this is the best office we have had he lets on as you enter the threestoried building in domlur a suburb in bangalore youre tempted to wonder whether k ganesh one half of indias most successful serial entrepreneur couple is pulling a fast one a narrow staircase a cramped reception and a virtually bare cabin small enough to remind you about those yo mama jokes yo mamas house is so small she eats her meals off a dime rather than the cool startup offices youre accustomed to reading about casual seating snackfilled kitchens gaming spaces graffitied walls et al its only a board pinned casually on the wall that assures you that youre in the right place at what is clearly the right time for the 52yearold ganesh and his 51yearold wife meena it reads portea homelane bigbasket bluestone avagmah that in a line sums up the uniqueness of the ganeshes entrepreneurial journey five scorching startups in various stages of growth that the husbandwife duo are nurturing as passionately and obsessively as they had reared four other ventures since the early 90s that they have now exited and made a cool stash in the process see the exits the last exit was easily the biggest when in 2011 pearson acquired tutorvista which the ganeshes set up in 2006 with an investment of rs 50 lakh pearson acquired the online tutoring firm for rs 1000 crore even as they stoke the growth fires at their five startups that are currently in play another five are in stealth mode at least three of those are set for a launch before the yearend one of them is a startup called freshgrub which will supply meals and readytoeat foods to homes and offices angel investors too thats a lot on their plate right but thats not all alongside the ganeshes also find time to play angel investor in at least 23 startups at last count these range from little eye labs which builds performance analysis and monitoring tools and which was acquired by facebook to onlineprasad com which homedelivers prasad from some 50 temples say hello to the couple that has its hands full investing strategizing managing mentoring and of course exiting when the iron is hot executives in the venture capital and private equity industry peg the success rate of the startups the ganeshes have been involved in at an astounding 100 the global startup success rate in contrast is just 5 small wonder then the ganeshes have a few of indias biggest and most respected industrialists buying into their ventures consider one of them in the july of 2014 the chairman emeritus of one of the indias biggest conglomerates met the ceo of bluestonecom an online fine jewellery portal that the ganeshes flagged off in 2012 we met him he got very interested he liked bluestones business model a onestop shop for jewellery design manufacturing and retailing which helps it cut middle men and offer better business margins