An Interview with Entrepreneur Kalpesh Balar

Introduction – Bio

Kalpesh is the co-founder and heads technology at Coseer – which builds AI for the enterprise. He has been an entrepreneur and a technocrat since forever now. Prior to Coseer, Kalpesh was heading technology at InkFruit which was acquired by Zovi in 2013. Later, Kalpesh joined Nykaa as the CTO, which is a leading player in the online Indian beauty and cosmetics space. He has also pioneered many notable advancements in the video delivery technologies while working at MediaMelon. Kalpesh enjoys travelling, trekking and being in nature. He is married and has two amazing kids who always seem to be teaching him something new.

Are you an entrepreneur looking for your MVP built? Get in touch with us at hello@devathon.com

Devathon has built software for companies backed by the world’s leading investors like Betaworks, Greylock, Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, KPCB, Lightspeed and many more.

In an exclusive interview with Devathon, Coseer co-founder, Head of Tech and the India team, Kalpesh Balar traces his journey so far and his plans for the years ahead.

When did you first discover your entrepreneurial spirit and How is your entrepreneurial career developing so far?

From as early as I can remember – dating back to my primary school days, I used to spend weekends at my father’s textile factory. That set the stage for me, I later joined him full time after high school, but my love for science and technology took me to engineering college. Moreover, I worked with a number of startups scaling, growing with the companies and my entrepreneurial bent had started showing already.

What motivated you to join Coseer?

Coseer is the most passionate group of people I have ever worked with. Our shared passion for the problem we are solving, for our product, and for our customers, is truly unbelievable. It is a rare privilege in life, if you are passionate about technology, to get to work on solving the most challenging problems. Infact, our passion goes beyond technology – we are a diverse team of multi-cultural and multi-ethnic individuals, that bring varied perspectives and innovation to the table, keeping the burning desire for positive change front and center.

Can you explain to us how Coseer can help companies/industries push the boundaries as we know them?

At Coseer we genuinely believe in our vision that humans should focus on creativity and judgement, while technology handles everything routine. Our technology can process language like a human would, and then automate tasks that are either impossible otherwise or would need large teams. Now enterprises can be more responsive, better informed and smarter. At the heart of it, is a truly disruptive cognitive computing engine that is an order of magnitude more powerful than leading standards. Coseer is fast to learn, highly flexible, can run over commoditized hardware and is highly scalable. This enables us to deliver highly secure solutions at a disruptive ROI, which behave as if they were tailormade.

What has been the biggest success and biggest failure stories you went through?

Coseer has emerged as a viable, cash-flow positive, and rapidly-growing business. While the jury is still out on how successful the venture will become, I consider Coseer to be my greatest success. We have recently been awarded as the best AI application, and as a Technology for Tomorrow at Davos.
As for my failures – I fail all the time. I believe that if you are not failing, your goals are just too easy. The key, however, is never to give up; keep learning from each experience and call each failure an experiment.

What are your growth plans for the near future?

Coseer’s capabilities are at about 3 or 4 on the scale of 10 in our journey, which means many things are working beautifully, and yet there are incredible things to be done. We are constantly expanding our team. Our HQ is in SF, and we have a presence in Europe and Asia. We are already cash-flow positive and growing fast.

Why have you adopted a remote working culture?

Our remote working culture is one of our competitive advantages as far as talent goes. We can attract the best minds all across the world; we make it very easy for them to work with Coseer, and we make them more productive.

Do people really get work done remotely / Are they more productive?

In our experience, people are more productive in the remote setup. They don’t have to spend hours travelling from home – office and back. They can live in an environment which suits them; they don’t have to live in polluted cities. Some of our team members in India work from the hill stations of Himachal while others work from beaches of Goa.
The promise of a virtual culture like ours is that we work with the best around the globe. Many studies from Harvard, MIT and others agree with what we already know – 21st century organizations are largely going to be virtual. We are only leading the way!

In your opinion, what are the hurdles that keep people away from starting an entrepreneurial career? What advice would you give to the new entrepreneurs?

I think the biggest hurdle that keeps people away from being an entrepreneur is the fear of failure. Entrepreneurs understand that failure is part of the journey and each time they fall down, they get right back up, dust themselves off, learn from the mistake, adjust, and move forward with more vigor. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable; constantly take on challenges that push you out of your comfort zone.

Are you an entrepreneur looking for your MVP built? Get in touch with us at hello@devathon.com

Devathon has built software for companies backed by the world’s leading investors like Betaworks, Greylock, Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, KPCB, Lightspeed and many more.