Dinesh Kandanchatha. He’s a founder, mentor, speaker, and above all, an entrepreneur. He encourages founders to ask all questions, navigate challenging decisions, and find the right answer that is sometimes difficult to face. He has bought, built, sold, lent, and/or invested in over 13 companies.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Essentialism
What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs

Favorite online tool? — Asana
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t be the smartest guy”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:48 – Nathan introduces Dinesh to the show
02:32 – Dinesh makes money by investing and capital gains against those investments
02:52 – Dinesh does consulting work too
03:45 – A board member’s average retainers
04:33 – Dinesh total revenue as a credit investor in 2015
- 04:48 – A credit investor is someone who has net assets greater than $5M and earnings in the last 2 years that are greater than $200K
05:35 – Dinesh has built startups; some failed and some are successful
06:04 – Dinesh invests $75K to $150K in a company
- 06:14 – Dinesh often invests during Pre-Series A or Pre-seed
- 06:20 – Dinesh takes his capital and amplify it with his network and experience
07:08 – Dinesh’s biggest failure happened right after he sold Precise Software Technologies in the late 90s
- 07:46 – The person that acquired Precise sued Dinesh
- 08:09 – Dinesh spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal battles
09:04 – Dinesh’s most spectacular success is yet to come
09:20 – The business Dinesh is currently proud of
- 10:50 – Dinesh’s equity rate in Protus IP Solution
11:10 – Dinesh has helped Macadamian technology scale up
12:03 – Dinesh has invested in real estate
12:30 – “If you get a few over the fence, you can make up all the difference”
12:45 – Dinesh usually sticks to B2B and SaaS
13:22 – Dinesh is currently working on Patriot One Technologies
14:49 – Dinesh is very passionate about the potential of technology
15:04 – Connect with Dinesh through Twitter and at Clarity.fm
17:27 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

“If you get a few over the fence, you can make up all the difference”—so, don’t get discouraged if you lose some.
Do what you know and stick to your strengths.
When you get an idea that could meaningfully impact the society as a whole—it will not just be an investment, but your baby.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens and follow-up with email sequences
@DineshAtWork – Dinesh’s Twitter handle
Clarity.fm/DineshkAtWork – Dinesh’s Clarity account
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 518: See 20 deals, invest in 2 between $75k-150k pre seed, likes b2b saas for investments

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders