From friends to founders: These besties have forged partnerships over passions

Jinal Patel and Vandhana Ramanthan, the co-founders of a co-working space dedicated to women, WSquare, met each other as colleagues in 2014 and soon became the best of friends. Vandhana, now 32, had just returned back to working full-time after she took a sabbatical, when the two decided to start a marketing firm and turn into entrepreneurs. “We were trying to get women who had quit their jobs to get back to work through the marketing firm, but we felt the need for a co-working space for women, as we ourselves were working out of coffee shops. 

Our bonding has gone from colleagues to friends, and often a lot of people ask if we’re sisters! We take trips together, along with Vandhana’s kids, which helps us bond more. For friends to work together, it is important to communicate with each other at all times,” says Jinal. 

Twenty-five-year-old co-founders of city’s co-ideating space Backyard, Nithya Fernandez and Akshaya 

Chittybabu, met during college, as both were pursuing a degree from Anna University’s School of Architecture and Planning. The duo bonded with each other despite the differences in their interests. They found out they believed in similar lines of philosophy towards life. “We both had the dream of bringing people from different fields together. We sat down at a café two years ago, after we finished our college, to discuss what we wanted to do ahead. Backyard was born out of our theses for college — as a space that brought people into all creative aspects like arts, writing, music, storytelling, etc. Working together has made our friendship stronger than before. The pleasure of being able to work on our own ideas, that too along with a friend, is unparalleled,” the duo tells us. The best friends say they are together working to blur the lines between a cafe and a co-working space in the city.

Prem Antony and Pradeep Kumar have been friends for more than 20 years. After their graduation, they went into different ways — Prem took up event management and Pradeep went to banking. Years later, they decided to bid goodbye to their corporate life and do something that’s close to their heart. They started Ecoindian, a zero-waste organic store in 2015. “Any business needs to have multiple opinions. And if there are two people involved, no matter what relationship it is, business discussions will always end in a difference of opinion. We take our conversations seriously until both of us are convinced that the choice we have made is good for the company. Since we are too close, we abruptly tell whatever comes to our mind rather than sugar-coating it. And it worked for us. There is some sort of understanding between us — we both forgive easily and don’t take each other for granted,” says Prem Antony.

Aswini Srinivasan made an inquiry to wedding photographer Pranesh Padmanabhan six years ago for her brother’s wedding. Right from then the duo became good friends. He started discussing business with her and years later, they founded the cafe -- 80 Degrees East at Nanganallur. “Whenever I talk to a person, I have this intuition whether they have business acumen and entrepreneurship skillset. I observed a lot of creativity in Aswini.  We became good friends over the course of time. Once she completed her graduation, I made her an offer — to come on board and take care of my company’s, Studio 31, overall business operations. A few years later, we decided to venture out and founded the cafe,” shares Pranesh. One notable thing the duo has made sure is that no matter what kind of criticisms or arguments they come across, they will sort it out before leaving the workplace. “Rather than keeping a grudge, we talk and resolve the issues. And it has helped strengthen our friendship. Also, the age difference between us is also helping us to understand each other better. Our friendship made us learn that taking things personally isn’t going to help anyone in the longer run,” adds the photographer.