years will help you succeed as an entrepreneur. - Ronnie Screwvala, UpGrad

As the founder and CEO of a startup, hiring a CFO to manage long and short term cash flows is one of the wisest decisions you can make. - Rajmohan Krishnan, Entrust Family Office

Founders should ask VCs the type of investment risks they are willing to take, and how patient are they on those risks. It could be a business model risk, product risk, cash flow risk, or market risk. - Amit Somani, Prime Venture Partners

More and more businesses are partnering with organised logistics players to enable direct to consumer deliveries. - Pushkar Singh, LetsTransport

You can’t just change something that’s going to break a lot of important workflows for our users. - Abhijit Kane, Postman

Promotional merchandise is the best way for brand recall. - Dinesh Bbhasin, 'bread n butter'

Coding is a language, and is as important as Math, English, or any other subject. It is the only way to communicate with technology. - Ami Dror, LeapLearner

Technology doesn’t need to be meaningless or just academic; it is about what we can do with it. - Aardra Kannan Ambili, RIoT

Technological advancements have changed job descriptions. While it has generated enormous opportunities and vacancies involving digital know-how, it has also made some roles obsolete. - Kamal Dutta, Skillsoft

The use of AI has helped create interfaces that are intuitive and automate mundane tasks. This could include prescription refills, appointment reminders, and test results. - Madhurima Agarwal, NetApp

We will increasingly see ads about things which we just said or talked about, but haven't searched for yet. - Aditya Saxena, iQuanti

Fraught with a lot of issues of inefficiency is the lack of information and information asymmetries that lead to pockets of price gouging, and technology is capable of solving all of this. - Ritu Verma, Ankur Capital

A construction project has hundreds of people, investment in crores with pressure of high returns, but there is no concrete information on the project completion date. - Deesha Vora, SuperWise

To clean a single solar panel roughly two litres of water is required. And to clean a one-megawatt plant, we need roughly 13,000 litres of water. - Neeraj Kumar, Skilancer Solar

Unscientific waste disposal and inadequate sanitation facilities affect both the health of humans and the environment they live in. - Uttam Banerjee, Ekam Eco Solutions

Like in the 90s when demand for computer accessories surged, similarly post 2010, demand for the smartphone accessories increased. - Ameen Khwaja, pTron

The story of money is woven into our very being, uniting us, dividing us, giving us a sense of identity, and indeed mapping people or the nation’s powers, progress, crises and triumphs. - Rezwan Razack, Museum of Indian Paper Money

Music and stories go hand in hand. There's a certain rhythm to a story and a certain narrative to a song. They melt into each other. - Anmol Malik, ‘Three Impossible Wishes’

India has a rich cultural heritage that is demonstrated through its diversity in language, art, festivals, and - most importantly - food. - Anya Kotecha, The 12 States

Storytelling, songs, and other creative media are far more appealing to children when discovering something new, as against mere instruction. - Sneha Sundaram, Kutuki

The celebrity engagement market is nascent in India with a huge potential to blow up. - Sujeet Kumar, Udaan

There are over 700,000 coaching’s across India, and not even 10 percent of them have moved to digital. - Ashwini Purohit, Winuall

We can change the minds of a whole generation by tweaking the education they receive. - Ananya Gupta, Grit Parity

Most of the e-learning platforms and online sessions that are up and running today are not accessible to persons with disabilities (PwDs). - Shameer Rishad, Javed Abidi Foundation

India egg supply chain is largely unorganised. There is an opportunity for a player to implement best practices in production and create a trustworthy consumer brand. - Abhishek Goyal, Tracxn Labs

Economic data suggests a clear positive correlation between higher participation of women in the workforce and a country’s development. - Sandeep Tandon, Whiteboard Capital

Indian women do more unpaid care work than anywhere in the world. It’s around six hours per day. - Christina MacGillivray, 'Women in Labour'

It's important to look to history and understand that groups of people were denied pleasure as a form of oppression. - Polly Rodriguez, Unbound

Social impact investing evaluation starts with the impact it intends to create, and the scale on which the same can be created. - Niraj Bora, Surmount Business Advisors

It is incumbent upon all of us to be the best version of ourselves so that we may be role models for those who may be on the fence of pursuing their dreams. - Gul Panag, "Special Mission"

Beauty lies in how we feel about ourselves. - Suraj Vazirani, The Beauty Co

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).