The
Home Advantage
As
husband-wife teams start businesses together in greater numbers, they are
finding that the advantages far outweigh the challenges
Unlike most other people, Pallavi Gupta, an
entrepreneur finds it difficult to unwind and let off some steam after
coming home from work. She can’t even confide her work-related problems to
her husband Gaurav Jain because as the other cofounder of Mast Kalandar, a
quick service restaurant chain, he already knows them.
However, despite such challenges, more couples such as the Jains are
entering the little-trodden terrain of entrepreneurship together and
becoming very successful at it. In recent times a number of new ventures
such as Mast Kalandar, Kimaya Fashions,Babyoye, MadRat Games and
YourNextLeap have been launched by husband-wife teams.
“We were clear-eyed about the financial risks and the sacrifices we needed
to make. We were ready for it,” says Gupta, 36, who cofounded Mast Kalandar
in 2006. She and Jain, 40, were both software professionals before starting
their company, which raised $6 million ( 32 crore) from Helion Venture
Partners last year, and is targeting revenue of 100 crore in 2015.
Venture capital investors such as Accel Partners’ Prashanth Prakash and
Helion’s Kanwaljit Singh, who meet hundreds of emerging businesses each
year, say there has been a significant rise in such entrepreneur teams in
the last two years.
There is a combination of factors fuelling this trend including the greater
acceptance of entrepreneurship by society.
“With rise in education and qualification levels we are seeing more such
couples starting up together and the positives are that a couple always has
the same goals and interests and are working towards that,” says Nirmala
Menon, who runs diversity management solutions firm Interweave Consulting.
So, for many entrepreneurs, the best co-founder they can get can be found
right at home. “My wife became my cofounder because she is qualified, not because
she is my wife,” says serial entrepreneur Krishnan Ganesh.
Meena and Krishnan Ganesh have together launched two successful
companies–CustomerAsset and TutorVista–in the past decade. ICICI acquired
CustomerAsset in 2002 for over $20 million, while in 2011, UK-based
publishing house Pearson acquired a majority stake in the then
five-year-old TutorVista for 577 crore, valuing it at around 1,000 crore.
Trust is the biggest advantage of working together for these couples.
“Trust and commitment are the most important requirements in a cofounder
relationship and that is a given when you are married,” says 30-year-old
Rajat Dhariwal, who cofounded Bangalorebased educational board games
venture MadRat Games with his wife Madumita Halder and brother Manuj Dhariwal.
Dhariwal and Halder, who were classmates at IIT-Bombay, taught science at
Andhra Pradesh-based Rishi Valley School before launching MadRat Games in
late 2009. The company has 25 employees on its rolls and raised $500,000 in
a first round funding last year from Blume Ventures and First Light
Ventures.
Though the benefits are numerous, the couples soon realise there are
potential irritants that need to be tackled if they are to grow. “Too much
of each other can be a problem and ego clashes can spill over from the
professional sphere to the personal and vice versa,” says Interweave’s
Menon. Launching a business together also doubles the financial risk.
These couples say that an entrepreneur couple should be clear-eyed about
this should be confident of tiding over such issues at least in the short
run.
When Sanjay Nadkarni, 39, and Arunima Singhdeo, 38, launched online
babycare retailerBabyoye in 2010, they put their entire savings of 40 lakh
into the business. The couple, who by then had a baby, had to shift back to
Nadkarni’s parents’ house to save costs.
Mast Kalandar’s Gupta had initially planned to continue working while Jain
set up the business. “But we decided that while the risks might be greater
we wanted to go through the starting up process together,” she adds.
Other challenges can be trickier. Nadkarni and Singhdeo say they end up
taking work home, even if they want to avoid it. “It robs key family
moments,” says Nadkarni, who was previously with Airtel. “There would be
short-term animosity between us. We will have disagreements.”
T hei r compa ny, which now has 250 employees and has so far raised $11
million from Accel Partners and Tiger Global, is targeting revenues of
around 25 crore this fiscal.
Even the seasoned husband-wife entrepreneur duo Meena and Krishnan Ganesh
had to face such issues. “You come home to feel relaxed, get fully charged,
but here I was spending all the time with my wife mainly talking about
work,” says Ganesh, 51.
MadRat’s Dhariwal says there is also a tendency to gloss over issues when
dealing with family. “One of us can have unreasonable demands and will get
away with it,” says Dhariwal.
Ganesh says the secret of their success is clear demarcation of roles so
they avoided stepping on each other’s toes. Other entrepreneurs agree.
“Compartmentalisation is the key,” says Pradeep Hirani, 49, who founded
multi-designer fashion brand Kimaya Fashions with his wife Neha Hirani, 44,
in 2002. “We have divided responsibilities as well, so that there is no
overlap.” Kimaya, which raised Rs 60 crore from Franklin Templeton in 2011,
retails apparel by well-known Indian designers like Rohit Bal, Tarun
Tahiliani, M a ni sh A rora a nd Sabya sachi Mukherjee.
Mast Kalandar’s Gupta and MadRat Games’ Dhariwal say taking work home, professional
arguments and vacations are some of the problems they are trying to work
out.
“We take two holidays a year together, have dinner together and do not
check email at home. We also reward each other at work and don’t take each
other for granted,” says Kimaya’s Pradeep. The couples also face some tough
questions from investors.
“Finally, we look for a high quality founding team, which is not very easy
to find,” says Accel’s Prakash. “So when we do find a good quality team,
the fact they are married does not mean much to us.”
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