ELI - 546 | From Aircraft Maintenance to AI That Never Forgets You | Dinakara Nagalla (Menthra)

Dinakara Nagalla spent two decades building mission-critical software for airlines, then sold EmpowerMX to Swedish enterprise giant IFS. His next act is Menthra, an AI-powered emotional wellbeing platform that hit 50,000 downloads in under two months in India.In this episode he explains why he walked away from aviation, how Menthra's memory layer works differently from ChatGPT or Gemini, why he refuses to call it just a chatbot, and how the platform hands you over to a real human therapist the moment AI stops being the right answer.Dinakara began his career as a research engineer at IIT Bombay in 1995 before moving into aviation technology at American Airlines and EDS. He went on to found EmpowerMX, the first cloud-based MRO platform for aviation, which IFS acquired in 2024. He is the author of "Becoming Human: Embracing Imperfection and Finding Purpose" and the speaker behind the TEDx talk "The Algorithm That Broke Me". Menthra is headquartered in Frisco, Texas, with Indian operations through Menthra India Private Limited.Chapters:00:00 - Introduction00:51 - From IIT Bombay to Aviation: The Early Years03:20 - American Airlines, EDS and Deciding to Leave04:22 - Building EmpowerMX: Cloud for Aircraft Maintenance05:26 - The Name "Menthra": Where Mind Meets Heart06:52 - Why Should Everyday Problems Take Years to Solve?07:34 - More Than a Chatbot: AI, Therapists and Coaching10:04 - How Menthra's Memory Differs from ChatGPT12:37 - The User Journey and the Free Tier14:25 - Conversation Styles: Oracle, Best Friend, Therapist16:11 - When the AI Hands You Over to a Human16:53 - Pricing an Expensive AI Product19:21 - Go-To-Market: Digital, Campus Events and CHROs20:28 - 50,000 Downloads in Under Two Months23:36 - The 18-Month Roadmap: Workplaces and Universities26:05 - Going Global: 18 Countries by Year End27:29 - India's Mental Health Gap and the Stigma Problem28:34 - Building a Credentialed Clinician Network29:37 - Closing Thoughts---About ELI Podcast:ELI (Entrepreneur's Live Interviews) brings you inspiring stories from India's startup ecosystem. Real founders, real journeys, real insights.Website: https://eli-podcast.com