‘The pandemic brought along the stress of job uncertainty’ – 15 quotes from India’s COVID-19 struggle

Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous edition here). This special series of compilations focuses on India’s COVID-19 struggle. Share these quotes and excerpts with your networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

See also our pick of Top Quotes of 2021 on Entrepreneurship, Investment, Digital Transformation, Storytelling, The India Opportunity, Pandemic Resilience, Failure Recovery, Design, and Art.

Organisations are increasingly putting thought behind how they want to correct and support hybrid work environments. - Sunette Carroll, Udemy Business

During the pandemic, lacking other options, many [dukandaars] created a simplified online journey using chat apps as a medium for taking orders, providing contactless delivery, and then receiving payments through digital platforms. - Amit Bansal, SOLV

[The pandemic] made us realise that working remotely will be the norm, so we started reaching out to startups to enrol for our services in Tier II and Tier III cities and start working remotely to get their first few customers. – Saumya Kumar, I-Venture @ ISB

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The strength, reach and impact of these small businesses was strikingly demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they continued to serve 1.3 billion Indians every day in spite of various disruptions and stresses in the economy. - Amit Bansal, SOLV

In the current post-pandemic world, there has been a vast increase in women entrepreneurs and women-led enterprises, which is undeniably pleasing to hear. - Chinu Kala, Rubans Accessories

The revival of economic activities after the pandemic-led disruptions has resurrected the consumer sentiment and reinvigorated the credit demand across business and consumer segments. - Sohil Chand, LC Nueva AIF

Though this upward spiral in credit distribution has increased revenue and profits for financial institutions, loan defaults have risen, primarily due to the economic downturn following the COVID-19 pandemic. - Puja Srivastava, Spocto Solutions

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As a result of the significant discipline that we ensured in our retail store business during the COVID-29 affected periods, we are now witnessing the positive effect of scale on our unit economics, especially with the return of offline shopping behaviour. - Falguni Nayar, Nykaa

We had all the pieces figured out by 2020 and so, for a company like us, we could not innovate our way out. - Jerin Venad, Cityflo

We had two options. One, shut down our operations. Two, figure a way out. We took the second option. - Aneesha Pillai, Zoof Pets

We totally changed our game; a lot of consumers tried us for the first time and trusted us; our brand has gone to the next level. - Abhiraj Bhal, Urban Company

SignAble has played an integral role in enabling people with disabilities to get their COVID-19-related safety queries answered by an associate in sign language. - Abhinav Singh, Amazon

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The biggest challenge during COVID-19 was that startups could not be physically present at incubation centres and they had to operate remotely. - Saumya Kumar, I-Venture @ ISB

As COVID-19 made people realise that they need to take charge of their own health, they started searching for tools and processes to do it. - Sajeev Nair, Vieroots Wellness Solutions

The pandemic brought along the stress of job uncertainty, existential angst related to the meaning of life and work, working from home, and the stress of ill-health. - Nelson Vinod Moses, Suicide Prevention India Foundation

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).

(The article was updated to correct a typo)