041 Vidya Dinamani - Laying the Groundwork for Investing

041 Vidya Dinamani – Laying the Groundwork for Investing

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Episode Summary

Welcome to She Invests, where you’ll hear from existing female angel investors, venture capitalists and fund managers on their investment thesis. From deal flow to exits, they will share the best practices that contribute to their success.

In this episode, Dr. Silvia Mah welcomes to the podcast entrepreneur, Product Coach, author and co-founder, Vidya Dinamani. Vidya has a passion for coaching product leaders and teams. She is one of the founding partners of Ad Astra Ventures. She is also Principal with Product Rebels, a company founded to help product managers, founders and entrepreneurs make customer breakthroughs. Vidya has also recently been focused on investing and mentoring startups and early stage companies. She has over eighteen years of experience specializing in business and technology strategy development and product design, development and management. Vidya has held multiple executive roles at leading companies, including executive positions leading innovation and product management at Mitchell International, Director of Customer Experience for TurboTax Intuit. She also served as Director of Business Operations and Chief IT Architect for the software provider. Prior to Intuit, Vidya was a consultant with Deloitte Consulting, specializing in technology strategy consulting. She holds seven U.S. patents for software technoloy and is a certified Net Promoter associate.

Today, Dr. Sylvia and Vidya talk about Vidya’s ‘Why’ of investing and her goal to achieve equality among men and women on both sides of the investment table. Vidya expounds on what it means to go from the first meeting with a startup company to actually writing a check and investing. Finally, Dr. Sylvia and Vidya discuss the work Ad Astra Ventures is doing to educate entrepreneurs today.

What We Covered

04:30 – Dr. Silvia Mah introduces today’s guest, Vidya Dinamani, who discusses her professional background, her very first investment and her ‘Why’ of investing
10:22 – Vidya talks about identifying the right founder and the right product-market fit when she seeks out early stage startup companies to invest in
13:45 – Vidya talks about the origin story of Ad Astra Ventures and the commitment they’ve made to help more female founders
20:55 – Vidya speaks to the impact Ad Astra Ventures wants to create
29:15 – Vidya talks about her book, Groundwork: Get Better at Making Better Products and some of the great testimonials she’s received as feedback
37:02 – Vidya expounds on her background in product and how it’s impacted how she shows up as an investor
38:55 – Vidya talks about the work she’s doing at Lash.Live
45:56 – What abundance mindset means to Vidya
47:32 – Dr. Silvia recaps her interview with Vidya