Dallas’ New Power Couple: Nextdoor Co-Founder And Shondaland’s President – The Dallas Morning News

Nirav and Megha Tolia were seemingly at the pinnacle of their careers a few short years ago.

Nirav, 50, as co-founder and CEO of Nextdoor, was running one of the hottest social networks as it was heading toward a debut on the New York Stock Exchange. Megha, 41, was remaking the laundry business of consumer products giant S.C. Johnson, the family-owned, $10 billion a year empire of some of the world’s most recognizable household cleaning brands – everything from Windex to Shout to Pledge.

But in 2019, they walked away.

They put their San Francisco-area mansion with views of the Golden Gate bridge – a wedding present Nirav bought for Megha – up for sale for $25 million, and set off for Florence, Italy.

The family spent time immersing themselves in Italian culture.

Two years later, they were back in the U.S., bringing their careers and their three boys to the Dallas-area where Nirav’s parents and brother settled. His parents, who immigrated from India in 1971, had moved to Dallas after retiring from medical careers in Odessa.

“Even though Florence might seemingly be a pause from our careers, it was actually a push on the personal growth side,” Megha said.

The modern-day power couple was soon back in high-profile roles.

As the family settled in, Nirav became a guest shark on the long-running entrepreneur pitch show Shark Tank. He invested in two startups while on the show.

In an episode that aired in October, Nirav changed his mind on a pitch he originally turned down – bringing up his wife’s former role with S.C. Johnson’s Method Products. He said the couple could help SoaPen, a startup that makes colorful handwashing pens for kids. He ended up investing $100,000 for a 10% stake in the company and royalties of up to $200,000.

A couple months later, Megha moved into an even bigger role, becoming the first president and chief operating officer of Shondaland, the global television production company started by the influential Shonda Rhimes. She’ll oversee operations and report directly to Rhimes, best known as the showrunner for such hit TV series as Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal.

“Over the past few years, Shondaland has expanded into many new business areas while simultaneously growing the number of people working in each of our departments,” Rhimes said. “Megha brings with her invaluable knowledge and experience to help Shondaland continue to successfully manage this growth while identifying new business opportunities and endeavors for the company.”

Life before Highland Park

From the outside, the Tolia family appears as any average family that loves nightly home-cooked dinners and family movie nights. Their kids – Deven (9), Dylan (8) and Declan (6) – sometimes referred to as “The D bros” by their friends, walk to their Highland Park school every day.

Nirav and Megha were on different paths for much of their adult life. Nirav went to Stanford University for his undergraduate days, while Megha attended the University of California-Berkeley. She later went to Harvard University for her MBA.

They were introduced to each other by friends well into their successful careers and married in 2011 in Los Angeles.

Nirav got his start at Yahoo! in 1996 and was one of the first 100 employees to work at the consumer internet company. During the dot.com bubble in 1999, he co-founded user review site Epinions.com and stuck with the company after the bubble burst and took many high-flying tech companies down with it. Epinions later became Shopping.com, which went public in 2004 and sold the following year to eBay for more than $620 million.

He also endured his share of controversies, including a negligent driving charge for causing a crash and a lawsuit involving the Epinions founders. Nirav left the Bay Area and spent time in New York “laying low” with friends.

A few years later, in 2008, Nirav was back with another tech company – Nextdoor, the social networking site where neighbors find babysitters, lost pets and complain about everything from fireworks to loud music.

The “neighborhood network” was founded by a group of seven, including Sarah Leary. Leary and Nirav worked together for over 22 years and met through friends in Silicon Valley. Leary said the two “just clicked.”

Leary admires the courage of both Nirav and Megha and considers herself to be a close family friend.

“(Nirav and Megha are) willing to take on new challenges that are going to stretch them both in their professional life and in their personal life,” Leary said “It’s certainly something I admire about them both individually and as a couple.”

Since its inception, Nextdoor has grown to reach 11 countries and 285,000 neighborhoods globally.

When Nirav stepped away in 2019, he took on a board position with Nextdoor. Former mobile payment company CFO Sarah Friar became Nextdoor’s new chief executive and led the company to its IPO in November.

It went public at a $4.3 billion valuation, raising more than $674 million from its initial stock offering. Nirav owned a beneficial interest in more than 28 million shares in the company as of Nov. 5, 2021, according to regulatory filings. Those shares are today worth just under $170 million.

While Nirav was immersed in the Silicon Valley tech culture, Megha’s career took her into consumer products. After getting her MBA in 2008, she became a brand manager for skincare products maker Neutrogena in Los Angeles. She managed the acne line, comprised of 35 products bringing in $180 million in annual sales.

She left Neutrogena in 2012 to become North America general manager of Method Products, working to drive sales in fabric care. She stayed with the company until its merger with S.C. Johnson, where she served on the executive management team into 2019.

“Megha came and revolutionized our laundry business,” said Michelle Arnau, Megha’s colleague and former boss. “She is so innovative.”

The Italian getaway

The Tolias packed up their suitcases and headed to Florence, Italy, in 2019 for a family sabbatical. The family of five moved into a two-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom apartment in Palazzo Tornabuoni, and loved every second of it.

Megha studied the language, while Nirav taught a class titled “Silicon Valley: The Modern Day Rebirth of Renaissance Florence,” as a visiting professor through his alma mater. They used their downtime to spend time with their boys and immerse themselves in Italian culture.

While in Italy, the Tolias supported the Fondazione Mascarade Opera financially.

About two years later, they came back to the states. But instead of returning to California, they settled in the Park Cities to be closer to Nirav’s family and allow the kids to spend more time around their family.

It sometimes can be difficult for children to wrap their minds around what successful parents did to get there. When Nirav was on Shark Tank, it was a teaching moment for the family.

Nirav said he watched his kids learn the fundamentals of business when they started following the show. He heard his kids use the word “equity” for the first time.

“And my eldest would say, ‘Daddy, I don’t know why you would buy 10% of that company. I really don’t think it’s going to succeed,’” Nirav laughed.

Nirav has invested in over 100 private technology companies and actively serves on three boards – Nextdoor, Dallas-based insurance startup Bestow and Palmetto, a solar energy company. As a Shark Tank investor, he took stakes in SoaPen and online prenuptial platform Hello Prenup. He was also recently named an executive chair for venture capital investor Hedosophia.

Another teaching moment is happening now.

With Megha’s new job, she’s been working from a home office and that’s made her sons more conscious of online meetings and the different commitments their mother’s job entails.

“I wanted the boys to see their mom work and contribute to the community and have something that is just my own,” Megha said. “I sort of bear a lot of responsibility in shaping how they view female leadership and the place for women in the world today because all they have is me right now.”

Rooted in India

Both Nirav and Megha are children of Indian immigrants who came to the United States for better opportunities.

Nirav’s parents were both physicians in Odessa, where Nirav grew up. Megha’s father came to the United States in 1967 to pursue a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, and her mother came in 1975 after they were married. Megha grew up in the Los Angeles area.

“I certainly think of my parents as entrepreneurs and as people who are willing to take big risks and use hard work to ultimately create success,” Nirav said. “And once they created success, the importance of giving back, the importance of sharing that success with family members, friends and the community at large was so inspirational for me.”

The Tolias said they are excited to settle in Texas. The couple is living in one home in Highland Park while building a new one on Lakeside Drive, replacing a landmark home they purchased in 2020.

The couple primarily donates to a charity run by Megha’s family members since its inception, The ROADDS Foundation. The India-based nonprofit works to provide affordable education to those in need. In Dallas, the Tolias supported the local chapter of the Pratham Learning Charity, as well as the Westapher Golf Charity run by the Preston Center Rotary Club.

In their spare time, friends and family say Megha is an excellent dancer and lights up a room when she is around friends. Nirav’s brother, Veeral Tolia, introduced him to his love for Dallas Cowboys football. Nirav enjoys throwing around a football with his sons.

“The D bros” play flag football on the Highland Park Cowboys and the Highland Park Tejas and won their “Super Bowls” in the fall. The boys also play piano and YMCA basketball.

Both parents wake up early to work out and get their kids ready for school. They start their day around 5 a.m. and go until work gets done, then they spend the night with their boys.

Indicative of their backgrounds, Megha and Nirav chose an interesting metaphor to describe their family life.

Their “greatest startup is the family startup,” Nirav said.