Lessons in starting up: How an entrepreneurial couple built a joint legacy

When Vineet Agrawal and Sikha Agrawalla became entrepreneurs, for many, it could appear to be yet another audacious tale of entrepreneurship, exactly the kind of tale that romanticises the risk-taking aptitude of a couple who leave behind their paychecks to embrace the uncertainty of setting up a business. The adrenaline rush, the all-consuming passion, the long working hours are all romanticised, often without a hint of realism. But as the story of Vineet and Sikha tells us, entrepreneurship could also be a story of making informed decisions, after debating dreams across dining-table conversations, calculating in spreadsheets, holding honest discussions with parents, and measuring those decisions against the realities of raising a child, supporting ageing family members and preserving financial security. In fact, their becoming entrepreneurs was the culmination of putting into practice a way of thinking about money, risk and family that they had spent more than a decade building together.

Once every month, Vineet and Sikha would sit down with their laptops and open an Excel sheet. The routine not only occupied a fixed place on their calendar but evolved into a ritual where household expenses, investments, future goals, school fees, emergency reserves and upcoming travel plans would be reviewed, questioned and recalculated. It formed the foundation of a sustained financial culture built on discipline, shared goals and values.

Today, Agrawal is the co-founder of Jiraaf, a platform that seeks to make fixed-income investment opportunities more accessible to individual investors. Meanwhile, Agrawalla is the co-founder of People Fraction, an HR consulting firm that helps startups access senior HR expertise without building a full in-house function.


That approach shaped some of their biggest decisions. Early in their careers, they bought a home with the deliberate goal of paying it off before taking larger risks. They built emergency reserves, distinguished between what they called their “must-haves” and "good-to-haves", and accumulated enough savings to give themselves room to experiment. When Vineet eventually left his corporate career during the pandemic to build Jiraaf, the move was not driven by impulse but by years of preparation and family consensus. Before making the leap, he discussed the decision not only with Sikha but also with both sets of parents.

For Agrawalla, the journey unfolded differently. Drawn to predictability and shaped by growing up in a traditional Marwadi household where men often occupied decision-making roles, she took longer to imagine herself as an entrepreneur. Her move into entrepreneurship came years later, after smaller experiments, growing confidence and sustained encouragement from her husband. Yet even that decision followed the same pattern: careful planning, financial preparation and a shared belief that risk should be taken collectively rather than individually.

Read together, their stories reveal entrepreneurship not as a solitary act of ambition but as a family project: one built through spreadsheets and savings plans as much as through vision and conviction. In this conversation with ETMarkets, the couple reflected on the calculations, compromises and conversations that helped them move from predictable salaries to building businesses of their own.

Act I: The predictable life

ETMarkets: Tell us, before becoming entrepreneurs, what did life look like?

Sikha Agrawalla

You know how much inflow is coming at the end of the month. And then your outflows…So, life was predictable. You knew everything and it was going on a smooth track, I would say.

ETMarkets: Absolutely. Vineet, how was your experience? And do you recollect some memories, you know, before the entrepreneurship life?

Vineet Agrawal

Yeah, it’s like a previous life is what I would say. Because after being an entrepreneur, you are reborn again, is what I feel. As Sikha mentioned, we had decent jobs, predictable cash flows. We used to do what most individuals do: plan for a vacation, look ahead to next year’s promotion, or hope for a slightly better income. Initially, for almost six, seven years, we didn’t have a kid, so we used to travel. But post having a child, your entire focus shifted there. From a cash flow and financial security perspective, it was more or less predictable.

ETMarkets: Sikha, when was the first conversation you had between Vineet and you? When was the first bug that stung you? Was it Vineet or you?

Sikha Agrawalla

Vineet, I think, always had the bug. This is even before marriage, as they say, the entrepreneurship keeda. We always knew he’s going to do that eventually. But we also did not want it to be a very sudden decision. We had that clarity that we would do it at the right time. Definitely, for at least seven to eight years of our marriage, we knew that it’s going to take time to reach that steady income or financial stability. But he always had that bug and we had those on-and-off conversations. The serious conversation started somewhere around Covid. We were a little more settled in our careers, I would say.

Vineet Agrawal

She’s rightly pointed out. From my college days, I always loved reading about entrepreneurs, understanding different types of businesses that people can do. It may also be the kind of upbringing that I’ve had, hailing from a Marwadi business family. You always have that since your childhood days. Even when we were in college together, I used to tell her I want to do something of my own. I set up the entrepreneurship club in my college and developed a lot of businesses, small or big, throughout my career before deep diving 100 per cent, as she said, which was during the Covid times. We felt that we both have worked for almost a decade, so we had 20 years of combined savings with us. At that point, I felt it was the right time to do 100 per cent entrepreneurship, not as a side gig. I didn’t want to have the regret of not having tried a hundred per cent entrepreneurship journey. That was the decision. We discussed it together, and she was kind enough to allow me to do whatever I wanted to do.

ETMarkets: Vineet, let me ask you, what was more scary getting into a new business opportunity or walking away from a paycheck?

Vineet Agrawal

For me personally, it was the fear of the unknown: starting something new and whether you will be successful or not. After working for almost 10 years where you have a very good job and are sort of successful in a professional career, to leave all of that away and start something of your own—if it doesn’t work out, it becomes very tough. Conversations at home, people might view it differently. All of those things were playing on my mind. We were not honestly worried about a paycheck per se because we had done our financial calculations. We were sure that I would try this for, say, two years, and if it doesn’t work out, then maybe I’ll go back to finding a job. We had enough corpus to take care of our basic expenses for those two years. So the fear of the unknown was the biggest thing playing on my mind.

ETMarkets: Sikha, when did you have your first serious conversation? And did it sort of lead into a fight?

Sikha Agrawalla

More later. Like I said, it was during Covid times. I vividly remember because there were suddenly 24 hours you’re spending together, which in a good way allows you more time with each other. During those times, while working from home, is where he also started thinking more along those lines and we discussed. As Vineet mentioned, it’s not just this. We’ve made many decisions in Excel since our early days, so we did that for this step of our life as well. It was not a fight. It was not unpredictable for me. I would have been surprised if he didn’t become an entrepreneur in his life. The good part is it was always a family decision, and that is one thing which I would recommend to anybody, because if it is one person’s decision, then you are not in it fully. That was something we discussed—not just a single conversation. It was multiple conversations, looking at the numbers, discussing that one of us needs to continue in the job because we already have a child now and we have parents now. This is 2020. Deciding as a family that we are in this together, because you don’t know the outcome. While you always wish for the best, you have to be prepared for the worst.

Vineet Agrawal

I’ll just add one point. It was not only Sikha that I spoke to. I spoke to my parents. I made them understand why I am doing this. I spoke to her parents as well: this is what I want to do, and this is how we have thought about this. So you don’t have to worry about us for the next couple of years. We have taken care of that. It was a joint decision from that perspective.

Act II: Building a financial runway

ETMarkets: But Sikha, let me also come to you that when the decision came to you, was it in your heart that, okay, fine, we have to move on from a predictable paycheck now. And this is something which is the need of the hour and it can be done.

Sikha Agrawalla

As Vineet mentioned, you look at what are the major must-haves, which you’re anyways going to expend. We had a list of that: basic running of the household, child’s education. We always like to have an emergency fund for anything medical or healthcare, because that is an area we don’t want to compromise on ever. That is a clarity we both have had. Then we had a list of good-to-haves. I remember for the period of two years—it was anyways post-Covid—we would have taken maybe just one vacation in two years. It was a conscious choice. You do your must-haves and your good-to-haves, and I think that helps as you’re going on the journey. Of course, you already planned, and like Vineet mentioned, we had a two-year corpus to take care of. I was in a steady job, so that was coming. Everything put together helped us steer it in the right direction.

ETMarkets: You’ve done your back testing. I would like to know. I’m sure a lot of a lot of viewers want to understand how the back testing looks like when you’re doing your calculation excel.

Vineet Agrawal

We kept it very simple, honestly: broadly, what are the four or five heads which we should have the regular cash flow to take care of, or enough corpus to take care of those expenses. For us, it worked out to maybe around two lakhs a month, which was sufficient at that point to take care of non-negotiable expenses. Then we saw what investments we have. We had to realign our portfolio a bit for the short-term cash flows, so that short-term cash flows from our investments could take care of those non-negotiable expenses. That was the strategy which we worked out. We just realigned, and then we were comfortable enough to try.

ETMarkets: Sikha, you know, there’s a saying about life that life is unpredictable, right? So, how did you sort of manage the monthly responsibilities that were usually coming, be it children’s education, ageing parents, because most of the people who are trying to become an entrepreneur are having this fear and doubts in their mind as to how to overcome these challenges.

Sikha Agrawalla

Absolutely. First of all, I am a person who loves predictability. Have we worked towards making it more predictable? Yes. One is the Excels we spoke about, but even otherwise, we always had that habit to track some amount of expense you’re actually incurring. Once you know your baseline, it gets easier to predict. If you have to suddenly get up one day and think, “Oh, I have no idea how much I spend,” then how do you even start? We always had that baseline. A, that helped. B, trying to make your expenses predictable and park for things which may never happen. As we both love to travel, after our must-haves we would have some amount parked for our travel, and then park for things which may not happen, and that keeps on becoming your savings for future years. We had those three segments which helped. Almost every month we sit in on a discussion like this. We have it on our calendar. It’s serious: we sit with our laptops, with our Excel, and we discuss as a family where we are heading, what’s happening, anything unpredictable that comes in the way, how we dealt with it. These things over the years have helped us deal with the unpredictable which could have come.

ETMarkets: Vineet, you did mention owning a home. So did that give you confidence and clarity?

Vineet Agrawal

After working for three to four years, when we were three to four years on a job, I distinctly remember that the biggest expense in any tier-one city for working professionals is the rent. We felt that it’s better for us to quickly buy a house for ourselves. It was a small house that we bought. Our idea was that we should pay off the house. That was a conscious decision which we had taken, and we both worked towards it. Before starting a 100 per cent entrepreneurship journey, not having to pay rent on a month-on-month basis was a real luxury. Then the only expenses that I needed to take care of were food, children’s education and a bit of healthcare. That helped.

Act III: Building businesses and supporting each other

ETMarkets: And if you can also tell us what is Jaraaf all about?

Vineet Agrawal

When I started this company, what I had seen was that a lot of my friends, my batch mates, all of us, their portfolio was also similar to mine. The majority of the money was either in SIPs or they had bought a house. I was lucky enough to work in a private equity fund where the majority of our investment was in fixed income instruments. I had seen a lot of ultra-HNI families, ultra-rich people, having a large corpus in these instruments and how it helped them navigate their personal expenses, their regular cash flows, so that they don’t have to worry about it. We didn’t have access to that. That was the idea behind starting this company: people like us can also invest in these securities and this becomes a source of passive income for all of us, so we don’t have to worry only about our paycheck. You have an instrument which is giving you similar monthly cash flows without having to work for it. That was the idea behind starting Jiraaf, and that’s what we have been doing for now.

ETMarkets: Absolutely. Sikha, you’re also a co-founder. Tell us more about the People Fraction.

Sikha Agrawalla

Very distinct from his career, my education and career has been in HR. After 15 years of experience across various MNCs, and then the last half of my career with different startups, when I was thinking of doing something, the clarity was there that it has to be in this field, because of all this experience which I have gathered over the years I wanted to use. People Fraction essentially is a 360-degree HR consulting firm where early-stage startups to mid-stage startups can come to us for end-to-end HR services. It essentially fills the gap of not hiring a full-time head HR; you bring us as a fraction, and you get a lot of experience but at less cost, which works best for a startup environment. That’s what we are doing. We are building several verticals under the same, but it’s all around the HR field.

ETMarkets: Now, as a couple, how do you, you know, deal with the finances part? So is it the individual saving, individual investments? How does that come along?

Sikha Agrawalla

I don’t think there’s anything individual in our financial planning.

Vineet Agrawal

Starting from day zero, we have seen our finances as joint expenses and joint finances, because then it helps you to make bold decisions. Say, for example, buying a house—it’s a large investment. If we had to think individually, maybe we would not have taken that decision back then. We have a monthly income which is a joint income, all expenses which are joint expenses, and all investments which are also joint investments, so that we achieve the life goals that we have set for ourselves. That’s the way we both believe, and that’s how we have managed our finances over the years.

ETMarkets: Sikha, how did your entrepreneurship journey start? When was that?

Sikha Agrawalla

Mine started pretty late. It took years of convincing from his side that you can also do it and you should also do it. A, like I mentioned, I like predictability, and hence having a job where I have my evenings and my weekends for my child, my husband and my family—everything is predictable—and I didn’t want to just drop the ball there. Also, very importantly, being brought up in a usual Marwadi household, where you have seen men make most of the decisions around you, naturally it’s not your instinct to take up entrepreneurship where every step is a decision, every call is a decision. I definitely took time. I would give a lot of credit to him in telling me that you have it in you and you can do it. I finally only jumped into it full-time last year. I even did a few projects here and there two or three years ago to get that confidence, which did come and that helped. It helped that you try your hands a little before you really jump into it full-time. I only started last year when I had that confidence and the full support. Again, it was a joint decision in that sense.

ETMarkets: What would be your advice to couples who are planning to sort of get started on their entrepreneurship journey?

Vineet Agrawal

First, I feel that what worked for us may not work for everyone. You have (Mark) Zuckerberg who started right out of college and is successful, and you also have an example of the founder of KFC who started post-retirement and it became a global brand. You have maybe a plethora of entrepreneurs in between college and retirement. So it’s not a silver-bullet formula. The only point I would say for anyone—if you are a couple like us who have worked for, say, 10, 12 years and then starting your entrepreneurship journey—is to have an honest discussion within the family. An honest discussion with your spouse, with your parents. It has to be a joint decision. You should be smart enough to plan it out properly so that pressure is less. When you have less pressure and you get into entrepreneurship, the decisions that you take being an entrepreneur for your business are better, because in the back of your mind you are not stressed about running your family or paying the electricity bill. Once you have reached that stage and make a joint decision, I think that is the most crucial thing that has worked for us, and people should do that as well.

Sikha Agrawalla

Reflecting back, if somebody’s on a similar life journey like ours, starting from modest paychecks, planning early helps, investing early helps. These are the things which we feel have taken us a long way. We definitely did not spend as much in our first five, six years on things which we wanted to do like travel, etc. We were doing it but not that much, because we knew we would have enough time to do it later. If you plan, invest early and make everything a family decision, it really helps, because then you’re on board with each other’s ideas. We also planned our child at the right time, and life has been kind to us in that sense. Planning and investing are the two keywords which I can suggest to any couple out there wanting to get into the journey, and just be there for each other.

ETMarkets: In fact, entrepreneurship is not just about a single person. It’s about the family. And the way I see it is about the love and the dedication you have for each other. And that has really mushroomed into something very beautiful, right? So Vineet, you would want to add something to that?

Vineet Agrawal

Now I’m playing the role of support. She supported me. Now it’s my time. Whatever she’s trying to build, I’m trying to support as much as I can. Again, we discussed that in depth. We are at a place where she can also take entrepreneurship, from a time perspective, from a finance perspective, all of that. Then we said, let’s dive in and see where it leads us.