Each week in the New Tech Newsletter we feature a Spotlight Q&A with founders, angels, New Tech alumni presenters, and other people or companies in our community we believe you’d like to learn about. Reach out if you’d like to recommend a startup, founder, angel, accelerator, or New Tech alumni presenter for us to spotlight for the PNW tech community!
This week we spoke with Chirag Pancholi, Founder of JennyLife.
Why do you do what you do for a living?
I love being part of the solution. Most people can be great at identifying a problem, but I think it takes a little bit of extra confidence, positivity and luck to be able to switch to solving that problem by convincing others to join you in the act of solution execution. While that sounds pretty generic, I actually love doing what I do because I don’t have to file any TPS reports!
Why did you start your company?
My wife and I started the company because she and I both recognized the need for life insurance right after the birth of our child. Despite being very well educated and career driven, she and I did not have proper financial products to account for many of life’s potential pitfalls. She did not have life insurance and noticed that there were no companies who were building the right product, the right price, the right way in attracting her with a compelling solution. So, we set out to work with our friends to launch the company.
What is one of the greatest lessons you’ve learned from being a founder/CEO?
The greatest lesson I learned was to be as humble as possible. Every day I know less about the world than I thought I did when I went to bed the previous day.
What is the one piece of advice you would share today with your younger self before you started your company?
I would say, focus on identifying the problem crisply first rather than crafting a perfect solution.
What is something interesting and unexpected that people would be surprised to learn about you?
I am a very ordinary person with very average skills. Therefore the only thing people would be surprised to learn is that I can function on 4 hours of sleep consistently for long periods of time, to make up for my ordinary traits.
