Lessons From An Inspiring Founder
I remember, as a school child in India, contending with ‘keds’ – shoes fashioned from thin white canvas with rubbery green soles – often pockmarked with holes from stubbing against stones or thorns. While we scampered around as best we could in these, we envied the foreign travellers who were clad in more fancy shoes. Tapping into that childhood yearning, still widespread in many Indian school children, Plaeto intends to bridge the gap with feature-rich, scientifically-designed, sustainable and affordable shoes.
In an enthralling conversation, Ravi Kallayil, CEO and cofounder of Plaeto offers some lessons from his own life and career for other aspiring founders.
Draw Foundational Values From Your Childhood and Family
When Kallayil graduated with a Business degree from Wharton, he was acutely aware of how the family’s fortunes had slid up an aspirational slope that many Indians hope to scale; of how others from his grandparents’ village in Chittalancheri, Kerala, might have harbored similar dreams but were held back by confining circumstances or snatched opportunities. Kallayil’s own parents hadn’t studied beyond high school. His father, the first person in his family to leave the village, built a career selling tea in various parts of South India. Fortunately, Kallayil and his three siblings made the parental striving worthwhile. Between them, they garnered nearly twelve degrees, with two of them graduating from Ivy Leagues. “It was really wonderful,” recalls Kallayil, “to take Dad and Mom, who had never even heard of an Ivy League college at one point, to my graduation at Wharton.”
It was from his Dad too, that Kallayil absorbed the significance of giving back to the larger community. While bedridden during his last years, his Dad recounted a story that he hadn’t imparted to his family till then. At the age of 24, while working as an operator at an oil mill, his father, along with other employees, was laid off when the oil mill downed its shutters. Though he was still young, and facing an uncertain material future, he donated all his PF savings to fellow-employees, many of whom were starving inside their homes. The notion of helping others, even at a cost to oneself, stuck with Kallayil. For the past twenty years, his family has been associated with various non-profit organizations in India, with his wife having built a career as a full-time non-profit person.
Be Willing to Learn from All Levels, including Shopfloor Workers
Born in Coimbatore, Kallayil was schooled mainly at Trivandrum, where he also received a Bachelor’s in Engineering. His first job, as a newly-minted engineer, was with BSA Cycles in Chennai. Assigned to the shop floor, where he was expected to manage 200 unionized employees, Kallayil soon realized that his psychological mettle and engineering skills were quickly being put to test. Trying to deliberately trip up the new, young manager, the shopfloor team would devise the kind of real-world tests that might have fazed anyone emerging from a text-book environment. Kallayil also realized that once you pass those hurdles, and prove that you are willing to work with a grounded approach rather than merely issuing commands, the team would also go out on a limb for you.
Engage in Field Work to Gain a Pulse of the Market
After his shopfloor stint, Kallayil applied to IIM-Bangalore to pursue an MBA in Marketing. His first job, after IIM, was with Lakme, a part of the Unilever group. Kallayil observes that hands-on experience at Unilever is priceless training for anyone joining such a large consumer business. Continuing to adopt the hands-on approach that had won the team over at BSA Cycles, he engaged in the physical toil of going door-to-door, selling lipsticks in various parts of the country. He sold make-up products in places ranging from Nasik in Maharashtra to cities and small towns in Bihar, Orissa and Nepal. At one point, he had halted at every train station between Chennai and Calcutta. In those regions, Kallayil also witnessed deprivation, hunger and poverty at levels he hadn’t seen in places where he had grown up. Equally, he sensed the pulsing desires for a better life, like in every other place. “India is a place of so much aspiration, I came out of that kind of aspiration too.”
His sales stint was also punctuated by other memorable adventures. One evening, in Kolkata, he was mugged at gunpoint after unknowingly interrupting a store robbery. At other times, good Samaritans helped with his exhausting journeys. Since he often had to travel out on unreserved train tickets, he rarely had berths allotted to him. Kind ticket conductors would arrange bedding for him inside the train’s storage room where blankets and other supplies were kept.
Widen Your Cultural and Geographic Opportunities
At that stage, Kallayil and his wife wished to explore opportunities in the U.S. Moving from a systems role in Lakme, he joined Infosys and headed to the Bay Area, to work at an ecommerce project at Apple. Since dotcoms were flourishing then, he joined a startup founded by classmates from his school. The idea was to develop a Smart Grid, a concept that was perhaps ahead of its time. Though the team got funded and developed the technology adequately, Enron’s dissolution had rub-off effects on all companies in the Energy sector. With the startup unexpectedly shut down, Kallayil tided through a tricky period with a four-month-old child, and a wife in college. To save on rentals, the family even stayed with college friends till Kallayil entered Wharton, to acquire a second business degree.
Adopt an Entrepreneurial Mindset At Large Organizations
After Wharton, Kallayil joined Nike. But after two years of frigid winters in Portland, Oregon, he opted to head back to India, to head operations at Nike India. During his India stint, he also spotted other business opportunities, that he was encouraged to pursue. For instance, he started Nike Cricket as a business unit. This was during the time when India also won the 2011 World Cup, so there was a lot of jubilation about being associated with the game. He also tried selling kids’ footwear to the school-going segment and the business unit started scaling rapidly. Nike, however, was reluctant to operate in segments where global minimum margin objectives were not met.
Expand Opportunities for Lower Level Staff
In Nike’s third-party operated warehouse, he encountered many young people who had college degrees, but were compelled to engage in manual work because of inadequate communication skills or other managerial aptitude. “Many of them were leaving these jobs, because if you treat them like workers, there is really no incentive for them to stay.” Realizing that they needed to engage with the brand in more positive ways, Kallayil started fostering changes to improve their work environment.
As a first, they started a canteen, which offered fully-paid meals. They also embarked on training programs, encouraging employees to lift their conversational English skills and other business knowhow. Many were able to hoist themselves out of their warehouse jobs. Recently, Kallayil discovered that about 20 of the ex-warehouse employees had signed on as managers at DHL.
Also inspiration can come from anyone. Kallayil recounts the story of one of the current employees, Shashi at Plaeto , who emerged from a village, sleeping four days in the Majestic bus station when he relocated to Bangalore, just to access the restroom there. From those impoverished beginnings, Shashi grew into a sports marketing position at Nike, where he was managing the Indian cricket team’s association with the enterprise. “Shashi’s energy and aspiration motivates me on a daily basis,” says Kallayil.
Nike was also one of the first companies to deploy women in warehousing jobs. Setting up a target of 30% for female warehouse employees, they actively diversified the hires. By ensuring employee buy-in at all levels, they rarely encountered problems with meeting targets.
Gain Experience with Ideation Teams
After six years at Nike India, Kallayil decided to return to the U.S. to help set up Nike Africa. After a year with Nike Africa, he embarked on one of his most stimulating stints inside the footwear company. He headed the ideation group, which was tasked with seeking new ideas from other industries and applications. This experience involved imaginative forays into unrelated industries, scouting for potential rub-offs in shoe design or production. For instance, he would visit automotive fairs or printing exhibitions, looking for new technologies that could help optimize footwear. “Nine of out these 10 ideas don’t go anywhere, but at least it gives the room to our team to go and think very, very differently.” Some of their explorations included the integration of braille into shoe designs, or imbuing the tactile feel of wine bottle labels to shoe uppers. Since wine labels are printed, they realized that many shoe parts could also be generated in a similar fashion, eliminating the need to stick or stitch parts together.
While investigating AI applications in shoe designs, they wondered if the cushioning could morph based on the surface. For instance, a more fluid cushioning could respond in real-time to different surface vibrations – like that of a grassy sweep versus a concrete driveway. They explored fashioning shoes from non-woven textiles, like the fabrics used to create shopping bags. Ideating in this blue-sky manner led to re-engaging with a problem that had always niggled Kallayil: how do you make affordable shoes for Indian school kids that also had world-class features?
Since at the Nike Ideation group, he had access to the world’s best footwear designers, he tossed this problem around with some of those experts. Like Bruce Kilgore, who had also designed footwear for athletes like Michael Jordan. “If you total up all the shoes he’s designed, it’s the sixth largest footwear company in the world,” says Kallayil. And though Kilgore forged an eco-friendly, low-cost design, Nike was reluctant to move into the space that Kallayil felt was necessary to make a significant dent in the Indian market.
Persist With An Idea to Bring it to Fruition
Eager to usher an impact into a geography that continued to resonate with him emotionally, Kallayil decided to quit Nike and found Plaeto. His co-founders include Pavan Kareti and Sara Kilgore, both of whom were electrified by the idea of producing world-class shoes for Indian kids, at a price that many millions could afford.
Also, in the U.S., as Kallayil’s daughter grew into a teenager, he observed her go through physical and emotional distress. He watched the manner in which she used sports to yank herself out of rough situations. He started sensing that many Indian kids would also benefit from using sports – not just to build professional sports careers – but to alleviate their emotional troubles. As Kallayil puts it, “Our mission is to bring the joy of play to every Indian child.”
Since he has started this enterprise, many other forces seem to be aiding his venture. Someone suggested he meet with Rahul Dravid; the cricket icon was so taken in by the idea, that after a second meeting, he offered to endorse their brand.
They didn’t just starting making shoes without studying the specifics of Indian feet. They actually examined the feet of 500 children and conducted interviews with at least 100 parents. Also studying the conditions in which Indians have to walk and run – often on very dusty, uneven, irregular surfaces – they created the tooling in Italy and devised the chemistry to withstand tough landscapes. “It’s a very scientifically designed product,” says Kallayil.
Weave Sustainability Into Your Processes
At this point, the Coimbatore-based factory is also set up to produce one of the lowest-carbon footprint shoes in the world, which is available at a price of approximately $20 per pair. The enterprise has been nominated for the Edison Prize for Innovation Around Sustainability. The long-lasting shoes are also packaged in cloth bags, rather than in cardboard boxes, and are designed to accommodate growing feet, reducing the need for replacements.
Kallayil is also roping in a few enthused and inventive schoolchildren to intern with the organization. He hopes to usher in the same playful quality that ought to infuse all childhood experiences into the organization.
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