Born In A Pandemic: Our Story

Building a startup is always a tough and risky mission. In November 2019, when Roi, and I cheerfully signed up for this challenge, we didn’t know that a once-in-a-century crisis was also on the horizon.

This is the story of Anecdotes’ birth.

Once upon a time, we were traveling

We had worked in the cybersecurity space for more than ten years, and we wanted to do something different. We established a core value which we wanted to use as a guide for whatever we decided to do:

“Use technology to create something meaningful and positive.“

We weren’t afraid of exploring different markets. We saw a real gap in the travel industry and saw that solving it with innovative technology would make a positive impact on the travellers of the world (aka, all of us).

After three months of bootstrapping, we’d developed an almost-MVP and onboarded two design partners. At that point, we were in the process of raising the seed round. We started every pitch by describing the infinite market size of the travel industry. We were confident we had found the right path for building our startup.

Fail fast

One of my favorite software architecture practices is “fail fast.” It’s a great guide, not only for software engineers but also for entrepreneurs trying to find their way.

In February 2020, flights in and out of Europe started getting canceled one after the other, impacting the entire travel industry. It took us two weeks of daily discussions with potential customers to realize that we wouldn’t be able to close any deals in that market in 2020. It would be nearly impossible to raise a dime for our venture. 

And just like that, four months of dreams and hard work came to an abrupt end.

Ideation during quarantine

We weren’t naive; we knew the pandemic would make it harder than ever to build a startup from scratch. But we wanted to create something meaningful. Instead of giving up and joining established corporations, we decided to give our dream another chance.

Let me describe the situation:

• Complete lockdown, with our kids at home
• We had already gone through four months of bootstrapping
• Roi and I are located in different cities
• COVID-19 turns out to be more than just “two months of winter sickness”

In light of the circumstances, we chose a slightly different strategy this time around. We came up with a list of constraints, values, and areas in which we had proven experience. Then, since we were stuck in our homes, we used a distributed ideation process with a daily Zoom to improve, optimize, and narrow the ideas funnel.

We set these guidelines for ourselves:

1. “Use technology to create something meaningful and positive.”
2. “Look for a process that’s broken, not just missing features.“
3. “Leverage our vast experience in B2B and cloud/IT/SaaS technologies.“

This distributed ideation process proved effective, and we zeroed in on the super annoying process of enterprise GRC. The problem was clear: “Is this how it really happens everywhere??” 

At first, I’ll be honest, risk and compliance seemed boring. But after a few days, it turned out to be a playground for innovation. Solving GRC pains was a perfect fit for our guidelines — so we decided to step up to the challenge.

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We fall so we can learn to pick ourselves up

The well-known challenge of raising a startup’s first millions only gets harder in times of global crisis—and COVID-19 was the worst. But we believed in ourselves, and enterprises around the world kept telling us (over Zoom) how frustrating and acute the GRC problem was. 

It took us just two months to validate the problem, sharpen the proposed solution, and get the first term sheet for our seed round. We had the honor of choosing VCs and leaders from the industry as investors and advisors. We felt confident they would help us build Anecdotes and bring value to every aspect of the company. 

Given the ongoing pandemic, the entire process took place over Zoom. In fact, we didn’t meet any of our investors in person until two months after the money was in the bank! As challenging as we thought it would be, it turned out that once we adapted to the flow and limitations of online meetings, remote-first business actually had plenty of advantages. We became super efficient, conducting 3–5 important calls per day with potential customers and investors.

This time, we didn’t fail fast. Perhaps we were doing something right… 

In July 2020, after eight months of bootstrapping, a massive change to the way we live and work, and incredible trust from our investors, Anecdotes was up and running.

‍What’s coming next? Continuing to reshape the GRC ecosystem! We’re still just getting started.

Trying to build your own startup? Don’t hesitate to reach out. My founders network helped me a lot, and I’ll happily pay it forward and share my hard-learned insights.

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