Well before I married her, I once made her sit down and explained to her the life I’d chosen. “There will be lots of times when I will have self-doubt”, I said, “and the money won’t be as good as investment banking”. I also told her there’d be times when we wouldn’t be able to go out on holidays or long dinners because of work, and that I had no idea when we could have kids. There would be no concept of weekdays and weekends, or even day and night, when it came to work.

To my pleasant surprise and to her unlimited credit, she smiled knowingly and said, “Uh huh, sure!” While it wasn’t quite a she-said-yes moment, I did feel like a mountain rolled off my chest.

Creased foreheads

Starting up on my own was a worrisome decision. 6degrees was an idea that both Arun and I had a lot of belief in, and I felt I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t take a stab at it. But it meant going without income for one, or potentially many, years and the chances of success at the end were unpredictable. In a highly risk-averse working-class family like mine, it wasn’t the “done” thing, and I still know relatives who think of entrepreneurship as glorified unemployment.

One day, my co-founder, in a rare moment of not working in front of his computer, told his wife about his friend who just got promoted, and got a shiny new chauffeur-driven car from his employer company. Just when he expected her to reply with some obligatory comforting words about how he too would own such a car some day, here’s what she said - “Don’t worry - you too will give out such cars to your employees some day!”

The level at which spouses think is just so amazing! If that doesn’t get you up and running again, nothing will.

Unheralded heroes

Tech entrepreneurs get a huge amount of credit when they succeed, but the role played by spouses/family is hardly ever acknowledged. Everyone talks about how tech entrepreneurs should be smart, hard-working, goal-oriented, strategic thinkers etc but I wonder how much of the success really just came from having a wonderful spouse/family/support system. There is no limit to what humans can achieve with a healthy body, a sound mind, and a heart that feels adequately loved.

The journey, however, levies quite a tax on those support systems. One day during lunch, after one of those innumerable occasions where my mind would wander off into my mental “work zone” in the middle of a conversation with her, I heard her finish her sentence, “…so if you don’t make it, I’ll totally understand”. It took me a while to realise she was talking about a really important family function at her place (which she’d already told me about), missing which would be unpardonable for most husbands. I was staggered - it was a sacrifice I wouldn’t have made easily, had the tables been reversed. I made sure to attend.

The best investors

In financial markets terminology, an entrepreneur’s family/spouse give him/her an emotional call option - full upside, no downside. If things work out, all is well and everything will go along beautifully, and if the business is a flop, the family will still love you and accept you as if you never gave them a testing time. Now that’s an investment if ever there was one - an investment that doesn’t ask for your Monthly Active Users or stump you with a low valuation.

So if you’ve got a startup to run, make sure you treat your best investors well. As for me and my wife - I am sorry for the times that I didn’t do the dishes, or didn’t put the clothes out to dry, or missed important dates in our relationship, or let her go to bed alone while I stalked people on LinkedIn late into the night like a maniac. But I know everything’s cool, because if I explain myself, she’ll say, “Uh huh, sure!

P.S: 6degrees is a networked phonebook that lets you find people on friends’ phones, and get automatic updates when friends change contact details. Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter at @get6degrees