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| (Left: Akshay Ravi; Right: Ajaay Ravi) |
On a warm Monday
evening in August, I and my brother Ajaay were rushing to our TI:GER class. We
were hardly a week into the MBA program at Scheller and were just getting to
know our classmates. We entered our TI:GER class discussing how we had to
network with a new set of classmates all over again. It was a little
intimidating at first talking with all the PhD and JD students with the idea of
forming teams to potentially start a company.
Slowly and steadily, we got an opportunity to talk to everyone and get
to know one another.
One day during a
casual hallway conversation at the TI:GER lab, Margi was asking us about the
team formation was coming along and told us in a lighter vein – “I hope the
brothers don’t end up together on the same team.” Ajaay told her that we had
been consciously avoiding doing so from day 1 at Scheller and were confident
that it would be the same for TI:GER as well.
Having grown up
together and shared a room for 20 years, we knew each other very well to the
extent where we could accurately predict what the other is thinking. Hence we
thought in order to expand our repertoire we need to team up with a different
set of people as that would benefit both of us going forward. Putting aside all
other factors, we just started to network with all our classmates in the hope
of becoming friends. We felt that there was no point in forming a team and a
company if we cannot gel together as friends in the first place. After TI:GER
class one Monday we were talking to one of the JD students, Lorrin Stone, who had
a similar mindset as ours. We ended up having a long chat outside the GaTech
hotel parking garage and felt very comfortable interacting outside class.
As time
progressed and we got closer to the deadline to form our teams, one of the
teams had already formed in our class and panic struck. We sat down and began
to critically evaluate the projects we were interested in and found out that
both of us had listed a particular project as our first choice given how well it
aligned with our backgrounds. So contrary to what we were trying very hard to
avoid, we eventually ended up in the same team. Our PhD teammate Matt had
already decided on a JD student Forrest and we needed one more teammate. We
recommended Lorrin’s name and our Team Cool was formed. We connected very
quickly as a team and almost every conversation we had involved cars, engines,
guns, thermal interface materials, assignments, jokes, basketball and food. And
a few ideas every now and then about commercializing the technology as well.
For us, it was an
amazing experience interacting with Lorrin and Forrest as both of us were Electrical
Engineers and now MBA students. We found out that Lorrin had a Finance
background and Forrest already had experience running his own company and both
of our lawyers understood business better than us. The avenues to learn were
plenty and the chances of going wrong very marginal, given the experience in
our team. Each of us brought different perspectives to the table and it was
interesting to find out how well we complemented each other. All of us
understood the nuances of Matt’s technology and started contributing to the
brainstorming sessions fairly quickly. Yes, being lawyers Lorrin and Forrest do
articulate a lot better. The other wonderful aspect of our team is the
openness. Everybody is open to suggestion, bring about ideas to do things
differently and debate potential solutions constructively. Matt is also very
patient in explaining super scientific concepts that goes way above our heads.
He deconstructs concepts into simple language so that it is easy for all of us
to understand.
We also set up a
regular time to meet every week and make it a point to always meet at different
places across the school / city. This way we get to soak in different sights,
enjoy different types of cuisines, and have refreshing conversations in new
surroundings.
Until now, we
have never felt that we are an interdisciplinary or multicultural team. We
always think that we are a bunch of awesome people doing something cool. One
important thing you learn apart from commercialization in TI:GER is friendship.
This is definitely the start of a wonderful relationship for us going forward!
