Mitesh interview at wharton

Infobeans' Mitesh Bohra: 'Put Your Neck on the Line, Follow Your Dreams'Published : April 22, 2010 in India Knowledge@Wharton

Now that the iPad is on the market, entrepreneurs in a variety of businessesare rushing to discover the best way to bring their products and services tothe device. For software developers like Infobeans, the arrival of the iPadcould energize demand for their content-enabled mobile applications. MiteshBohra -- who co-founded Infobeans 10 years ago with two friends he grew upwith in India -- says greater interest in mobile will fuel not only traditionalbusiness-to-consumer markets, but also more lucrative business-to-businesssegments. The current environment is encouraging companies like Infobeans,based in California and India, to ramp up for growth quickly by building abigger workforce brimming with mobile expertise, as he explains in aninterview with India Knowledge@Wharton.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

India Knowledge@Wharton: There's a lot of buzz around the iPad.Apple is trying to create a new product category and publishers areexcited about it. The belief is that the iPad and similar devices couldcreate a platform through which media companies can monetize some oftheir content. With your background in developing publishingapplications and your practical experience, what's going on in the mobile applications space?What's real and what's just noise? In what direction do you see things moving over the next two tothree years?

Mitesh Bohra: The iPad is certainly the latest buzz. It is driving the market right now in terms ofhype. It could be construed as noise to begin with, but if we peel off a layer and start to see throughthis, an iPad or similar device brings a lot of interesting business propositions to the world. Somesay the iPad will just be an iPhone on steroids. There is some truth to this viewpoint, because withthe current Apple app store, there are enough apps suitable for the iPod today that would easilywork on the iPad tomorrow. This means that the iPad gets a ready-to-go platform from thecomputing power that Apple has built for iPhone. Obviously, many apps will need front-endchanges in terms of how the applications look and might behave, which might be limited by the sizeof the iPhone. Some of these constraints will go away, with respect to the publishing industry, forinstance.

India Knowledge@Wharton: I use an iPhone and my wife has a Blackberry. We both usedownloaded applications on these devices, and most of them are from businesses that want tointerface directly with us as customers. I hear there are also more business-to-business (B2B)applications as well. Can you talk about the two segments, how they differ and where the trends aregoing in each segment?

Bohra: First, let's take a look at the business-to-consumer (B2C) world to understand thecomparative pieces in the B2B world. Many apps we see -- not just for the iPhone or in the Appleapp store, but also in the Blackberry app store or Android marketplace -- are free and available forthe whole world to download, as long as the device supports it. The majority of the apps havefocused specifically on consumers like you and me. Games are a big part of this. The Apple appstore alone has more than 25,000 games, which is more than any game store in the world.

However, there has been a big challenge when it comes to revenue models. In our experience, the realrevenue comes from servicing the B2B market. Businesses as customers spend more money.... When it

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comes to individual revenue segments and size of the business offered ... that's where [the strength of] theB2B world is.

India Knowledge@Wharton: So while an application developer can aggregate the B2C model andwork on volume, the sweet spot in terms of a company like yours earning real money is focusing onprice, and businesses are going to pay the highest price?

Bohra: Technically it's not just price; it's the size of business. It's the amount of [revenue] that canbe generated by supplying businesses, because they are enabling their customers or the ultimateend consumer to do something. When providers look at a particular business that is spending achunk of money, they have existing systems in place. They have infrastructure -- they have a middletier, back end and enterprise applications. Mobile becomes a delivery channel. They have investedmillions and, in some cases, billions of dollars to build these systems. [As they] leverage iPhones,Blackberries and iPads, mobile devices become a delivery channel for them. At InfoBeans, we seesignificant activity in this particular space.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Could you share an example, either real or hypothetical, of how anindustry in B2B may leverage mobile applications on a device like the iPad?

Bohra: Let's focus on the publishing industry. One of our customers at InfoBeans owns a bunch ofmagazines that they have published in print form. Now everybody is anticipating people to have adevice like the iPad -- or a Kindle or Sony E-Reader. At the end of the day, publishers are in thebusiness of serving up information, news and content. How a consumer gets served becomes aninteresting proposition. How customers consume this content is changing. Ultimately, thesecompanies will have to be where their consumers are and [know] how their consumers consumeinformation or content. It is a big value proposition for any publisher to come out in front.

Even if a platform like the iPad or Kindle is not mature in terms of how it serves content, it behoovespublishers to ensure that they are out there first [serving consumers]. Many publishers are moving in thisdirection. Now that they have content available in digital form -- which is what I was referring to as ... theinformation infrastructure they've created -- they have the ability to leverage the infrastructure and use adevice like the iPad as a delivery channel.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Let us talk about what your company is doing to address some ofthese trends and how one can capitalize on them. Historically, what has InfoBeans focused on andwhere do you see the company going in the next two to three years?

Bohra: In 2000, when we were founded, we incorporated ourselves as a service provider in the webspace because people were coming out from desktops and mainframes to cutting-edge webtechnologies. For the last decade, InfoBeans has focused on web application development forbusiness process automation [BPA]; around outsourced product development for web-basedproducts and implementing content management solutions. Of late, we are seeing that we need toevolve. The past year and a half has been very exciting for us in terms of understanding thisemerging mobile space.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Traditionally, InfoBeans has been focused on BPA and outsourcedsoftware development?

Bohra: Yes. Now we see strong growth in demand from our customers to develop B2B mobileapplications. This has been an interesting phenomenon. Many of our customers now ask us how wecan leverage our expertise in mobile technologies to serve their business needs better. Theirinvestment infrastructure can now be leveraged to use mobile as a delivery channel. That's B2B.Businesses are getting ready to spend money and that's where we see a lot of growth.

India Knowledge@Wharton: InfoBeans has more than 100 employees, is 10 years old and five ofyou are here in California with the rest in India. I hear that you're hiring more people in India.Does India have the talent capacity to meet the global demand you see for these B2B mobileapplications?

Bohra: India certainly has that capacity. The challenge is [finding candidates with] the level of




expertise that can be quickly built over a period of two to three years. Companies able to producethat kind of capability quickly are going to win early in this game.

India Knowledge@Wharton: How are you and your colleges addressing this issue?

Bohra: We look for people who have been following mobile [technologies] and operating in thisspace for a little bit. Since mobile isn't a new field -- we developed our app-based mobile applicationin 1999 -- it's possible to find those people. It's a matter of finding the people in that industry andgetting them up to speed on the latest in mobile technology. We have a strong focus on a structuredtraining program that we'll build over the next few months.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Over the next two or three years, are you looking to global markets aswell? I know most of your customers are U.S.-based.

Bohra: Yes, we want to look into other markets, but at this point, we see the most potential in theU.S. and we will focus our energies here. Japan is a big market for mobile consumption and SouthKorea is coming up in a big way.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Let's talk about you. Where are you from, where did you go to schooland what led you to the United States?

Bohra: I was born and brought up in Indore, in central India. It's a town with commercial andprogressive thinking. I completed my engineering studies there, and I worked very hard to getthrough that. The engineering college is called Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technologyand Science. It used to be within Indore University, but now it's an autonomous institution. Aftergraduation, I was placed in campus and hired for software support. After a while, I realizedsoftware support wasn't for me, so I switched to Tata Infotech, which is now owned by TataConsultancy Services (TCS). This was the starting point of my career. It was my first taste ofcreating and writing software in a [fourth generation programming] language. The experience gotme hooked on this industry. I realized that to reach my full potential, I have to be where the realmarket and customers are. That has been U.S. all along.

India Knowledge@Wharton: When did you come to the U.S., and when and how did you startInfoBeans?

Bohra: I came to the U.S. in April 1998 as a Visual Basic consultant. The three founders ofInfoBeans have had the idea of doing something on our own [since] we used to meet at a park inMumbai when we working for different Tata companies. We used to dream and say, "We gotta dosomething with our life, just got to make that difference." We had that thought all along. Wewanted to come to the U.S. and we started working as consultants in the same field andunderstanding the industry, how customers operate, the work culture and how to make a modellike this work.

In 2000, we decided that it was time to start the business. I continued with my full-time job until 2004,running the business part time and on the weekends. Those were 18-hour days, seven days a week, 365days a year. They were the exciting times when we began our journey.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Your two co-founders were classmates with you in Indore? Did youall end up in California at the same time?

Bohra: We were not classmates in the same subject. I was an electronics and telecoms major, andAvinash [Sethi] and Siddharth [Sethi], my partners, were electrical engineering majors. But wewere in the same year. Avinash and I go back to our high school days. All of us arrived in differentparts of U.S. Avinash landed in Portland [Oregon]. I was in New York, and Siddharth ended up inFlorida, but we used to meet often and we always stuck together.

India Knowledge@Wharton: From 2000 to 2004, when you had your day job and were runningInfoBeans on the side, how did you and your partners get InfoBeans going? Did you leverage anyparts of the Indian diaspora to get financing or mentoring?

Bohra: In the beginning, we just thought, "Let's try to do something." We didn't think of it as a




Bohra: In the beginning, we just thought, "Let's try to do something." We didn't think of it as abusiness per se. 2004 was the time when we jumped into the business full time and said, "We've gotto make it happen." We had been talking to people and getting advice, but in terms of finances, wetook the traditional approach of putting in our own money and just making it happen. We investedour revenue back into the business to grow InfoBeans. We didn't seek any external financing, butwe definitely talked to people, especially the Indian diaspora to get an understanding of how theyspend time here in the U.S. and in the industry.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Are there any examples of how you and your co-founders leveragedthat diaspora network?

Bohra: There are two parts to this. One part is the Indian diaspora and the second is theprofessional network we built while each of us were in different jobs. Many of our co-workers wereIndian programmers and engineers in the U.S. As they changed their positions from one companyto another, we stayed hooked into the networks and generated business for our company throughthose personal connections. Up to 2006, referrals from these networks provided the primary sourceof business for us. Obviously, some of those networks [included] Indians. An example of [help fromthe] Indian diaspora would be my ex-boss.... He left that company and formed his own company.We stayed in touch and he got me introduced to another network of people, specifically focused onhelping each other from an Indian standpoint. One such network is the Scindia School Alumni,where we got invitations to attend its events. Scindia is among the "Ivy League" schools of India,along with Doon and Daly College in Indore. Another example of the Indian diaspora that Iencountered is The Indus Entrepreneurs [a networking group] in the Bay Area. I attend a lot of itsevents and constantly try to get introduced to new people every time we go there.

India Knowledge@Wharton: It's now been more than 10 years since you came to the U.S. and youhave your own family here and obviously a successful company. What would you say to a youngkid in India, who has dreams of coming to the U.S. to build his or her own business or to do it inIndia?

Bohra: The biggest thing I would tell a person would be to follow your dreams. That's one thingthat I did and I have no regrets. I wasn't taking a salary from the company from 2000 through2004. I was taking Rs. 10,000 ($250) a month in 2004. Was that something I should have done? Iwould say I'd do that 10 times over because I was following my dreams. Do not worry about thosepaychecks coming in or about paying those bills. Put your neck on the line, follow your dreams andsuccess is just a byproduct.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Was there something about your childhood or growing up in Indore,which you mentioned is a commercial place, that makes you think that way?

Bohra: My father has been a small business owner all his life. ...Maybe it's in my DNA to be anentrepreneur, a risk taker. Beyond that, though, Indore fosters small businesses, that feeling ofentrepreneurship, where people find a lot of thrill in doing something on their own. It's hard toexplain. I'm very lucky to have been born there and raised in an environment like that.

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