‘One indication of an enduring company is a company going public’ – 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 July 12-18 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.

It is important to get to the mode of understanding people before you start saying things, offering help, or just assuming. That is the core of empathy. - Shweta Verma, Ginny's Planet

Circumstances, economy, and consumer behaviour can shift, and we need to have the ability to modify, change what and how we do, and sustain. - Ayesha Depala

Change is difficult to adapt to, but if we don’t, we will be extinct. - Karan Tanna, Ghost Kitchens India

Risk is best understood as a combination of two factors - how reversible is the decision and how controllable the outcome. - Shripati Acharya, Prime Venture Partners

The good news is that inflection points always represent opportunities for someone. There is no reason that shouldn’t be you. - Rita McGrath, ‘Seeing Around Corners’

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Startups are much more nimble, agile, and faster, clearly making them more appealing to work with. - Sindhu Gangadharan, SAP Labs India

Entrepreneurs are agile so the VC has to be agile; there is no question about it. - Sudhir Sethi, Chiratae Ventures

There is a tremendous change in the mind space of the founders with regard to venture debt and we expect the deployment of this capital to go up significantly in the next one to two years. - Ishpreet Singh Gandhi, Stride Ventures

You cannot do conservation without having indigenous communities involved. And the way to do that is to engage them from the beginning, right when you design your whole programme by doing a consultative process with them and understanding their utilisation. - Rushikesh Chavan, The Habitats Trust

Solar panels and plants can in fact be installed quicker than traditional, non-renewable plants. - Hitesh Doshi, Waaree Energies

Micromobility is shaking up urban transportation worldwide. In many populous cities, people are choosing to travel via walking, cycling, or shared mobility to escape congestion on roads. - Anand Ayyadurai, Vogo

The sustainable fashion industry does not always focus on blends. Some brands label their products as made from bamboo but in reality, the items may only be dyed with bamboo charcoal. - Ayush Agarwal, Mush Apparel

The need of the hour is a sisterhood where women work towards uplifting other women. - Arya Murali, WITI India

Art is an ever-inspiring activity, it always motivates and creates positive thinking. - Hemalatha NS, Chitra Santhe 2021

Vigorous power yoga sessions with intense sweating does not necessarily translate into optimal and healthy weight loss. - Deepa Kannan, PFNR

India has about 50 million SMEs, employing 110 million people and adding half a trillion in gross contributions to the GDP. This makes it the second-largest SME concentration in the world after China. - Sanjay Dangi, Authum Investment and Infrastructure

By 2025, Indian startups are likely to create 1.6 million jobs. The ecosystem’s role is going to be critical to determine the success rate of startups in the country. - Aishwarya Kalakata, Flipkart

Currently, India has become a 100-unicorn economy and around 300 startups are in the soonicorn stage. - Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Venture Catalysts

India is a unique market where you can create a lot of value by empowering distribution partners. - Pratik Poddar, Nexus Venture Partners

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One of the key drivers of low adoption of health insurance in India is lack of an organised and large primary healthcare (PHC) network. - Manu Rikhye, GrowX Ventures

There are many small and mid-sized hospitals catering to the healthcare needs of 70 percent Indians. However, they lack ready access to facilities and services like their larger counterparts. - Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Venture Catalysts

Roughly about 25 percent of global TB cases exist in India, and we have both forms of the disease - pulmonary and extrapulmonary. - Sushil Mehta, NGIVD

The Indian handicraft industry is the second largest income generator in the rural sector. - Abhinav Agarwal, Mittihub

With rapid urbanisation, the demand and supply gap is expected to increase, and soon, other Tier I and II cities will face this crisis. - Shravanth Donthi, Tankerwala

India has the opportunity and potential to become the world leader in EVs. - Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola

The ever-increasing fuel prices combined with the perspective of EVs being technologically superior and the future of automobiles has helped push the sale of EVs in India. - Mihir Mohan, Pitstop

The retail and wholesale traders are like engines which propel the business ecosystem forward. - Sudhir Jha, MSME Development Forum

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Interest in IPOs has surged over the last couple of months, and we have seen cases where users have missed out from applying because of issues like tight schedules during market hours, and demand-led processing delays in the markets. - Varun Sridhar, Paytm Money

Just like the aviation sector, space inevitably requires an efficient traffic management system. - Anirudh Sharma, Digantara

Private sector participation in commercial space activities has the potential to catalyse new investments at scale, build new space-based applications, and reduce costs by making value chains more efficient and achieving scale. - Pawan Kumar Chandana, Skyroot Aerospace

Independent professionals power the economic engine of the world. In the US alone, nearly 60 million independent professionals generate more than $1.2 trillion in annual earnings — that’s 36 percent of the total US workforce. - Anil Goteti, Protonn

If you push yourself and believe in what you do, everything will follow. Just take the first step. - Rianjali

The purpose of business is to draw from society, create value and be valuable back to society. - Ashish Hemrajani, BookMyShow

The world’s best brands and businesses are built on authenticity, creativity, and their ability to give customers something unique. - Munaf Kapadia, The Bohri Kitchen

One indication of an enduring company is a company going public. - Mohit Bhatnagar, Sequoia India

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).