‘A strong passion will never let you sit idle’ – 35 quotes from Indian startup journeys

From passion to products, witness the memorable journey of Indian entrepreneurship in these excerpts and stories! 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 December 11-17 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights!

Ideas and learnings can come from anywhere. – Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital

Starting a brand is like a course in both fashion and entrepreneurship. - Prateek Kayan, The Brown Boy

Fitness is an assistance-oriented service segment that requires a lot of customisation and enhancement for each individual user. - Akshay Verma, FITPASS

There are difficult people and situations in your life to teach you many lessons and these experiences make you a better person. - Rajdeep Manwani, Jain University

For free markets to thrive you need a level playing field. - Deep Nishar, Softbank

Two competitors merging is not very good value for capital. Buying companies for capabilities that will take a long time to build is more useful. - Sanjeev Aggarwal, Helion Ventures

It is a desire to create something long lasting that can keep you at the forefront of developing business and technological trends. - Sanjeev Aggarwal, Amplus

Only through learning and building a credible network can you scale up a business. - Alex Chen, SGWI

Sometimes, to understand yourself better, you need to fall and get hurt. – Alia Bhatt

Every good creation in history was the child of really ugly parents. – James Altucher

Don’t lose hope until you really have left no stone unturned. - Natasha Kothari

As entrepreneurs, be prepared for the hard stuff. There is always a hard story. - Travis Kalanick, Uber

If you don’t build your own moat which can truly hold you steady, someone else is going to come and eat your lunch. – Deep Kalra, MakeMyTrip

A shared belief tends to drive a more cohesive team towards faster growth, ensuring success. - Nina Lekhi, Baggit

A star product manager ensures there are enough dissenters or people with divergent outlooks in the room to be able to generate out-of-the-box ideas. - Neena Budhiraja, Ola

Fundraising is a harrowing process for an entrepreneur. It takes up a lot of your time and effort. - Akshay Mehrotra, EarlySalary

The consumer startup play is a volumes and acquisitions game. - V Balakrishnan, Exfinity Ventures

There’s no disaster, just not having alternative plans in place. - Vinay Dora, Crowd Product

The New Year would usher us into the next stage of disability rights and I am already naming it ‘Disability 2.0.’ - Javed Abidi, Disability Rights Group

Analytics will continue to become an integral part of corporate strategy. - Suvro Banerjee, Fuzzy Logix

Traditional processes are waiting to get revolutionised with the advent of bots and AI. - Siddharth Shekhawat, Engazify

The future is in using a combination of customer relationship platforms, analytics and reporting dashboards that are real time. - Yashwinee GK, Hinduja Global Solutions

It’s an extraordinary time to be a startup in India. For AI and DL companies, the opportunities are everywhere, to create profound changes. - Rajan Anandan, Google

We can recreate the magic that happened in Silicon Valley and China. - Tarun Davda, Matrix Partners

Going digital should indeed be seen as a better way of life -- and attracting people with cashbacks isn't the long-term solution to the problem. - Sanjay Swamy, Ezetap

I was supporting the demonetisation sitting in the US until I personally experienced the ground situation here. - Sabarish Subramanian

Due to demonetisation, street vendors all across India have lost 70 percent of their business, affecting them badly. - Arbind Singh, NASVI

India is the fifth largest producer of e-waste, discarding roughly 18.5 lakh tonnes of electronic waste each year. - Assocham

A lot of online pharmacy players have come up this year alone. There has been good investor interest as well. – Prashant Tandon, 1mg

It’s not just about location, it’s about contextual information. - Kunal A Bhat, Tech Mahindra

Independent media is going to thrive. The game has just begun. – Arnab Goswami, Republic

Change favours tech-centric new media, but incumbents are likely to make aggressive moves to broaden their portfolios. - Bala Srinivasa, Kalaari Capital

Social media comes with a tricky problem. It's called short term attention span. – Savi Sharma, author

Without strong relationships, you cannot sell premium products to your customers. - Deepak Kanakaraju, RazorPay

Cancer is a six-letter word and so is Prayer. - Amar Bhaskar, Vismaya

My wish for children is freedom. The freedom to think, the freedom to live. - Priyanka Chopra, UNICEF Ambassador

The greatest development comes from knowledge. - MJ Akbar, Ministry of External Affairs

A strong passion will never let you sit idle. - Varun Aditya, Nat Geo Nature Photographer of the Year

Your self-worth…You — and only you — can ultimately put the price tag on that. - Anna Deveare Smith

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).