The lessons Charak Almast learned studying computer science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette have followed him far beyond writing code.
They helped him build businesses.
Almast, co-founder of New Shop – India’s largest 24/7 convenience retail chain – told students and faculty during an Oct. 2 campus lecture that the problem-solving skills he developed at UL Lafayette became the foundation for an entrepreneurial career that has spanned more than a decade and several technology ventures.
“I don’t think a lot of people who study computer science end up doing business, but I think I am better at business because I studied computer science,” Almast said.
For him, the connection begins with learning how to break down a complicated problem.
“In life, in business, you always are full of problems,” he said. “You can’t solve a big problem in a single day. I think you have to break it up in parts, keep solving, keep trying, and that is how you resolve big problems.”
Almast attended UL Lafayette from 2010 to 2013. His entrepreneurial journey began while he was a student, when he and fellow student Mani Dev Gyawali developed a mobile game. “Angry Baby” became one of the top 10 games in Apple’s App Store worldwide for nearly two months and earned about $10,000 in its first month.
That experience led to a series of technology ventures. Almast and his partners eventually turned their attention to retail after traveling internationally and identifying an opportunity to bring technology and greater organization to India’s largely traditional convenience retail market.
New Shop launched in 2019. Today, the company operates more than 300 stores across 20 states in India, works with 10,000 vendors and employs about 2,000 people.
Technology is central to its model. New Shop built a cloud-based system that connects point-of-sale systems, online ordering, inventory, vendors and other operations through a single database. The company uses automation and artificial intelligence for functions that include inventory replenishment, evaluating store locations and identifying potential franchisees.
Almast said the approach reflects the same mindset he began developing as a computer science student. He compared entrepreneurship to debugging code: problems and failures are inevitable, and progress comes from continuing to identify what isn’t working and fix it.
“If you keep failing and you keep fixing something, then I think you can keep succeeding,” he said.
Almast encouraged students with entrepreneurial ambitions to look first at problems around them and use their own experiences to identify possible solutions.
“I think everyone should try their ideas and not waste too much time thinking,” he said.
Photo caption: Alumnus Charak Almast, center, is joined by Dr. Ashok Kumar, left, associate dean of the Ray P. Authement College of Sciences, and Dr. Arun Lakotia, a professor in the School of Computing & Informatics. Lakotia taught Almast during his time at the University. (Photo credit: Doug Dugas / University of Louisiana at Lafayette)