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Build adjacencies before you chase scale.

Enduring companies don’t grow by random diversification. They expand by moving one thoughtful step outward from their core DNA, solving the next customer pain that naturally sits beside what they already do well.

Abhijit Vaish’s journey with InstaPower is a story of patient, adjacency-led growth rooted in engineering depth. From early exposure to entrepreneurship through his father, to conceiving an LED-focused business plan at Purdue when the market wasn’t ready, Abhijit learned early that timing, conviction, and restraint matter as much as ambition.

InstaPower evolved from power electronics and inverters into LED lighting and large EPC infrastructure projects such as airports, bridges, monuments where lighting doesn’t just illuminate, but defines how architecture is experienced. Rather than chasing short-term wins like CFLs or fully outsourcing manufacturing, the company doubled down on in-house R&D, manufacturing, and patents to protect its core.

As the business matured, Abhijit focused on financial discipline, cash management, and customer pain points, especially in B2G contexts. This lens led to adjacent expansions like battery energy storage systems (a natural evolution of inverter expertise) and cybersecurity (to protect critical infrastructure assets), each run with dedicated teams but anchored to the same customer ecosystem.

Across two decades, the conversation highlights humility earned through failure, the compounding power of experience, the importance of mentors, and why building to last often matters more than building to sell.

Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation:

1. Adjacency beats randomness
   New verticals should emerge from your core capabilities and customer pain points, not from hype.
2. Protect the DNA of the company
   Keeping R&D and manufacturing in-house preserves long-term differentiation and innovation.
3. Saying no is a strategy
   Avoiding CFLs and obsolete technologies was as important as betting early on LEDs.
4. Infrastructure work is invisible, but decisive
   Lighting shapes how nations experience architecture, culture, and public spaces.
5. Cash in the bank matters more than paper growth
   Top line and profitability matter, but liquidity is what keeps businesses alive.
6. Failures are not detours; they are the curriculum
   The company’s current strength is built on lessons learned the hard way.
7. Curiosity sustains long journeys
   Seeing projects come alive and noticed at the highest levels keeps teams motivated.
8. B2G businesses win by understanding pain, not pitching products
   Adjacencies emerged by listening deeply to government customers’ real problems.
9. Mentorship compresses learning curves
   A good mentor at the right stage can change the trajectory of an entrepreneur’s life.
10. Build to last, even if you might sell someday
    Optionality comes from strength; exits are outcomes, not objectives.

If there’s a single through-line here, it’s this: durable businesses are built by compounding depth, not chasing breadth. And by expanding one intelligent adjacency at a time.

Books: Family Business