Angels venture where others fear to tread

Points to ponder before you give wing to the angel investor lurking inside you

You would have heard proverbs that embody the difficulty of a task (selling ice to Eskimos) or the pointlessness of one (carrying oranges to Nashik). Shan­tanu Deshpande, founder and CEO of Bombay Shaving Com­pany, added to these adages when he sold the idea of a shaving products start-up to a Sikh angel investor: Me.

My wife, Bhakti, a Mumbai girl, took an instant liking to Shantanu when he first came to visit us in Gurugram in 2016. I liked him, too, but wasn’t sure about investing in his start-up.

Shantanu’s pitch was simple. The razor market had only one dominant brand. With