Preethi Kasireddy on Superpeer
Entrepreneur, Investor, and Writer
I am an engineer turned entrepreneur who spent over a decade in Silicon Valley working alongside the world’s greatest investors and entrepreneurs. A little about me... I graduated with an engineering degree from USC. I then joined Goldman Sachs in their Tech Investment Banking group, where I was the leading analyst on deals like the Tableau IPO and Workday IPO. After investment banking, I joined Andreessen Horowitz as a Partner. My area of expertise was in SaaS businesses. I worked on SaaS investments such as Envoy ($10M Series A) and Tanium ($90M Series A). I also worked on a few Consumer deals such as Buzzfeed ($50M Series D) and Stack Exchange (Series C $40M). Not only did these experiences give me invaluable insights into consumer vs. enterprise companies and how each type are built, operated and scaled, but I saw first hand what distinguished successful startups and what VCs look for in investing. After my time at a16z, I taught myself how to code and joined Coinbase as the second female software engineer. I worked with the founding Coinbase team that was pioneering the Crypto movement long before the 2017 hype cycle. It was here that I truly learned about engineering and product from a world class engineering team. After my time at Coinbase, I decided to venture out on my own into the wild wild west of Crypto. I taught myself smart contract engineering and worked as a blockchain engineer on various ICO projects before deciding to start my own crypto company, TruStory. We raised $3M led by True Ventures and various Silicon Valley venture funds, such as Homebrew, Paradigm, Coinbase, and other prominent Angels. After two years, we made the decision to shut the company down due to inopportune market timing. Given the breadth of experience I have in tech, I have the unique ability to see and understand things from all angles. Below are the three key areas that I can provide you with mentorship: * Fundraising Are you needing to work on your pitch? Do you not know where to start? Do you know your deck needs work and you are nervous about showing it to potential investor? I have seen 1,000s of pitches during my time at a16z and I know what works with VCs and what doesn’t. * Startup Guidance If you looking to start a SaaS or crypto product or go work for one, and need advice on how to recognize a credible company in these spaces, what sort of problems come up in these industries, how to research and learn about the right topics, what investors to talk to, or anything in this realm, I can help. * Product and Design consulting Product and design are essential for consumer focused applications. After 100s of product and design iterations at TruStory, I developed a strong intuition for how to build UI/UX that users love. If you think that we would be a great fit working together, click the link below.