Thursday, November 19, 2015

STARTUP / COUPLE SPECIAL.... Couples are starting up the NEW FAMILY BUSINESS


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

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