Couples are starting up
the NEW FAMILY BUSINESS
Many
young married couples are starting ventures together.
And though they
have their disagreements, though they often take
their work home,and
their home to work, Shalina Pillai, Anand J &
Aparna D find that most
have discovered . ways to handle such
challenges, especially by clearly
defining their roles
Always
together, and they love it
Car
accident spurs idea
They
married after four years of an intercontinental romance. So Sunil Vallath
and
Parvathy S are now very happy being together all the time, doing their
venture
Exploride that's developing a transparent screen for car dashboards
that
displays a variety of information without obstructing the driver's view.
It's
about a year since they got married. Parvathy is a US citizen who grew up
in Baltimore.And while Parvathy was
completing her management degree in
the US, Sunil was working in IT companies in
India and the Middle East,
which
kept them separate for four years. The idea for their venture came
when
they were speaking over phone and Parvathy, who was driving, met
with
an accident.
Disputes
are left to the Board
“We
never get a feeling of working and it is mostly fun, though there is the
occasional
stress too,“ says Sunil. Whenever the couple has professional
differences,
they leave the decision to the board of directors. “At the end of
the
day, we know it is business,“ says Parvathy. She notes that Sunil frequently
expresses
radical ideas.“In fact, the harder thing for me is to adjust to India,“
she
adds. Since she moved to India, she's been struggling with allergies.
Moving
from Kochi to B'luru
The
couple is in Bengaluru now, scouting for talent and office space after
struggling
to find people to work for their venture in Kochi. They have raised
more
than $500,000 in pre-orders for their incar device.
They mix
business with pleasure
Keen
on entrepreneurship
Chaitanya
Chitta and Lakshmi Dasaka of Hyderabad met through a common
friend
and got married in 2008. They worked together at KPMG, New York,
for
some time, and then decided to return home.Both were passionate about
doing
a venture of their own and founded DropKaffe, together with friend
Rakshit
Kejriwal, in 2013.
Talking
work at home
Chaitanya
says 80% of their conversations at home revolve around work.
They
have found a way to handle their personal lives by taking turns to do
household
chores like buying groceries and managing family matters.
“We do
it in a way that we come out stronger,“ he says, though he admits he is
still
rebuked by Lakshmi for not taking enough time out for their three-year-old
son,
Samarth.
Taking
biz trips together
They
have also found a new way of mixing business with pleasure by taking
business
trips together to different places.Chaitanya points out that since he is
the
CEO and Lakshmi the COO, many believe they work as one unit. “But she
is an
entity of her own. May be some day I would want to work for a startup
where
she is the CEO,“ he says.
Even their
children discuss work at home
Theirs
was a college romance
Their
relationship started as a college romance, in Anna University, Chennai.
“Within
a year of dating, we knew we complemented each other and could
make a
partnership for life,“ says Vasupal. They got married in 2005 when
they
were 23.
Both
had a passion for travel
Both
were passionate about travel and both were keen on doing a venture of
their own.That
was the origin of Stayzilla, in 2009. Now, their work relationship
extends
to the home, so much so that even their two children, aged 5 and 6,
discuss
work with them. However, both try not to overdo it. “We have a 60%
working
and a 40% personal relationship. We end up communicating with
each
other through WhatsApp or email if it's about work, even if we are sitting
just
three feet away from each other in the same room!“ Vasupal says.
They
manage disagreements
They
knew they had to have different roles.While Rupal handles customer
experience,
Vasupal heads sales. But they still have their share of fights.
Both
fought long over Stayzilla's `concierge' feature. Vasupal was dead against
it, but he says Rupal was smart enough to
push the envelope little by little till
he
agreed. “By the end of 2013, we realized most of our customers were
coming
back only because of it.“
Discipline is
needed to ensure personal space
Many
don't realize they are married
A
banker once got upset when someone told him that the founders of
Mobikwik,
Upasana Taku and Bipin Preet Singh, were married. They had
visited him several times but never
disclosed that status. Bipin had to explain
to the
banker that their professional and private lives were different and they
had
come to meet him in their professional capacities. The banker hasn't been
the
only one ignorant of this open secret. Many in the 240-people company
remained
unaware of their relationship even after they had a baby two months ago.
Taking
an office helped
“It is
inevitable that when key people in the company are married to each other,
they
will end up encroaching on personal space, which is not the ideal thing,“
Bipin says. He says it took some training
and discipline to not keep discussing
the company
they founded together in 2010. The two got married the year after
they
founded Mobikwik. They initially worked from home, and later took an office.
“Taking an office helped to keep things in
control,“ Bipin says.
Founders
need to be different
Bipin
feels that if the founders are not different individuals, investors wouldn't
see
value in their roles as top management. He says he and Upasana are very
different.
Upasana takes care of marketing and Bipin the technical side.
Upasana
is now on maternity leave and is at her parents' house.“Running a
startup
can be stressful at times and I don't want to transfer any stress to her
and
the baby.“
Arguments
always end up being resolved
They
play distinct roles Anand Chandrasekaran and Ashwini Asokan play
very
distinct roles in their venture Mad Street Den. And it really helps. While
neuroscientistturned-neuromorphic engineer
Anand gets into the physics and
biology of the products they build, Ashwini,
a designer, explores the potential
markets
for their products. And when one needs to be home, that isn't a problem
at
all.“Anand was a stay-at-home dad taking care of the kid, when I was working
hard.
I think the mutual adjustment went a long way to help us succeed as an
entrepreneur
couple,“ Ashwini says.
Been
long-time friends
Ashwini
says she could not have started Mad Street Den with anyone other
than Anand. “We've known each other for
close to 1617 years now, and in
the
early years of our career in the US, when I was working in Intel, we used
to
discuss applications of artificial intelligence for hours,“ she says. Once
back
in India, with their two children, aged one
and five, the couple developed a
visual
search solution for online portals. They have attracted Rs 9 crore from
VCs
and have over 50 customers worldwide.
Talking
work when together
Being
a couple makes it easier to take decisions and in turn yields better
results,
says Ashwini.“Even when we decide to leave the kids at home with
their
grandparents and go out, we discuss work. I guess that's how involved
one
needs to be as entrepreneurs,“ she says. Sometimes, discussions become
arguments,
but they end up resolved.
At home they
try not to talk of work
Fridge
magnet triggers idea
Shubhra
Chadda and Vivek Prabhakar were friends for six years before they
started dating.“He was an extrovert and an
easy guy to be with,“ says Shubhra.
After
their marriage in 2004, they used to take overseas trips together.
“I started collecting fridge magnets from
the places I visited and I realized
there
wasn't a single magnet from India. That was the origin of our idea for
Chumbak.“
Fought
like mad initially
Vivek
quit his job from Sun Microsystems and joined Shubhra in 2011.
From a
spouse to a colleague, Shubhra says their dynamics totally changed
.“For
the first four months, we fought like mad. We didn't know where to draw
the
line between personal and professional,“ she says. However, after recognizing
each
other's strengths and weaknesses, they have over time come to draw a line
and
consider themselves lucky to have each other by their side. He is the CEO
while
she heads the product and design.
There's
total trust now
“Sometimes
we enter the office together, but rarely get a chance to even talk,“
she
says. When at home, they have taken a conscious decision to not talk much
about work. “There is 100% trust between us.
So it's not about me vs you.“
However,
there is also a downside to working with someone you are close to.
“Sometimes
when you try to be smart, it can actually backfire since they know
you so well,“ says Shubhra, with a laugh.
A married
couple running a business has plenty of advantages
Manage
by playing different roles
On the
day that TOI spoke to the founders of Clovia, Neha Kant was supervising
a
lingerie photoshoot with live models, while husband Pankaj Vermani was
baby-sitting at home. “Yes, after 15 years,
there is still some trust deficit,“
Pankaj
jokes. The two met very young, when Neha was an 18-year-old studying
at
Miranda House in Delhi University, and he a third-year student at IIT Delhi.
They
married in 2005.
They
talk biz only between 9 am & 9 pm
Clovia
was Neha's idea, and she incorporated it in 2012.Pankaj joined the
company
later. He says a couple running a company together has great advantages
as both know each other's strengths and
weaknesses. “We thought it would be
complicated
but it isn't, not all that much. We don't talk business before 9 am
and
after 9 pm,“ Neha says.
Their
child is often a focus at work
Pankaj
says in his previous stints, he worked with interesting partners, but he
says
Neha has been the coolest of them all. Now the father of a two-yearold,
he
finds himself working more than Neha.“Whenever it is just the two of us in
an
office room, we end up talking about our child,“ he says.
|
TNN6NOV15
No comments:
Post a Comment