Sramana Mitra: Funding was happening in Israel?
Rotem Shor: Seed and Series A was in Israel. In Round B, non-Israeli venture funds joined.
Sramana Mitra: By Series B, you had the third client?
Rotem Shor: Yes, but we had more of a thesis. We still got traction from users.
Sramana Mitra: How much money are we talking? Seed was $1 million.
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If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
A very effective way to dance the entrepreneurial Waltz is to do a bootstrapped company first, sell it, and then do another venture with a more ambitious agenda. Jeremy Swift’s journey as Co-founder and CEO of Cordial is a great case study in this method.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Jeremy Swift: I was born in Beaverton, Oregon. Most people know about Beaverton because of Nike. It’s a small suburb outside of Portland. I grew up in what I would consider a small middle class family. Both my parents were a rare breed and especially different from the path that I’ve taken in my life. The first job they got out of college is the same job that they retired with 40 plus years later.
Sramana Mitra: Excellent. Is there one that you have done from India that you would like to discuss a little bit?
BV Jagadeesh: Let me take Futura. They used to be employees of MindTree. They approached me through some common connection. They hadn’t started yet at that time. They were thinking of getting into this analytics space in heavy engineering areas. Even though they came from a services background, they had the desire to do a product business.
>>>Sramana Mitra: How did the first one get the users?
Rotem Shor: They paid a very small amount of money. It was not only for a specific medication. They developed it as a tool. The second was very specific for their drug. We found out later that it is much harder than we thought.
Sramana Mitra: So what did you do?
>>>Sramana Mitra: Great! In terms of geography, you’ve invested in India and Silicon Valley. What is your group’s investment thesis in terms of geography?
BV Jagadeesh: Primarily because I like to spend more time with the entrepreneurs, I like to do more companies out of Silicon Valley. My heart is still in India. I do have about two or three companies in India. I want to limit myself with that. Otherwise, it starts to eat into my morning and evening times which are very important to me. SVQuad is primarily centered around US-based companies.
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If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Co-founder Nitesh Chawla bootstrapped Aunalytics while keeping his academic job at Notre Dame.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Nitesh Chawla: I’m from New Delhi although I was born in Calcutta. I did my schooling from Delhi Public School. Then I did my engineering from Pune. Then I came to the United States in 1993 right after finishing my undergrad. I went to grad school in South Florida. I got my PhD in Computer Science with a focus on Machine Learning and Data Science.

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 568th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, March 24, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/4 p.m. CET/8:30 p.m. India IST.
If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.
You can learn more here and register to pitch or attend here. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!
Sramana Mitra: You went to a pharma company before you had a product?
Rotem Shor: We developed a concept. Then we developed the MVP. We launched it to users. We launched the product and saw that users were coming. We did a lot of guerilla marketing. We combined it all together. We gained traction. We got strong feedback from patients on what to do and how to improve. Today, we are rated 4.7 in the app stores with more than 450,000 reviews by patients.
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