10 Things You Didn't Know about Prasad Kawthekar
Prasad Kawthekar is an alumnus of Stanford University who worked as a Software Engineering Intern at Intuit in 2015. He was born in Indore, India but currently lives in Stanford, California. Most notably, he is the co-founder and CEO of one of the fastest-growing startups in the US today. Let's discuss ten things you probably didn’t know about Prasad Kawthekar.
1. He Co-Founded Dashworks
In late 2019, Praty Sharma and Prasad Kawthekar founded the Y Combinator-backed productivity startup platform Dashworks. Dashworks is a virtual headquarters technology company providing collaboration databases and tools. Their main reason for starting the company was their realization that the firms they worked for were experiencing difficulties with "information app overload ."With the help of Dashworks, companies are able to create a business platform for their markets, which facilitates the aggregation of business information from several proprietary and third-party groups.
2. He Was Responding to an Emerging Problem
Throughout his career, Prasad noticed that the companies he worked for were struggling with handling a boatload of business information. They were also having trouble streamlining increasingly fragmented workflows and data across productivity apps like Salesforce for sales, Jira for engineering, Slack for communication, Zendesk for support, and others. Scattered information often causes a massive negative impact on a business's operations. For instance, it affects how people in the company find and learn from the various resources provided by the business. A mishap could result in business miscommunication and make it difficult for people to access helpful information. Dashworks helps companies keep all their business information in one easily-retrievable location. It provides a simpler and easier way for people to find, learn, manage, and discover from all the scattered information that gets stored into individual management applications. The Senior Manager for Enterprise Software Service commented, "… I used Dashworks for just 10 minutes, and it already became a game-changer!"
3. He Is the CEO of Dashworks
Prasad Kawthekar has been the CEO of Dashworks for two years. Dashworks has its headquarters situated in San Francisco, California, and its main objective is to alter the whole process of knowledge sharing, learning, and management at the business level. The platform acts as a protective layer that covers the numerous business knowledge sources in a firm and helps business owners intelligently access all of this information, Furthermore, Dashworks is like a virtual platform where all of your business documents, tickets, messages, and other important information scattered across your organization are seamlessly stored together. It promotes coordination among various departments in your company as it encourages teamwork in almost every activity in the business.
4. His Company Was Significantly Affected by COVID-19
Like many other entrepreneurs, the recent COVID-19 pandemic had devastating effects on Prasad’s then-new business. For Praty Sharma and Prasad Kawthekar, the impact of COVID-19 put the flexibility of their company to the test as it sidelined their associates to a fully-remote setup. After experiencing the life-altering COVID-19 effects, they realized that they should start forming partnerships with some of the well-known names in the startup world for them to modify how they view productivity in the company. Fortunately, the company is still up and running and even growing thanks to the remote model it adopted.
5. He Was Part of the YC Program
Prasad Kawthekar was part of the YC program that played a significant role in helping him evolve his virtual tech company, Dashworks. During the YC program, Prasad learned that each entrepreneur's business relies on a specific set of hypotheses, which suggest that customers may buy what the company sells or opt not to. The way YC structures these hypotheses makes the process of growing your business seem achievable and eye-opening. It also helps you come up with effective strategies for attracting many prospective investors and customers. Moreover, the YC program taught Prasad how to look at their business startup as a series of calculated risks and work to quickly evaluate them with well-planned and targeted experiments.
6. He Has Worked in Technology Before
Prasad Kawthekar worked as a Machine Learning Specialist at Blue River Technology in San Francisco Bay Area between 2018 and 2019. He also worked as the Founding Engineer at Cresta in Palo Alto for one year.
7. He Was a Research Assistant in Some Top Schools
Prasad was an undergraduate Research Assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, located in Madison, Wisconsin, Area in 2015. He was also a Research Assistant at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, in 2016. Between 2016 and 2017, he was Graduate Research Assistant at Stanford University in Stanford, CA, where he got his master's.
8. He Interned at Intuit
In 2015, Prasad Kawthekar was a Software Engineering Intern at Intuit in Mountain View, CA, for less than a year. Intuit is an international technological platform that helps small businesses and clients deal with their most critical financial problems. The platform has 20 offices located in 9 countries, a total of 14,200 employees worldwide, and an annual revenue of $9.6B.
9. He Is a Stanford University Alumnus
Between 2016 and 2018, Prasad Kawthekar studied for his Master of Science (MS) Computer Science at Stanford University. He also worked on Deep Learning with Vijay Pande and Sebastian Thrun. Previously, he had gotten his Bachelor of Science –BS Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he worked on Active Learning with Jerry Zhu.
10. His Company Is Growing Steadily
Praty Sharma and Prasad Kawthekar started Dashworks in November 2019. On 18 January 2021, the company announced that it was planning to double its staff size with a search for backend, frontend, and design engineers. Dashworks was nominated for Y Combinator W20 funding and later received funds from Goat Capital, Gardua Ventures, Joshua Reeves, South Park Commons, Emmett Shear, Combine, and Unpopular ventures. YC funding invests a maximum of $500,000 in each selected company twice annually.
Final Thoughts
Besides being the co-founder and CEO of Dashworks, Prasad Kawthekar is a respected leader. Andre Esteva, Ph.D. says of Prasad, “He was a vital addition to our staff at Cresta. He is a rare combination of a talented software engineer, a skilled ML practitioner, and team player. He also has the talent and skillset needed in an engineer. We were all disappointed after he left the company.”
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Written by Allen Lee
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