What a unique Valentine’s Day for our founders Vinayak and Archana!

On 14th February, they were invited by InstaOffice (Co-working space in Indiranagar, Bangalore) along with another power couple Rahul Narvekar and Pallavi Rao to talk about how to achieve the perfect love-life balance, and how they’ve made things work along with being successful entrepreneurs. And oh the things we learnt about them!

The evening started with a panel discussion moderated by their dear friend and InstaOffice’s co-founder Vikas Lakhani, which allowed the discussion to get really candid and personal.

The fact that Pallavi came to Mumbai when she first met Rahul sparked an interesting conversation on how Mumbai has been seen as a city. From Pallavi having described it once as "thakela" to Mumbai’s neutrality and freedom being one of the things Vinayak and Archana love, it was fun to see them embrace both sides of the coin.

Vinayak and Archana, talked about leaving their jobs together for Vertices, after which Archana went on to reveal how Vinayak didn’t want Archana to jump in initially, to hedge their risks. But it was later due to a dear friend that he realised that being two people with complementary skill sets, a promoter like Archana was irreplaceable! Just 14 months down the line, they’re now 4 partners and 22 associates – with 23 transactions in 9 months!

Vinayak calls couple entrepreneurship the "betaal mode!" (You know the Vikram-Betaal stories where Vikram struggles to get hold of a celestial spirit, Betaal) Vinayak says, "You have to get used to your partner being around. But if you can appreciate it, adjust to it, and further go on to loving it, then you are bound to succeed!"

According to Vinayak, it works out when you finally figure out that there is no on and off kind of a mode – it’s all together. As lovely as the dramatisation can be, it is not that dramatic. It’s all about celebrating each other’s differences.

On whether the effort to celebrate these differences is conscious, both Vinayak and Archana agreed that it’s best to go with the flow – and that’s what they do. So if something needs tending, they would be found doing that.

The panel discussion ended with these entrepreneurs discussing how entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, and how beautiful it is to have someone to share the palpitations you have for your startup. It’s no surprise that there were some interesting questions from the audience that followed! You can watch the whole discussion here.

With the Panel Discussion giving everyone amazing insights on how to attempt to achieve the perfect love life balance, the InstaOffice team had real fun with them when they were "grilled Koffee with Karan style", as Vinayak later said.

They were made to fill out a questionnaire in the beginning about themselves, now the couples had to answer for each other! While Archana had left out a few questions (to Vinayak’s relief), Vinayak had filled out the complete 20-question questionnaire! With the moderator initially asking all questions from Vinayak in the beginning, Archana looked nothing less than horrified.

While the questionnaire was intentionally subjective, they got a few right and they got a few wrong. It told us a lot more about who they are and how their better half perceives them as a person.

With that, the evening came to an end. After listening to the speakers, the major takeaway was that the perfect work-life balance comes with believing in your better half, going with the flow and simply being there for them.

You can watch the video here

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