Daniel Nathrath On Raising $200 Million To Support Better Health Outcomes With Intelligent Technology

Daniel Nathrath has had an exciting entrepreneurship journey building and exiting companies. He went on to build Ada Health, a revolutionary clinically-driven AI application that provides patients with in-depth health information.

Ada Health has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Red River West, Bertelsman Investments, Farallon Capital, and Schroders Capital.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Rob’s family history, escaping Cuba and rebuilding in the US, exemplifies resilience and the pursuit of the American Dream.
• Moving from engineering at IBM to product management at Endeca marked Rob’s shift towards impactful, customer-focused roles.
• Inspired by market shifts in e-commerce, Salsify aimed to revolutionize product experience management for global brands.
• Initial struggles in Salsify’s first years underscored the difficulty of selling e-commerce solutions pre-market recognition.
• Salsify’s breakthrough came with retailer mandates in 2014, compelling suppliers to enhance their e-commerce capabilities.
• Successful capital raises were built on early relationships with investors and understanding market trends over time.
• Looking forward, Rob envisions Salsify as a global standard for product information management and distribution across major retailers.

 

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About Daniel Nathrath:

Daniel Nathrath is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ada. Prior to that, he was the Managing Director of Germany and New Geographies at viagogo from January 2007 to December 2009.

Daniel was also responsible for expanding viagogo’s market leadership across Europe through business development deals adding to the existing partnerships with, e.g., Bayern Muenchen, Manchester United, Chelsea FC, Inter Milan, 1. FC Kaiserslautern, MTV, Madonna, Bild, Kicker.

From 2006 to 2007, Daniel was the CEO of an internet startup that they built up from idea to profitability. Prior to that, he was a Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group from 2004 to 2006.

Daniel has also served as a Board Member at Jubii A/S from 2000 to 2003 and as the Director of Product Management at Lycos Europe from 1999 to 2003.

Daniel Nathrath has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a LL.M. in International Law from the University of Houston Law Center.

He also has a 1./2. State Examination (JD equivalent) from The University of Bonn and a Diploma in Comparative International Law from the Faculté Internationale de Droit Comparé.

Connect with Daniel Nathrath:

• LinkedIn
• TheOrg
• F6S
• Crunchbase

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: All righty, hello everyone and welcome to the Deal Maker Show. So do today we have a really amazing founder joining us. you know it’s saying It’s really incredible, you know the the journey that our guests, that our founder you know has experienced with the rocket ship that he’s riding. Obviously the first years, they were not easy as it never is really a straight line, but go ahead Daniel.

Daniel Nathrath: kind sorry i got keep out

Alejandro Cremades: I still see you, I still see this thing being recording.

Daniel Nathrath: yeah I’m back now. I’m back now. I just had to refresh the the the screen. Sorry.

Alejandro Cremades: um Okay. Well, don’t worry. I’m still recording, so we’re we’re good. Okay?

Daniel Nathrath: Okay. Okay.

Alejandro Cremades: And t will we’ll we’ll edit this piece, so don’t worry. All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Deal Maker Show. So today we have a very exciting founder joining us. ah Definitely a rocket ship that he’s riding. Obviously, it’s never a straight line, and we’re going to be talking about you know, the type of journey that they embarked on. But nonetheless, you know, incredible conversation, very inspiring story. And I don’t want to make you all wait any longer. So without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Daniel Nathrath. Welcome to the show.

Daniel Nathrath: Hi, Hanro, thank you for having me.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in Germany, in a small town there, you know, to a family of doctors. So give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up?

Daniel Nathrath: Yeah, life life growing up was great. i mean i you know As you said, I grew up in a small town. My father was an ophthalmologist, so I was exposed to healthcare care quite early on. um but ah you know i Great childhood, but I didn’t really want to be involved with healthcare care because I saw with my father how hard he was working. and ah He was basically sitting in a dark room all day, and I was like, ah that’s not really what I want to do. but At the same time, I didn’t really know exactly what to do with my life. So I ended up studying law first, first in in Germany, and then I had what’s called a Fulbright scholarship. And I really wanted to experience studying abroad. So i was I was sent to Houston, Texas, where I did a master’s in law. And then I took the bar exam in New York as well.

Daniel Nathrath: But um while I was there, this was in the mid 90s, I discovered the internet, which was or a real revelation for me because it allowed me to ah stay and stay on top of what was going on in in German football or soccer, as the Americans would say.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: And somehow I felt, OK, this is going to change everything and it really ah you know fascinated me, so I didn’t really want to be a lawyer anymore. um And I went back to Germany. I had a few offers from international law firms, but I decided to join ah one of the leading internet companies at the time, which was called Lycos. It was one of the earliest search engines and portals. I was always competing with Yahoo. I joined a company called Lycos Europe.

Daniel Nathrath: which was a joint venture of Lycos US and Bertelsmann.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: And it was an exciting time. we This was like 1999. We went public a few months after I joined. I did a lot of work on that IPO. ah Then we acquired about 50 companies all across Europe, um and we went from 40 people to 1,500 people in a very short timeframe, ah which, as you can imagine, led to quite a bit of growing pains and chaos. I was then…

Alejandro Cremades: And right there, right there, Daniel, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is most acquisitions fail because of integration.

Daniel Nathrath: um Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: I mean, we’re talking about at least 90%. So what, what did you learn about integration? Because I mean, it sounds like you guys were growing rapidly. You did a bunch of deals there. So what were some of the patterns on successful integration?

Daniel Nathrath: So back then it was all about speed really and the the original founder of Lycos in the US had led Lycos to the fastest IPO ever on the NASDAQ and he wrote a book called Speed is Life and that seemed to somewhat be our motto and so so it wasn’t really, let’s say due diligence was maybe not as diligent as you sometimes would wish. And I was ah i was a lawyer, ah but I transitioned ah very quickly within Lycos to more of a business-focused role and I became the Chief of Staff of the CO. And then I was put in charge of working on the post-merger integration. and

Daniel Nathrath: There were a lot of challenges with that, of course, because um almost all the companies we acquired were just as, um you know, I guess chaotic as we were. ah All very young people, young founders, first time founders. And we had, for instance, several companies that we acquired in France where, of course, you acquired three or four companies in France and every See all of the companies you acquire acquired basically wants to be the the king of france and you know this was just one of many challenges there and then we had challenges of course with tech integration one company was on a. Back then windows platform the other one was in unix and you know all these kinds of things.

Daniel Nathrath: That I had never heard of before and I have to say it was, ah you know, ultimately like us didn’t really make it because Google just sort of came out of nowhere and was just a much more focused company at the time with a better product.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: um But i for me it was a fantastic learning experience because I basically experienced the whole life cycle of a company in in fast forward so from basically being 40 people to 1500 people and one year later because we had to. already restructured, I think we were back down to 600 or 700 people, um ah lots of acquisitions, ah really fast growth, but at the same time, also many mistakes that we made along the way.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: and And I got a lot of responsibility very early on. And I don’t think I could have learned a lot more somewhere else. And many of the former Lycos team members went on to become extremely successful founders, actually, for instance, the founders of king dot.com, ah probably, you know, Candy Crush, you know, very successful company, fantastic ah entrepreneurs, ah the founders of B2 like dating platforms, um ah the the former head of Europe of DoubleClick. So really, a lot of very, very talented people who learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes, but then basically took these experiences and applied them to become even better founders.

Alejandro Cremades: So then it sounds like in your case, you know you had learned that tremendous amount of time. So why shifting gears on doing an MBA and joining corporate?

Daniel Nathrath: Yeah, so i’m ah you know like I came from a doctor’s family really talking about ah business or talking about money wasn’t wasn’t only not happening, it was almost like adapting. You wouldn’t talk about these things. So I had very little ah financial literacy or understanding of what entrepreneurship really means. So I really wanted to learn more about um business basically i mean also as a lawyer at least uh back then i don’t know if it has improved but ah you wouldn’t really learn that much about law even the really really sharp lawyers often wouldn’t really have an understanding of the business context and certainly back then in law school that wasn’t taught so i felt you know i was fascinated with entrepreneurship but i felt like i didn’t know enough so i wanted to learn more i didn’t mba at the

Daniel Nathrath: University of Chicago it was a global executive MBA program Barcelona Chicago Singapore big part of my motivation was actually to spend time in Barcelona city I love being in Spain just you know obviously was great especially at that age and then and then I joined BCG ah consulting firm because I felt like I wanted to see a few other industries and and learn more through doing some projects, but I told them even when I joined, and this was the second time they had made me an offer. They had already made me an offer when um before I joined Lycos. I said, look, I’m going to do this for two years just to learn, and and then I want to move on and and do my own thing. And then they said, yeah, that’s fine. you know It’s kind of our business model to have young consultants who we basically cycle through the process. and

Daniel Nathrath: ah That was a very good learning experience. I did see some other industries, banking, ah insurance, but ultimately um you know I wanted to get go back to tech businesses and internet.

Alejandro Cremades: so then So then what happened next? Because obviously, you know you decided to just go into it you know yourself becoming a founder, but they that didn’t really follow the course that they that you had hoped for you know in terms of excitement. So how did that unfold?

Daniel Nathrath: Yeah, so ah so the the becoming a founder was um almost a bit accidental. I mean, we were ah yeah having beers in Barcelona and I was talking to a few friends of mine in the MBA program and said, we we’re studying a master of business administration, but almost all of us are basically going back to corporate jobs like consulting, investment banking, whatever it is. And ah you know how what we started startup and then I had an idea it was in the skill gaming not gambling space and basically was bootstrapped a few friends of mine from the NBA put a little bit of money in

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: uh, certainly wasn’t anything that would sort of, uh, make the world a much better place, but, uh, it was another good learning experience because I, I started a bootstrap startup. It became profitable quite quickly. We, but I felt like, uh, it wasn’t really, there wasn’t really a purpose behind it that I wanted to continue pursuing for a long time. So we ended up selling it fairly quickly. So at least, you know, it was, it wasn’t a, it wasn’t a failure. Um, everyone you know made a little bit of money. ah But it wasn’t my real passion. so So then I, you know, one of my passions has been and is ah football, soccer, ah recurring themes. So I was living in Munich at the time and there was a company called ViaGoGo, which is a secondary ticketing platform. And they just had started a partnership with Bayern Munich, my favorite team, and they were looking for

Daniel Nathrath: a german country manager ah so i chatted to the founder and met him and got offered the job and and that was another very interesting ah experience ah seeing a very very focused and driven entrepreneur like the founder of via gogo who previously founded stubhub in the u.s

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: seeing him operate. And by the way, he’s a fundraising fundraising um you know master, I have to say. ah I learned a lot from that. I also learned a lot about really being commercially focused. But again, I did this for like three, three and a half years, something like that. And then I felt i um you know I needed to do something else maybe with more purpose. But to find that purpose, I went on a trip around the world. ah again second time I did this before after my previous job as well and then um yeah when I came back I got approached by some former colleagues from my Lycos days and they said um ah you know what are you up to and I said well blah I don’t know and they said we we you know we met these amazing scientists um especially one one scientist who’s a grandson of a Nobel Prize winning scientist called Heisenberg

Alejandro Cremades: Thank

Daniel Nathrath: and why don’t you have a chat with him he wants to eradicate misdiagnosis and i said well this is extremely ambitious and coming from a family of doctors trying to create software for doctors i’m not sure the doctors are ready for it so but i i met my co-founders the the scientist ah very fascinating he’s now a professor for medical ai in germany we’re still very good friends he’s no longer involved in the

Alejandro Cremades: you.

Daniel Nathrath: day-to-day Martin Hirsch, a fantastic guy. And ah the other co-founder actually is Claire who became our chief medical officer and ah who to to recruit her to the business and to retain her eventually I had to pull all the stops I married her and now we have two wonderful children and to Ada is kind of our third baby ah with

Alejandro Cremades: and Obviously, it’s saying it’s amazing. I mean, you guys have been together too for 10 years married, and as you said, you know two kids. I guess, how how how do you think you know people that they you know have also a significant other that they’re working on on a startup or or a business, how how do how are those dynamics? How how do you think you know like how how do you think you’ve you’ve made it work for you guys?

Daniel Nathrath: So in our case, we almost didn’t know it any other way because we kind of met ah through this and kind of becoming co-founders and dating kind of. inadvertently started happening at the same time and ah at the time we were still a very very small team ah and everyone was kind of friends pretty much so I don’t know if you if you were to ask my my my colleagues at the time if they found it awkward maybe but ah

Daniel Nathrath: Probably not so much because we always had ah quite a separation of responsibilities. So my wife Claire, she’s a trained doctor from the UK, a pediatrician and geneticist. She worked in the National Health Service in England for 10 years, something. uh and uh she obviously is the real brain here the medical brain i’m just i’m just a business guy who who had to try and do the fundraising and and you know get some revenue and these are usually quite different tasks of course one challenge is um that you know when you’re at home you at some point you have to

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: ah snap out of the business mode because otherwise it it gets ah that’s probably when it gets stressful when it’s like midnight and you you’re arguing about something in the business at some point you have to kind of put a stop to that if you want to keep both things healthy and somehow we managed we’re you know we’re we’re we’re still enjoying the the journey and it’s working really well And ah there there are ah you know quite a few examples where founder couples actually have been successful, if you look at Eventbrite, I think, and also Biontech. And then also you, Alejandro. I mean, I saw, I read your story. ah you know you you You did it too. And you know I think there’s some advantages where you know there’s someone you can really trust um and

Daniel Nathrath: you know there there will never be a lack of commitment to each other and and to the the joint cause. so

Alejandro Cremades: 100%. I think that they now now looking at it, you know if I was to look at it from the investor side, ultimately, you’re betting on people that you’re that they’re going to sleep with it and they’re waking up with it. so i mean It’s just like 24-7, thinking through it. But I guess, Daniel, in your guys’ case, what ended up becoming other health? How do you guys make money? What’s the business model there?

Daniel Nathrath: Yeah, so it took us a few years to figure it out. Initially, we were building a decision support system for doctors, and over 10 years ago, trying to um you know sell ah technology to doctors who, quite frankly, most of them at the time were still doing everything on pen and paper was a hard proposition. I mean, it was just really almost impossible, especially in in Germany, you know, where there are lots of concerns about using technology, etc. So it took us a few years. Eventually, I got my wish that we

Daniel Nathrath: shifted our focus more to the patient side. We knew that there were 7% of our Google searches, health-related, one out of five of those directly a symptom. ah There was a company that that is still around called WebMD. Their main feature at the time was a symptom checker that quite frankly wasn’t wasn’t very accurate and and we knew what we had built was multiple times more accurate but ah we had to figure out a way to make it easily accessible and to make it easily usable for patients. So basically we created a chatbot before the current ah wave of chatbots became all the rage. So this was in 2016, 2017 I think when we

Daniel Nathrath: We’re working on this. We really launched one of the first chatbots, I would say, certainly in the medical space. And we didn’t initially, we were thinking about different types of business models, maybe a freemium model, et cetera, but the app is still completely free. It’s been downloaded by over 14 million people. We have over 35 million cases in the system. Right now, every three seconds, someone somewhere in the world is entering the new case in Ada in 12 different languages. um And we didn’t really have a clear idea of what the business model was going to be.

Daniel Nathrath: or We had maybe many ideas, but we hadn’t zoomed in on some.

Alejandro Cremades: You

Daniel Nathrath: We got a lot of interest once we launched the free app from health systems, from health insurers, from government, from pharmaceutical companies, from telehealth companies. And it was ah you know it was a little bit of trying around and and finding out. And eventually we settled on two main business models. One is working with health systems, governments and and and payers to provide kind of a digital front door, a triage tool at the beginning of the patient journey where really we integrate our software into our partner’s environment.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: For instance, we work with a large health system in in in the US called Jefferson Health and they integrated our technology where People actually start their journey with Ada before they see a doctor. And then ah they find out if they need to see a doctor, and if so, which doctor would be the best doctor to see. So we’re kind of the bouncer at the door that helps direct the patient in the right direction. It’s it’s integrated with the electronic health record system.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: So you can go straight into the appointment booking. And it basically redirects a significant percentage of people towards self-care, whether that’s appropriate, so people with a cold shouldn’t really go to to the emergency room, obviously. ah But then it also helps to prepare the doctor visit. So because we’ve kind of automated part of the doctor’s job by taking the patient history, um And that saves the doctor ah you know several minutes per appointment because ah part of the documentation effort is already ah is already done. and ah So the the business model here is basically a software as a service model where the partner organization ah you know pays us and an annual license fee and these types of contracts are typically multi-year contracts because obviously there’s some

Daniel Nathrath: effort on both sides involved in in in setting up the integration and this is working really well, ah very high satisfaction for our partners. We work for instance with the largest health system in Portugal, one of the largest health insurers in Switzerland, you know largest and most innovative health system in the US a government in a province in Canada etc so so this is working well but then we also have a second business model where we work with life sciences companies we we call this ada match because basically we use this is where we use the free app to some extent.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: where we help patients um find out what they most likely have. so We’re matching the patient to the most appropriate um underlying condition. I’m not calling it a diagnosis for legal reasons. but you know and We kind of help pre-assess the patient and then we can also help the patient direct ah connect to a healthcare professional who can then prescribe. and In many cases, um creating the awareness for the patient can actually be lifesaving and then getting on to the right treatment. That’s, of course, the doctor’s decision, but that’s also obviously in the interest in the commercial interest of the pharma companies. The other use case there is also trying to help find patients for clinical trials. So that’s another thing ah that we’re very good at, because basically what we’ve built is the most accurate

Daniel Nathrath: kind of doctor in your pocket that exists ah in the world. And therefore, ah and patients use us usually before they go see a doctor because they’re like, do I actually need to go to the doctor?

Alejandro Cremades: So.

Daniel Nathrath: So we’re very good at finding the undiagnosed population. And of course, this is of interest not only to the individual patient, but also to the life sciences companies who are looking to ah serve these patients. So that’s that’s the other business model.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us, Daniel, about the fundraising journey too, because I know that they it was not the typical you know ah way. It was a little bumpy, you know especially you know some of those times where the money took a little bit longer, where you had to even cover payroll yourself personally. So nerve-racking, for sure. so So how much capital have you guys raised to date, and how has been the journey on on raising that?

Daniel Nathrath: So we’ve raised roughly $200 million. dollars um And fortunately now we’re we’re profitable. We turned profitable last year. So we’re we’re actually no longer on the fundraising trail, ah which as you can imagine after 13 years is is a bit of a relief. ah But ah it it did indeed, it was unusual because the first, I would say five years of the company’s existence, we were completely privately funded by well-meaning and impact-oriented and very patient high net worth individuals, mostly from from Germany.

Alejandro Cremades: Thank you.

Daniel Nathrath: We also ah have the inventor of the AI behind Amazon Alexa um among our investors and then you know Google’s chief business officer worldwide. is one of our early backers so in in a private capacity so we we have um fortunately we we found people who really believed in what we were trying to do and i think if we had started raising from vcs at the very beginning we would probably have been shut down after a year or two um because at least at the time most vcs wouldn’t have any understanding of

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: how hard it is to build in healthcare. And I was naive about that too. If I had known it would take this long, ah you know i’m i’m ah I’m a big fan of the lean startup approach, building an MVP, you know starting to generate some revenue and then iterating from there. But if you’re building something where whether your answer is right or wrong could have a massive positive or negative impact on your user’s health and possibly you know life, then you can’t just say, OK, well, I’m building an MVP.

Daniel Nathrath: And and you know if it goes wrong, you know who cares? That was never our approach. So we we took an extremely doctor-led and science-led and responsible approach.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: And that’s why it took so long. So um so I think we in the first few years, it was hard for me because I’m a commercial commercially-oriented entrepreneur. And I really wanted to basically do business and I couldn’t because the product wasn’t there yet. We had a big ambition, a big vision and to cover a large part of medicine and do it accurately with AI was almost harder than I thought. So so we were we were lucky that we found really amazing individuals who are still our backers and who’ve become friends over the years who

Daniel Nathrath: really funded us for a long time. And then I think in 2017, we had our first ah sort institutional funding round and um ah you know funny anecdote.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: ah you know yeah I think when you first published your book, The Art of Startup Fundraising, I was just about to embark on my sort of going after my first institutional money. So I bought your book, of course. ah And ah you know because I think it was early days for you you, you actually built a little bit of a small community around it. And I’m sure you don’t remember it, but I remember very well that you had a small private Facebook group, as a Slack group, I think even in 2016.

Daniel Nathrath: And you know you and I and and I think a couple others we had even had like a private sort of video call where you were imparting some of your wisdom on fundraising and you know thank you because ah you know I found it really ah really helpful. I had as I said before I mean in my first startup I had only done. sort of a little bit of fundraising from friends and family but this is obviously different and and having a resource like the book you wrote and and your sort of thought leadership articles was actually super helpful in my journey.

Alejandro Cremades: you Well, I was not going to mention that, Daniel, but I really appreciate the kind words, and and it really means a lot. So so thank you. And obviously, he super proud of of everything that you guys have accomplished. I mean, what you’ve done is absolutely remarkable. So Daniel, with regards to you know basically these capital ah raising efforts that you guys have done and and all these incredible investors, obviously, they’re betting on a vision. no so

Alejandro Cremades: if I could you know give you the opportunity of going to sleep tonight and waking up in a world where the vision of Aida Health is fully realized. what what What does that world look like if that was to be the case?

Daniel Nathrath: Yeah, I would like to see a world where every person in the world has free access to highly accurate personal um health information and and personalized health assessment ah at their fingertips for free. So, you know, that right now we’re reaching through our partnerships and with our free consumer app, we’re reaching about 50 million people, five zero.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: ah But, you know, as you probably know, there are um billions of people in the world who can’t afford a doctor and and you know who who might not ever be able to to see a doctor and you know with the sort of proliferation of ah internet access and and ah cheaper devices um I hope that people like that will be able to use a solution like Ada that is almost as accurate, or in some cases, more accurate compared to a human doctor. I mean, we’ve we’ve never been about replacing doctors where they are. We’ve been about supporting the patient and also supporting the doctors. But for people who woundy who don’t even have a doctor, we’re 100 miles each each direction. you You don’t really have a doctor. ah you know I think a solution like ours can really help immensely for people to understand and then

Daniel Nathrath: to understand their own health issues and and then take action from there. so I would like to see a world where um access to healthcare becomes more equitable and you know and and ah everyone can afford it. and ah you know the sort of The other part of my vision is that ah is One is access in general, but the other part is that I want for ADA to not only look at symptoms, ah but to eventually integrate data from all relevant ah sources. so For instance, um integrating sensors and wearables data, things like that are also going down in price. so That will allow you to, on a continuous basis, um

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: basically gather data and and ah try to be able to address a problem when it’s still a $100 problem and not yet a $100,000 problem and basically help get earlier diagnosis done and thereby literally save lives, which is very close actually to my co-founder’s original vision. We’re just, instead of starting in the doctor’s office, we’re starting much earlier, we’re starting um At the patient or we’re basically starting at the individual when the individual hopefully isn’t even yet a patient and doesn’t necessarily need to become a patient so this vision would be. To eventually even include if that’s something that the individual wants for instance a full genome sequencing which is also going down in price massively so you could have.

Daniel Nathrath: basically ADA or something like ADA is you as the medical brain that’s basically sitting always there with you on your smartphone or other devices and ah basically monitoring in the background but but on top of a baseline where I’ve done this, I’m often the guinea pig for this, so I’ve done this, so ADA knows I have a three times higher risk of celiac disease ah three times higher risk of gout, but at lower risk of melanoma. So if you, Alejandro and I, let’s say we’re both entering symptoms of abdominal pain, tummy ache, and exactly the same symptoms, Ada would look at this and would say, okay, we already know Daniel has a three times higher risk of celiac disease, so

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: you know We can apply this probability modifier and look out for that even more in Daniel’s case. And then if you can combine that with direct-to-consumer lab tests that you can do at home without even having to go to the doctor’s office, all these things. you know I think ah it’s exciting how technology will be able to help people you know understand and manage their own health ah in a more and more efficient way.

Alejandro Cremades: So, I mean, we’re talking about the future here. I want to talk about the past because it’s been, you know, like you were saying, 13 years, 13 years of pushing, you know, and and and writing, you know, they say this ship, this this journey, this path ah that you guys embarked on. I guess if you were to go back in time, if I was to put you into this time machine, and maybe I bring you back to that moment that you were thinking about jumping on this and becoming the business co-founder, you know, and you were able to give that younger self one piece of advice. What would that be and why, given what you know now, Daniel?

Daniel Nathrath: who I mean, there are obviously see many things. I mean, hindsight is 20-20, so when you look back, ah you know about many mistakes you you’ve made and that you wouldn’t want to repeat. I think one thing certainly that I would want to avoid if I were to do this all again is overhiring, sort of being too optimistic and and kind of before you’ve achieved real product market fit, ah building, you know, see teams that are are too big because that ultimately unfortunately leads to

Daniel Nathrath: Usually leads to a situation where you then have to let people go which i had to basically go through two rounds of that in this in the 13 year history of of of ada and you know i that’s probably you know most entrepreneurs i think with the conscience will say this is.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: It’s ah not only the most unpleasant thing to do, but the reason why I i felt like it was a personal failure is because I felt like Not only did I fail the investors because i you know like I didn’t really get to the revenue growth I had anticipated fast enough to justify building up the the the cost but also most importantly I failed the individuals who i who um whom I had to let go because they trusted me and the the management team at the time. ah you know Some of them moved to a different country for the job and

Daniel Nathrath: And then ultimately, you have to make some tough calls because you have to, you know, the the survival of the company, I guess, is more important than than individual um ah cases, but still that was very painful. So i would I would actually, you know, there’s all this, I read the book Blitzscaling and I see the logic. I think it’s it’s fascinating, but um if you Blitzscale before you have a definite product market fit, it usually doesn’t end that well. So if I if i could go back, I would have been a lot more cautious in in hiring.

Alejandro Cremades: Understood. That’s incredible. I’m very profound Daniel. for For the people that are listening that would love to reach out and say, hi, what is the best way for them to do so?

Daniel Nathrath: I mean i’m I’m on LinkedIn and I respond to most messages that ah that are genuine and I mean the the only ones I have to basically ignore is all the recruiter and and offshoring spam. ah You probably get a lot of those messages as well like every day there’s a lot of them but I think it’s a useful tool um to basically connect with ah other founders, other entrepreneurs, other people who might be interested in in doing business.

Alejandro Cremades: yeah

Daniel Nathrath: ah So you know I can be found there.

Alejandro Cremades: you

Daniel Nathrath: That’s mostly where I do actually check it you know regularly. So happy to connect with other entrepreneurs. um i you know I think I’ve had some learnings over the years. so i did a bit of angel investing, usually it’s when i um when I already know the person, usually when we’re already kind of friends. um and And I guess learning from my own failures and learning from my own dealings with investors as well, I think sometimes I can help with either an introduction here and there or with some feedback. Not always, but you know I try to be helpful because I remember ah how often I felt that ah

Daniel Nathrath: it would have been very useful to talk to someone who’s been through the exact same journey.

Alejandro Cremades: I love it. Well, Daniel, thank you so much for being on The Deal Maker Show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us.

Daniel Nathrath: Thank you Alejandro and thank you so much for for your help because you know you you certainly had an impact on my own journey and ah it’s I think what you’re doing is amazing and you’re helping a lot of especially first time founders, first time entrepreneurs with what you’re doing and and thank you for all of it.

*****

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