Catching Up with Dr. Jordan Vollrath from Cherry Health
Continuing our journey down memory lane and catching up with some of our past Summit companies that have received funding from our syndicate. Today, I’m sitting down with Dr. Jordan Vollrath, one of the 3 co-founders of Cherry Health, a finalist in Summit III.
TNT: Hi Dr. Vollrath (JV)! Let’s dive into the backstory… tell me how Cherry Health started!
JV: Hey Amanda. So funnily enough, it was all by chance. I met Max (Dr. Kerz) at a mutual friend's house, and we were chatting and I mentioned my frustration with the difficulty I was having to arrange jobs and be continuously employed at a nice workplace. We had a great convo, exchanged phone numbers, and Max called me the following week. He came over, we spitballed ideas and brainstormed, and then he came up with this epic Excel spreadsheet and a full business plan. From there, we developed the app, clinics signed up and physicians started taking jobs, and it just blew up.
We partnered with Calgary West Central Primary Care Network for our initial launch. It allowed us to get the word out, to get feedback from the physicians, and then moved forward and pitched it to the Canadian Medical Association. They ended up giving us the top prize, the Physician Innovation Grant through Joule, which was huge for our credibility.
And in another chance meeting, Max met Adrian, who was finishing up his Masters in Health Data Science, that he decided to do in his downtime during COVID. Max has a PhD in Health Data Science, so they were definitely aligned when they were chatting. Adrian test drove the job with us and worked with us for free for a month, before coming on as our third co-founder. And now here we are! With a self-serve physician job matching platform for locums, doctors and medical clinics that is all about the peer-to-peer network.
TNT: Wow! That is SUCH a cool origin story… It was all by chance that the 3 of you came together. So lots of development, lots of change, and then you guys came into Summit III, were a finalist and received a side deal. How’s life been since then?
JV: Post Summit life has been super exciting - it really accelerated our company. Back then, we were just gearing up to kick-off our fundraising and then the Summit opportunity with TNT jumped out at us and we couldn't say no. After the Summit, we were able to leverage that initial investment we received to build credibility and further traction with other investors and things started to snowball. And actually, we just passed our 2 year anniversary of incorporation.
TNT: Exciting! Happy anniversary. Let’s talk about all the milestones you’ve accomplished in the past year or so.
JV: It's been a big year for us! 12 months ago, we had three full-time team members, a rudimentary product and no financing. Today, we have a much more refined product that’s backed by an incredible 8 person team and last month, we fully closed (and oversubscribed) our funding round.
I'd say the single biggest thing we've accomplished, by far, has been in assembling such a talented group of people who share the same vision as us, the founders. Now that we're fully switched into operations mode, I'm really excited for what the next year will bring.
TNT: THAT is a very very busy year! Ok, so this was your first time fundraising. What are some lessons that you learned that you’d like to share with other founders who are raising capital?
JV: I don't know how common this is but don't try to have two completely separate lead investors in tandem. If you have two investors co-leading together, then that’s great, but for us, we were trying to negotiate and make concessions on two completely separate deals so that they would fit together later. This added a lot of complexity, was a ton of time and effort, and ultimately, when we thought we were getting close to the end, we realized there were still too many incompatibilities. We had to make that game-time decision to go with one investor vs the other.
TNT: Ah, that’s a very tough situation. Great piece of advice, Dr. Vollrath.
Flipping the script - what do YOU think makes a good pitch?
JV: Now that I've been exposed to so many other great companies, the ones that always stand out in my mind are the ones that have clearly articulated their traction and its significance. If you have a capable team that's executing well, then show that off because it gets people excited.
TNT: Love that point about showing off your team and how great they are. Last question - what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned as a founder?
JV: Putting your time, energy and organization into your team is one of the best uses of your day. When everyone is aligned, the organization's productivity as a whole increases exponentially.
As a doctor and in medical school, no one teaches you about having employees. You’re just building on your medical knowledge, and not necessarily your business or people skills. I’ve been reading marketing and business books, like The Metronome Effect.
But what’s really cool is that while I’ve been educating myself, we’ve gotten the organization running well because we all have unique skills as co-founders. I focus on growing the network and its cohesion with the healthcare system, Max focuses on the actual product and platform, and Adrian focuses on our internal systems, sales and processes, financing, fundraising, etc. Having these skill sets that don’t overlap, has been really helpful in growing our company.
TNT: That is a great lesson. Love it. Thanks so much for sitting down with me, Dr. Vollrath! I’m really looking forward to seeing how Cherry Health grows even more in the next year.
JV: Thanks Amanda!