Image credits – https://unsplash.com/photos/s_Om6jebXS0
Dating an entrepreneur gives a glimpse of what passion, persistence, caring and fun means.
When it comes to dating, entrepreneurs receive a lot of criticism. I’ve read countless articles which comprehend that they’re the worst partners. They’re portrayed to be workaholic, uncaring and indifferent to their surroundings.
I disagree.
Being a part of this wonderful tribe called entrepreneurs, I can vouch that they’re the most intelligent, hardworking, passionate, and empathetic people you’d ever meet.
It takes a lot more qualities to start a business from scratch, multiple in many cases and sky is the limit.
Now this doesn’t mean that dating them will be equivalent to walking on a bed of roses. They’re all humans doing the best that they can with the available resources and time.
Here’s how they’re the sexiest to date and make the best partners.
They’re Passionate
An entrepreneur’s journey is filled with constant ups and downs. While one moment they rejoice about an acquisition, the next moment they’re tensed about raising the next round of funding.
They’ve embarked on a roller coaster ride of emotions. They’re extremely passionate about their business and nothing can take its place. If you love roller coaster rides, jump in.
Along with business, they’re equally passionate about life and their partners. They know the importance of every moment, hence they love their partners fiercely.
Intense, often.
They’re Persistent
If you’re in love or have ever loved an entrepreneur, you’ll know this too well.
Nothing can keep them away from their startups. Sure they do have bad days but bounce back quickly, stronger and more focused.
The same implies to a relationship. Nothing can stop them from pursuing what they want. They’re patient enough to wait until things fall in place, they’ll pursue you until you say yes. The journey will be harder than you’ve imagined, but you’ll cherish it for your lifetime.
They quickly spot a good fit and don’t give up easily when the relation hits a rough patch. They won’t leave you till the end.
They’ll Make You The Best Version Of Yourself
Entrepreneurs are value adders. They chose this path to make a difference to the world, in whatever small way possible.
- Standing idle is unknown to them, they offer help to change for the better.
- They add value to the life of customers, team members and society on the whole.
- In a relationship they push their partner to become better. Both add value and drive each other forward.
- Not wanting to change you, they’ll give you a leg up to excel in whatever you do.
They Don’t Refrain From Caring
They care for everyone they’re working for and with, it’s natural for them to go out of the way to please these people. Along with pursuing their goals vehemently, they’ll do the same for their partners. Each day they’ll tell you how much you mean to them and make you feel special because you actually are.
Keeping a relation on auto-pilot is alien to them, they take it to the level it has to reach.
It’s A Fun Ride – They Live Life To The Fullest
The excitement of building an empire from scratch is unmatched, be their emotional support in this journey. They’re hustlers and strugglers celebrating every milestone, come be a part of this fun ride. Consider yourself lucky if you’re in a relationship with an entrepreneur. This will be the most wonderful and fruitful relationship.
Keep learning from each other, grow mutually and flourish together.
This post was originally published here.
About me – I’m Priyanka the founder of iScribblers, a content marketing and PR firm. I share my thoughts here and my twitter handle is priyankaddesai0.
I was planning to write this post since a few months. After being dragged to a matrimonial get-to-gather by my parents where I said I was an entrepreneur working for long hours, I realized that our society still looks down on us.
This post is dedicated to all entrepreneurs working to bring their dreams to life.
***
Related read: Would you marry an entrepreneur by Alok.
*****
asha chaudhry
very interesting topic to broach priyanka – especially from a young lady entrepreneur!!
alok has written this piece called Would you Marry an Entrepreneur – do read it, if you still haven’t 🙂
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/would-you-marry-an-entrepreneur
Would you Marry an Entrepreneur?
My column in the July issue of the Entrepreneur magazine:
Would you marry an Entrepreneur?
This is my dream Bollywood script:
It’s a typical Indian arranged marriage ‘dekha-dekhi’ setting. The scene is set on the manicured lawns of a sprawling garden owned by the rich father, whose ravishing daughter is going to be introduced to the ‘boy’s side’. The mother, father and the girl are dressed in the finest clothes and are exchanging nonsensical pleasantries with the boy’s family. Finally, the girl’s father looks at the ‘boy’ with cloudy eyes and asks, “Beta, I hope you earn a lot of money! My daughter has lived her entire life like a princess and now I hope you can make her live like a Queen!”
The ‘boy’ chuckles, smiles and tells his future father-in-law, “Daeddy… actually I am going to live off your dowry and your daughter’s bank accounts! I am an entrepreneur! I don’t earn money… And I don’t know if I ever will…!”
What happens next is based on your imagination…
Seriously. Would you marry an Entrepreneur?
Let me crash headlong into a real life incident. In Oct 1999, as a first generation digital entrepreneur, I skipped visiting the hospital and escorting my wife and my newborn daughter (my second child) home, because that evening I was signing some term sheets of my first venture contests2win.com in the lobby of The Oberoi in Mumbai. My parents took my wife and two day old daughter home. My wife has never forgiven me for this incident.
So, let me ask you again – Should you marry an Entrepreneur?
OF COURSE YOU SHOULD!
But please keep in mind these hiccups:
What will the relatives say?
Imagine going to one of those insanely boring dinners that close relatives host for you and the ones that you just can’t avoid. What happens when the fat paunchy Mamaji (who has been selling steel rods since he was 11 years old) asks your spouse, “Beta, what do you do?”
Now, if I was the “Beta”, I would say, “Mamaji, even I don’t know! I thought I would make money selling virtual tyres in my virtual mobile car game, but my virtual consumers are not buying. They are driving my cars but they aren’t buying my 99 cents tyres. Sniff… sniff… do you have any ideas?”
Mamaji would probably spend the next 20 years making fun of me and telling everyone what an ass my wife has married.
What will the relatives say when you marry an entrepreneur? Well, even God doesn’t know!
The good? You would have married someone who has no care for charade and showmanship. He is someone who will be truthful, till death do you part.
Most entrepreneurs speak the truth and that’s a great qualification in itself.
Being madly in love – with someone else
Entrepreneurs are madly, crazily, passionately and lustfully in love with their business. They are not just in love; but they are insanely in love with what they have created. Hence, their venture is their FIRST love – irrespective of whether they married you last weekend, today or yesterday.
A young man in my company (clearly an entrepreneur in the making) was getting married on a Friday afternoon. I jokingly asked him, “Dude, how about working half day on Friday and then heading to your wedding post lunch?”
He quite seriously replied, “Alok, I think I can be at work till noon!” Obviously we forced him to take leave a week before he got married!
Is this in anyway a good thing? Well, it just reflects on the passion and commitment entrepreneurs have for their business or for their jobs. This later becomes their way of life.
Unlike job plodders, entrepreneurs really give everything they have to what they believe in. That’s a strength that is cultivated and cannot be bought.
Bread, Butter and errrr… Cake?
So, you married an entrepreneur. Will he be capable of making sure that there is bread plus butter on the table everyday? Let me be blunt – can your entrepreneur spouse afford to feed you??
Don’t just build your appetite on that promise.
Entrepreneurs honestly are crazy gamblers. Instead of betting on horses or fake IPL matches, they bet on their hard work, with a bit of luck thrown in.
Most of them don’t win the gamble, but manage to survive and make ends meet. But this also means that as a spouse, you should be prepared to manage your family finances by yourself, irrespective of whether your better-half-gambler spouse is striking it hot or not.
This is the lowest and toughest aspect of being wedded to an entrepreneur. In today’s ‘l-love-all-good-things-in-life-and-I-want-everything’ lifestyle…. being married to a potentially bankrupt homo sapien is not a very hot idea.
But let me tell you the flip side. Consider the real life stories of Steve Jobs or Dhirubhai Ambani or any successful entrepreneur you love. When their hard work ‘docks’ into the right opportunity, at the right time and place, then all the tables turn. Even then, they don’t bring the bread and butter home – they just go and buy the factories that make them.
When’s the “good news”?
Let’s flip sides for a bit. So, a couple of years ago, you married this really smart IIM-ABCDEFGHIJK banker guy who earns more that Carlos Slim (go figure) and is destined to be the next Warren Buffett. He is everything a girl could ask for and you got him. But professionally, you are an entrepreneur and have just launched your brand new e-commerce site of delivering made-to-order donuts within the city. The going is tough and the startup is killing you. Now, in between all this mayhem, your husband’s grannies and aunties (who’ve lost all their teeth but not their inquisitiveness) keep poking their elbows into you and asking, “So, beta, when is the good news?”
What they mean by ‘good news’ is NOT the good news you want! You want to hear that orders are coming in, there is virality to the site, the payment gateway is cruising and the delivery boys aren’t eating up your donuts on the way to delivery. The last thing you want to think of is when you will be in the delivery room!!
As an entrepreneur wife, you will have to ward off the silly and stupid pressures of delivering (pun intended) on the typical social pressures imposed on young married couples. If you are married to a woman entrepreneur you will have to be prepared to let your wife give birth first to her enterprise, before she gives birth to your kids!
What will the kids learn?
I have two daughters – aged 17 and 13. They have grown up with a bizarre, ‘weird’ entrepreneur dad around them for as long as they can remember. How has this impacted them?
Well, I may not be able to match the ‘perks and cars and houses’ that my kids’ friends’ ‘banker dads’ possess; but I have noticed that my kids are pretty inquisitive, street smart and bold when compared to a lot of kids their age.
Having a parent who never takes things at face value; who always examines how to create efficiency in every process; who demonstrates the ability to take calculated risks and measure its performance; and above all who always does something NEW all the time,creates a very positive impact on young impressionable minds.
Trust me when I tell you this – kids with a live and kicking entrepreneur parent will learn just as much as at home (or probably more) than they will learn at school.
Most importantly – kids brought up by entrepreneur parents will be supremely independent and capable of surviving forever.
Already thinking of your honeymoon?
Some people prefer going to the beaches, others like the mountains and some even prefer crowded, busy cities. But if you ever wanted to spend your honeymoon on a roller coaster, then marry an entrepreneur. Forgot the honeymoon – the marriage itself will be the ride of your life!!
asha chaudhry
coming back to your post – i think what’s important to understand and appreciate is, an entrepreneur will always be obsessed by his/her venture. startup first. friends & family second. and that is the whole truth. so if you’re in a relationship – your partner needs to be okay with this.
i really admire startup people who take total breaks from work – i.e go off on a holiday with trusted people to hold the fort when they are gone. it’s very imp to take breaks. and have some sort of a “life-work balance”. unfortunately i don’t (my fault) and my family & home get neglected. but they are very supportive of what i do. which is how i manage.
my friends don’t really ping me to go out drinking/partying. they know i’m rarely game. my husband’s cousin signed up on trh and then sent me a msg saying “bhabhi now i’m a rodinhooder, so next time you’re in b’lore do meet us as well!” 🙂
as long as your partner knows what he/she is getting into and BELIEVES IN WHAT PROBLEM YOU ARE TRYING TO SOLVE then you will rock n roll!!
good luck priyanka. may you find someone who gets you and what you do!! and this is my wish for every single entrepreneur 🙂
priyanka desai
Asha, your point that the partner needs to be ok with our obsession with venture is so true!
Apart from our grit, hard work and team, our family plays the next important role. Without their support the journey would be way more harder.
priyanka desai
Alok’s writeups are an inspiration!
PS – Whomever I plan to get married to will be made to read Alok’s posts. 🙂 He doesn’t refrain from showing both the good and the ugly part of being an entrepreneur!
asha chaudhry
in that case he needs to read – 7 dark secrets of entrepreneurs revealed!!!
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/7-dark-secrets-of-entrepreneurs-revealed
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Hahahaha! The poor soul will hate me!