Husband-wife partnerships a good combination for business

Hen Kaushal Mehta, who runs Motif India BPO in Ahmedabad, wants to bounce off expansion plans with his business partner, all he has to do is sip coffee in his living room and talk it over with his wife Parul.
In an age when entrepreneurs are struggling hard to find work-life balance, an increasingly less rare breed of people are finding work and life with the same person. They are the ones who shamelessly poke their noses into each other’s business, literally. Entrepreneurial couples or spouses — who share a home and also a company — make up one of the most dynamic and unexpected forces in the start-up world today.
“Running a business together is one way of turning your bitter half into a better half,” says Reeta Gupta, the co-founder of Jumbo King Vadapav. “We already had a failed business behind us, so when we decided to start a new business, that is Jumbo King, we perfectly knew each other’s limitations.
Also, the capital with which we started our business was too little for us to afford hiring professionals, which meant that doing the business together was the only option before us,” she says. Reeta and her husband Dheeraj founded the Jumbo King chain of outlets in 2001. Currently, they have nearly 52 outlets operational across the country. Reeta today serves as the company’s whole-time director.
According to a study conducted by Rhonda Abrams, author of the best-seller The Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies, nearly 82% of married entrepreneurs said being married improved their company’s finances, while 50% of entrepreneurs said being married improved their ability to focus on their business. The conclusion? Walk down the aisle and your bank account benefits.
Another study found as many as one-third of today’s start-up enterprises are co-owned and co-managed by entrepreneurs, who are also partners in their personal lives. “It was a natural and a logical option when I was looking to share my business vision for Jumbo King,” says Dheeraj, “who better to understand what you feel than your life partner, we were together in the bad times, when my first business shut down, and now I wanted her to be with me in our good times when I started Jumbo King.” Incidentally, Jumbo King received a private equity funding of Rs 22 crore recently.