About Us

OUR STORY

Our team consists of American, Ukranian and Russian engineers who have worked together for many years to create enterprise software. We started working on Phrases for Life as curiosity back in 2019. We never imagined that over 3 years later, as we were finally ready to release a beta version of our app, Ukraine and Russia would be at war and that millions of Ukranians would have been displaced from their homes, and that thousands of Russians would be going to jail just for saying the words “no war.” We feel so grateful, having started this journey as a team, to still be together and think of one another as family.

My name is Puru Agrawal and it has been my privilege to work with this team and watch them overcome obstacles and persist in their endeavor to bring Phrases for Life into our world. Having grown up Hindu, I came to faith in Christ in 2010 and was baptised in 2012. I have slowly grown in Christ – often kicking and screaming – and my journey continues. Back in 2019 I had been donating money but was still trying to avoid giving my most valuable asset – my time. I convinced myself that volunteering in all of the usual ways was not for me — helping with parking, planting the church garden, supervising kids camps, etc.

I walked up to John Burke — the lead pastor at Gateway Church in Austin, TX — with what I thought was a pretty good way to give him the sleeves off of my vest: “Hey, I’m a software guy. I can’t help with the regular church volunteeer activities, but If you need some software, go ahead and let me know.” I was pretty sure that I was going to look good and not have to lift a finger. After all, what would a pastor know about software? To my initial dismay, John thought about it and then asked if our team might be able to create an app that would help people memorize Bible phrases. He had a vision where people could recite a bible phrase and the app would let them know if they got it right.

I figured my bluff had been called, so why not give it a try. Our team came together and decided we were going to build this app quickly — using Alexa and the Alexa buttons. In fact, not only would we make it easy to memorize the bible, we would achieve the impossible — we would make it FUN; it would be a Jeopardy like competition between multiple players! Little did we realize then that it would be a tremendous challenge to orchestrate reliable voice recognition with the human ability to follow complex phrases, much less coordinate the experience across multiple players on multiple devices.

Over this three year journey, our team learned the various significant limitations of Alexa, Google Home and Siri. Ultimately, after numerous false starts, we came to the realization that we were not going to be able to deliver something as exciting as we envisioned with a “quick and dirty” approach. Our team decided to build our app from the ground up so that we could support long, complex phrases. We struggled with unfriendly user experiences and all sorts of technology challenges (who would have thought getting computers to reliably recognize the difference between homonyms was going to be so difficult?)

Through John’s encouragement, the teams’ determination, and the support of advisors we have found along our journey, we have achieved an app that is on the cusp of something exciting. We invite you to come try Phrases for Life and be a part of this journey! Our goal is to provide this app absolutely free to anyone who wants to bring the word of God into their lives.

OUR ADVISERS

John Burke

John Burke is the founder and lead pastor of Gateway Church, a multi-site church based in Austin, Texas, which has grown to more than 4,500 people since its start in 1998. He is also the president of Gateway Leadership Initiative, a non-profit organization working to help church-planting pastors and ordinary Christians “raise the church out of the culture.” John has authored several books including No Perfect People Allowed, Soul Revolution, and The New York Times best-seller Imagine Heaven. He and his wife, Kathy, have two children. Learn more about John at his website.

Puru Agrawal

Puru Agrawal is a general partner at Altus Nova Technologies, LLC, a custom software development consultancy for the HealthTech, Insurance, Logistics and eCommerce business verticals. Puru has over 25 years of experience leading software development and technology enablement strategies for companies such as Esurance.com and Pitney Bowes Ecommerce Logistics Services. Puru is a serial entrepreneur and has cofounded technology companies like ProspX, Inc whose customers included AIG, Chubb, The Hartford, Assurex Global Partners, USI and several Marsh McLennan Agencies and Altus Nova Technologies, whose customers include Orangetheory Fitness, Sedera Health, Facility Solutions Group, Inc. and ACI Logistix.

Growing up Hindu, Puru came to Christianity in 2010, was baptized in 2012 and has continued his journey to Christ through the guidance of John Burke and Gateway Church. Puru has worked closely with John Burke and the Phrases for Life team since 2019, with a mission to use technology to bring Christ into peoples’ lives.

William J. Hold

William J. Hold (MBA, CRM, CISR) is President and CEO of The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research. His work with carrier representatives and agency associates helps to create education and training paths that ensure risk and insurance professionals earn the knowledge and skills necessary to meet their clients’ needs.

William serves on the Board of Trustees for Gamma Iota Sigma, the international business fraternity for students of insurance, risk management and actuarial science, and the Advisory Board of the University of Central Oklahoma Insurance and Risk Management Process of managing uncertainty of exposures that affect an organization’s assets and financial statements using five steps: identification, analysis, control, financing and administration.