Dynamic Duo

Everything in life is timing. Be in the right place, at the right time, with the right idea, and you’ll make it big. Mitesh Gala ‘92, ‘93, and Ajay Shiv MA ’94 know this better than most.

The same age and both of Indian descent, these two attended USC at the same time and never met once. But years later, the two entrepreneurs came together to create something unique, at the perfect moment: Altametrics, a software company whose flagship product, eRestaurant, offers a sophisticated Web-based solution to restaurant inventory tracking.

A budding restaurateur whose parents owned a number of Jack in the Box franchises in Los Angeles, Gala was, at 15, the youngest graduate of the fast-food company’s management university but was planning to go to medical school. Then, during his senior year, his father had a heart attack and Gala, a double BS in biology ‘92 and psychology ‘93, took over the family business.

“I think I never really wanted to go to medical school,” he said, noting, “Life has a way of steering you sometimes.”

Quickly, he found that profits were down from years past. He had to find a way to cut the cost of food. So, without any formal software training, Gala wrote a crude program he dubbed “Q&D Inventory,” shorthand for “quick & dirty,” and put it to work. The results were outstanding: By carefully tracking the ingredients in his 12 Jack in the Box franchises and keeping portions to specifications, he saved $50,000 in one year on French fries alone.

His then-girlfriend, now-wife, suggested he turn his program into a polished commercial product. But there was a problem. Gala knew business, but he didn’t know programming.

He went through a number of coders – the cheapest – but soon realized you get what you pay for. The project was going nowhere and he had wasted a ton of his own money. Then he met Ajay Shiv.

A double MS ‘94 in civil engineering and computer science, Shiv immediately got what Gala was trying to do. After only three weeks, he had the project 75 percent completed and Gala was ecstatic. Trojans together at last, they started Altametrics in 1997. Then a crucial decision proved a turning point.

Still in the dial-up era, Shiv convinced Gala to join the Internet craze and develop a Web-based version, something no competitors were doing. At the time, it was a huge risk.“We were these two guys with this crazy idea of developing a Web application for an industry that didn’t want it,” Gala said.

They launched eRestaurant in 2000 and received zero interest. They had to fire their staff. Then a major franchisee expressed interest. But when they met, he said there was a rival product that was cheaper.

To Gala’s horror, Shiv looked the man in the eye and said, “I know that product is a piece of crap, and you’re going to be back here in three months begging me to sell you our product and I’m going to double the price.” The franchisee smiled, his bluff called, and signed a deal on the spot. After that first sale, business took off. As the Internet came into its own, so did Altametrics. The jump online ended up being the key to their future success.

“We really were just at the right place at the right time with the right idea,” says Gala. “The whole thing has been an education. It’s all been an adventure, a terrific adventure that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

Now with offices in the United States, Canada and India, where Shiv lives with his family, Altametrics is doing millions of dollars in business each year. But the company has given these avid Trojan football fans something just as important: a lifetime ­friendship that almost never happened.

– Blaise Nutter