- Organization
- Andwise
- Period
- 2022–2024
- Decided by
- Who pays
- Case study
- 5 of 5
Reading a physician’s employment contract before they signed it
I co-founded Andwise and built software that read a physician’s employment contract and flagged the clauses worth arguing about. Each analysis went to a named reviewer, on a deadline, before the physician acted on it.
With Dr. Varun Verma, a physician medical advisory board, and a JD who wrote the legal content
-
1,200+
Physician users
Plus a 700-member community that grew alongside them.
-
56
Physician advisors
Across 20 specialties at peak; the archived public roster names 21.
No unbiased guidance on debt and contracts
Early-career physicians had big decisions to make about debt, contracts, and buying a home, and nobody neutral to ask.
The Contract Analyzer and its reviewers
I originated the Contract Analyzer’s clause-level language analysis for physician employment agreements, targeting post-termination restrictive covenants, tail coverage obligations, and call-duty allocations. The software surfaced relevant language for review while routing every flagged document on an escalation clock to a named reviewer for sign-off.
Where the analysis stopped
It did
- Surfaced the clauses worth arguing about, highlighted in the contract itself.
- Explained each one in plain language, with a stated confidence level.
- Showed physician-friendly and employer-friendly framing side by side.
- Routed every analysis to a named reviewer on an escalation clock.
It did not
- Advise. The analysis surfaced and explained, and stopped there.
- Decide how to handle a clause. Accepting, raising, or escalating to a lawyer stayed the physician’s choice.
- Author legal content — that was a JD’s job, not the software’s.
I convened a physician medical advisory board, designed review routing with escalation clocks, and shipped plain-language summaries signed off by a named reviewer. Dr. Varun Verma, the clinical co-founder, led physician growth and joined full time in January 2023. Alongside the Contract Analyzer, Andwise built PayItOff, a student-loan integration, published a newsletter and a podcast, and kept a free directory of more than 70 financial advisory firms, taking no payment for a listing. 2 3
Who could pay
- My part
-
Co-founder and CEO 1
- Originated Andwise as co-founder.
- Led product and company strategy, the initial $240K raise (including $60K of my own capital), and the physician advisory board.
- The call
- Wound the company down in 2024.
Reading a physician’s employment contract before they signed it · Kanav Jain · kanav.net
Direct physician subscription Tried
The aligned option: the physician paid, so the product answered to them. What it could not do was fund growth: acquisition cost exceeded lifetime value at every price we tested. Cold email to residency programs and coordinators converted poorly; so did the webinars. Free for students and residents was the design, not a compromise: the January 2023 deep-dive deck priced trainees at zero because it assumed they had no time and high debt, and deferred payment until members reached its “breaking even” stage.
Hospital or employer benefit Not chosen
The employer would have paid, with the product sold as a benefit. It meant a twelve-month sales cycle and reporting on which employees used it. That reporting would have breached the confidentiality the product existed to protect.
Advisory or wealth-manager referral Not chosen
The highest revenue per user, and the one that inverted the premise: the advisor would have paid for the introduction, making the physician the product rather than the customer.
I should have tested who would pay in year one. I left it until year two. When I did, the one payer I would build on was the physician, and a physician cost more to acquire than a subscription returned. I chose to wind down operations.
The wind-down
Andwise reached 1,200+ physician users. Funding and sustained engagement fell short, and the company closed in 2024.
What I’d keep
Who pays decides who the product works for. Sign-ups show people want it; they do not settle that.
It is why I now take founding work alongside a partner who runs sales and distribution: who pays gets settled before the build, not in year two.
Software changed the economics of expert advice here: it cut the labor per analysis, while trust, context, and a named reviewer’s time stayed as expensive as ever. The cost moved; it did not disappear.
The values were right and the mechanism was half-built. A contract review is a transaction: one document, one signature, and the need is gone, so nothing graded the physician’s judgment or brought them back. 1,200 Physicians Trusted a Contract Tool, Then Stopped Opening It works out what that gap implies.
Sources
Show sources and citations Hide sources 3 cited sources
1 Andwise founding
Andwise was co-founded by Kanav Jain and Dr. Varun Verma in 2022.
Andwise’s own page naming its founders.
2 Medical advisory board
Andwise maintained a physician medical advisory board. The public roster names 21 physicians, including co-founder Dr. Varun Verma.
The advisory board’s public roster, counted on 28 August 2026: 21 named physicians. The page is a 2024 snapshot of a site no longer maintained, so it may miss people who served at other times.
3 Advisor directory
Andwise published a directory of financial advisors for physicians and took no compensation for listings.
The directory’s own disclaimer: Andwise “is not affiliated with any of the advisors listed and does not receive compensation for their presence in our directory.”
Documents I describe but don’t republish
- Physician medical advisory board The public roster survives; no charter does. The review scope and authority described here come from my records.
- Wind-down and investor updates Investor updates and advisory communications recording the wind-down decision.
- Andwise deep-dive deck, January 2023 A confidential fundraising deck that survives in my files: the segment pricing (students and residents free, payment from the “breaking even” stage), the distribution plan of unions, organic social, and ambassadors, and the founding team, with Dr. Verma joining full time in January 2023. Described here, not circulated.
Operating and project records
- The advisory board’s peak size
- The outreach conversion results
- PayItOff, the student-loan integration
- Fiscal Therapy’s reach
- The podcast’s episode count
Founding, advisory board roster, and directory terms are verified through public records; other details come from company archives.
Next step
Advisory and fractional product leadership for healthcare and AI ventures, and founding partnerships with a co-founder or backer who runs sales and distribution. I take software from initial demo through hospital IT approval, clinical sign-off, and operational deployment.
Revised