Brothers In Arms

At a time when brotherly affections seem to have fallen by the roadside,
especially when it is related to business matters, Manish and Mitesh Dava stand
out for their love and trust in one another. Having trodden the tough way to
establish Apurva Computer Technologies successfully, they are now prudently
figuring out a way reach to more customers in the country

It has been over a decade since Manish and Mitesh decided to start a company
on their own. Today, they are proud that despite having no formal education in
business and with very little start-up investment, they have managed to touch a
revenue of Rs 22 crore.

A tough start

Daves' father was a lawyer by profession, while their mother was a homemaker.
But the senior Dave was disenchanted with the way law was practiced and instead
decided to offer legal advice to educational institutes. Currently he is the
legal advisor for PCU Shah Engineering College.

While not leading a hand to mouth existence, finance was still tight in the
household. Despite this, Mitesh decided to pursue his graduation in
instrumentation and control from the Pujya Sane Guruji Vidya Prasad Mandal in
Dhule, Maharashtra. This meant moving away from their hometown in Surendranagar,
Gujurat. But Mitesh was adamant and convinced his parents to let him stay in a
hostel for his educational stint.

With Mitesh seeking this technical stream, his parents thought that Manish
should also follow suit. “They felt that if the younger son did not get a high
quality of education, then at some time, he might feel inferior to his sibling,”
recollected Manish.

MANISH AND MITESH DAVE: Perseverance pays

And even though it was financially a pinch, Manish was packed off to join his
brother at the same college, though he chose to pursue his graduation in
electronics and telecom. And as luck would have it, the two brothers even shared
the same room in the college hostel for a year.

“Mitesh is elder to me by four years. But we have always been on the same
level and agree on most things in life. This has made it easy for us to be
together all these years,” said Manish.

Earning innovatively

After his graduation, Mitesh worked with a chemical company, which was
specialized in soda ash manufacture, for over a year, while Manish continued
with his studies. Since almost 80 percent of Manish's studies involved
computers, he soon developed an attachment to the machine.

Manish kept nagging his father to get them a loan, which would help them buy a
PC, so that he could study technology better. His father was apprehensive as it
was a big investment, a luxury they could ill afford. “My parents could not
afford to send me to NIIT or Aptech to learn some of the courses. But
eventually, he relented and bought me a PC,” recalled Manish.

It was around this time that Manish realized that there were scores of other
students who aspired to learn computing, but could not afford exorbitant
courses. And he thought, why not start offering tutorials using the same PC.
This way, they could easily pay off the hefty loan. This business idea clicked
and in a few months, the Dave brothers had around 16 students signing up for
their courses at a monthly fee of Rs 1,000. During the day, Manish would teach
the students and in the night he would study for his own examinations.

Saving the money earned through this amateurish stint, Manish and Mitesh soon
bought an office measuring 3,000 sq ft and decided to get into IT training. They
signed up with NIIT as the latter's franchisee partner and for the next 10
years, they ran a computer class in Surendranagar.

Moving on from training

But soon, the IT training market started registering a decline and the Daves
decided to get out of it. They noticed that the IT wave was however catching on
in the country and decided to use their technical skills to offer annual
maintenance contracts, under the name Smart Computer Care. Gradually, they also
started trading in IT products.

It was around this time, that one of their customers, Shetul Shah of New Age
Industries visited Japan. There, he saw a Linux-based thin client

and liked the concept. He returned and told the brothers about this, which
piqued their interest as well. They started researching the product and soon
realized that it had tremendous potential in a country like India.

“In India, customers are very squeamish about paying high prices, even
though they want to join the race for technology. A thin client will help them
achieve this, especially if it is Linux-based,” informed Manish.

This is how Smart Station was born. And the brothers targeted SMBs,
educational institutions and other verticals that were cost-sensitive, but

still required PCs for their daily work.

Undeterred by travails

When the Dave brothers got into the thin clients business, they had to face
their share of problems. Manish recalled how once Apurva Computer Services
bagged a big order from an educational institution. To fulfill it, the duo had
to take a loan, for which the banks asked for a collateral. They had to mortgage
their property to get the loan sanctioned.

All through this incident, the brothers feared that the deal would unravel,
which would mean a major loss for them. But still they persevered and clinched
the deal. “Today, over 95 schools in Gujarat are using our thin clients, which
is nothing but a result of our persistence,” stated Manish.

The biggest challenge that Manish and Mitesh faced was educating customers on
the feasibility of thin clients. “People would always think that a thin client
is not as efficient as a PC. We had to give them several demos and convince them
that a thin client was a better option,” Manish recalled. The trading arm of
Apurva Computer Services helped the company tide over the initial hiccups of
establishing the concept of the thin clients among their customers. But soon,
the latter became the mainstay of the company. Last year the thin clients
business contributed Rs 22 crore to the overall kitty of Rs 3 crore.

Currently, Manish and Mitesh have split responsibilities between themselves
to help their company grow further. Mitesh looks after R&D to offer better
and newer versions of the thin client, whereas Manish is involved in the
operational part of the business.

Apurva Computer Services today manufactures around 50 thin clients and 120
thin client LAN cards at its facility in Surendranagar. It is awaiting its ISO
9000:2001 certification. This rags to riches story again underlines the fact
that if you aspire to scale newer heights, then you have to learn to spread your
wings and look upwards, rather than worry about the ground beneath you. Like
Manish said, “Had we not taken the risks that we did, we would never have been
where we are today!”

VINITA BHATIA