Arjun Mahadevan, Founder and CEO, doola
With an international background, Arjun hopes to democratize access to American entrepreneurship.
“I was born just outside of London in a town called Hillingdon, England. Both my parents originally grew up in India but later relocated to the UK to practice medicine. When I was six years old, my parents made the bold decision to move to America in pursuit of the American dream, offering us new opportunities on the horizon.
My initial foray into entrepreneurship began during middle and high school. To supplement my allowance, I started a snow shoveling business in my neighborhood. This provided me with not only a source of income at a young age but also a fantastic workout.
I studied at Wharton and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in math for my undergraduate degree. Initially, I thought I would pursue a career in consulting or finance like most of my peers. When I was doing my internship in Sales and Trading at Morgan Stanley, I found that I was more interested in learning about the companies operationally and what influenced the stock price. It was like a lightbulb moment for me, where I realized that working within a company would be far more interesting than simply trading stocks based on their end prices.
After college, I relocated to San Francisco to join Dropbox. Being in San Francisco, I was surrounded by people either launching startups or pursuing side hustles so that energy quickly became infectious. Since college, I had this persistent itch to start something of my own, and that desire continued to grow. This urge was driven by the thrill of creating something that could be used by millions of people and have an impact at scale.
When I had some money saved up, I made the decision to leave my full-time job and venture into startup territory. While my initial business ideas didn't work out, I firmly believe that adversities are a part of the entrepreneurial journey. You learn from what didn’t work so you can apply it to the next thing. It was along this journey that doola was born. In my first company, I spent way too much on legal and administrative fees. So I thought, what if there is a way to initialize a company and have everything taken care of with a click of a button?”
Can you tell us more about doola?
“My startup, doola, offers access to American entrepreneurship, aiming to democratize opportunities for founders who wish to start a business in the U.S. with a simple click of a button. We streamline the process, making it effortless for founders to incorporate a company, open a bank account, and manage their taxes. Additionally, we offer add-on services to handle bookkeeping tasks.
We are essentially a "business-in-a-box" solution, where we offer founders peace of mind and manage the essential yet critical back office work. Founders can focus on what they do best, while doola handles the rest.”
What do you think the market size is for doola?
“There are currently over 400,000 people forming businesses per month in the U.S. and most of these are just LLCs. The projected annual growth rate for businesses being incorporated in the next year or so is estimated at around 5 million, so that's a lot of businesses being actively formed in the U.S. alone.
However, if you consider the global market, where billions of people worldwide have access to the internet and want to start businesses, the market size gets even bigger. Surprisingly, many people didn’t know you can start a U.S.-based business while residing abroad.
Our total addressable market is anyone with an internet connection, who wants to establish a business in the U.S. The way I see it is, doola not only facilitates company formation but also educates people on a large scale, enabling individuals from all the over globe to access American entrepreneurship. This approach effectively more than doubles our total addressable market.”
What is the best advice you have received?
“I have a favorite quote from Atomic Habits by James Clear: ‘You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.’
What that means is every Olympian wants to win gold or every startup wants to reach millions in revenue or a certain valuation, but why do few actually achieve it? The main difference is what you do day after day, week after week. Having a goal is important, but success ultimately hinges on consistent practice. A great writer doesn't just think of a book and it magically happens. They write pages every day and do it consistently until it happens.
Furthermore, I believe that people should develop systems rather than focus solely on goals. Systems provide the structure necessary to ensure the realization of your goals.”
Who is on your current cap table?
“We went through Y Combinator so they were our first institutional investors. After that, we did our seed and series A rounds led by Nexus Venture Partners. We are also blessed to have some great angel investors such as Dharmesh Shah, who's the co-founder of HubSpot, and Sahil Bloom.”
What are some challenges around being a founder?
“The most challenging aspect is that the highs can be incredibly high, and the lows can be exceptionally low. It’s important to smooth it out, to make the highs not as high and the lows not as low. I believe modulating that and managing the emotional roller coaster ride of these highs and lows is important.
One of my favorite quotes that encapsulates this experience is, ‘In startups, you only experience two emotions: extreme euphoria and then extreme terror, and a lack of sleep amplifies both.’ I find this to be so true.”
What do you like to do for fun?
“I am really into different forms of exercise and my latest side quest is weightlifting. Another thing that I enjoy doing is creating content. Even though it’s content related to my startup, it doesn’t feel like work.”