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‘Dream, plan, execute’

Young, dynamic, charismatic, successful and ambitious—every youngster today would want to be in his shoes. Meet 27-year-old Dr Kaustubh Chokshi, CEO and Co-founder of Intelligent Business Systems, in conversation with Renuka Vembu.

As we sit in his cool, or rather freezing cabin in Andheri, Mumbai, he requests me to ask questions. I want him to start with his family, but he stops even before he starts. “Do you really want me to talk about my family?” he asks, and I reply with a genuine ‘yes’. Well, Kaustubh Chokshi was born in 1979 in a business family in Mumbai. His grandfather K H Shah was the founder-director of Themis Pharmaceuticals of Metacin fame. His father, Upen Chokshi, owned a couple of factories in Vaapi, so business ran in this budding entrepreneur’s blood. Chokshi did his schooling from Jamnabhai Narsee School and completed his graduation in commerce from Mithibai College. An avid sports enthusiast in school, Chokshi played cricket, football and volleyball and loved biking and skating. While he despised and scraped through subjects like history, civics and geography, his passion for physics and computer science were clearly evident.

During his school days, in the 8th and 9th standards, at an age when children were engaged in surfing the Internet and playing video games, Chokshi was engrossed in programming and computing. While in his 11th grade, he wrote a software programme called Seminar Information System (SIS), which helped people to manage seminars, track mailing lists, teach participants, keep a record of seminars attended, monitor results, etc., on the lines of CRM activities today. He also wrote systems like Bulletin Board for Garware on behalf on Gremlin Systems and for a travel agency called TransIndus. Thus, his inclination towards the IT field and his talent thereby were always visible. Long walks along the beaches with his father and discussions ranging from business meetings to social responsibilities to corporate obligations to politics and commerce nurtured his aptitude, shaped his personality and groomed him to be an entrepreneur.

Chokshi had sizeable amount of experience, but an official degree was still sought after. He went abroad to do his Masters in Information Technology Management and further pursued his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Sunderland (UK). He focused his thesis on knowledge management. National numbers wanted a system that translated names to number plates and vice-versa. He single-handedly accomplished the task—from writing the engine to the interface.

Chokshi returned to India and formed his own company, Intelligent Business System (IBS), along with his business partner Christo Panchev, in 2002, with no capital from angel investors or funding from family. He learned to commercialise the concept and realised that while only 30 percent was technology, 70 percent was attributed to business development. He says, “I never forced my clients to buy my software. I gave them an opportunity to use it to see if it solved their problems, offered them solutions and satisfied their requirements.”

There were tough moments in Chokshi’s career graph, but it proved to be an exciting experience along the learning curve. Ask him about his achievement and his landmark and he is quick to reply with a chuckle, “Only the best is good for me and the masterpiece is yet to come.” This young entrepreneur likes abstract art, music and biking—which has become impossible thanks to the pollution and the appalling state of roads of Mumbai. His mother, Anjana Chokshi, helps him in the business and his father is a business consultant in Europe. His steps to success and his advice to young entrepreneurs are pretty simple, “Dream, plan, execute. Take risks, face difficulties, but maintain a balance between risk and security.” This is precisely what has brought him to where he stands.