Anand Kulkarni

Anand Kulkarni

Anand Kulkarni is president and cofounder of LeadGenius.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anandpkulkarni
Twitter: twitter.com/polybot
Berkeley, California, United States
Accredited investor
Member since July 27, 2016
Quote
Anand loves starting startups + advising startups on sales / science / growth. Part-time mathematician. Quote_down
  • About
Investor interests
Type of investor Angel
Typical investment size Under $25,000
Typical investments in a year 1
Categories of interest
Locations of interest
School/Associations of interest
University of California, Berkeley
Credentials Accredited Investor
Activity
Investments made Twindom
Education
2005 UC Berkeley , BA , Mathematics
2005 UC Berkeley , BA , Physics
2008 UC Berkeley , MS , Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
2011 UC Berkeley , PhD , PhD Candidate – Operations Research
I am a(n):

Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:
LeadGenius
Companies I work or worked for:
UC Berkeley
Achievements (products built, personal awards won):

Forbes 30 under 30 social entrepreneur
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow – Mathematics

If you're an entrepreneur or corporate innovator, why?

Serendipitously fell into it...

My favorite startups:

Lyft, Github

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?

Rewarding: happy customers, helping folks in need
Frustrating: the "rollercoaster" – the constant ups and down as you encounter successes and challenges

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs/innovators make?

It's overwhelmingly the same thing – building product before identifying customers who want to buy it.

"Make something people want" - Paul Graham
"Lack of market is the number one startup killer." - Ben Horowitz

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?

1) Sell before you build. For everything.
2) Fast growth is the only measure of success for a startup; if you're not doing that, you're failing.
3) Delegate aggressively as you scale to help you scale.

Full bio

 

Anand is co-founder and Chief Scientist of LeadGenius, a Y Combinator, Sierra Ventures, and Lumia Capital-backed startup using human computation and machine intelligence to automate account-based marketing (ABM). LeadGenius has raised over $20M in venture funding and developed best-in-class sales technology for customers like Google, eBay, and Box.  In conjunction with social organizations like the World Bank, LeadGenius generates fairly-paid digital employment for over 500 individuals in 40 countries.
Anand has been named as one of Forbes Magazine's "30 under 30" Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30. Anand has published over a dozen papers in ACM, AAAI and IEEE magazines, journals, and conferences. Anand previously held a National ScienceFoundation graduate research fellowship in mathematics. He holds degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Mathematics, and Physics from UC Berkeley.

 

When he's not managing technology at LeadGenus, Anand is a researcher on topics in computer science in mathematics, teaches entrepreneurship at the European Innovation Academy, and runs.