Finding and Perfecting Your Customer-Focused Strategy feat. Professor Vikas Mittal

[00:00]Brian Jackson: Welcome to Owl Have You Know, a podcast from Rice Business. This episode is part of our Up Next series, where faculty researchers and alumni weigh in on the trends currently shaping the world of business.

 Today's episode features Professor Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice Business and faculty director of the Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy. Professor Mittal is one of the leading voices in customer-based strategy with more than 100 publications and outlets like Harvard Business Review, Management Science, and the Journal of Marketing. His research focuses on how organizations create value for customers, employees, and shareholders, and he brings that work directly into the boardroom, advising CEOs across industries on executing strategy.

In this  conversation, we talk about what leaders often misunderstand about customer focus, why many strategies fail during execution, and how science-driven strategy can help organizations make better decisions.

Professor, thank you very much for joining me on Owl Have You Know.

[01:08]Vikas Mittal: Oh, you're welcome. It's my pleasure.

[01:10]Brian Jackson: Well, your career's so interesting. You've moved between academia and real-world strategy. I want to know, what first pulled you into studying customers and decision-making?

[01:21]Vikas Mittal: You know, before I moved to the U.S., I worked in my family business. So, I saw firsthand how being customer-focused mattered a lot to my family, to my dad, my grandpa, you know, my uncle, who were all part of the business, and me and my cousins used to work at the business. It was a clothing business, multiple stores, very successful.

And so, then, when I moved here into the business school, I learned a lot of things, which I loved, but they always felt very theoretical to me. Then I started working in a marketing research company, which did all kinds of research for many different companies, the automotive companies like GM, Ford, Toyota, and I saw how companies use customer research to develop strategy.

I think that's when I figured I wanted to take a deeper dive. And after I finished my undergraduate from Michigan, and my boss at the research company also encouraged me, I just, you know, applied to Temple because my old marketing professor from Michigan was also a professor at Temple. He is like, "Vikas, just come over."

And that's how I ended up getting my Ph.D. Surprisingly, a lot of the work I ended up doing with CEOs and companies came from CEOs at different companies reading my research published in academic journals, you know, which is completely the opposite of what a lot of people think, that if you publish in academic journals, people don't read it. I was blown away, you know, how many times I got contacted by companies saying, we’ve got such and such paper of yours, can you come and help us?

That was great. I mean, I did work with large banks, I did work with software companies, large retailers, and multiple, multiple small companies, and then at the medical school at Pittsburgh. Then I moved here to Rice because one fine day somebody from Rice called me and said, "We want to hire you." And my wife is like, "Okay, it's a warmer climate, let's go." And that's how it was. You know, and then I moved here in 2007, and that's it.

[03:27]Brian Jackson: So, when you're talking to CEOs and you're trying to understand their issues, what's the first question that you ask to assess whether they truly understand their customer?

[03:38]Vikas Mittal: So, every time you ask a CEO, they're, "Oh, you know, Vikas, we understand what our customers want, we get it." And my question to them is, "How do you figure out what your customers want?" And then, invariably, they launch into what I call legacy strategy stuff. “Oh, we listen to our customers, we have customer advisory boards, you know, we take our customers out to lunch and ask them what they want, what are their pain points, this, that, and whatnot.”

And I take some time to explain this in my class. None of that is helpful. It's like asking people who want to rent an apartment, "What would you like? You know, would you want a gym in the apartment?" Yes. Research shows about 80% of the people say they want a gym in the apartment. Guess what percent actually use it?

[04:24]Brian Jackson: Five?

[04:25]Vikas Mittal: Like, it's about 20% actually use it. But what people cannot tell you, and if you actually do it correctly using statistics and stuff, you would find out that the thing that creates the most value for people living in apartments is not the gym. The first and the biggest driver of value for people is how well the apartment fixes problems.

[04:50]Brian Jackson: Hmm.

[04:50]Vikas Mittal: You know, when people have a problem with the apartment, you know, whether it's fixing a faucet, replacing a dishwasher, or this… That's the biggest driver of value. And so, the biggest learning is, by asking customers, "What do you want? What are your pain points? What can we do better?" It's never, it's never the right way to figure out if you are customer-focused. All you are doing with that sort of strategy is you are just being appeasement-focused. You're just appeasing customers.

[05:20]Brian Jackson: Interesting. So, then how do you explain it and actually take a customer-based strategy to the C-suite?

[05:27]Vikas Mittal: Oh. It's a process. And it's not a pretty process because there's an entire spectrum. I've had this conversation with a few CEOs in Houston. I won't name the companies, and I won't name the industries because they get very defensive.

And they're like, "Vikas, we get everything… What our customers, you know, care about. We understand this. We have regular meetings, we have advisories, we do these key account management things, and this, that, and whatnot, and we are some of the best companies." I just, for the sake of it, I just plotted these companies' financial performance against the S&P and showed it to the CEOs.

So, in the last 20 years, just to give you a sense, the S&P has gone up by about 300%, but if you'd invested whatever in the S&P, it would've gone up about three. So, these companies as a whole have declined by 78%. So, the gap between the S&P and these companies is nearly 400 percentage points. That cannot happen by chance. That takes special effort.

What you find is these companies, on average, are 60 to 70% misaligned with what creates value for their customers. So, they're all heavy on technology, they're all heavy on digitalization, sustainability, and this, that, and whatnot. But when you see what brings value to the customer, for one company, the only thing that this company's customers care about is on-site service. That's all. Because they won't do that, but they'll tell you, we have, like, digital this, digital monitoring, digital that, you know, we have, like, sustainability. Here's our sustainability report.

[07:04]Brian Jackson: Everything but the one thing they want.

[07:06]Vikas Mittal: Everything but the one thing.

[07:07]Brian Jackson: So, I mean, are they relying on, I guess, like, myths or misconceptions?

[07:12]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. So, this is the second problem you encounter in these companies, right? Which I call industry trend spotting. So, basically, CEOs and senior officials doing what they think... Like you'll go to some, you know, like, AI conference and everybody's talking about AI and this and that, and you come back to your company and say, "What are we doing about AI?" We need AI strategy.

Pretty soon, they'll have an AI task force and, you know, this, that, and whatnot, and they'll throw a few million dollars at AI, and that beast becomes its own thing, right? But yet this company has not hired even five people to provide on-site services because they feel that a chatbot can do all of that.

[07:53]Brian Jackson: Hmm.

[07:54]Vikas Mittal: So, companies like this, not only do they get into customer appeasement, but they also get into executive appeasement. Basically, you know, doing pet projects for executives, customer value goes out of the window. The unfortunate consequence of all of this is the frontline employees are overburdened.

So, I would tell you, like, Brian, I know your job is to actually do X, Y, and Z, but really, you're now part of the AI team, so I need you to create an AI strategy, and this, that, and you say, "Well, Vikas, but I have to do my day job." I said, "Well, you should do it at your house after 5:00." But really, if you wanted to have a promotion, if you wanted to show us your leadership credentials, what we really would like for you to do is not your day job. What we would love for you to do is strategic stuff.

And this is what goes on in these companies. And you see company after company, their performance is basically average or below average. But they're trigger-happy, doing legacy strategy, which is basically dreaming up useless initiatives, justifying them based on, “One customer told me this, we've got to do this," right? And just like on and on and on.

[09:08]Brian Jackson: I mean, they're forgetting the customer focus, right? I feel like they've moved past it for the pet project and what's in vogue in a headline or something they've heard.

[09:18]Vikas Mittal: They're cloaking their personal stuff under the customer value umbrella. The reason we are doing AI is because I went to this conference where some consulting company told me that doing AI is the same thing as customer focus. You see this again and again, again and again, right?

The CEO of Walmart and the CEO of Target were both hired at the same time. Target is a $50 billion company. Walmart is a trillion-dollar company, right? And if you look at what the CEO of Walmart was able to do, he was not appeasing customers. They knew customers care about low price, customers care about convenience, and customers care about variety. And they just kept pushing only on those three things.

Whereas Target, there's not one thing they could say no to. "Oh, we are going to jump into groceries. Oh, we are going to jump into Canada. We are going to, like, you know, do, like, 1,000 points of light for employees. We are going to do this, we're going to do this." Everything except how to give low prices, how to give convenience, and how to give exceptional variety. That's the thing.

Company after company, if you go to Apple, they're only focused on what creates value for their customers, beautiful product, a well-functioning ecosystem that syncs seamlessly, complete safety and privacy, and finally, extremely high prices. But if you're not customer-focused, you know, I call this, like, radical pivots. Every time a new CEO comes, they come up with some new stuff.

[10:48]Brian Jackson: Yeah, to make their mark.

[10:49]Vikas Mittal: To make their mark. But employees are very smart. They just wait the CEO out, right? Then the CEO gets fired. Another one comes, and they have their own thing. We got to do this, we got to do this. At my previous company, I did this, and sales went up 15%.

Imagine this is akin, like, you go to a doctor, Brian, and you say, "Doctor, I have a stomach ache." Doctor says, "Well, yesterday a patient came, they also had a stomach ache. We removed their appendix. Let's remove yours." That's the same thing that these CEOs are doing. They're not customer-focused. They're just trying to leave their mark. They're just trying to do their thing. They don't care about customers, nor do they care about employees. Of course, shareholders suffer.

[11:29]Brian Jackson: Yeah, and I know you and I have traded the word customer focus a few times. I want to make sure it doesn't go out to the world that that just means the customer's always right. That's not the case, right?

[11:41]Vikas Mittal: In fact, that is exactly the point of customer focus. Customer focus means using science to figure out what creates value for customers, which is very different than just asking the customer what would you want and believing that whatever the customer tells you is right and just doing it.

So, the second thing is customer appeasement. If you wanted to believe that the customer is always right and you just wanted to appease customers, my wife, who's a medical doctor, she would end up prescribing painkillers all day long because that's what customers believe they need. I need more painkillers, I need more antibiotics. But what creates value for customers is something she has to determine using science. "What's your diagnosis? What's the correct medication? What do you need, and what do you not need?"

And that is a huge issue that is plaguing corporations. They confuse customer appeasement, which is the same thing as thinking the customer knows, and the customer is always right.

[12:46]Brian Jackson: And then, I mean, of course, there's new products and new things, and you're trying to anticipate what customers want before they even know that it could be a thing or an item they may need. How do you strike that balance between trying to listen to the customer and connect with what they need, but also leading them forward into something unknown?

[13:07]Vikas Mittal: So, new ideas are fine, but it doesn't mean that you just have to listen to whatever customers want and just do it. You have to design these things. Amazon, for example, has the patent on 1-click shopping. People don't know that.

[13:22]Brian Jackson: And 1-click is just click and buy.

[13:24]Vikas Mittal: Amazon invented that not because there was some techie wanting to do this, but because Jeff Bezos understood that the value that Amazon creates for customers is online shopping. And you want to make the online shopping process seamless and painless for customers. And this is just one little thing in that. So, the company's happy to spend millions of dollars perfecting that.

But if we just go and ask customers, most customers could not interpret that for you. Think about Walmart, right? So, Walmart delisted from the Dow Jones and has enlisted itself on Nasdaq, because Walmart wants to be valued like a technology company.

If you go back and read Doug McMillon, who's the CEO, who just retired, voluntarily, I may add, he said, "Look, I see where Amazon is going, and I see that our value proposition of convenience is now changing. Convenience is no longer people coming to our store, parking the car," and this, that, and whatnot, but we need to develop all of this.

And there's a subtlety here. Whereas Amazon was going gangbusters on what I call non-perishables, Walmart understood that there was this huge market of perishables that it can differentiate, right? So, Walmart decided, like, to do this correctly, we need to get this to the customer, like the perishables, like the groceries, and the milk, and this and that.

So, they created this thing called Project Spark, and it's amazing to read about this. Project Spark is at least 200 technology projects. For example, they developed their own GIS system for their drivers that can literally guide the driver of a Walmart car from a store to the customer's house based on traffic conditions. And they did not want to rely on Google Maps because it also, you know, has private data on, like, if you're making four deliveries, what's the best way to do it.

They recruited drivers from Uber and all of those companies, and trained them, and spent money equipping their cars and compartmentalizing them so the drivers did not deliver the wrong groceries to the wrong customers. How to help them put, like, refrigerators or, like, refrigerate parts in their car to deliver those groceries. Every little thing they just tested, like the first experiment and the second big experiment. They're testing it, like the store in Plano. Drone deliveries.

When you say customer-focused, these companies are running long marathons. They're not just doing, like, flavor-of-the-day things, which is what customer-appeasing companies do. Whatever is the flavor of the day, we're jumping. People should be shocked to learn that Apple has not jumped on the AI bandwagon. Yes, they have collaborated with Google, whatever the thing is.

[16:24]Brian Jackson: Yep. Gemini.

[16:25]Vikas Mittal: Right? But they haven't jumped on the bandwagon. All weak companies have jumped on the bandwagon. Like, you can literally go to all mediocre companies, and you can talk to their CEOs. What is the first thing they will tell you? This year's, you know, shiny object is AI. For five years, the shiny object was sustainability. For five years before, the shiny object was safety. And I'm talking about Houston companies, right? Five years before, the shiny object was what they call globalization. You couldn't get a promotion in any Houston company unless you had been an expat. That's the difference.

So, new product and customer focus are completely compatible, but new product is not what people think it is. It is dogged work. It is slowly and slowly figuring out what creates value and just making sure you invent it and you bake it into the process. You literally bake it into the process. So, when Apple came out with the idea of having a camera in the phone, it was revolutionary in some ways. But they haven't come up with anything innovative since then. But they make sure that they perfect it.

Focus literally means focus, right? Like, you try to figure it out, and you use science to figure out the two things or the three things you're going to be exceptional in and you just keep marching.

[17:47]Brian Jackson: Tell me about the Center for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy. You've created it. What gap led you to see this as an opportunity, something that was needed?

[17:57]Vikas Mittal: Thank you for asking that question. And, you know, I'm going to start by first thanking a lot of people at Rice University. I'll start with Peter, Peter Rodriguez, our dean, because when I asked him about the idea, he was extremely supportive. Then I want to thank many people in the central administration, you know, our provost, Amy Dittmar, our president, Reggie, and then Ramesh, who was the, you know, vice president of research, and he helped me start it.

So, what led to that is, you see, like, first of all, business schools don't have too many centers. And if you look around to business schools, a lot of the centers are focused on sales or, like, finance. So, my point was to create a center that actually advanced the science of strategy by incorporating customer focus into it, right?

So, I will tell everybody to, you know, go and visit the center website, and you can see a lot of the events we have there that we have done. We have done a bunch of events for CEOs. We've done a bunch of events for, like, school leaders. That's one of the stated missions. We don't want the center just to be focused on for-profit companies. We also want it to help nonprofits. And then the third thing is we are, like, you know, doing research and putting it out.

So, one of the reports we have on the center website, which we did last year, was actually to the question you keep asking, what drives value for customers? Like, what are the top drivers, and what does not drive value for customers?

So, we did this for 18 different sectors, and that report is available freely on the website of the center. Anybody can download it. Day in and day out, like, you know, a lot of people say, "I had no idea, like, we've been focusing on the wrong thing.” I encourage CEOs. It covers everything from groceries to police, to healthcare, college education, K-12 education, retail cars, fuel, you know, like, which neighborhood to live in. And you can go there and find out what is the driver of value. So, it's equally useful for customers, even more useful for companies.

[20:05]Brian Jackson: The report you had, what, over 3,000?

[20:08]Vikas Mittal: Yeah, it's a pretty expensive report. Like, if a company had to produce it, they would've had to spend a lot of money. You know, so we were able to interview about 3,000 customers, and, like, each customer gave us data for three industries. So, we have a total of 9,000 ratings, and then, you know, a bunch of statistical analysis to figure out the lift that you can get in value from each of the drivers.

Everybody wants good quality, right? Like when you go to buy a car, everybody wants good quality. Everybody wants a safe car. Everybody wants a car that has good features. Everybody wants a car that's reliable. Everybody wants a car that's affordable. Everybody wants a car that will retain its value.

Those things literally account for almost 80, 85% of customer value. The remaining stuff, 5, 10, 15%, could be all these other things that get played up in the media as if they drive all the value for customers. And CEOs also buy into that hype, and they redirect their entire companies into that. You can see company after company that keeps missing the mark because they just go after the trendy stuff.

[21:20]Brian Jackson: You talked about quality, and it made me think. Your Executive Education course, and you teach Strategic Growth Through Customer Focus, and this brings in C-suite execs, it's mid-level managers. They're already successful, right? What's the hardest idea that you find for them to unlearn when they walk into your classroom?

[21:40]Vikas Mittal: Yes. Just as it's very hard to learn about this idea that customer focus and customer value are not the same thing as customer appeasement, the second thing that people find hard to unlearn is what I call legacy strategy. Legacy strategy is this idea – how people have thought strategy is done/should be done in companies. And I'll say something unpopular and highly controversial because when I say this to executives, then people tell me, “Vikas, you know, The first two days is we just feel unscrambled. Like our brain is just unscrambled completely."

So, imagine this, and I'll give you an idea, right? Like, people are taught that if you want strategy, you need to start by having a mission, vision, and values. And I'm not saying that mission, vision, and values are unimportant. Yes, they have a role to play. So, for example, you know, your values are, kind of, your guardrails. If you say, like in medicine, the core value is do no harm, it's really a guardrail of what you should absolutely never do. Companies have values like integrity, right? Which is absolutely you cannot cheat, or whatever those things are, right?

But value is not strategy. And you've seen this company after company. They'll hire some consulting type who will have a two-day retreat. And then people will come up with all kinds of phraseology and ideas and this and that. And then they'll put them all on sticky notes. And they'll sort out the sticky notes, color code them, and then they'll have laborious conversations, should we call it innovation, or should we call it, like, innovativeness, and this and that?

And then they'll come up with some sort of a mission statement and a vision statement and a, you know, whatever statement. And then they say, "We've come up with our strategy." So, what is the way to implement that strategy? “Oh, obviously, now we have to come up with innovation-related initiatives, right?”

So, then they come up with innovation-related initiatives and say, you know, like, "Oh, another value of ours is, you know, safety." Now we have to come up with safety initiatives. Like, another value is community orientation. So, now we want to come up with all those initiatives, right? And you hire some branding company that will do all that nonsense for you, and this and that. And pretty soon, what you have created is 50 initiatives, you know, like, 89, 90 metrics.

And then you say, "Okay, Brian, since you have nothing to do, you know, why don't you take over this initiative? And then you create a metrics dashboard and this and that. And then we'll do quarterly business review meetings, and a monthly standing meeting, and a weekly made-up meeting." Right now, we have, like, a strategy plan, right? And people do this day in and day out, and that's what they think strategy is.

So, the hardest part for people is to unlearn that. Strategy is the way it is done in companies. And I repeat this all the time, it's the ultimate dark art. Nobody knows why we are doing it, but everybody believes we have to do it just because my predecessor told me this is how we should do it. And you ask the predecessor, "Why are you doing it?" Well, my predecessor told me this is how we do it, right?

And it's the ultimate dark art, and people just keep doing it. But these are not the things that help you figure out what are the one or two things that are going to make you absolutely the best in terms of serving your customers.

We come up with all this phraseology, competitive advantage, capabilities, and this and that, and nobody knows what this means. But everybody has some definition, right? Because it's only cover to just keep doing whatever you say. "Why are you doing AI?" "Oh, well, it's going to give us a competitive advantage." "How do you know about that?" We don't know, but, you know, it's a capability that'll add to differentiation. "What is differentiation?" We don't know what differentiation is, but it's a competitive advantage.

"What is competitive advantage?" Competitive advantage is something that's based on differentiation. "And what is differentiation?" Well, differentiation comes from competitive advantage. "How do you develop all of this?" Because you have to have a capability. "What is the capability?" It's a unique resource that nobody else has, right? But everybody has AI. Everybody has taken 12 accounts to ChatGPT, and everybody has subscribed to Gemini. Oh, but we'll create our own little chatbot that nobody else has.

[26:07]Brian Jackson: Well, for any listener playing corporate buzzword bingo, you probably have all your boxes filled in. All of those words, differentiation. What does it mean? It comes up, and it's just repeated and repeated. We parrot it. So, you're scrambling brains in these courses, and folks at Fortune 500 companies are even bringing you into their entire executive suite.

[26:29]Vikas Mittal: No, they get it. One of the participants last year, they found it extremely useful. And, you know, I want to point out to people, that's one of the things that we should be so proud of, like Rice at the forefront of this.

So, companies get it. I think they also realize that strategy is not like a two-day retreat or, like, drawing a box and arrow diagram and making it look pretty. It's all about alignment. They also realize that this is not a one-quarter thing, right? Like, Walmart did not become a trillion-dollar company through initiatives that lasted a quarter.

[27:05]Brian Jackson: So, when you're sitting with a leadership team building out a program that's actually useful for folks of different mandates of delivery, operations, origination, et cetera, I'm curious about how the program could then be applicable to each of them.

[27:23]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. So, when you start doing things like this, and you try to create value, everything doesn't touch everybody in the same way. So, you have to see which employee does it touch more and which employees does it touch less, right? So, people who are not touched as much, you don't tell them your job is meaningless. You say it's just as important. Keep doing it and stay focused. The promise you make to those people is just because it's not part of what we need to be excellent at, it doesn't mean that we are going to burden you with useless initiatives. You just leave them unburdened.

So, I'll give you an example, right? Like, there is a company called Swagelok Southeast Texas, right? So, this is a distribution company, and they distribute these valves and fittings and such things to a lot of companies in Houston, right? So, they were doing a lot of legacy strategy, right? But then, you know, the CEO, Chris Jones, he's like, "I want to really make this company customer-focused."

And so, working with them, they figured out the one thing that created the most value for their customers was the actual process of getting a quote from this company. So, it doesn't mean that the company stopped doing everything else. They said, "No, we are going to keep doing everything else, but this is the one thing we are going to become excellent at." So, now think about the Apple analogy, right? Where they say we are going to keep doing everything else for our phones, but the camera and the aesthetics and the interface, these are the two, three things we're going to become excellent at. You see my point?

[29:00]Brian Jackson: I do.

[29:00]Vikas Mittal: They're still doing everything else, and they're still very good at it. They're very good at many things, but they're excellent at a few things. So, when this company started its march, they said, "We have to fix the quoting process." The first thing they found out, and this is not by asking customers, this is through science, that within the quoting process, what customers wanted is faster quoting. They want the quote to be given to them faster.

So, at some point in time, the average time it took for them to quote was about 17 hours, which is, however you do the math, it's roughly about three days. Guess what? The quoting time today is less than three hours. 85, 90% of their quotes are delivered in less than three hours, and customers were happy with same day, but they're like, "We are not going to stop at same day."

The point I want to make is to achieve that, they had to go back inside the company and look at many different things. So, they had to retrain, you know, their staff, HR. They had to update their computer system. They had to buy a new server and do a bunch of other things. Finance, they had to refigure and reconfigure how the interaction between the sales team and the quoting people went, touching sales, you had to re-figure out, like, are the parts numbers all correct, and are they all updated? Supply chain and warehousing?

But this was the singular focus of this company. And, you know, I say this because I bring Chris Jones, the CEO, I bring him to my class, this executive program that you're talking about. People can hear firsthand from him, and the reason he is there, because his director of IT and finance was a student at Rice, and he took my Executive course.

[30:52]Brian Jackson: Wow.

[30:53]Vikas Mittal: So, I want people to understand that what we do at Rice, all of this is, how deep the impact of all of this is.

[31:00]Brian Jackson: That's fantastic. One of the things I wanted to touch on, too, was the science of customer-based strategy, and wanted to get really science-based. What does it actually mean in practice?

[31:12]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. So, science-based, it means in practice is first understanding what science is not. What science is not is this current practice. We'll go and talk to five customers. We'll ask them to tell your pain points, and then we'll summarize all of this in a, you know, big binder, and just cherry-pick quotes to paint a picture or, you know, we will create what they call them customer personas. You know, we have a customer persona called Brian, and then we just make stuff up.

That is not science, but it's easy because you can pay some, you know, branding company or some kind of company a few thousand dollars and get something that makes you feel comfortable.

But if you want to use science, it involves a lot of statistical analysis. It involves very careful data collection. It involves a lot of interpretation of the data to arrive at the right drivers of value. It involves taking each driver and then figuring out which is the biggest one, and then mapping it onto an execution plan that typically will last three to five quarters, then coaching the CEO how to stick with it using the right principles of accountability. And that is a lot of work.

[32:29]Brian Jackson: Professor, we’re going to pivot a little here because we can’t have this episode and not talk about your sneakers. How did that begin?

[32:37]Vikas Mittal: You know, the sneaker story is, it has changed my life. You know, when I had just moved to Houston, my daughter and I were shopping one day at Academy Store, and I was, like, looking for shoes for myself, and she's like, "Dad, don't go into that aisle." I'm like, "Why?" She's like, "That is like the sneaker aisle, and you are so boring. You would never wear any of those shoes, so why are you wasting your time?" I'm like, "No, I think I could wear them." She's like, "No, you just always buy those like $30 shoes, drab and boring, and then you just buy the next $30 shoes."

I said, "Okay, fine. You pick the shoes that you think I absolutely would never wear, and if I wear them, I'm going to take it out of your pocket." And she's like, "Done." She's like a very smart kid, by the way, a Rice graduate as well. You know, she used to tutor kids in the neighborhood, and she really had a lot of money then. So, she bought me some pair of shoes that were so colorful. These were the initial Gel-Noosa shoes, which are literally like, if you had like a Jackson Pollock of the shoes with, like, neon colors.

So, we bought them, and then I wore them, and then I left home that day. And I, you know, I always have a route. I live in Bellaire, and I take Bissonnet. So, my first stop used to be the Einstein Bagel on Bissonnet and Wesleyan. I go in there, and so many people come up running to me. "Man, those shoes are awesome."

You know, these Episcopal High School kids just came running. They're like, you know, "Sir, can we take a picture with those shoes?" And then I go to teach my class that day, and, like, students are like, you know, "Vikas, those are the most awesome shoes we've ever seen." And the next day, I had to go to my daughter's parent-teacher meeting. And then I wore those shoes, and the principal comes running. He's like, "Oh, I have to see these shoes that all the students are talking about."

It was a Montessori school. He said, "This is exactly what we teach in Montessori, that people should be able to express whatever, whoever they are, and they should not be ashamed of it," and this and that. And, “Vikas, I'm going to put a picture of these on the Montessori school website.” And the next day, he called me. He said, "You wouldn't imagine how many likes we got." "How many likes?" "Like thousands of likes." And I'm like, "How many do you usually get?" "Like, you know, five or 10." And it completely changed me.

You know, growing up in India with a drab personality and all of that, I never thought that this could be a thing. And then it just like, you know, it's like now a family thing, right? Like, we look for shoes that are quite off the charts. It has changed me as a person that I could be whatever it is. And if some people feel that it's, like, too outlandish, that's fine. But the majority of the people, they just take to it.

And then, you know, I started collecting these shoes in the house because I would wear them like 15, 20 times, and I'd get bored, and I'd just leave them in some closet, and then I'd buy new shoes. And then she's like, "Dad, like, look at all these shoes. They're just like sitting there. You are a hoarder." I'm like, "Yeah, but they're my shoes." And she's like, "You really should get rid of them." I'm like, "No." And I'm just clinging to them.

She's like, "Dad, this is not right." She's like, "You're having separation anxiety." And so, she took five pairs of shoes. So, we took them from my closet and just left them in the living room and left them there for seven days. Then, take them and put them closer to the garage, left them in the mudroom, and said, "Put them in the garage, left them there," and then finally said, "Put them in the car and just drive around with them when they're ready."

And then, you know what? After about a month, month and a half, I was ready, and I just dropped them at the Goodwill store. And she's like, "Dad, look, these are beautiful shoes. They're virtually brand new. And imagine how much joy somebody will get out of wearing them."

So, now I have, you know, I love them, but I also am reasonably detached. Like, so one fine day I'll say, "Well, you know, these 10 pairs, I'm not going to wear them, and I'll just take them to Goodwill." So, the shoes really did change me in so many ways, right, as a person.

[36:31]Brian Jackson: Well, even as you're trying to get rid of some, people are giving them to you as gifts. The Executive MBA class of 2025 gave you three pairs.

[36:40]Vikas Mittal: Yes. I love my classes, all of them. And then students are also just appreciative. Like, if I run into a student somewhere, they're like, "Let me see your shoes," because sometimes, like, I'll go to, like, some company, and the first thing is, "Well, let's see your shoes." So, this company where I did the thing for the CFOs, so that post is on my LinkedIn account. So, the first thing we did is, like, take a picture of the shoes.

[37:04]Brian Jackson: Do you have a favorite pair, is what I need to know.

[37:08]Vikas Mittal: No. They're like my children, all of them.

[37:12]Brian Jackson: You love all of them. They're all equal?

[37:13]Vikas Mittal: Yes, they're all equal, right? You know, comfort, of course, is the main factor before I buy anything because that's just what it is. But they're all unique in some different way.

[37:25]Brian Jackson: The other thing I know you love: fountain pens. When did that begin?

[37:29]Vikas Mittal: Oh, fountain pens, you know, like back home, that’s what we wrote with, like after you went into sixth grade, we just wrote with fountain pens, and I used to write with them. But I'll be honest, like, I never realized the joy of fountain pens till I moved to Houston. I'm so grateful for that.

So, everybody who's listening to the podcast, like if you've never been, the store to go is called Dromgoole's, it is, right? So, people should even be more surprised to learn there are not that many physical fountain pen stores left, even in the U.S., and we are lucky to have one, right?

So, I used to go there, and sometimes I was sheepish. But, you know, Larry, who's the owner, and his wife, Christine, they're just such kind people that you just go there, and if you just want to write with things and try them out and have no intention to buy, you could be there, like, for hours, and they would, like, show you everything. And that's what I used to do. And slowly and slowly, it just became a thing for me. And now I have, I think I have a collection of almost, at least 1,000 fountain pens. It's probably an underestimation.

[38:39]Brian Jackson: It would take you three years to use them all.

[38:42]Vikas Mittal: I use them, and here it is, right? So, I have my thing.

[38:46]Brian Jackson: I have been to Dromgoole's. My friend Chad Ricchio, who I'm trying to get to go to Rice, so I'm hoping by saying his name on this podcast, he may consider, sent me there to get refills for his pen. And exactly right, I was playing with every single different type, and I picked a few favorites, and maybe I'll go back and purchase.

[39:07]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. You know, there is just a joy, like fountain pens are, it's like Harry Potter's, the wand picks the wizard, right? So, the pen picks the person, right? And then the ink picks the pen. It's a whole thing, right? So, there are, like, at least 200 colors of blue ink that you could try.

The right blue is not just the right blue because it's the right blue because it's the kind of nib you like, extra fine or thick. It's the kind of paper you like, right? Like, you know, like a thick paper or a thin paper. Do you like a cream-colored paper or, like, a bright white paper? So, it's a whole thing, and you never can figure it out unless you've spent hours trying everything and figuring it out, right? And there's a joy in that discovery.

And I sometimes feel sad, like all this emphasis on typing, and now typing even is a lost art. And now it's just you can, like, talk, and it'll type it. So, the tactility of all of this, I hope that it comes back. I mean, my dream is where we require all MBAs in every class to use fountain pen and paper to take notes.

[40:17]Brian Jackson: It is a lost art. And you know what? There could be a renaissance, and this could be the starting of it.

[40:23]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. It has been a renaissance. You would imagine, like, since COVID, the fountain pen and paper industry has taken off like you can't imagine.

[40:32]Brian Jackson: Really?

[40:32]Vikas Mittal: Yeah, because I think COVID isolated a lot of people, and, like, writing must have been one of the... This is my conjecture. I don't have any data on it. You know, but you talk to a lot of fountain pen owners, and I talk to a lot of people in the U.S. who make custom fountain pens for you, and they all tell me that since COVID, this industry just took off like a rocketship.

[40:53]Brian Jackson: This has been a really great conversation, and I know our listeners are going to love it. But what do you hope our listeners will take back to their work, to their life, you know, their takeaway from this.

[41:03]Vikas Mittal: I think what listeners can and should take away from all of this is education is very important, right? But, like, enriching life with science is a thing. Like, all the education that you get at Rice, the business school and everything, if you truly start thinking about it more deeply and applying it, developing this appreciation of about, like, the science parts of that, I think it can be a game-changer for people.

Ten years, I was in the department of psychiatry at Pitt. How do you come up with your focus? How do you come up with focus for your company based on your customers? In your personal life, you have customers, right? Your spouse, your partner, your children. Really thinking about that, what truly creates value for them and then working toward that really is a game-changer, even at a personal level.

[41:57]Brian Jackson: That is fantastic. Well, Professor, I can't thank you enough for joining me today on Owl Have You Know. It has been a sincere pleasure.

[42:04]Vikas Mittal: Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much for your time and effort. And I know at Rice Business, we are so grateful to alums like you.

[42:16]Brian Jackson: Thanks for listening. This has been Owl Have You Know, a production of Rice Business. You can find more information about our guests, hosts, and announcements on our website, business.rice.edu. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you find your favorite podcast. We'd love to hear what you think. The hosts of Owl Have You Know are myself, Brian Jackson, and Maya Pomroy.