ARJUN KANNAN
Building ResiDesk | Founder, angel investor | Working to distribute the future more evenly.
About
I build products that use AI to solve real problems. Not the kind that sound impressive at dinner parties, but the kind that actually change how industries work.
The most promising technologies are often applied first to seemingly mundane problems. The real revolution happens when they transform the parts of life we take for granted.
I've spent my career finding places where AI provides leverage - not by replacing humans, but by amplifying what they can do. This approach has been the foundation of my work at ResiDesk, Climb Credit, and BlackRock.
Work
ResiDesk
Co-FounderReal estate has always had a data problem. At ResiDesk, we're fixing that by understanding what residents actually want. We handle millions of daily interactions between residents and properties, learning from each one. The result: 7% higher renewals and rent. Small improvements at this scale matter - we work in a $5T industry.
Climb Credit
CTO/CPOEducation financing is broken. Instead of chasing high-margin, predatory loans, we built systems to identify schools that actually improved students' earnings. We developed underwriting models that identified quality and aligned our incentives with student success. This approach let us grow from $1M to $300M in annual loans, with students seeing 40% average earnings increases.
BlackRock
Product & Engineering LeadAladdin was BlackRock's internal risk analysis system - so good that other asset managers wanted to use it. My team built Aladdin for Retail, making these institutional-grade tools accessible to financial advisors. We took complex math and made it intuitive. The product went from $0 to $40M ARR in its first year, ultimately changing how advisors assess portfolio risk.
Angel Investing
I've invested in 100+ startups, mostly in areas I know well. The best founders aren't trying to ride waves; they're solving problems they've experienced firsthand. This has always been the best predictor of success.
As a TechStars mentor, I help companies avoid the mistakes I've made. The patterns of success and failure in startups are surprisingly consistent. You just need someone who's seen them before.
Views
Tech Adoption Follows Power Laws
The biggest opportunities are in technologies that are already working but haven't been widely adopted yet. By the time something is obvious, the biggest gains have already happened. I look for ideas that seem weird to most people but obvious to experts in the field.
Unloved Problems Create Opportunity
The best problems to solve aren't the ones everyone's working on. They're the ones that seem tedious, complex, or unglamorous. Real estate, education financing, and risk analysis all fit this description. These are massive markets where even small improvements create enormous value.
The Human Element Remains Essential
The best AI systems aren't fully autonomous. They're tools that make humans more effective. This is why I focus on AI+human hybrid solutions. The goal isn't to replace people, but to let them work at a higher level of abstraction, handling the cases that require judgment while automating the rest.