Duo proved couple can become successful business partners too

A person who was introduced as a classmate in college became a partner in life and also in business. Shezaan Bhojani and Gita Ramanan were classmates in Architecture college and later their friendship made them to start an own firm 'Desigh Café' in 2015. They shared some important things with The Hans India about their life and business.

How does Design Cafe happen? Were you first business partners or life partners? How did it happen?

Shezaan and I were classmates in an architecture college and became really good friends quite quickly. The thing that sparked our friendship was the fact that we constantly challenged each other. We are both type A personalities, aggressive, ambitious, confident, and therefore had this tendency to intimidate a lot of other people. We worked on a lot of assignments together, did a whole bunch of reports and group work. I think this is when our professional relationship started but it wasn't real work as such. While working with each other, we found that we both challenged each other and respected each other's tenacity, intelligence and confidence.

After we graduated, the both of us found jobs from family and friends who helped us take up small projects for experience. When the window started coming along, we were both still in Bangalore, doing small projects together. And that was where we took part in this very large competition (800 apartment project), which to everybody else's surprise, but not ours, we won! This was against 150 plus very renowned and big architectural firms of South India. So, in that sense, this is where our professional relationship started and of course, our personal relationship kind of built side by side as we spent more and more time with each other getting to know each other well.

This was right after graduation, so winning that forced us to start our own firm less than a year from when we graduated. We went on to design over 500 projects across the country in genres as diverse as residential, hospitality, retail, commercial and institutional design in the next decade. A combination of our comprehensive understanding of the market and the product, encouraged us to close our existing practice and start Design Cafe in 2015, to focus all our efforts on delivering a complete home interiors solution for Indian homeowners.

How do you find the right balance between personal and work-life?

A: I think the establishment and respecting of boundaries is a lifelong process especially if you are navigating this with a life-cum-business partner. In such cases, you are involved in so many aspects of each other's life that respecting boundaries is not a static challenge but is something that is constantly ongoing and the lines around this constantly change. The important thing to understand is that there should be mutual trust and respect, more importantly, the knowledge that the boundaries are constantly going to shift.

Do you guys take work home?

Oh absolutely! Although Shezaan has been trying to create 'safe zones' where we do not work and have time to de-stress, I somehow am not good at it. I think about work all the time - even when on a holiday, I find it really hard to not check my emails or know what the teams are up to. It stems from the fact that we have started this company from scratch and have brought it up to such a big scale that there are so many aspects of it that are constantly evolving and need our attention. For instance, if we have to go away for conferences, we add in a couple of days to explore the place and have ourselves a small vacation.

Tell us about the truth about being in business with your spouse?

We have been business partners as long we have been partners in life. Well, for me it has been the most satisfying journey, one that has put our relationship through an acid test like no other. We often joke that though we have been married for 7 years now, our anniversary would be closer to 25 years considering the amount of time we spent with each other. We were classmates in college and literally since then, for almost 20 years now, we have spent almost 10-15 hrs with each other every day. The way I see it is, for us, being both life partners and business partners have gone hand in hand as there has been no segregation of work life and business life as they are all irrevocable intertwined. To be honest, I would not have it any other way today.