Yatin grew up in the small town of Kurudwadi, Solapur. His dad used to run a watch repair shop over there. After doing his schooling at Kurudwadi, Yatin shifted for Junior College to Solapur. He surprised the family by flunking his grade 12 exams. His math score was 14/100. Dad decided that his son needed more practical than theoretical education, and called him back to Kurudwadi to man the watch repairing business. After a year of working in the family watch repairing shop, Yatin decided to give grade 12 another shot – but this time at a local college at Kurudwadi. It was embarrassing for him in this college because almost everybody seemed to know of his Solapur misadventure. Without informing his dad, Yatin decided to drop biology and concentrate on math. Dad came to know of this decision and lambasted him. Yatin was deeply affected – he decided to take both bio and maths.
In response to the challenge shown by his father, he decided to work hard. Slogged for 15 hours a day for his second attempt at 12th standard. The story had a reasonably good ending, Yatin got a 150/150 in math. He got admitted to the Walchand Institute of Technology Solapur. Dad’s shadow followed him there too. Though Yatin was more interested in mechanical, dad insisted on electronics. And electronics it was.
The story takes another twist when Yatin is in third year. Dad suffered a paralytic attack. Being the only son, Yatin had to leave college and look after his father and the shop. In 6 months, dad had recovered somewhat. To make use of his drop year, Yatin applied for and got in internship with a Pune based company, Electronica. The condition of the internship being that it would be without stipend.
Unfortunately, the family’s finances were very stretched at that time. Yatin could not be sent any money for his stay in Pune. Yatin stayed with a friend in Khadki; found a part-time job at Pune Watch company on Tilak Road and continued his 6 months internship for. His economy enforced eco-friendly mode of commute was the bicycle. He went back to complete his engineering, working weekends at the family watch repair shop to sustain the livelihood.
Based on his internship, Electronica had given him an offer. So he came to Pune in 1988 and started work. He wanted to be in business. So he designed things in a way that he got experience in all departments. A short sting at Phillips, ensured some learning about systems. His next stint was with a company that made video cassettes. The owner had given him a production target of 5000 cassettes a day. He managed to ramp up production to 13,000. However with CDs getting more in fashion, the video cassette industry declined drastically.
His next switch was a CNC making company. The Managing Director had bought a friction welding machine, which was not working. He was given the machine and made the profit Centre in-charge. The advantage of friction welding is that it provides an entire cross-section joint. Arc welding, in comparison, is only at the corners and hence superficial. When his company got its first export order, the machine maker was contacted for help in manufacturing. The German manufacturer of the machine was not ready to give details of the joining parameters, as they considered it as a core Intellectual property. The team got the tech right through a long winded trial and error process.
After 5 years, Yatin left to start on his own. His first business was in Electronic design. In the meantime, he continued to remain as a consultant to his old company. The problem was that the company was loath to enter into a concrete agreement. Very soon, he suffered a major shock as his dad passed away. Strapped for cash, he found it difficult to recover his dues from his old company. In spite, he decided to not do any further agreements with this firm; and also get into direct completion with his erstwhile employer – in the area of friction welding.
One of his customers in Calcutta had got a job for a component which involved joining aluminium and copper. Yatin found a spare machine in Bangalore and managed to do a reasonable job. He had to do all the setting and welding himself, because they were very few people with that expertise in the country. This happy story had a sad ending, when the customer refused to pay after the delivery was done. Lesson 2 learnt in the payment saga!
FWT started with their own design friction welding machines, which they used to let out for job work. Very soon making machines became a bigger game than just doing jobs. One of his highlights in his company has been getting an order for the prestigious Brahmos missile project. This placed him in competition with all the big global players. As a result of bagging this contract, one of his competitors MTI approached them for a collaboration. MTI makes machines more in the high pressure ranges. They wanted to collaborate with FWT to make smaller machines for the European market. A new brand was created called Spartan, with both companies holding 50% ownership in the brand. Yatin showed a lot of spunk to ensure that FWT and the Made in India logo was laser cut into the lables on all Spartan machines.
Yatin is a great fan of the outdoors and adventure. Amongst his many explorations, one that seemed great was a journey from Pune to Singapore, on Enfield Bullets. This was done in a one and a half months. He manages a healthy separation between company and adventure. He claims he did not get a single call from work during this one and half months. Business and adventure both involve risk. If you can put your life to risk in adventure, business risk seems small change.
Yatin’s forte seems to be more HR than manufacturing. Every employee has to undergo 120 hours of training every year. The entire team goes together for watching pro Kabbadi matches. Mango parties are also thrown every year. But the most interesting HR policy of his company is to sponsor the education of girl children of their blue Collar employees. The entire education, including transportation and private tuition is taken care of, right till graduation. That have been instances of employees leaving the company, but the education support still continues. Yatin’s dream is to spend 10% of his profits on such CSR activities. And the other is to be able to sustain the company on the no-bribes paid path.