Some of the most successful founders don’t follow linear paths to entrepreneurship. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Kula CEO Achu Ravi shared how an unexpected career pivot from engineering to recruiting shaped his journey to building a $14 million recruitment automation platform.
The Engineering Path Not Taken
“Coming from India, if you want to be successful in life, either you have to be an engineer or a doctor. There is no other option,” Achuthanand explains. “I ended up becoming an engineer. I started my career as an engineer at Microsoft. Didn’t really enjoy talking to computers.”
This candid admission challenges the notion that technical founders must remain deeply technical. Instead, Achuthanand’s journey suggests that understanding when to pivot might be more valuable than persisting on a predetermined path.
The Chance Encounter That Changed Everything
Sometimes, the most significant career shifts begin with a single conversation. “This was back in 2011, where there is nothing called a startups back then india, I just met this gentleman called Ashishank who is the founder of a unicorn company called Espracto,” Achuthanand recalls.
The conversation that followed illustrates how being open to unexpected opportunities can lead to transformative career changes. “I was exploring, talking to him that hey, what do you know, do you have any good open roles? Just people facing mostly on marketing or sales. But he was like coming you’re coming out of a fresh grad. Can you help me hire engineers?”
From Accidental Recruiter to Industry Expert
That initial recruitment role launched a decade-long journey through the talent acquisition world. “Prior to studying Kula spent more than a decade in recruiting. Most recently, I was with Stripe, looking after all of the leadership recording teams, primarily hiring for sea level executives and board members for Stripe globally,” Achuthanand shares.
This progression from hiring engineers at a startup to recruiting executive leadership for a global technology company provided crucial insights into the recruiting industry’s evolution and pain points.
Identifying the Market Opportunity
The deep industry experience gained through his career pivot enabled Achuthanand to spot a crucial gap in the market. “There are tools which are mostly system of records like applicant tracking systems which basically supports the referral use cases, but none is built for tailored made recruiting referral use cases,” he explains.
This observation led to Kula’s unique positioning in the market: “We are the only system of action tool which solves for recruiter workflows.” The insight came directly from experiencing the limitations of existing tools throughout his recruiting career.
Building From Experience
Kula’s product strategy directly reflects Achuthanand’s journey through different aspects of recruiting. The platform focuses on two critical channels: “One is referrals, another one is passive outbound recruiting.” This dual focus emerged from understanding the real challenges recruiters face daily.
The company’s mission statement itself reveals how personal experience shapes vision: “Our mission at Kula is to sort of make every single one a recruiter within the organization… Recruiting is a team sport, not an individual sport.”
Drawing Inspiration From Other Industries
Interestingly, Achuthanand’s engineering background influenced how he approached building a recruitment product. When asked about influential books, he points to “Creative Selection,” noting, “this is a book about how Apple does their design thinking process… I was a recruiter throughout my life, never built a product, and it was just quite fascinating to think about how does a design system generally work on building a SaaS application.”
Lessons for Founders
Achuthanand’s journey offers several key insights for founders considering or in the midst of career pivots:
- Embrace unexpected opportunities that align with your interests
- Use diverse experiences to identify unique market insights
- Draw connections between different industries and roles
- Let your career journey inform your product vision
- Value practical experience over traditional career trajectories
For B2B founders, the message is clear: sometimes, the most valuable preparation for founding a company isn’t following a predetermined path, but rather accumulating diverse experiences that provide unique insights into market opportunities.
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