 "<b>Dinner with BS:</b> Meena & K Ganesh")
Are you eating well," K Ganesh asks, half-jokingly. I assure the entrepreneur-cum-investor that I am, slightly puzzled since I have just asked him about the most bizarre start-up to approach him and his wife, Meena Ganesh. Then he clarifies: "I was checking because this start-up was planning to make renewable energy out of human urine - it had to be shut down even though the raw material was free!" he laughs. "The idea seemed great but I didn't fund it because I didn't really understand the business!"
I am halfway through dinner with the Ganeshs who are something of a poster couple in entrepreneurial circles, having launched or funded several successful ventures. They sold their online education venture, TutorVista, at a valuation of $213 million to global publishing giant Pearson last year, while another start-up they funded, Little Eye Labs, became Facebook's first acquisition in India. Most recently, Ratan Tata bought a stake in Bluestone, the online jewellery retailer they launched.
We had met nearly an hour earlier, at the club of Adarsh Palm Meadows, the gated community in which they live. The venue was the only caveat they placed when they agreed to meet for dinner and drinks. Since the request had been a bit last-minute, I was more than happy to oblige though they live in Whitefield, which in Bangalorese means the other end of the world - the distance is just 15 km, but the infamous traffic will ensure you take an age.
Is it true they got married quite early, I ask, after we have helped ourselves to some salad. "Oh yes… I was 22 and he not yet 23, and we had just graduated from IIM Calcutta," Meena says. While Meena joined NIIT, Ganesh accepted an offer from HCL, because it meant he could be in Delhi with his wife and mother. "I always feel that if I had joined HLL and Citibank, I would not have become an entrepreneur because it was not that I did not like corporate life," says Ganesh, who was executive assistant to founder Shiv Nadar. But those being early days at HCL, there were no proper systems in place and he could take independent decisions, giving him a foretaste of life as an entrepreneur.
After five years, he decided to throw in the towel and launch his first venture, IT&T, a computer hardware maintenance company. Meena's career and their IIM degrees were their only safety nets. "I had just delivered our daughter but even then, I don't think either of us were anxious," she says. This is despite the fact that neither of them had any entrepreneurial blood in them, so to speak. "My father was in the railways, and his mother was in the central government. He had lost his father very early. The previous generations in both our families were mostly teachers and headmasters," says Meena. "Typical 'Tam Brahm' families," Ganesh chips in, with a grin.
Launching a start-up in the licence-permit-raj days was risky, but Ganesh was wise to the idiosyncrasies of doing business in the capital, having grown up there. So he made sure his first office, though small, was in Connaught Place. The address, along with the words "MBA, IIM-Calcutta" was printed in bold letters on his visiting cards. "The only downside of that poky place was that we did not have a toilet, so for one-and-a-half years we would either use public toilets or the rest rooms at five-star hotels!" Ganesh recalls. He sold the company to ICICI eventually, before which Meena shifted to Bangalore to join Microsoft, where she set up various business service units.
While Ganesh helps himself to some grilled vegetables and I scoop up some aloo paapdi chaat, Meena excuses herself to take a call from one of the doctors on the rolls of their latest venture, home health care company Portea, which she heads. "Quite a few customers have told me it has helped them take care of their parents in their last days - it makes you feel you are doing something worthwhile," she says, when she rejoins us. "After the first two exits, our criterion for starting a business became who will cry if we shut down, apart from the proprietors and employees," Ganesh adds.
This was also what pushed them to start online grocery retailer Big Basket, valued at Rs 600 crore. "We shut for half a day for stock-taking and you should have seen the amount of abuse we got on social media, though it had been announced. And this is grocery, so it's not that they won't get it elsewhere!" says Ganesh, proudly.
Before I can ask more questions, he suggests we head for the main course. I help myself to baked fish, and pasta, which is good in the inoffensive way many buffets often are. Meena and Ganesh stick to the bakes and pastas and Meena also has some roti and curry. The conversation, I must confess here, was far more interesting than the food.
When we return, I ask what they look for when they invest in start-ups. Investments are either in start-ups they promote and are fully involved in, or as angel investments, Ganesh explains. With the latter, "We should have confidence in the sector but more importantly, we should feel good about the entrepreneur and his team," says Meena. The couple plan to fund 100 start-ups over 10 years, and have already invested in around 20.
At this point, it is left to me to amble back for dessert since Ganesh is in his no-carbs phase and Meena, too, declines on the grounds that she is off sugar, as the previous month had been particularly indulgent. I skip a violent pink rasamalai and opt for a bread-and-butter pudding and some chocolate cake.
Does it ever get too much? "Well, yes but I don't think of that as a challenge, I enjoy the fact that my brain is always occupied. As a mother, my children take up a lot of my mental bandwidth, but I enjoy that, too," says Meena. Their daughter is at IIM Ahmedabad and their son in tenth grade. Ganesh goes a step further and says he never could understand the debate over "work-life balance". "How do you switch on and switch off - you're a human and not a machine. I strongly believe in work-life integration." But they do drive off to their holiday home in Coonoor once in a while, and go abroad for a week or 10 days.
When the bill arrives, I am confounded in my attempts to reach for it. My pleas that this is an assignment and that I would be reimbursed fall on deaf ears. "I am not going to call you all the way to Whitefield and make you pay for dinner - even if you threaten not to publish this article!" Ganesh says, with a grin.
Also read: 'Start-up Mania'
I am halfway through dinner with the Ganeshs who are something of a poster couple in entrepreneurial circles, having launched or funded several successful ventures. They sold their online education venture, TutorVista, at a valuation of $213 million to global publishing giant Pearson last year, while another start-up they funded, Little Eye Labs, became Facebook's first acquisition in India. Most recently, Ratan Tata bought a stake in Bluestone, the online jewellery retailer they launched.
We had met nearly an hour earlier, at the club of Adarsh Palm Meadows, the gated community in which they live. The venue was the only caveat they placed when they agreed to meet for dinner and drinks. Since the request had been a bit last-minute, I was more than happy to oblige though they live in Whitefield, which in Bangalorese means the other end of the world - the distance is just 15 km, but the infamous traffic will ensure you take an age.
Is it true they got married quite early, I ask, after we have helped ourselves to some salad. "Oh yes… I was 22 and he not yet 23, and we had just graduated from IIM Calcutta," Meena says. While Meena joined NIIT, Ganesh accepted an offer from HCL, because it meant he could be in Delhi with his wife and mother. "I always feel that if I had joined HLL and Citibank, I would not have become an entrepreneur because it was not that I did not like corporate life," says Ganesh, who was executive assistant to founder Shiv Nadar. But those being early days at HCL, there were no proper systems in place and he could take independent decisions, giving him a foretaste of life as an entrepreneur.
After five years, he decided to throw in the towel and launch his first venture, IT&T, a computer hardware maintenance company. Meena's career and their IIM degrees were their only safety nets. "I had just delivered our daughter but even then, I don't think either of us were anxious," she says. This is despite the fact that neither of them had any entrepreneurial blood in them, so to speak. "My father was in the railways, and his mother was in the central government. He had lost his father very early. The previous generations in both our families were mostly teachers and headmasters," says Meena. "Typical 'Tam Brahm' families," Ganesh chips in, with a grin.
Launching a start-up in the licence-permit-raj days was risky, but Ganesh was wise to the idiosyncrasies of doing business in the capital, having grown up there. So he made sure his first office, though small, was in Connaught Place. The address, along with the words "MBA, IIM-Calcutta" was printed in bold letters on his visiting cards. "The only downside of that poky place was that we did not have a toilet, so for one-and-a-half years we would either use public toilets or the rest rooms at five-star hotels!" Ganesh recalls. He sold the company to ICICI eventually, before which Meena shifted to Bangalore to join Microsoft, where she set up various business service units.
While Ganesh helps himself to some grilled vegetables and I scoop up some aloo paapdi chaat, Meena excuses herself to take a call from one of the doctors on the rolls of their latest venture, home health care company Portea, which she heads. "Quite a few customers have told me it has helped them take care of their parents in their last days - it makes you feel you are doing something worthwhile," she says, when she rejoins us. "After the first two exits, our criterion for starting a business became who will cry if we shut down, apart from the proprietors and employees," Ganesh adds.
This was also what pushed them to start online grocery retailer Big Basket, valued at Rs 600 crore. "We shut for half a day for stock-taking and you should have seen the amount of abuse we got on social media, though it had been announced. And this is grocery, so it's not that they won't get it elsewhere!" says Ganesh, proudly.
Before I can ask more questions, he suggests we head for the main course. I help myself to baked fish, and pasta, which is good in the inoffensive way many buffets often are. Meena and Ganesh stick to the bakes and pastas and Meena also has some roti and curry. The conversation, I must confess here, was far more interesting than the food.
When we return, I ask what they look for when they invest in start-ups. Investments are either in start-ups they promote and are fully involved in, or as angel investments, Ganesh explains. With the latter, "We should have confidence in the sector but more importantly, we should feel good about the entrepreneur and his team," says Meena. The couple plan to fund 100 start-ups over 10 years, and have already invested in around 20.
At this point, it is left to me to amble back for dessert since Ganesh is in his no-carbs phase and Meena, too, declines on the grounds that she is off sugar, as the previous month had been particularly indulgent. I skip a violent pink rasamalai and opt for a bread-and-butter pudding and some chocolate cake.
Does it ever get too much? "Well, yes but I don't think of that as a challenge, I enjoy the fact that my brain is always occupied. As a mother, my children take up a lot of my mental bandwidth, but I enjoy that, too," says Meena. Their daughter is at IIM Ahmedabad and their son in tenth grade. Ganesh goes a step further and says he never could understand the debate over "work-life balance". "How do you switch on and switch off - you're a human and not a machine. I strongly believe in work-life integration." But they do drive off to their holiday home in Coonoor once in a while, and go abroad for a week or 10 days.
When the bill arrives, I am confounded in my attempts to reach for it. My pleas that this is an assignment and that I would be reimbursed fall on deaf ears. "I am not going to call you all the way to Whitefield and make you pay for dinner - even if you threaten not to publish this article!" Ganesh says, with a grin.
Also read: 'Start-up Mania'