‘Entrepreneurship is the willingness to follow your curiosity’– 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 July 6-12 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.

Sometimes the true impact of a major discovery is not understood properly for a while. - Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital

Gut feeling is all about the experiences that you have had in your life. - Mahendra Singh Dhoni

When you tell a story with conflict and real protagonists, it brings with it the power to convince people. - Joshua Shabtai, Lowe's Innovation Labs

Narrative intelligence or competence is about being able to interpret the story at a higher level than just is what is being said. A story can be interpreted in many different ways. - Gabrielle Dolan, Stories for Work

Hard work definitely gets you where you’re bound to reach, but a good network just takes you there faster. - DJ Kimera

Education is definitely one of the most powerful tools that can empower people. - Sunitha Kulkarni, Valley View High School

There is a need of a strong ecosystem to create education, awareness, engagement with respect to health culture. - Sandeep Gupta, BodyFirst

There exists scant quantitative data to estimate approximate market size and scope from a hemp health and wellness perspective. - Yash Kotak, Bombay Hemp

Consumers want personalisation in selection and instantaneous consumption when it comes to fresh food retail. - Manu Chandra, Sauce.vc

To a large extent, safe drinking water was confined to bottled water, which due to its high cost, remained a commodity accessible only to affluent sections of our society, but not to the poorest of the poor. - Parag Agarwal, JanaJal

To support your brain health, the first thing that you need to work on is stable blood sugar all the time. - Deepa Kannan, PFNR

Eating desserts post-dinner is very common in most households. What has seen a paradigm shift over the years has been the growing urge to eat healthy and control what’s on the plate. - Ashni and Varun Sheth, NOTO

Typically, all healthcare and nutraceutical products have good margins and a lot of money is spent on R&D and consumer education. - Divij Bajaj, Aesthetics Nutrition

Brain cancer, especially Glioblastoma, is a very tough disease to treat. - Pradip Bhatnagar, LeadInvent

A child’s brain development in the early years is centred around play and entertainment. - Vivek Goyal, PlayShifu

If you try to go to the market, there will be nothing available for infants aged between zero and two years. - Surbhi Bhatia, The Mom Store

The biggest weakness in the ecosystem is we don't have end-to-end product manufacturing and supply chain system. - Rajat Jain, Kimirica Hunter

The golden age of Indian agriculture may well have just begun backed by unparalleled digital access to farmers, overarching reforms and government support. - Pankaj Karna, Maple Capital Advisors

Moving forward, as India further prepares for being self-sufficient, the need to equip the cattle farmers with resources and technology is of high importance. - Ishaan Khosla, Huddle

The onshore requirements of IT firms are likely to be lower. - Sameer Charania, CRISIL

The e-learning industry in India has a huge business potential. - Joon Hyon, Complement Capital

There is a huge void in teacher training in India, with very few players for a country as large as ours, and hardly any at the national level. - Sunita Gandhi, GETI

It's inspiring to see so many leaders of Indian heritage playing a significant role in business and in society. - Ajay Banga, Mastercard

There are many possibilities and opportunities in various sunrise sectors in India. - PM Narendra Modi

The Odisha model of eco-tourism is the only existing community-based model in India, where over 80 percent of the entire tourism revenue is returned to the community as wages. - Anshu Pragyan Das, Mahanadi Wildlife Division

India has already developed a reputation for its expertise in the software technology space. We are beginning to see startups emerging in the hardware space that are solving important problems. - Ravi Narayan, T-Hub

After gold, electronics is the biggest import in India. - Sandeep Tandon, Whiteboard Capital

A thumb-rule in spirits marketing is, if you can get a brand to trend in bars, it eventually finds a place in people’s homes. - Ankur Bhatia, Jimmy’s Cocktails

Celebrated as one of the most iconic cocktails in the world, the mojito has been stirring taste buds since the early 1900s. - Hemant Mundkur, Bacardi India

Now, what differentiates one Scotch from another you ask? Well, almost everything! - Meghana Balaji, Diageo India

TikTok stars are at crossroads now, and they want to find a platform which will provide them stability and support. - Lakshminath Dondeti, Rizzle.tv

As a human being with a camera on the street you’re visible, vulnerable and exposed, and often can be mistrusted. - Sudeep Bhattacharya

Make a lot of music and let a lot of it be terrible. Some of it wouldn't be, and there within that, you will find your artistic voice. Expand into that, and then stay persistent. It's a long game. - Gabriel Daniel

Do not hesitate to face criticism. Try to adjust and digest failure and bad times as well. It will definitely give strength to move forward to achieve your goals. - Sagar Naik Mule

The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion. - Paulo Coelho

Live like a legend. - Soumajit Bhowmik, Styched

Be open to change. The trap we can fall into is thinking that our original vision is the only way forward; this can be disastrous. - Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital

Keep your eyes on the finish line and not on the turmoil around you. — Rihanna

An athlete’s journey is often lonely, with little to compare one’s own performance to. - Yeragaselvan Kumaraswamy, Run Adam

While speaking up is becoming important owing to the increased scrutiny on brands due to social media, flippancy and haste are costly mistakes. - Shreesh Shankar, Sukkrish Aadds

Without a doubt, digital advertising is the area of digital marketing that’s most successfully adopted when it comes to artificial intelligence. - Amol Roy, The ShutterCast

Every commerce company, once it attempts to scale, essentially has to solve for financing. - Asish Mohapatra, OfBusiness

Over the last couple of years, there has been an increased focus on geospatial technology. - Teruhide Sato, BEENEXT

As the market evolves, short-term rentals will resemble hotels as customer demand pushes for greater standardisation, easy check-in process and professional hospitality. - Raiyaan Nayeem, Hubloft

A conducive environment can attract more investors and investments in eSports, creating more jobs and leading to rapid growth, while ensuring long-term viability. - Roland Landers, All India Gaming Federation

Gig work platforms provide massive opportunities for workers, and give flexibility and efficiency for corporates. - Nao Murakami, Incubate Fund India

Traditionally, a project has recourse to three resources: money, manpower and machinery. All three are in limited supply. But there is another resource – knowledge. - Rudolf D’Souza, Afcons Infrastructure

Cyber threats need to be taken seriously, and everybody ought to be well-informed about the dangers out there. - Amitabh Kumar, Social Media Matters

The path of entrepreneurship, if you're a woman, is just steeper. - Shivaarti Bajaj, BoxEngage

Now, more than ever, the spotlight is on the diversity and inclusion across every sector of the industry, and the technology and investment ecosystems are no exception to this. - Ruby Nimkar, GreenHouse Capital

The cis white male patriarchal system, in which we currently are, doesn’t support the diversity of sexual expression. - Angelina Aleksandrovich, Raspberry Dream Labs

Women for the first time are taking centrestage in driving ecommerce adoption and opening up new categories dominated by fresh perishables. - Varun Khurana, Crofarm

A KISS Demo must always tell an interesting story. Not just the feature, but the story that goes with the demo should be interesting. - Sanjay Swamy, Prime Venture Partners

Investors across the world have become more aware than ever of the importance of balancing their portfolios among different assets. - Robert Cortright, DriveWealth

Being an entrepreneur can be very overwhelming. One needs to stay focussed and inculcate the ability to understand that not all problems have the same level of priority. - Anil Mathews, Near.co

Understand your business in the market, and then see what works and what doesn’t. - Greg Moran, Zoomcar

Designing is just one part of the entire process. The implementation becomes crucial. - Aayush Chaudhary, ACad Studio

Implementation is important, but you need to have sensitivity. - Kaushik Mukherjee, Udaan

Venture debt should not be only be looked at traditionally as support to just protect the dilution. - Ishpreet Gandhi, Stride Ventures

The first 10 merchants are impossible, the next 100 are very hard, but the next 10,000 are easy. - Nityananda Sharma, Simpl

No amount of education prepares you once you dive into the business. - Ketan Kalra, Super Donuts

Entrepreneurship is the willingness to follow your curiosity. - Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital

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).