Meet Roshni Lulla | PhD Student & COO of Recordless

We had the good fortune of connecting with Roshni Lulla and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Roshni, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Risk has played a big role in my life. As a junior at NYU I was given the opportunity to graduate a full year early and get a head start on my career. I had the option of staying in school and adding on a major, getting a job at NYU and staying in New York, or moving across the country and starting a job at a brand new lab at Stanford University. While the safer choice would be to stay in New York, surrounded by my friends as they finished up senior year, I decided to move across the country at 19 years old, alone and unprepared. That ended up being one of the most rewarding roles I’ve ever taken.

A year later, I got a job offer at a small startup experimenting with applied neuroscience and biometric data. Although I had a stable role in a good lab at a great university, I decided to take the risk and start as employee #13. While the company ended up dissolving once COVID hit, I was grateful for the ability to experience a startup and watch a company grow from the ground up. That opportunity introduced me to the world of entrepreneurship and encouraged me to later join Recordless, where I’m currently Chief Operational Officer. These are just a few examples of when taking a risk over the safer option has worked in my favor. As I’ve gotten older, these risks have gotten bigger but more calculated. Whether it be taking on a new professional opportunity or going cliff jumping in Greece, taking risks have strongly contributed to my success so far and will continue to play a role in my life and career.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Things have definitely not come easy, and I’m lucky to have a network of connections to support me throughout the journey. I’ve been on an atypical path in terms of working across academia and industry. Many academics are closed off to industry, especially towards students who come from a non-academic background. A traditional graduate student has spent a majority of their post-grad life in labs, focused on research and publications. I’m only a first year in my program and have already been told that I’m one of the most unconventional students the department has ever had. When applying to graduate school, I had to re-frame some of my industry background and was hesitant to mention Recordless in my applications. I even had to apply twice, after receiving 12 rejections the first time around.

Thankfully, I had mentors throughout the process that had gone through similar struggles and were able to provide me support. I specifically connected with PhD graduates who started companies of their own, worked at venture capital firms, or at least explored industry after graduation. Their guidance allowed me to join a lab that is supportive of my entrepreneurial spirit and industry goals. I hope to be an advocate for the merging of academia and industry for future generations and prove to other academics that there is no need for the divide between these fields. As a person and as a brand, I am proudly unconventional.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’m pretty new to LA myself, so I wouldn’t mind hitting the typical touristy places that my friends like going to (Griffith Observatory, the Walk of Fame, and of course Elephanté in Santa Monica). The one place I always take visitors is Launch House in Beverly Hills. I was part of their female founder cohort in March, and the view from that house is the best I’ve seen in LA so far. The house itself is stunning as well, so it’s a win-win. Right near Launch House is some of the best Thai food in the city, at Night + Market. For drinks, there’s so many fun bars around Beverly Hills and WeHo, but I think downtown is underrated. There’s a small speakeasy called The Queensbury that turns into a club on Fridays & Saturdays, or we could hit The Reserve for a more well-known location. I might be biased as a USC student, but Dulce Café in the Village has some amazing coffee for the next morning, if you’re willing to stand in line behind all the undergrads. I would probably do a trip to Santa Barbara (which I personally think is a bit cuter than San Diego) and hit some of the local breweries while doing a taco tour through the area. If we’re feeling fancy, maybe even hit up Nobu Malibu – assuming we could somehow get a reservation.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
A lot of my entrepreneurial spirit comes from my dad. As a kid, I would get annoyed that he pushed me into every possible extracurricular. I would go from soccer practice to piano lessons, then do extra math problems at home before reading for an hour before bed. Now, I see myself doing that daily in my professional and personal life. I’m a full-time graduate student and just completed the first year of my PhD, while also working on Recordless full-time. Even as a student in Brain & Cognitive Sciences at USC, I’m trying to pursue an additional masters so I can graduate with a dual degree. On top of all of this, I split my time across multiple friend groups and jump from one event to the next on weekends. This wouldn’t have been possible without my dad’s enthusiasm and encouragement. Even though my dad could retire and live a relaxed life at this point, he’s working full-time at Google while coming up with business ideas on the daily – his latest being mango farms in Puerto Rico (with full financial models built out). He’s my biggest supporter & favorite drinking buddy, and I’d dedicate this shoutout to him.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/broshni_/?hl=en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roshni-lulla/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/roshlulla

Other: email: roshni@inkibra.com