Anecdotes From This Investor-turned-entrepreneur

In an interview with Smart CEO, Bala Parthasarathy, serial entrepreneur and investor, takes us through the various stages of his professional life, the lessons he has learnt and unlearnt along the way and his plans for MoneyTap, a consumer credit, fintech startup

- Poornima Kavlekar

“Yes, I like that adrenalin rush. I’m a risk taker and I like the feeling of not knowing what’s going to come next,” admits Bala Parthasarathy. Hailing from Chennai, Parthsarathy has over 16 years of experience in the entrepreneurship space and he has donned many hats from being serial entrepreneur (founding Digital Link, Wyatt River Software and iSelect) to being a venture capitalist. His adventurous streak is hardly surprising. He has climbed the Kilimanjaro, trekked the Andes, Alps and the Himalayas, motor-biked across the African continent, up the highest motorable road in the world at Leh in the quest for experiencing those indescribable moments which have made him what he is.

The IIT Madras graduate started his career as one of the early engineers to build Digital Link, which went public in 1993. Subsequently, he and his friends founded Wyatt River Software which was acquired by SafeNet in 1997.He later started iSelect, a venture which he admits was a failure. The more successful one was Snapfish, which he started in 1999 along with his Harvard Business School classmate and close friend, Sripathy. “We raised money in the dotcom boom and then the burst happened. Luckily for us, it happened before we could spend it all, so we had money in the bank,” he recalls. That being said, Snapfish was compelled to make amends to operate in the tight environment. “That’s when Digital Photos took off and we moved from film to digital,” he adds. Snapfish was later sold (in 2005) to Hewlett Packard and Parthasarathy became the Managing Director of HP Digital Photos worldwide. He helped start Snapfish in 20 countries in Europe and Asia Pacific serving more than 100 million users.