Building ResiDesk

I build software for the messy work that starts with a customer.

Most of my time goes into ResiDesk. We help property teams answer residents, understand what keeps coming up, and get the next step to someone who can actually help.

See what we are building Email me

Before ResiDesk, I built advisor software at BlackRock and ran product and engineering at Climb Credit. Different industries, same habit: stay close to the customer, measure what changed, and keep going until the thing works on a normal Tuesday.

Arjun Kannan — I live in New York and spend a lot of time thinking about housing.

ResiDesk

Renting is expensive. It should not also be this hard.

A building hears what is broken every day. Those messages show up in texts, reviews, tickets, surveys, calls, and renewal notes. The problem is rarely a missing inbox. They need the history, the right policy, and the person who can actually help.

We are building ResiDesk to make that work easier. I spend most of my time on data and product, and the rest on sales, hiring, customer calls, and the unglamorous work that keeps a startup moving.

Visit ResiDesk

Hear what happened

Start with the resident's own words. Scores can wait.

Bring the context

Pull in the lease, policy, unit, prior messages, and what the team already tried.

Decide what happens next

Answer, repair, escalate, explain, or change the rule. The decision still needs an owner.

Learn what repeats

When the same problem keeps coming back, show the people who can fix it.

How I got here

Different industries. Same way of working.

I grew up around research and studied applied physics at Cornell. Software clicked for me in an electron microscopy lab. A small tool saved hours on a magnetic-noise experiment. It stopped feeling like coursework and started feeling useful.

Physics

Measure before you explain.

The first useful program I wrote saved a researcher hours. I still like that standard: did the work get easier?

BlackRock

Real stakes make small details matter.

At BlackRock, I worked across product and engineering on advisor tools. A prototype could win the room and still lose to the spreadsheet someone trusted the next morning.

Climb Credit

Change the outcome, then change the product.

As CTO and CPO, I helped bring graduate earnings into the product, data, and underwriting instead of treating a borrower's credit score as the whole story.

ResiDesk

Stay close enough to know what to build.

At ResiDesk, that means listening to messy conversations, following the work they create, and learning from problems that repeat every day.

One ResiDesk program reported this lift after a property team acted on resident feedback sooner. Law360

$1M → $300M

Climb Credit's annual loan volume grew across this range while outcomes moved into the product. TechCrunch

$40M ARR

I helped take an advisor analytics product from zero to this run rate in my first year at BlackRock.

How I work

Show me the work, the stakes, and the person living with the decision.

Start with what someone is trying to finish.

Until you know that, the model choice is probably the least interesting part.

Be direct without making people feel small.

Take the pressure seriously. Then separate what happened from what caused it, and make the next move clear.

A demo is not adoption.

I care about what happens when the queue is full, the edge case is real, and nobody is watching.

Writing and talks

I write to figure out what I actually think.

The question I keep returning to is simple: did this help someone do the work, or did it only make the demo easier to sell?

Read the Substack

Talks and conversations

3 videos

Writing, interviews, and events

9 pieces

2026 The work around the model

Why context, checks, handoff, and the rest of the system matter as models get closer together.

2026 AI from the owner and operator seat

A BuiltWorlds conversation about where AI changes underwriting and operations, and where it does not.

2026 Resident sentiment: presentation and podcast

A conversation about what residents say, what operators can learn from it, and what should happen next.

2025 What Wi-Fi complaints tell owners

A white paper built from the complaints residents actually make about Wi-Fi.

2025 NOI, Not Noise

Why resident conversations should reach the operating decisions someone already has to make.

2024 ResiDesk in Law360

How we connect resident conversations to retention and the decisions property teams already make.

2024 Applied AI in real estate

A longer interview about putting AI inside property-management work instead of around it.

2024 Practical AI

A profile spanning real estate, finance, and education, with the focus on where AI is actually useful.

2016 Climb Credit in TechCrunch

The early bet behind Climb: build education lending around whether a program helps someone earn more.

Contact

A good email starts with the actual problem.

I am most useful on ResiDesk, housing operations, AI in real work, product judgment, founder questions, and speaking.

Good reasons to write: you have a customer problem, a messy rollout, or a decision that gets clearer with the right context.

Less useful: a broad AI inspiration call with no customer, no real work, and no next decision.

arj.shiv@gmail.com ResiDesk Substack