'Therapy won’t fix a broken cap table': Bengaluru founder’s hard truth for married co-founders

Building a startup with your spouse sounds ideal, until it wrecks your marriage and your cap table.

Anurag Singh, a Bengaluru-based startup founder, took to LinkedIn to dismantle the myth of “startup love,” warning fellow entrepreneurs not to onboard their spouse in the name of hustle. 

“Not all founder couples are #CoupleGoals,” he wrote. “For every success, there are 10 stories of burnout, breakups, and neglected kids.”

His post lays out a pointed case against romanticizing couple-led ventures, backed by hard numbers and cautionary tales. 

According to Singh, 65% of startups fail due to co-founder conflicts. Add a marriage into that volatile mix, and the odds drop further. He cites Mamaearth’s Ghazal and Varun Alagh as a rare exception—“Ghazal joined after product-market fit”—and praises Portea Medical’s Divya and K Ganesh for building independently before collaborating.

One of Singh’s biggest red flags? Parenting. “If you’re a parent, don’t onboard your spouse unless you have dedicated childcare and your startup can cover at least six months of household expenses,” he wrote. A staggering 72% of founder-parents admit their kids feel neglected during scaling phases. His advice: hire a COO instead of dragging your partner into unpaid, high-stress roles.

The risks aren’t just emotional—they’re structural. Singh noted that 40% of founder divorces cite business disputes as the trigger. One SaaS couple in Bengaluru reportedly split after clashing over a VC term sheet that required one founder to step down. “Startup stress amplifies marital cracks,” he warned. “Therapy won’t fix a broken cap table.”

Singh distinguishes between traditional family-run businesses—like clinics or kirana stores, where spousal roles are fixed—and startups, which demand relentless decision-making, constant pivots, and investor-facing pressure. “Emotions are liabilities when your runway is short,” he added.

So when is it okay to bring in your spouse? Only after product-market fit is proven, roles and equity are clearly defined, and both partners are prepared for conflict—with “therapy on speed dial,” Singh wrote.

His closing shot: beware of these red flags—“We’ll figure it out” and “Love will keep us together.” Because, as he bluntly puts it, “VCs don’t accept love as collateral.”