Entrepreneurship

My identity, and that of the company, were one-and-the-same, and that's not just inaccurate, it's unhealthy. You don't want to be on the yo-yo of your company's wins and fails. You can keep doing the right things daily and getting 1% better every day, independently of how the business is performing!

At most gyms, if you don't show up, nobody cares, and that's the truth. I love gyms, but if you don't show up, nobody will call you, nobody cares, they just take your money and have one less body in the room. We were different, we cared, we wanted you to show up.

The oral care industry and oral products is mainly made out of three or four companies that control 90% of oral care products in the world. All multibillion-dollar, multinational companies. I don't think these companies are stupid. They are run by very intelligent people, but I think the premise has been wrong.

I had a brand who said to me 'You shouldn't name your book wonderhell, nobody is going to buy a book they don't know what the word on the front cover means', and I replied, anybody who's in wonderhell will know what that word means the second they see the word.

Success is really a portal into the next stage that we're possibly capable of doing, and we have to decide how we're going to face that tsunami of emotions that then comes flying at us when we thought all we were going to have was happiness.

Every time we achieve some version of success we see another version of ourselves that we didn't even know was possible. We as humans wonder what else potential we have to explore. I didn't know that it was available to me but now that it is, and that's amazing and it's exciting and it's wonderful, it's also anxiety provoking and stress inducing and identity questioning.

We characterise our ideal 'Substacker' in affectionate terms – we call them outsider nerds – they're outsiders insofar as they don't fit comfortably in the dominant media structure for whatever reason – perhaps they feel they can do better work outside of it.

My wife Freada coined a phrase, distance travelled. We're very interested in where somebody started in life, and what hurdles and barriers they have already overcome in their journey – and how that grit has got them to where they are now.

Founder of Lotus Software & Digital Rights Pioneer

There were large segments of the population with tremendous talent, who were being overlooked and underestimated because they didn't have the right 'pedigree.' – These individuals had fabulous business ideas and were genuinely going to change the world as they were solving real problems.

Founder of Lotus Software & Digital Rights Pioneer

Starting a business is an exciting venture, often filled with enthusiasm, borrowed money, and a fair share of ignorance. In fact, a certain level of ignorance can be beneficial for an entrepreneur. If you were fully aware of the potential obstacles ahead, you might hesitate to start.

The most challenging phase for any entrepreneur is when the business hits the $1-2 million mark. At this point, your business is too large to be small, yet too small to be big. You find yourself in need of a CFO or someone with a deep understanding of your business, but you can't afford either.

The objective was to engage with endeavors so unique that they defied categorization, the pioneering ideas born on the fringes, among the mavericks.

Founding Executive Editor of Wired Magazine & Technology Thinker

Undeniably, joining a flourishing company vastly differs from joining a struggling one, just as there's a significant contrast between building a company with the intention to sell and constructing one with the goal of passing it on.

I'm genuinely convinced that the upcoming decade will be the era of India as a product nation. The product revolution has begun, what we're terming as 'India SaaS' – the development of global SaaS products originating in India, not merely for the Indian market, but for the world.

Founder and CEO of Freshworks, cloud-based software company

By the time you've spoken to the 30th person, you'll have a good idea if your problem is substantial or not. Validation can be pretty straightforward. All it takes is communicating with people.

Co-founder of Waze, GPS navigation app acquired by Google

If you manage to attain product-market fit, you'll thrive, but if you fail, your venture will falter. It's that simple. Product-market fit boils down to creating value for your customers.

Co-founder of Waze, GPS navigation app acquired by Google