Rohit Kochar - Founder, Executive Chairman & CEO

Founder's Vision

Building a research and innovation focused global technology conglomerate that transforms businesses through sustainable solutions.

Rohit Kochar

Founder, Executive Chairman & CEO at Bert Labs^™

Innovation is an investment not a cost

Being part of IT industry for 30 long years building global companies, I founded Bert Labs™ in 2017 to build a research and innovation focused global technology conglomerate. Option was to incorporate in US, but as a true patriot, I founded it from Bangalore. This journey has been blessed with exponential value creation on IP and growth. Being established in India, our growth is majorly from Indian clients across chemical, FMCG, pharma, auto, cement and commercial buildings.

This year, we are expanding globally with bespoke AI powered proprietary, patented Bert Platform Solution^® for manufacturing plants and buildings. Our first major revenue milestone is USD 1Billion by FY27 with 78% from US/UK/EU, 12% India, 10% ROW. More than 80% revenues of Amazon, Accenture, Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM, Capgemini come from US/EU. More surprising is that for Infosys, Cognizant, WIPRO, TCS, HCL, and Tech Mahindra, less than 5% revenues are from India.

Isn't it a cause of worry?
In our experience, there are many reasons why India, the fastest growing large economy will contribute to only 12% revenue.

Egoism: We Indians are one of the most egoistic people. With Indian clients being convinced, we aren't sure of winning the deal since we haven't satisfied the ego of relevant stakeholders. US/EU/APAC client convinced about the value of technology takes no time accepting the solution, resulting in the larger mutual purpose being met.

Freebies: Most Indian clients want free POC not acknowledging significant investments for human capital, time, and computational resources. Clients outside India are often ready to sign no-regret POC and basis performance, scale-up. An Indian client is not ready to shell out a rupee for the efforts put in, let alone the cost of innovation.

God Syndrome: It's weird but in India, the relationship between client and vendor is not of equals. For any organisation clients are God. Like Bert Platform Solution^® brings Digital and Business Transformation on ESG, Sustainability, Energy and Carbon Reduction through Deep Neural Network Models, similar transformation is required in neural networks of Indian Minds.

Hidden Agenda: Corporate governance, full transparency & disclosure is needed for institution building. On sending formal proposal to Indian clients, we struggle to get acknowledgement for months. When we do discuss, there is opaqueness. With international clients, a proposal is acknowledged, discussed on technology and pricing resulting in precious time being saved for desired mutual objectives.

Innovation Expenditure: Cost and CapEx are important; treating innovation as expense is an impediment to sustained growth. A fundamental difference between Indian and international clients' mindset.

Building a great nation is like building institution which would last forever. A paradigm shift is needed in our temperament and collective mindset to make India a world beater!

Work Ethics

Last week, I was speaking to one of the Research Engineers. He had resigned from his role in the Company earlier in the day. I asked him the reason for his resignation. He said I want to try a different approach towards the objectives, I am not able to adjust to the work timings, I am having backache and sometimes I cannot sleep at night. I am concerned about my health.

21/22 years old do not want to work beyond 8 hours. They do not want to work over the weekend. They do not want to work on their body, mind, consciousness, train them to prepare themselves to work harder to get the job done. And job done always comes with the timeline associated with it.

They do not want to be patient. 15 days, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months is optimum time for them to infer, conclude, and make up their minds on what is best for them.

They do not want to come out of their college syndrome. They would consult their batchmates or their seniors who are one year, at best 3 years senior.

Most of us who go to IIT or a premium institution in India come from a middle class, lower middle class or lower income group families where parents have not lived a life journey of sustained excellence, made an extraordinary impact and reached at the top of their professional endeavours and have remained at the top. It is obvious, despite their best intent at heart for their children, children do not get the leadership or guidance to excel, and what it takes to tread the path of reaching at the top of their profession and make an everlasting impact. Despite this fact known, they want to continue living on their ignorant bliss of not wanting to make a leader in their organization or in their professional mind their mentor and allow themselves to be influenced by them.

They regale themselves to be engaged in their minds and in their ecosystem, a stupid argument of smart work vs hard work. In the DeepTech space, all are expected to have a certain basic level of intellect, and when we work, whether at 8am or 12pm or 7pm or 12am, we are expected to put in smart work. You train your mind, body, soul and heart that you sustain your smart work for longer time periods, and you keep getting better at it.

Building Institutions from India

The last 2 weeks, I have travelled to Gujarat for work, a state where I happened to spend early formative years of my life. Last weekend for the first time ever, I managed to visit Akshardham temple for a short while with a flight to catch. While the whole structure and its maintenance is a sight to behold, what caught my attention was the museum dedicated to Swaminarayanji. While Swaminarayan temples are world over, for me his story was a revelation. How the young Neelkanth persevered till he became Swaminarayan. How he ensured help women rights like literacy, female infanticide, sati and taking up cudgels against animal sacrifice and the caste system.

While I was still assimilating his story, I had the fortune of visiting Atul Ltd, one of the earliest companies established in free India. With the personal recommendation of Sunil Siddharth Lalbhai himself, I could manage to spend some time at the Inspiring Center within the beautiful Atul Campus. And read through the entire life and the legacy of Kasturbhai Lalbhai. The tenet of simple living and high thinking was not only lip service for him. And his philanthropy set standards for generations to follow.

As Atul completes its 75 years, it is an inspiration towards creating an institution contributing towards nation building.

And how many such inspiring stories would exist across the length and breadth of our country. These two visits to two place, one public, one private, set me thinking of how little we know of our own country, the people who struggled and shaped it. While the people around in Gujarat might be well aware of these personalities, how little of them is known outside the state.

It inspires me and Bert Labs™ to help our Indian companies get become world beaters, compete with the best of the world through the products manufactured by them for the global market, and do this consistently over the next several decades and centuries. This business transformation and game changing impact will be enabled through Bert Labs™ innovation. And in the process build Bert Labs™ as one of the most admired global institutions creating more institutions coming out of India and taking our nation to its rightful place becoming world's leading superpower.

The Start-up Myths

Ever since I got out of a salaried job on to doing something of my own, I have been inundated with conversations and information about the Start-up ecosystem. Ten years in to being my own boss, it was high time, I put these myths to rest.

Myth - A start up has no rules

Fact - A start up is a company in its own right. It's an early stage company, it's a young company. But it's a company in its own right. Its answerable to its investors, its clients and more importantly to its people.

Myth - A start up means getting investor funds, going high on marketing to create a buzz

Fact - The number of “start ups” which went bust during the lockdown due to financial constraints is innumerable. Don't be an overnight hero and fade off at the same speed. Use investor money wisely to grow the business, not run the business. Be careful with your working capital.

Myth - Spend on acquiring customers

Fact - Spend time on developing your product and reaching the right customers, don't discount the product.

Myth - Bottomline doesn't matter

Fact - Work on making a profit from Day 1. Don't get into the cycle of spend in haste, repent at leisure.

Myth - You need to be 30 to be an entrepreneur

Fact - According to a Wharton study, a 50 year old founder is 1.8X more likely to achieve upper tail growth than a 30 something founder. Don't disregard the value of experience.

Myth - Get the team, the business will follow

Fact - Hire in line with the business growth. Invest in good people with values than the best people without. Get the right partners be it your second in line, your advisors, your investors.

Myth - Build a strong USP / Have a strong differentiation

Fact - Don't get too emotional about your first idea, keep pivoting, keep refining as you talk to your customers. You are there to solve their pain point. Understand the customer pain points. What they say and what they don't and pivot accordingly.

Myth - The larger the customer base, the more successful you are

Fact - The more satisfied the customer base, the more successful you are. Have lesser, but happier customers especially when you set out. They will be your most valuable spokespersons.

Myth - Start ups have redefined value systems and integrity

Fact - No. Value systems, integrity must not change, be it 1960s or 80s or 2000s or 20s. ‘When in doubt, disclose’.

How to be a CEO at 28 or being a leader before you start leading

20 years since I first became a CEO at the ripe old age of 28, I ruminate over what might have set me apart from my peer group to be given such a massive responsibility at that age.

The foundation started to build with my first job itself to the next where very early on, responsibilities were given to me to head specific businesses/CoEs. This got me the learning and training to lead a set of people in line with company's defined goals.

Leadership came very naturally ever since and got honed through these challenging responsibilities coming on. However, you must be prepared such that when it comes to you, so you can value, respect, appreciate, embrace it and make the challenge your own.

I had an unwavering passion. Passion for what I did, to make a difference, to leave a legacy. Equally important was having a vision. Being a visionary from a very early age, I had the ability to have a long-term view on anything and everything in life and work backwards to get there. The power to see a glass half full, come what may. And having the ability to dream big.

Then was the responsibility to take decisions. Not all decisions were easy, not all were right, but sometimes its more important to take a decision and move forward. And be able to stand up to the consequences henceforth.

Have a spine. And a heart. Being empathetic is one of the most undervalued qualities a person can have, especially when leading a large team. It's not a popularity contest. My personal credo is that it's not always important to be right, it's more important to be fair, every single time, non-negotiable.

I was voracious reader with an appetite to devour books only next to my appetite for good food. My various travels ensured that I had enough time to read and I could apply those learnings in my various roles I undertook.

What helped me immensely was the ability to learn like a child at every moment, to have a sense of curiosity, therefore having no ego picking up the best learning and practices from my team members who were twice my age and four times my experience, enabling me to provide leadership to them to achieve a common goal.

But above all these qualities is the value system I had. Sustenance as a leader is ingrained in core values of integrity, discipline, humility, ethics, truthfulness, transparency, honestly, fairness, compassion, generosity, kindness; all leading to that one quality most difficult to establish, trust. My seniors knew they could trust me, and I would deliver, the clients trusted that once I had committed, I would go out of my in the organization to deliver as did my family.

Finally, the most important one, gratitude. And the one I find being demonstrated the least. Gratitude to every boss who taught me and single team member I had, from whom I learnt, making me the person I am.

Thriving On Crisis and Turning it into an opportunity

A company fundamental when you are start from the scratch is to have a well-defined compelling enough problem statement, finding a genuine pain point of the customer and trying to solve it. From a business growth perspective, it does not have a glass ceiling.
As the prospect of the third wave is looming large, the thoughts of the first wave come to me.

Early 2017, Bert Labs™ found energy efficiency improvement for Heating and Cooling systems as the domain to build its platform solutions. We had Unilever as our marquee client to execute our proprietary solution at their head office in India and several other companies with commercial spaces for their heating / cooling systems.

Come March'20, 3 years into our existence, C-19 struck, and with it came the macro socioeconomic downturn the world had never seen. Overnight, people were bound in confines of homes for their work, leisure, education, healthcare etc. Everything was at home, online with no one venturing out to office, hotels, restaurants, etc. anywhere.

Commercial buildings, real estate and heating and cooling systems ran out of fashion. During the govt. declared lockdown, the only places running were factories, manufacturing plants, production and R&D facilities. Bert Labs™ had to show agility and immediately adapt primarily on three fronts:

1. Bert Platform Solution^®:
The Bert Platform Solution^® needed to be completely refined. We needed to work on both hardware and software, building in enough abstraction for the solution to be conceptualized, researched, architected, designed, developed and productionized for energy, production efficiency and quality improvement in factories, manufacturing plants, production facilities and R&D facilities for clients across domains, FMCG, automobile, pharmaceuticals, white goods, chemical, cement and more.

2. Bert Client:
From providing solutions for buildings to factories, the buyer in the client organization changed. The GTM strategy changed to achieve the mammoth task of convincing the client on the adaptability, scalability and preparedness of the Bert Platform Solution^® for their manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem.

3. Bert:
Internal resource management was again a focus wherein the team needed to be inspired because no one was used to the speed of change which was happening. We needed to inspire the team internally to adapt to the company's new requirements considering the changing business scenario and adapt fast. From the product team to the sales business development team to account management team to project management, everyone needed to be aligned.
What made this even tougher was doing it remotely.

Today, the company has several MNCs in the industry verticals of focus in different stages of formal collaborations saving energy and other costs, helping achieve their ESG and capital efficiency goals and therefore going stronger and better prepared for the future.

MUSINGS OF AN ENTREPRENEUR

As Bert Labs™ celebrates its 8th anniversary, I find myself reflecting on my journey as an entrepreneur and the valuable life lessons I have learned along the way.

From being a somebody to being a nobody

I was a young achiever. I had the earnings, I had the status, I could leverage power with my clients, I could manage stakeholders. And then suddenly, I was a nobody.

The most difficult part of it was to make a shift in my own mind... needless to say, it was draining, mentally and emotionally. My ego, carefully nurtured over the success of the last 2 decades had to be padlocked into a trunk and thrown in the deepest end of the ocean.

I was used to building companies with billion-dollar valuations. And here I was with nothing except my depleting bank balance and my unwavering self-confidence.

Unlearning to learning to relearning

I worked for decades in a certain manner, constantly learning and applying those learnings to scale greater heights. But what got you success in the corporate rigmarole, will not get you success now. Far from it.

I had to unlearn all that I had learnt. I had inherited established businesses with 20-million, 40-million-dollar profitable revenues. All the infrastructure, processes, support systems were in place, and I could scale those businesses to a billion dollars.
And now, suddenly I was on ground zero.

New things had to be learnt on the job, every moment, every day. There had to be absolutely no baggage, I needed to come to work with the mind and heart to unlearn, every day. The learnings had no filters to pass through. What i learnt today, was to be applied now… tomorrow would be another day.

Transformation in leadership style

I was used to leading teams of accomplished individuals who were experienced in their respective domains and in the corporate arena. And here I was now recruiting complete freshers with no corporate finesse, scientists who have never been out of their computer environs.

I had to adapt to managing each kind of individual in their manner, because what I had learnt till now was actually managing a similar set of people. The motivations in this new bunch was very different from the corporate offices. The phrase ‘the shadow of a leader’ has taken a completely new meaning.

Chief Everything Officer

In my previous avatars, as the CEO of the organization, I had a bevy of leadership members to take care of the decisions needed to be taken. I was the escalation point.

And now I realized, as an entrepreneur, a CEO was anything but... Within minutes, I have to juggle from being a dapper CEO making an investor pitch to trying to sort out HR issues, to working on the next level of innovations, to getting difficult vendors to work to everything in between... the buck stops at me, but it also starts with me.

Weekly team reviews mean adapting my mind to being a chemist to a physicist to a coder to a negotiator to a coach, a mentor, a guide, all in the matter of a few hours.

Humility

The fact that there are households running on the salary you give your team every month can be a humbling experience. The thought of the first employee who bought a car or another who planned a baby still gives me goosebumps.

Starting from scratch, when we signed on the first client, that too one of the world’s largest FMCGs and being chosen over an established tech giant was a humbling experience, as is being considered against global tech giants for a global MoU.

When the client top management takes time out to meet you and the team and listens for a common purpose or the investors show confidence in you when all that is seen is your leadership to put their hard earned net worth while trusting you with more infusions or senior talent believing your vision to become a part of the journey, you say a little prayer for each such moment.

Living up to your values

As each day passes, the importance of knowing what your values are and the resolve to stay true to them every day, despite the constant struggle to stand up to them. The decisions need to be taken not only with the short-term objective but also the long-term vision which the company has. An employee however valuable, needs to be shown the door was an act of non-integrity and at the same time, an exception needs to be made for someone showing exemplary values, both decisions being equally tough for the organization.

What stays important is being true to the purpose and the communication to the rest of the team.

Being Mr Fix-it

As a problem solver, I have been bombarded with unimaginable problems.

Entrepreneurs are meant to be problem solvers for clients, solving real world problems, making them look better in front of their customers.

However, as we started from the scratch, challenged with resources/constraints, I am expected to have a solution to everything be it getting tables at cafeteria, to ACs not working to admin issues to data security in office network to proposal not going to client on time, a system integrator creating a havoc in midst of project execution, to platform solution not working at client end, I get sucked into myriad problems and have to solve each and every one of them.

Leadership is not a popularity contest

Leadership is all about taking tough decisions. These decisions can be misunderstood in an early stage start up manifold a well-established set up.

Everyday demands you showing your strength of character, testing your nerves and questioning all good intention and faith you showed.

Start-up leadership is all about trusting raw talent. It is the ability to take risk on young minds and grooming them for them to deliver. It is also about living by the expectation that there won’t be any reciprocation through fundamental value system like gratitude, though you try to instil these values through your actions every day.
And now to the next 5 years...