In 2001, Faisal Husain, Zia Bhutta and Tanveer Saulat found­ed Synechron. The past 12 years have certainly been a dream run. Synechron, a technology consulting and outsourcing firm with a specialisation in financial services today claims to have an annualised run rate of $200 million, a workforce that is 4,500-people strong, more than 100 clients, and offices in India, US, UAE, Singapore, Japan and Australia. It’s a future Husain and Saulat, who first met each other as teenagers in Bhopal in 1989, couldn’t have possibly forecast. A decade later, Zia Bhutta joined the gang when he worked with Husain in Dun & Bradstreet’s New York office. The seemingly for­tuitous coincidence first took the shape of excited conversa­tions about the aspiration to do something of their own. That, and the fact that they had similar industry experience (work­ing on some of the first offshore engagements by financial services firm in the late 1990s) made them confident about taking the entrepreneurial plunge together. Their rapid success has validated that early confidence. The trio take us through the past decade, and tell us what it took to make their friendship work business wonders.

DO’S

Believe less is more
Faisal Husain: Keeping your ego in check is possibly the most important thing to do when you’re working with friends. It’s also the toughest thing to do because most entrepreneurs by default are strong personalities. Yet, we realised that it is imperative to look beyond the “me”. Today, the three of us know we couldn’t have reached here alone. We are practical enough to understand the huge value each partner brings, and what the company can achieve when we are together—there are too many advantages to ignore. Also, if you have a similar value system, and similar personali­ties, managing this becomes easier. Because we were close friends before we became partners, we’ve had the time to validate that we have a shared value system.

Hussain and Saulat(L to R) are quick to admit that, "Keeping your ego in check is possibly the most important thing to do when you’re working with friends. It’s also the toughest thing to do because most entrepreneurs by default are strong personalities."

Communicate. A lot!
Tanveer Saulat: We meet a lot. I live between Dubai and India. Faisal lives between Dubai and US, and Zia is based mostly in the US. At any point, two of us are likely to be in the same office. And, at least, twice a year, the three of us formally get together, usually in New York to talk about all sorts of issues. Before the meeting, we set out a formal agenda with six to seven key discussion points. We bring in our business heads/senior management to get their views and inputs as and when needed but this meeting is really about us talking. Doing this has ensured that there are very few occasions where we have big differences of opinion—maybe once in two or three years. Even then, these aren’t really a “difference” of opinion.

Match Well
Faisal Husain: Beyond the personal connect, honestly evaluate your attitudes towards business. In our case, our financial styles matched. We had the same atti­tude towards debt and about investors. It’s why Synechron continues to be a self-funded company. All three of us were margin and cost-focussed from the word go. I’m not suggesting founders need to clone each other. On the big things though, your attitude should be aligned, even if your appetites differ. For example, my risk  appetite is probably a little more than Tanveer’s and Zia’s. They are a little more cautious. We’ve used that well though—I’ve pushed them a little, and they’ve held me back a little. Because our goals are aligned, we’ve been able to do this. It’s important to ask yourselves — what are your personal goals on retirement, exit and the vision for the company. If these goals are different, there is a potential obstacle. What also helped is that we instituted the core separation of our roles and responsibilities very clearly from the beginning. Of course, these can change, and they have. For example, my partners are in charge of US Sales, but outside of the US, I have started taking on a lot more sales responsibilities as we try and go deeper into Europe and Asia.

Let a leader lead
Tanveer Saulat: When there is a group of founders, one person should be the des­ignated leader. That person for us is Faisal. He’s the company’s CEO. We’ve given him that veto right, and did so very happily. We respect the position he holds. We are not shy about expressing our opinion, but Faisal has the lead. So, even if I didn’t agree to an idea at the brainstorming stage, once Faisal has taken the call to imple­ment it, I would blindingly support him. I can’t remember any discord over such a decision be dragged unnecessarily for too long. Zia and I have the wisdom to stop debating once Faisal has made a decision. And, when a decision goes wrong, Faisal has the courage to come out and say sorry.

 Many entrepreneurs have a tendency to build on an idea, but not test it swiftly and effectively. You don’t want to build everything in one go."- Zia Bhutta

DON’TS

Get paralysed by analysis
Zia Bhutta: Many entrepreneurs have a tendency to build on an idea, but not test it swiftly and effectively. You don’t want to build everything in one go. In a scale-up, fast-growth pace, you need to constantly test your idea, and not get trapped in an analysis paralysis mode. With multiple co-founders, this tendency to over-discuss and over-brainstorm is even more likely to happen, especially on matters of strategy, branding and structuring. Be conscious of that. Avoid getting caught in that web.

Dwell on bad debts
Zia Bhutta: One of the things that has worked for the three of us is that we are very good at writing bad debts off. We don’t agonise and dwell too much on what hap­pened. I enjoy doing small experiments to test our ideas. Most are successful, the remaining might not be. But, we don’t sit and cry. We talk about what happened, and move on. Even when it comes to personnel issues—where we tend to have the most passionate debates—we live by the principle that a failure somewhere is a suc­cess somewhere else.