BENGALURU: Since Naga Satish (30) quit his job to start a business last December, he has had trouble finding a life partner. So about a month ago, he started a group called Life Partner Search for Entrepreneurs.
To his surprise, he found three to four people joining the group every day. Today, the group has close to 140 members.
The problem, he reckons, is that Indian families are reluctant to marry off girls to entrepreneurs as they lack job security.
Naga Satish says, “I have a profile on most of the matrimonial websites. When I was working as a telecommunication engineer, I used to get lot of responses. The numbers have fallen after I quit my job to start my own business in export consultancy, even though I have a better income now.”
Girls’ families ask for four things, he says. “Your caste, job profile, if you live with your family and if you own a house and a car.”
Though he owns a house and a car in Vishakapatnam, matches in the past have demanded that he get a house and a car here in Bengaluru as well. “Even the girls who wish to take things forward back out as their family would not approve of a businessman. Even we need someone to share our lives with,” Naga Satish says.
The 30-year-old wants to create a platform where all entrepreneurs can meet and find matches. The age bracket of people in his group is 21 to 40 years. The group even has 25 women. “So many start-ups are coming up in the city these days. Looking for love and companionship is difficult due to the Indian middle-class mentality,” he rues.
“Even in this day and age, entrepreneurs lack support from family and friends. Indian parents believe a person working for a monthly pay of `10,000 is better than a person who has 10 employees working under him, making a turnover of `10 lakh,” Naga Satish says.
Suman Howlader, CEO and founder of CarZippi, agrees. He started looking for a life partner when he was working on his start-up. “Nowadays, even girls are open to it. But their parents are conservative. Unless, you have a well established business and a huge turnover, they are not okay with marrying their girls off to you,” he says.
“But one should not lose hope. There is someone for everyone,” says Suman, who found his wife on a matrimonial site. “Her family knew that I have 12 years of experience in the IT field. They were convinced that I had something to fall back on if my company failed.”
Aayush Mazumdar who runs koove.com, an e-commerce platform, believes that it is not an issue any more. “An entrepreneur knows what he is doing. Career stability is also not as big a problem as it was a few decades earlier. Any level-headed person would understand this,” he says.
