Helping women fix the world

Her Start-up, an innovative venture, helps budding social entrepreneurs get their projects off the ground by lending them development and execution support to set up and later scale up their projects that have the potential to create lasting social change, particularly in marginalised sections of society. In this excerpt from Womentrepreneurs: Inspiring Stories of Success, edited by Avinash Kirpal and published by Sage Publications, Gupta shares her StartUp story. 

Living with zero balance I had little savings to dip into, when I decided to work full-time in StartUp. Prior to this, I had worked in the not-for-profit sector for almost 15 years and had always brought home a salary, which was modest but enough for my needs. The first casualty after my decision to go full-time with StartUp was my personal finance and the esteem that was linked to my being financially independent. 

More than the loss of regular income, I had to deal with the idea of being financially dependent on my husband. He was generous, but I was adamant about funding all my personal expenses – such as telephone bills, Internet bills and purchases of books (most important).

For more than a year, my personal bank balance hovered between Rs 2,500 and Rs 5,000. I grit my teeth through the period of zero income and reminded myself every day of my larger mission. I struggled to stay hopeful everyday. My monetary situation became better after a year, and I started paying myself a salary of Rs 15,000. 

This period trained me to respect money and resources. Now when I look back, I realize that one cannot survive the perils of entrepreneurship unless (a) one is committed to a long-term mission and (b) one is aligned with a mission that is larger than making money.

Dealing with a partnership splitAfter two years of testing the incubation methodology of StartUp, I brought on board two partners who were designated as co-founders. They brought a lot of technical and managerial skills to the table. After a satisfactory period of setting the foundation and building the co-founder chemistry, both partners exited StartUp. 

It felt a bit like a tsunami at that time. They recommended that we shut down the company but that was unthinkable for me. So I decided to move forward by myself. It took about a year to put matters to a close. This experience taught me critical lessons about bringing partners on board and trusting them.

Work-life balance is a myth My daughter Aanya was born in 2004 was five years old when I started building StartUp. I quickly learnt that the concept of work-life balance was never going to play itself out in a neat way in my life. And I was happy and relieved when that realisation dawned on me. Once I let go of the expectation from my own self to maintain work-life balance, I became less stressed. I started to enjoy bringing up my daughter and building up StartUp in a seamless manner. 

I felt it is a duty to promote the wellbeing of my daughter, my husband, my mother and my in-laws. Fortunately for me, my family is supportive and I do not have to bear any strain on that count. My husband is quite content to not get involved in my work. He cheerfully adopted the role of acting as the banker for my financial needs and of providing emotional support if required.

However, I have decided not to have a second child. I am a hands-on mom and a full-time entrepreneur. And this means that I have to do the work of two people, and keep time aside for myself. In juggling multiple matters, I have learnt that even as I focus on the sustainability of my business, I must also focus on the sustainability of my person, and continuously build my reserves of energy, resilience and life-force.

Women taken less seriouslyWith regard to challenges faced by women on account of gender, Manisha says that she is aware that women find it difficult to raise funds, hire talent and build supply/marketing chains for their start-ups. These challenges arise mainly because of apprehensions that a woman entrepreneur may abandon her venture for family reasons. This poses a serious problem. 

However, Manisha had become well aware of the nature of these problems during the nine years she had worked at Ashoka and uses that knowledge and experience to sidestep these problems. Her start-up hopes to help women entrepreneurs who have been dismissed because of their gender.

WFS