YaatraSmart Diary -1. Why I chose my wife as a co-founder to our company.

Early stages of my career I kick started a startup. We got decent visibility - We were NASSCOM awarded 100 most innovative companies in India in 2007 . But we couldn't make it financially stable. For my daily bred and butter I jointed Intuit and put my startup to sleep. Since then I was trying to bring it back to life.

Intuit pampered me with a good work culture and money.
Even though my passion pushed me to start something new, I  found various reasons not to jump out from comfort zone. One major reason I found was - I don't have a right partner / co-founder .

What I want my co-founder to do? Pretty much everything ....
Should be energetic, should be capable to raise funds,  tech guru, idea person,  marketing ustad, dedicate 100+ % of time to product.

I created a picture of a super human, who can do everything and at his /her shoulders where I can sit and enjoy ;). That super human never came to my life.

It took 8 long  years for me to come out from my comfort zone. The fear of reaching 40 in few years/ midlife crisis..pushed me even further. I brought back some of my old ideas and look at it present relevance. One idea found more appealing and  also people around me liked that-
Commute aggregation and fleet Management. This same idea I was trying to do in 2011.

While restarting that idea in 2014 I had the same problem. I don't have a co-founder.  And my brain says this is something which you cannot manage alone, you need a co-founder!

Talked to some of my colleagues, friends - Good idea.. but ready to quit their high paying jobs - no waay ...  I am still at square one. 

I was not ready to stop. Created a small prototype and show it to my customers (auto drivers ).

Using my broken Kannada&Tamil explained idea and benefits to auto drivers(technology to non techies), went back home with broken heart. Nobody listening..  

My wife Aparna used to watch all these and she used to support me whole heartedly.

She came with me in next day. I did the same experiment in next day also in a different locations. Same results.

Am I pursuing the right idea ?    

Aparna  use to console and support me. Apparently she also believed in this idea. She drew some pictures about the  idea which I thought it is meaningless .

2 days later we went again and instead of me, she started talking to drivers. I saw what changes a 7+ year experienced teacher can make.  Drivers started listening an entrepreneurial  women. It was easy for  her to communicate and convince the drivers in their local language. I could see that many people looking at her drawings and nodding their head. They started calling other auto drivers and in the same day 5 people got signed-up for our initiative.

yaatraSmart - Auto drivers 

We went back home in a delighted mood . Things are changing . We repeated the same in next few more days and recruited  more than 30 auto drivers  within a week.
That made me to re-think... Am I blinded with the JD of my co-founder? I started writing it down  this time -what I really want from a co-founder for this product.

And I happily realize that the one whom I am searching for is already reachable. More than that a partner whom I can trust. Even though the theory says that it is better to find somebody other than your spouse or close friend. I expirience proved me that those are contextual.

While I continue to work at Intuit, Aparna got connected with some college students and almost single handedly recruited more than 450+ drivers in 1.5 months.  This gave me confidence to quit my job and I jumped full time to my dream of entrepreneurship. We names the initiative as Speedy Gaadi. 

So if I re-look,  finding a right co-founder is important and to do that

1.  Write down the extra strengths that  you/your company needs to run this business  (For this you need to know what is your strengths and missing pieces- don't assume experiment )

2.  Create a larger list of people, Explain idea to them. Don't ignore anybody  (this phase don't worry about their  strengths)

3.  Shortlist few who are passionate and try to involve them to the area where you need help(let them perform for some time)

4.  Observe them, learn from them. See how can they do things differently.

5.  Give priority to a partner from different background.

6.  Find answers for these, Are they trust-able ? How can they add value? Are they willing to take a risk   ?

7.  Listen them, Inspire tem  and see how they can visualize the growth of your company.

8.  If they are worthy, grab them and inspire them how this can change their life.

9.  Beware, In a startup it is all about agility. You may not get the best in the beginning. Learn how to find the strength of an individual and utilize those effectively.

10.  Don't too much get biased with theories and others experiences(unless you are copying an existing product in the same environment ) You are the best judge for your business. Make sure that you have the item no 1 completed diligently.Then go ahead with your intuitions.
Sharing my experience. Share your thoughts. Let us learn from each other.


-Naj