The Values Train

Atul Jain, the founder and CEO of TEOCO, which provides software-based solutions to the telecommunications industry, is on a mission.

“It is my dream and goal to promote the practice of principled entrepreneurship,” Atul says.  “I want to prove that nice people can win in this game of business, and that you don’t have to sell your soul to the devil in order to succeed.”  His book, At What Price?, details how to make a profit without sacrificing your values, and as he builds his business, so too does he develop a business model that will stand on its own.

In the book, Atul aims to describe not only the joys of running a principle-centric workplace, but also the challenges.  “The book is not meant to convince people to be principled in business,” he says.  “Rather, I am writing to the people who wish to be principled but may not know how to do so.  And I hope that they can then build on my ideas.”

Atul describes a business world where, at every turn, people expect you to sacrifice a little piece of your values to make slightly more money—just a little piece here and a little piece there.  It may not seem like much at first, but over time, these slight course corrections can amount to an enormous change in direction.

“If you look at two pairs of train tracks that run parallel to each other,” Atul explains, “you will see that they arrive at the same destination.  But if one of the tracks begins to diverge from the other even by a very small amount, then their ultimate destinations can be very different.  When you abandon your values train and get on a different track, soon enough you are not headed in the direction you had planned.”

Remaining the faithful conductor of his own values train, Atul has founded and led a business to great success.  TEOCO, which stands for The Employee-Owned Company, was founded in 1995 to provide software-based solutions to the telecommunications industry.  With over 650 employees, it has never missed payroll, remains profitable, and sees revenues of over $100 million, but Atul didn’t start this business to make profits alone.  Rather, he started it to prove that it’s possible to create profits without sacrificing values.  And in the 17 years since the company’s inception, that’s exactly what he’s done.  “It’s been a fun journey,” he says, “and many people have helped me. I’m grateful for the support I’ve received over the years.”

Atul grew up in a modest household in the largest state in India, and while his family had enough money to put food on the table, they enjoyed very few luxuries.  Atul’s father worked for the Public Works Department (PWD) for the government, building roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects.  The PWD suffered from rampant corruption, with abundant opportunities to make extra money through bribes.  Young Atul learned that his father was an honorable man who resisted temptation and stood up for his principles, but sometimes found himself in the way of others who sought to benefit from that corruption.  Yet even as he received physical threats, he still did his best to stick to his principles.

“I was a child at the time,” Atul recalls, “and we never had an explicit conversation about this, but I witnessed the everyday struggle.  I believe that children learn much more through observing their parents and the world than through being lectured.”

Atul’s mother was a homemaker and was also a strong influence.  “I saw her work harder than I’ve seen anyone work in their lives,” Atul says today.  “And she not only did it, but she did it with a smile.”

Born in Kanpur in 1961, Atul left home at the age of 11 to attend boarding school in 1972.  A gifted math student, he graduated high school in 1976 at the age of 15 and went on to attend the Indian Statistical Institute later that year in Calcutta.  He came to the US in 1981 to pursue a Ph.D. in Math at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but did not complete his dissertation.  “This is a regret,” Atul says somberly, “and one of the few things I’ve started and not finished.  The experience of leaving the program, and what led to it, is something that still lives with me.”

About a year into the PhD program, Atul became involved in playing the card-game bridge at a competitive level.  He began traveling around the country, attending tournaments and competing for what are called Masterpoints in the competitive bridge community.  It was at this time that he fell into a pattern of behavior that led directly to leaving the PhD program without completing it.

“I wish I knew what happened,” Atul says.  “When addiction happens, it doesn’t ask your permission.  Playing bridge is very intense, and I played it at a high level for prestige.  My natural analytical talent, combined with my flair for the game, made me a difficult player to compete against.”

As he played more, Atul fell into company with other bridge players who were betting on sports on the side.  Atul still remembers his first wager: a friendly, five dollar bet on a football game—the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns.  “One thing led to another,” Atul says.  “It was not something I could have predicted.  I never thought I would get suckered into this.  Bridge was one thing.  It would never have taken me down.  But this gambling addiction became something else entirely, and it threatened my very existence.”

By the time he finally quit, Atul had accumulated debt that totaled more than three times his annual income.  But more than that, gambling had taken over his life, and he couldn’t see a path forward.

“Along with the first bet I made,” Atul says, “I remember the last.  It was an over-under in college football between Alabama and Auburn.  Everything was fine going into the last quarter, and I was set to win easily, but through a series of fumbles, the score rapidly changed and it was all over.”

That was December, a couple weeks before Christmas.  Dejected and with nowhere to turn, Atul changed the TV to something that was not a football game.  As luck would have it, he found himself watching a movie called It’s a Wonderful Life.

“You know the story,” Atul says.  “George Bailey is on a bridge, and faced with a huge financial crisis at his Savings & Loan, he is planning to jump into the raging river to his death.  Suddenly, an angel jumps into the river ahead of him.  George’s natural instincts take over and he jumps into the river to save the angel.  The angel proceeds to show George the impact he has had on people’s lives and what would have happened to Bedford Falls without him.  My angel was coming through this film.”

Atul had never before heard of the movie, but on that night it sparked a remarkable transformation in his life.  It gave him hope and courage, and the desire to come back from the crisis he found himself in.  Just like George Bailey, Atul had helped many already, and he wanted to continue to make the world a better place.

“I vowed that if I did make it back,” Atul says, “I would try to touch as many lives as possible in a positive way.  It is so good to be sitting here telling you that I have made it back.  That I’m helping as many people as I can.”

Atul returned to school at Urbana-Champaign and began a Masters in Computer Science.  He worked hard and made it through all the coursework and exams, but he found himself stalled at the finish line, at a loss as to how to complete his Master’s thesis.  This time, it wouldn’t be an angel that saved him.

“Right around then, my brother got married,” Atul remembers.  “My parents came from India for the wedding, and after my brother left on his honeymoon, my parents decided to come stay with me for two weeks.  They could tell I was in trouble immediately, so my father decided they would not go back to India until I finished my Master’s thesis.  I don’t know how they figured it out, but they did.”

With that, Atul told his parents he would complete the thesis in 30 days and set to work.  “Deadlines have power,” he affirms.  “I didn’t want my parents spending three months with me, waiting, wasting their life.  I just didn’t have the heart to let them down one more time.  I had already thrown away so much to gambling, and I hadn’t finished my PhD.”

Atul put his head down and worked harder than he had ever worked before in his life.  With help from his parents and many friends, he completed the thesis within 30 days—something a typical student might spend several months on.  His parents went back home to India, and Atul began his working life.  “I spent about six and a half years at Teknekron Software Systems (now TIBCO),” he details.  “I didn’t want to bring my gambling debts into my marriage, so I saved aggressively on a fairly modest income, paid off everything I owed, and got married to my wonderful wife, Priti, in June of 1990.”

Atul, a bright young man with two masters degrees in math and computer science, saw plenty of opportunities to grow at TIBCO.  But over and over again, there was something about the culture that rubbed him the wrong way, pushing him to consider starting his own business.

“I had never thought about being an entrepreneur,” Atul says.  “I call myself an accidental entrepreneur.  I became one to show that creating joy and business success didn’t have to compete with each other.  I was in a good position at a strong company, with good people and good pay.  But immediate profits always came first at TIBCO.  They wouldn’t address an employee issue unless the employee threatened to quit.  They wouldn’t act with a sense of urgency on a tough project unless the client threatened to walk.  These things didn’t feel right to me.”

Atul told himself that he wanted to reverse the model and put employees first, then the client, and then business.  He reasoned that, if you take care of your employees, then they will take care of the clients, and that will take care of the business.  “And so I worked out an agreement with my wife,” Atul says.  “We had saved a bit on money, but we had two young children.  We decided to give my plan twelve months to prove it could succeed.”

Eventually, Atul’s strategy evolved to one of alignment with employees, clients, and community.  This alignment is exemplified within TEOCO’s logo, a Mobius strip. The Mobius strip is a loop with only one surface.  If you take a pen and start tracing a line across the surface, you will cover the entire surface and return to the starting point without lifting the pen.

“I still feel to this day that I’ve never been trained to be a businessman,” Atul confides.  “TEOCO is very successful, but I believe strongly that it is not my brilliance that engenders that success.  Yes, I’ve created the company and a positive work environment, but I have an extremely strong management team that has more business sense than I do.  I have been fortunate to attract them and to retain them by empowering them with much of the decision-making in our company.  As I strive to be a teacher and mentor, I see many of the people working alongside me to be my own coaches and mentors.”

TEOCO’s business has evolved considerably over the years. Atul acquired a modest amount of intellectual property in 1998 and converted it into a business that became the leading provider of Cost Management solutions to telecom carriers in North America. With the acquisition of Vibrant Solutions and Vero Systems, TEOCO continued its upward trajectory.  However, it is the acquisition of two Israeli-based companies, TTI Telecom and Schema, that has converted TEOCO into a global provider of software solutions to telecom carriers worldwide.

Atul continues to impact people’s lives in a positive way, whether it is through mentoring TEOCO employees worldwide, writing his book, giving talks on the subject of Principled Entrepreneurship, or encouraging his three children, Ankit, Mayank, and Nehal.  This inclination is apparent in his advice to young people entering the business world today.  “I would tell students that how you get there is at least as important, if not more important, than where you get to,” he affirms.  “Because you can run away from everyone but yourself.  At the end of the day, you have to be proud and at peace with where—and who—you are.”

‍