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Yash Kothari

Building Kindred Minds, AI Leadership Coaching | YC | Wharton

Yash Kothari is an entrepreneur and founder based in New York who established Kindred Minds in 2020.13 He is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a B.S. in Economics, Management, Marketing and Operations, graduating magna cum laude.2

Professional Background

Kothari has a diverse entrepreneurial history, including:

  • Founder of Kindred Minds: A membership organization that helps people live with greater purpose and intention, using mindfulness and community-based approaches1
  • Previous Ventures:
    • Co-Founder & CEO of Prayas Analytics (a Y Combinator backed company)2
    • Growth Manager at GiveDirectly2
    • Director of New Initiatives at Drip Capital2

Current Roles

He currently holds multiple positions:

  • Founder of Kindred Minds2
  • Founder of Kindred Minds Advisory Board2
  • Senior Venture Partner at Pioneer Fund2

Kothari focuses on facilitating workshops and group experiences, using mindfulness techniques to help people uncover personal insights and live more intentionally.1 His work aims to provide affordable, community-driven personal development approaches that differ from traditional one-on-one coaching.1

Highlights

Jul 30 · linkedin

In enterprise SaaS, you often prioritize building features for the buyer (in our case, the Chief People Officer) or the end user (people managers).

I’ll (almost) always choose building first for the user.

It’s about aligning incentives.

Chief People Officers care about whether their people managers love our product.

The reverse isn’t true.

So when we build features for people managers, we’re building features for both stakeholders.

The logic is pretty obvious so it got me thinking: why do many companies in our space seem to build for the buyer over the user?

I think it’s because building for users is much harder.

It’s easier to convince a couple of key stakeholders why they should buy your product than to build a product that consistently has high user utilization.

I’ll choose the latter.

I believe building a great product that end users love will win in the long run.

Related Questions

What inspired Yash Kothari to start Kindred Minds?
How does Kindred Minds use mindfulness and science-backed modalities in their workshops?
What makes Kindred Minds' approach to coaching different from traditional 1:1 coaching?
Can you share more about Yash Kothari's experience at the Wharton School?
What are some success stories from Kindred Minds members?
Yash Kothari
Yash Kothari, photo 1
Yash Kothari, photo 2
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Location

New York, New York, United States