3 startup tips from a first-time CEO who raised $700K

Photo courtesy of Madhumitha Somu Dinakaran

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There are over 75,600 startups in the USA right now, and the number keeps growing. However, these hopeful businesses have a litany of challenges ahead of them, including working with limited resources, building a solid customer base out of nothing, attracting investors who are willing to take a chance, and fostering collaboration and leadership in a brand-new team. 

For first-time CEO Madhumitha Somu Dinakaran, the key to tackling these issues lies in building strong relationships to supercharge fundraising and create a culture of collaboration. Her main focus has been on strengthening her partnership with co-founder and CTO Luis Fernando to better meet their customers’ needs. By prioritizing these connections, Madhu believes they can continue to overcome obstacles and drive their startup to success.

Madhu’s journey of learning and global impact 

For Madhu, raising funds in order to learn, grow, and help others has always been a way of life. She’s been doing it since she was a kid, and it’s played a key role in her journey to becoming a successful CEO.

At 14, she left home after raising $250k in scholarships to study in 12 different countries through Think Global School (TGS). Through this project-based learning program, she created goggles for the visually impaired in Panama, and in Japan, she made a VR film about the Hiroshima bombing that was shown at a UN session in Germany. 

After graduating from high school in 2021, she secured $100k in scholarships to study at Minerva University as a Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities major. At Minerva, she worked as a Student Life Intern, helping remote students stay connected during COVID-19. She also designed a community project in South Korea to combat loneliness among the elderly using art.

While her global journey was immensely rewarding, helping create Lumaa has been her greatest passion. Lumaa is an AI-powered platform that makes procurement easier and smoother. It does this by leveraging automation to help vendors quickly and accurately respond to RFPs and complete security questionnaires. She started the company with her co-founder, Luis Fernando, and by January 2024, she moved to San Francisco to focus on studying and building the startup.

Her history greatly influenced her professional journey. As she puts it, her background significantly “shaped my leadership style, emphasizing empathy, inclusivity, and the importance of creating an environment where everyone can thrive.”

Madhu’s tips for emerging startups 

But even armed with this eclectic background, creating Lumaa took a lot of trial and error. While Luis brought a wealth of technical expertise to the startup, succeeding meant more than just perfecting Lumaa’s technology — Madhu found that she had to rely on human connection, trust, and empathy in order to keep things moving and on track. She credits these soft skills as what truly allowed Lumaa to soar.

With that in mind, here are her tips for any aspiring CEO:

Persistently grow your network 

When Madhu arrived in San Francisco, she had next to no money and had no idea where her next paycheck would come from. What helped her overcome this obstacle were the conversations she had with random people, each one connecting her to someone else. “I discovered how the power of strangers,” she says, “can drastically change the direction of your life.” 

Partnered with firm persistence, this skill was what brought their initial success: When Lumaa was just starting out, Madhu and Luis would sit outside a potential investor’s office and work on their computers from early morning until late at night. Their persistence paid off when an investor finally talked to them and decided to take a chance on them. 

“It’s not always easy, but persistence in networking pays off,” Madhu says. “Once you finally connect with potential investors, show them you’re worth their attention. Then, they’ll be ready to have that conversation.” 

Find the right partner

For Madhu, finding a person who truly understands her passion, working style, and goals was paramount to creating a successful business. “Having a partner who says, ‘We’ll figure this out together, no matter what,’ is what kept me going and helped us raise the money we have today,” she explains. 

Madhu advises startup founders to choose inspiring people they spend a lot of time with. “I met Luis three years ago in college,” she recalls. “Hearing his story about financially supporting his family since he was twelve and fighting his way to college really inspired me. Every day, he teaches me something new.” 

Luis Fernando started coding at just 14 and began his career in 2020. His first role with a local company was as a junior software engineer, but he was quickly forced to take on immense responsibilities when the senior engineer left just two weeks later. Later, he worked as a lead software engineer for Tern, a bicycle manufacturing company. Most recently, he further developed his skills at Microsoft, where he completed critical projects for the government, before leaving to work on Lumaa full-time with Madhu.

Despite neither of them knowing how to build a startup, Madhu and Luis knew they could learn from each other and figure out the process together. Sure enough, after joining a startup accelerator in April 2024, Madhu and Luis raised $700K for Lumaa, achieving a $10 million post-money valuation.

Focus on the customer’s problems

Focusing on the problems customers face is crucial for startup success — it’s what Madhu calls “finding the customer’s itch.”

The duo secured their first design partner by reaching out to thousands of potential customers and proving that they deeply understood users’ needs. Instead of just investing all their time and energy in innovative tech, Madhu and Luis prioritized real customer experiences and built on that foundation.

“Once we understood their pain points and presented a solution,” Madhu explains, ”the response was overwhelming.” Even with just a Figma prototype, people saw the potential of Lumaa’s product to change their entire workflow. 

It’s all about the people 

Succeeding with a startup requires more than simply building a clever solution, automating a process, or developing an AI-driven tool.

For first-time CEO Madhumitha Somu Dinakaran, success starts with understanding potential customers as people with specific problems. If there’s one thing she wants startup founders to take away from her experience, it’s that a solid business idea can’t take off without first fostering human connections.

Learn more about Lumaa’s people-first automation solution, and follow Madhu’s journey on Linkedin.