Dhanush Balachandran

Founder and Chief Executive Officer Sortly

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Dhanush Balachandran is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sortly, an inventory and asset management platform built around a simple insight about how small businesses actually track things: they recognise their stock visually, not by SKU. Sortly is photo-first – items are catalogued with pictures, organised into nested folders, and made findable through QR codes and barcode scanning from a phone – which makes it usable by a contractor in a van or a clinic storeroom rather than only by someone trained on a warehouse management system. Balachandran’s route to founding it was indirect. He spent more than seven years at Intel in strategic marketing and product management across three countries, taught himself to code, spent a year as a lead engineer in digital health, and started Sortly in 2013. The company is now fully distributed, with roughly 70 employees across 17 US states and three countries, and no headquarters at all.

Career Highlights

• Founded Sortly in 2013 and has led it as Chief Executive Officer since.
• Built a photo-based inventory system with QR and barcode scanning, low-stock alerts, integrations and reporting, serving construction, medical, warehouse, electrical, interior design and education sectors.
• Grew the platform to 11.5 million items stored and 47 million transactions processed, with around 8,500 five-star customer reviews.
• Runs the company as a fully distributed organization of about 70 people across 17 US states and three countries.
• Taught himself to code mid-career, after moving from strategic marketing into engineering.
• Worked as a Lead Engineer at Jiff, Inc. in digital health from 2012 to 2013, immediately before founding Sortly.
• Spent over seven years at Intel in strategic marketing and product management across three countries, with reported responsibility for worldwide CPU demand forecasting and server CPU pricing.
• Holds an MBA from the Indian School of Business and a Bachelor of Engineering from NIT Tiruchirappalli.

Professional Journey

Balachandran took a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communications at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, and later an MBA in Strategic Marketing and Technology at the Indian School of Business. His early career was at Intel, where he spent more than seven years moving through strategic marketing and product management roles across three countries. The work was analytical and commercial rather than technical – reported responsibilities include worldwide CPU demand forecasting and pricing for server processors, the kind of role that sits close to very large decisions but at a distance from the product itself.

That distance appears to be what he changed. He taught himself to program, and in September 2012 took a Lead Engineer role at Jiff, Inc., a digital health company, where he worked in mobile application development. It lasted about a year.

In 2013 he founded Sortly. The company was initially associated with the name My Things, and the product’s origin is domestic in scale – turning household and small-business clutter into a searchable visual inventory, catalogued by photograph and made retrievable with QR codes. The insight that carried it into business use is that this model scales down far better than conventional inventory software does. A three-person electrical contractor, a dental practice, an interior design studio or a school department has real inventory problems and no appetite for an enterprise system; a phone-based, photo-driven tool meets them where they are. Sortly added barcode and QR scanning, low-stock alerts, reporting and integrations over time, and spread across construction, medical, warehouse, electrical, design and education customers.

He also built the company itself unconventionally. Sortly is fully distributed, with around 70 employees spread across 17 US states and three countries and no headquarters location at all. By the company’s own count, the platform now holds 11.5 million items and has processed 47 million transactions, with roughly 8,500 five-star customer reviews.

Education

Indian School of Business

MBA, Strategic Marketing and Technology

National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli

Bachelor of Engineering, Electronics and Communications

Stanford University

Continuing Studies course, Entrepreneurship / Entrepreneurial Studies