These are the show notes from episode #22 of the “Shashank Redemption” podcast.
About the Guest – Praveen Ghanta
Praveen’s latest venture is based on this premise: Elite professionals already have a job – why not hire them fractionally? Fraction brings the talent of senior developers, PMs, designers, and accountants at top US corporations to market. There’s are millions of FTEs worth of spare capacity in the US – we’re tapping that to help growing companies. He built HiddenLevers from founding to exit with the help of fractional developers, and now we’re working to scale this approach across the industry.
He founded HiddenLevers and led it from inception to acquisition by Orion over the course of a decade. HiddenLevers is a risk technology platform providing next-level applications for the wealth management space. The cloud-based platform includes a cutting-edge macro-scenario library, portfolio stress testing, model construction, investment proposal generation, and enterprise risk and revenue monitoring. At exit HiddenLevers served thousands of advisors with $600B in combined assets on the HL platform.
Way back in the OG dot com boom era, he founded and sold SmartWorkGroups to Intralinks in 2000. He started his career with a brief stint at Capital One, before realizing entrepreneurship was the game for him.
Episode Summary
Picture this – you’re in the midst of the dot-com bubble, working for a corporate giant like Capital One, but something inside you is restless, yearning for more. That’s where Praveen Ghanta found himself before he took the leap and ventured into the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship. As the founder and CEO of Fraction, Praveen has a wealth of experience to share about starting from scratch and navigating the unpredictable waters of starting a business. In our conversation, he recounts his journey, from his educational background in computer science and economics to his decision to tread the unbeaten path of entrepreneurship with his first startup, Smart Work Groups.
Switching gears to the world of startups, Praveen delves into some of the fundamental lessons he learned along the way. He speaks candidly about the importance of finding a co-founder who complements your skill set, and the newfound respect he developed for the art of sales. We also explore the power of deadlines, a strategy that proved pivotal when launching his latest venture, Fraction. Praveen takes us through his bootstrapping journey with Hidden Levers, his portfolio stress-testing software company, and how they built a cost-effective and profitable tech team by embracing the concept of fractional hiring.
As we look towards the future, Praveen provides a glimpse into the potential world of fractional work. Drawing from his extensive experience in building three distinct companies, he emphasizes the importance of understanding the business cycle when seeking resources and argues for the increasing necessity of fractional work in smaller businesses. He believes that this could soon become the norm for more than a quarter of the workforce. To wrap up, he generously shares some book recommendations that have guided his entrepreneurial journey. This episode is a goldmine of insights for anyone with an interest in startups or the burgeoning world of fractional work.