Co-founder, ResiDesk

I build software around the messy work customers create.

Most of my time goes into ResiDesk. We help property teams answer residents, see what keeps going wrong, and get each issue to someone who can actually do something about it.

Before ResiDesk, I built advisor software at BlackRock, then ran product and engineering at Climb Credit. The industries changed. The habit did not: 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. Most days, I am thinking about housing, software, or both.

Renting is expensive enough. The experience should not make it harder.

Residents tell a building what is broken every day. Those messages show up in texts, reviews, tickets, surveys, calls, and renewal notes. Another inbox is rarely the answer. The team needs the history, the right policy, and a clear owner for what happens next.

We started ResiDesk to make that work easier. I spend most of my time on data and product, and the rest on customers, sales, hiring, and whatever else the company needs that day.

Visit ResiDesk
01

Hear what happened

Start with the resident's own words. The score can come later.

02

Bring the context

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

03

Decide what happens next

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

04

Learn what repeats

When the same problem keeps coming back, make sure the people who can fix it see the pattern.

The industry changed. The way I work did not.

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

Physics

Measure first. Then 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 the 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 build it into 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 the work 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.

7%

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.

Show me the work, the stakes, and who has to live with the decision.

01

Start with what someone is trying to finish.

Until you know that, arguing about the model is usually a distraction.

02

Be direct without making people feel small.

Take the pressure seriously. Separate what happened from what caused it. Then make the next move clear.

03

A demo is not adoption.

I care about what happens when the queue is full, the edge case is real, and there is nobody around to rescue the workflow.

I write to figure out what I actually think.

I usually write because something still feels fuzzy. The test is simple: did this help someone do the work, or did it only make the demo easier to sell?

Read the Substack

The best emails start with the actual problem.

I am most useful when the problem involves housing operations, AI in real work, product judgment, or the practical mess of building a company.

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.