Ideas are his business

Interviewed by Nathan Leaf

Anand Chhatpar

Age: 24

Position: CEO of BrainReactions, 520 University Ave

Company at a glance: BrainReactions conducts brainstorming sessions to help clients come up with new ideas, products or services. It has seven employees and several hundred independent contractors.

Chhatpar's background: Born and raised in Mumbai, India. Came to the U.S. at age 19 to attend UW-Madison.

Education: Diploma in computer engineering from Government Polytechnic, Mumbai, 2000; bachelor of science in computer engineering from UW-Madison, 2005.

Professional experience: Founded software and Web development company Pyxoft Infotech at age 17; founded BrainReactions in 2004.

Personal: Single and "extremely focused."

Q. How did you choose UW-Madison?

A. During my undergraduate studies, my interests were focused around imbedded systems and this university is one of the few places where you can do research as an undergraduate.

Q. What's an imbedded system?

A. Imbedded systems are things like this (holds up his PDA phone). Computers that are hidden inside other devices. This is practically a computer. A digital camera has a device inside, an embedded microprocessor chip, which I learned how to design as a part of my education (at UW-Madison). I was actually involved in a project where we did some work related to (digital) photo processing.

Q. Was the transition from Mumbai to Madison difficult?

A. It was interesting. I don't think it was difficult. I was used to a big city like Mumbai, which has 16 million people. ... Madison was a very, very small town for me. I was incredibly bored the first few weeks I was here. But then I kind of learned how to adapt into the culture and get used to the snow and things like that. Fortunately, my roommate during my first year in college here was a snowboarder so he got me into the whole thing. I now enjoy snow and the winters here a lot more than I used to.

Q. Do you have any family in the United States?

A. My younger brother, he is about to graduate from Indiana University-Bloomington with his business degree. He's going to be working for Deutsche Bank on Wall Street.

Q. What do you do when you're not working?

A. Come up with other business ideas. I have a number of other startups besides BrainReactions that fund and help other student entrepreneurs in setting their business up. When I'm not working with BrainReactions, I'm helping someone else with their business plan or I'm exploring new ideas and technologies. I love keeping up to date with what's going on in high science in technology. I read quite a bit online, keeping up to date with what's going on. I like to stay up to date that way. ... It's more enjoyable to me working with people who are passionate.

Q. Do you do anything outside of work?

A. I hang out with friends nights and weekends. We play video games. We watch movies. I'm still very much in a college lifestyle. And you hang out in some of the bars on University Avenue and State Street.

Q. Do you have any hobbies?

A. I have poems I have shared with friends, trying to get into the creative side of things. I do like exploring new things but it is very rare that I would come up with a hobby and stick with it six months down the line. So it keeps changing. ... Whatever is new and exciting at the time.

Q. What's new and exciting for you right now?

A. I'm spending a lot of time with Web 2.0 (a term coined by tech publisher Tim O'Reilly). It's the whole concept of the Internet not as an information repository anymore but as a platform for communities to create value. Converting the Internet almost from the super library to a space, an environment where people get together to create value for others.

Currently, I'm truly fascinated by the differences in business environments in different companies but also the underlying similarities. Every-body is completely focused on doing something new. ... Here in the U.S. everybody is focused on let's send our costs down by outsourcing manufacturing or whatever, but let's spend more on R&D and come up with things that will give us an edge 15 years down the line. I mean, look at Wisconsin right now, all these manufacturing-based companies still. How are they going to compete with all the high-tech manufacturing going on in China right now? China used to be the place that would create cheap and crappy goods. But now they're creating cheap and high-quality goods. Manufacturing technology there is not only at par but sometimes more advanced than what people here in the U.S. have. So what's going is that there is a shift, this macro shift in the U.S. towards spending more on innovation and doing the next big thing. UW ... is a good example where they are spending a lot on biotech and (information technology) business.

Q. Do you think Wisconsin businesses can make that shift?

A. Yeah. They are starting to and I'm confident they will make it. It is just a matter of being more open. The Midwest is a lot more conservative than the coasts. We have a lot more clients on the east and west coasts even though we are a Midwest-based company. ... There was a discovery, almost a shocking discovery, talking to businesses here in the Midwest region and they all said "Well, that's not how we do things." And they were so closed to change. Our business thrives on coming up with new perspectives and new ideas.

Q. Are you done with your schooling?

A. I won't get any degrees anytime soon. ... Right now there's a huge opportunity cost involved for spending any other time on studies or anything else. It would pull me away from the opportunity right now. I just have so many things that I have to accomplish.

Q. What led you to start BrainReactions?

A. I learned formal techniques for systematic innovation, structured corporate innovation when I was interning (for Pitney Bowes) and that's what got me interested in the whole field of innovation. When I came back to school, I kind of decided we have a great creative resource in the students, let's create a systematic way to tap their brainpower. That's how we got started.

When I was at Pitney Bowes, I had seen that when you go to a corporate meeting, everybody is sitting around a table and completely bored. It's not very creative. It's not a very encouraging environment for new ideas. It's terrible. If you're a big company, you don't want that. You want people who are constantly energetic and fresh and coming up with ideas. I had seen that students, the interns, were the ones who were more energetic.

It started from calling companies and saying "We are about to start this service, would you buy this?" Business doesn't start until you have revenue. So we called a bunch of companies and it was hard at first to convince that we had some value for them because we had never done something like this before. So we decided to create a track record. We did that by working for some nonprofits and solving some problems. We came up with some ideas for the Madison Fire Department and so on. And they liked the work and we got some testimonials from that and it was great. We mentioned that to my mentors at Pitney Bowes and they helped me connect to some other companies, got us our first few clients, basically got us started. Over the years, doing hundreds of brainstorms we've created a very systematic process for finding the best ideas.

Q. How do you find your brainstormers?

A. We find our applicants from various contests. Inventions contests. Business plan contests. Film-making contests. Acting contests. Improv classes. Wherever students display their creativity. We also get recommendations from professors, (teaching assistants) and peers.

Then we send them through this whole pipeline where we screen them.

Q. You started your first company at age 17. When did you go from just a kid to an entrepreneur?

A. I've always been entrepreneurial. I come from a business background. My family has been a business family. My dad is an entrepreneur. I grew up in that environment. So I've always wanted to start companies.

Q. What takes up most of your time as CEO of BrainReactions?

A. There hasn't been a single day when I was at the office from 9 to 5. Most of the time I am meeting with other people. I'm actually traveling most of the time. I just got back from India after I had meetings in Chicago. I've been meeting with people in Atlanta and California, Japan. When I was India meeting with a lot of business prospects and partners creating strategic partnerships. In Japan I was meeting with potential franchisees. We are currently giving international franchises for BrainReactions. ... I am kind of the big promoter for the company all over the place. My job is to make sure that people who can use our services know about us.

Q. How long did it take for the company to start taking in revenue?

A. Probably three months to six months. But the real tipping point where we were able to create a very good, consistent brainstorming system and something that produces results all the time was only when we had several clients in the pipeline. And now we have a bunch of Fortune 100 clients. So that has been just recently. This year has been a much better year for us.

Q. What are the company's goals?

A. They include expanding to other places with franchises. I had a meeting with someone in Brazil this morning and that went very well. I don't want to say I'm committed to starting a franchise there but we're exploring. We have in the pipeline several other locations. We've already started negotiations with U.K. and China and Singapore and Japan and Brazil and several other countries.

Another thing in the pipeline is getting into some other markets. Exploring training, corporate innovation training. So now that we have successfully created a system ourselves of how we could leverage creativity, (the idea is) teaching that system to other companies.

Q. What are some challenges BrainReactions faces?

A. I think the challenge is just staying disciplined and focused, because we have so many opportunities right now. It's a matter of do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and you could do a lot of different things. We have several ideas that are waiting in the pipeline to be executed. Prioritizing what you have to focus on currently and sticking with it. It's just figuring out what to do first and getting it done and (deciding) what to get done second instead of doing 20 things all at the same time.

It's also an interesting challenge finding entrepreneurial people who can commit themselves to one idea. Because you can find people who are very entrepreneurial and creative, but they change their favorite idea every once in a while.

Q. How do you keep those creative people committed to BrainReactions?

A. Keeping the environment more diverse and interesting within their day-to-day work. We've never had a typical day. So creating a workplace where you can do something new every day. Keeping it fresh at the same time as staying focused on what you're trying to do.

Q. What has been your biggest triumph as an entrepreneur?

A. Professionally, the biggest triumph was seeing my vision in reality. Starting with a thought, an idea, and then seeing it happen.

Today when I see our company serving the United Nations and impacting 183 nations in the world, that to me feels like a triumph. I feel like, yes, I am making a positive difference to the global community. I'm doing something that did not exist before.

Q. What have been some of the mistakes you've made?

A. So many, so many. I think I have a habit of trusting people too quickly. It kind of comes with being an employee. We've had issues in the past where we hired somebody too soon or gave a challenge to a person where they were not able to cope with it. ... So looking for integrity is something I didn't do well before but I'm starting to kind of learn how to do that.

Ideas are his business

Interviewed by Nathan Leaf

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