“We will be cash flow profitable this year for the first time since the company started in 2005. I guess you could say we are a 20-year overnight success story.”
“We lost 70% of our revenue during COVID. I had to part ways with some of the team but I managed to keep most people – especially those who have been with me for a long time. We used the time to rebuild the product from scratch in the cloud. We are now ready to run!”
– Representative quotes from the dozens of entrepreneurs I have the privilege of interacting with every week whose boundless optimism has inspired me to write this blog.
I’m Nilam Ganenthiran, a Toronto-based entrepreneur and investor.
For some background, I was employee number 12 at Instacart and spent over 8 years with the company, culminating in my last role as President.
After leaving Instacart, I spent time at D1 Capital, focusing on private equity investments across sectors. I am currently building something new to support founders in their journeys (Beacon Software).
More to come about Beacon in the coming months.
This blog, ‘Captain, Crew, & Capital’ is where I share my experiences, wins, losses, and, most importantly, learnings from being a technology entrepreneur, builder, and investor for the last decade.
From my near-daily conversations with tech founders, investors, and executives, I have realized that founders (captains) need help understanding how their teams (crew) and their investors (capital) think about situations.
I am writing this blog to share my own POV, having worn all three hats while trying to build a new company myself.
More than anything else, I am writing this blog to force myself to be deliberate about documenting my own learnings/thinking in the hope that it will help others. I am inspired by the boundless optimism of entrepreneurs who fight daily to make something appear out of nothing.
If you want to stay updated on my journey, subscribe to my blog “Captain, Crew, &, Capital”, visit my website nilam.ca or follow me on X/Linkedin.