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Innovations in Women’s Health & Entrepreneurship · Making Medicine

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  You're listening to Making Medicine Stories from the Early Stage Life Sciences Ecosystem, a
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  podcast that explores the people and deals that have led to the medicines, devices,
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  and technologies that keep us healthy. Let's get into the show. This
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  is Ashlyn Roberts, today's host of the Making Medicine podcast. I'm so pleased
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  to introduce Natalie Euford, Young, CEO of Springboard Enterprises as our guests for
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  today. She's an active leader in the entrepreneur community and carries out Springboard's mission
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  of accelerating women owned entrepreneurial companies. Prior to her role at Springboard, Natalie
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  was the executive director for Deloyd's Tech Venture Center, where she provided programs and
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  networking for entrepreneurs and investors. Natalie, thank you for joining me today.
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  Thank you for having me Ashlyn. Of course, so to kick off this
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  conversation, would you mind starting by telling us a little bit more about yourself
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  and your career that has led you to help the organization Springboard. I would
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  say it is not a typical path, but it does have some common themes.
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  So, as you mentioned, I joined Springboard about a year and a
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  half ago by way of Deloitte, where I served as Managing Director leading market
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  development for Deloitte's Emerging Growth Company Practice, which is a mouthful way of saying
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  working with investors and entrepreneurs, identifying companies that we could work with very early
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  on as Series A companies all the way through to IPO. So that is
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  really serving me well at Springboard and how we work with early stage companies and
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  help them grow. But my early career started in broadcast, moved into technology
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  during the first dot com era, built and sold a company, and that's
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  when Deloitte came knocking and said, hey, you seem to know folks in
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  the investor in entrepreneur community and understand this and did that for nine years and
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  then here I am your half later into Springboard. That's incredible. Thanks for
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  sharing, and I absolutely love your trajectory from broadcast to tech to being an
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  entrepreneur to now connecting the two and now helming this organization. It actually all
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  really makes sense, and I've got has really informed you and a lot of
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  what it makes sense to you. Maybe that's two of us now that but
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  you know, if you do those, you know there's all the different business
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  personality tests and I did one called business chemistry, and that was my AHA
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  moment years ago, finding out that I'm a pioneer driver. I thought I
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  was just you know, add or corporate schizophrenic or something, But it really
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  is a path. I mean, if you see something exciting, you go
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  for it and you bring others along. So it makes more sense now,
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  But it's like, how do I have all these careers? But now I
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  absolutely and I actually think that pairs well with a lot of the entrepreneurs and
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  investors that we speak with in our community. I know that a lot of
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  our investors are doctors scientists by trade training than they have an entire other career,
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  are oftentimes entrepreneurs themselves later on investing. So it's definitely a journey.
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  But I think, especially the entrepreneurial journey is one that you need to wear
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  a lot of hats to really kind of gain exposure and help inform your decision
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  making and kind of broad in your perspective. So I think it makes total
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  sense. If it's the only two of us, then Soviet perfect. So
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  I know that for our listeners who may not be familiar with Springboard Enterprises,
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  I'd love for you to tell us a little bit more about the organization and
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  its impact on women entrepreneurship as a whole. Sure Springboard is a twenty two
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  year old not for profit focused on accelerating the growth of women led companies,
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  primarily in technology and life sciences, and we do it a couple of ways
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  through our accelerator programs that we offer and also the community that we've built over
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  twenty two years. And some of those programs we run a cohort for life
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  sciences, one for digital health. We've created the Women's Health Innovation Coalition,
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  which focuses on innovation around women's health. And then we also have our signature
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  pitch event, which is Dolphin Tank, and then our New York Fashion Tech
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  Lab, which focuses on retail tech. That's fantastic and that definitely spans a
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  wide tranche of women entrepreneurs. How did you guys decide on these industries?
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  You know, it's it's really based on market need and on what's been developed
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  over twenty two years, So you know, you get into a pattern of
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  developing a community that's really supportive of certain areas, and it's based on need
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  for digital health and life sciences. You know, you think about we're still
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  focusing on STEM. Think about it, you know, ten years ago or
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  fifteen years ago or twenty years ago, that STEM didn't even exist, And
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  think about the need for women entrepreneurs to be supported in those areas. So
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  you know, we've consistently stepped up to do the hard things. You know,
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  for technology, we've kind of gone in and out of various technologies based
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  on what the market need is. Retail tech is important right now because of
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  the shift from brick and mortar to so much online, so you know,
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  AAR and AI and VR is really playing a role in how consumers consume goods
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  now. So you know, we we see the opportunity, we take it
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  and we build, and we support innovators that happen to be women. It's
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  fantastic and I couldn't agree more that, especially those three cohorts that that you
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  outline, the life science and digital health and retail tech are definitely a lot
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  of industries that have really been, you know, heavily impacted over the past
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  few years, especially with you know, of course the COVID downturn, but
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  then also where we're finding ourselves today, and so I love that you guys
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  are being able to play a role as not just a convener, but an
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  accelerator and a connector of sorts. And so I would love for you to
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  expand upon, you know, over your twenty two years, over the two
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  years since Springboards founding, just how what sets you guys apart, how you
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  guys have evolved and we'd love to learn a little bit more about that.
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  Yeah, I mean it goes back to what sets us apart is We've been
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  doing this longer than anyone else. I'd say that, you know, based
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  on our impact in our stats, we're doing it better than anyone else.
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  So let me stay on that for a second. When we started twenty two
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  years ago, there was a lot of venture capital money flowing over the transom
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  and it wasn't going to women entrepreneurs. So k Copple Events and our other
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  founder put together an application, had over three hundred and fifty applicants selected,
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  I'll say a couple dozen of them, took them all out to Silicon Valley,
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  filled a theater oracle theater of you know, with investors and other advisors,
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  and then had our women entrepreneurs pitch and I think the stats are all
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  of them were funded except for one. Two merged and one was sold as
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  a result of that, and that's what had Springboard hooked. You know,
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  I am the beneficiary of all of the great success and I get to,
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  you know, continue this charge. But that's a great foundation, and you
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  know, the sad truth is it still needed today. And if you look
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  at the stats today, in twenty nineteen, women founders got about two point
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  eight percent of venture venture capital funding. In twenty twenty dip to two point
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  three, and then again in twenty twenty one it's two percent, which is
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  the lowest since twenty sixteen. So while you know these numbers stink, Springboards
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  numbers are great. Ninety percent of our companies get funded. In the twenty
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  two years that we've been around, we've had eight hundred and eighty women come
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  through programs. Twenty seven of them have ipoed. There have been two hundred
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  and twenty five significant M and A transactions. They've built over thirty six billion
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  in value. So while we can't touch the entire population, we can be
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  very productive and very impactful when we get eyes on companies and we get behind
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  them and we bring our community behind them. And I think that is incredibly
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  important. I know that one of our initial podcast episodes we actually had was
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  we had had a entrepreneur and then a VC on to tell their story of
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  how they even had met and been able to help progress this fantastic innovation.
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  And so I think that speaks to groups like yourself playing that connector role where
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  I mean, we're in an industry that it's all about who you know,
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  it's all about kind of getting in those right the right doors, and so
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  you're helping open up the doors for a lot of folks and obviously seeing the
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  dividends for it. So I'd like to congratulate you on that is that is
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  fantastic and eight hundred and eighty women is that's that's wonderful. I would love
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  to ask if your guys, if you guys have an alumni network of sorts
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  and if people stay within kind of the community once they graduate. Yeah,
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  and that's that's why our community is so successful. Uh, you know,
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  and I'll give I'll name drop some of the entrepreneurs that have come through in
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  the companies that they've built. You know, I Robot which just sold for
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  one point seven billion to Amazon. Um real real constant contact ZIP car like
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  these are the more consumer recognizable brands, but you know, great companies like
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  Metable or ask Bio that are in the life sciences space, all very impactful
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  companies like world changeing, game changing companies. And yes, they give back,
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  they they stay, they mental or the next generation. And you know,
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  our goal is ultimately have this amazing flywheel effect where the women that have
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  come through before have had great success, continue to you know, mentor engage,
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  support, invest in the next generation women entrepreneurs. So that's very important
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  and and what's been fun for me. You know, I've been here for
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  you and a half, but it's fun to hear the alumna stories as well
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  as the long time advisor stories. And consistently I hear from i'll say,
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  advisors that say, you know, I wish I could do this as my
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  full time job. It is so much fun to have eyes on these innovative,
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  exciting women entrepreneurs and the alumna are saying similar things like this has been
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  so impactful in the way that I shaped my business, grow my business,
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  felt supported and really had a network that I could lean on. I mean,
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  it makes a big difference. And you're right about getting in that right
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  community. Once you get in that slipstream. You know, it really does
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  propel you forward, and we see it, you know, we see it
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  in media and we see it in community in the way that we surround our
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  entrepreneurs. I think that is so true, and I know that I was
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  fortunate enough to see that in real time, and we had seen you at
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  the LSx conference in Boston and I was fortunate enough to participate, but also
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  just witness the impact of the Dolphin Tank. And I know that this is
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  almost a term an event that you guys have coins and you alluded to it
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  earlier, but would love to dig in a little bit more about what that
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  is, how that's beneficial to both entrepreneurs and investors. Yeah. Sure so.
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  Dauphin Tank is our signature pitch event. We started it fourteen years ago,
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  and you know, there are a lot of pitch events out there.
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  The differentiator when we first started was really the opportunity to showcase women entrepreneurs and
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  give a live opportunity for our audience to raise their hand, provide you know,
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  immediate feedback, advice, introductions, and of course, you know,
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  always access to capital. And it's it's been a great bottle. We've been
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  all over the globe. We've done I want to say fourteen countries, forty
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  two cities, eight hundred companies have come through for Dolphin Tanks. It's probably
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  more than that, but that's the last count. We've had, you know,
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  thousands of attendees, and I think that's over a span of maybe one
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  hundred and fifty events. And one of the big ones last year was a
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  twenty four hour, three part Dolphin Tank series for International Women's Day. We
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  called it World Funding Women. But you know, it's it's really a great
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  showcase immediate feedback, and the result is usually the attendees that are listening to
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  the pitches get excited, and you know, because they're leaning forward on their
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  seats and they can't wait, like to raise their hand on an idea that
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  they have or a way that they can help. And I've seen so many
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  times where they're like, oh, you're trying to get into you know I
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  play golf with or I worked there and you know my former boss is and
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  those connections happen right there on the floor. So it's when you give people
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  access an opportunity, it's fun to see what they can do with it.
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  Absolutely, and I know that I've seen firsthand. Now, I think I've
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  been to about four or five of them in different different states, different venues,
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  and they've all had that same theme of justum, you can you can
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  feel the charisma, but also the connectivity of an engagement of everyone in the
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  room. And I will say for our audience members that any investors that you
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  know would love a great into some cutting edge women entrepreneurs. I know that
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  these are fantastic avenues to participate and Selfishually we joined and we're able to actually
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  pitch the concept of advocacy, which I found incredibly beneficial because of course,
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  all of the fantastic innovation being happy being made on whether or not you're in
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  Boston or the Bay Area or wherever we're holding these Dolphin tanks New York.
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  It was one of the ones I went to, We're here to also kind
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  of connect those dots and how important advocacy is in that downstream impact of all
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  that great innovation happening. But before we pivot there, I wanted to dig
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  in a little bit more about some of the life science and digital health sectors
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  that you had mentioned, especially on those two core cohorts, because I know
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  that's definitely the crux of our audience base here. And I also know within
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  the life science and digital health sectors that you guys actually have started, you
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  know, to be innovative in a coalition front as well. I would love
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  I know you had nodded to it earlier, but I would love you to
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  tell us a little bit more about exactly what the Women's Health Innovation Coalition is
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  and how it came to be sure. So, in working with women innovators
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  and digital health and life sciences, we couldn't help but notice that so many
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  of our women entrepreneurs were really starting to innovate around women's health. And when
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  we started to dig deeper, and we already know the stats on how much
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  investment goes into women entrepreneurs in general, but when we started looking at the
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  broader picture of how much research and funding is going to solve going towards solving
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  women's health matters, it really made us bristle and start to take notes.
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  So so many of our women innovators are innovating women's health. Some more terrible
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  stats fifty one percent of the pop This is a good stat. Fifty one
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  percent of the population is women. Women also make up eighty percent of the
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  household decisions around health. And here's the bad stat Yet only four percent of
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  research and funding goes towards women's health research. So you know, when you
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  think about we need to be healthy to raise our families, to build businesses,
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  to make decisions for other people's healthcare. Yet research and funding is not
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  going towards keeping us healthy. So our women innovators are doing a great job
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  coming up with ways to really address areas that either uniquely, solely or predominantly
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  impact women's health. We keep off of those seven areas, and we're hosting
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  forum series to bring together not only the founders and funders focusing on these areas,
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  but also the patient advocates and making sure that we're on the hill telling
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  these stories, because no matter how many times we go on the hill or
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  we have these conversations, people seems to still be shocked about the statistics.
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  So we'll keep telling the story. We'll keep giving a voice to our innovators,
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  our women innovators, so they can build their businesses while we're telling the
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  story and really trying to make an impact, so they've got a better pathway
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  for success. And I think that is that is so important that you guys
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  really have been a leader within that advocacy space and kind of breaking down that
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  that barrier. I know some folks you know, get a little intimidated by
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  it, but it really is so critical and just making your story understood at
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  the congressional level. A lot of folks in Congress, you know, may
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  have the health portfolio, but probably have about seven other portfolios as well,
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  So really getting in front of them and communicating your experience is important. But
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  that was that was a fantastic segue. So so the thanks for that,
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  I was actually going to pivot next to the work that Springboard has done as
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  a thought leader and representing women entrepreneurs. So the coalition is one fantastic example.
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  Is there any other efforts you guys have done in Washington or around advocacy
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  in general that you'd like to share? Yes? Absolutely, So. I
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  was fortunate enough to testify on the Hill on reducing the decline of women's entrepreneurship.
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  And I think anytime that you get the opportunity to be the voice for
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  our community, that's impactful, and as my role as CEO of Springboard,
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  I'm always going to say yes to that. We've also had a number of
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  conversations with the SBA and other offices on the hill, And like I said,
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  you know, no matter how many times we talk about the stats,
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  it still seems to be surprising. So we'll keep showing up and keep being
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  that voice. And I think that is absolutely crucial. And so thank you
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  for all your guys's leadership. And I know that we've been lucky enough to
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  know you guys for a few few years now as an incubate member and had
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  you guys on the hill. But then also I've had you guys help authors
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  and thought the leadership pieces on exactly why you know we are to your stats
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  earlier, why we are where we are, and how we can really prioritize
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  women in entrepreneurship more generally, but then also just investing in these important companies.
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  And so I appreciate all of your answers today and just retaking the time.
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  And I'm sure this was going to spurse a few more podcasts in the
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  future. But to round out today's podcast, how can listeners and people as
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  well as companies in the industry support Springboards mission. I'll tell you there's there's
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  so many ways. So I'll kind of give a handful We're always looking for
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  great investors to engage with. You know, we consistently see that, you
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  know, seventy nine percent of venture capital funding is flowing through too men,
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  and we have all of these great women entrepreneurs, so we'd love to have
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  deeper relationships. In fact, I'm building our first ever investor council. We
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  are also this year at the Gala honoring an investor as an Investor of the
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  Year that we see is making an impact for women entrepreneurs. So we'd love
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  to hear from investors that want to engage and really get to know women entrepreneurs
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  in life sciences and technology. We always need advisors, you know. Advisors
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  in our network are thought leaders, industry executives, whether it's life sciences or
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  technology, exited entrepreneurs, service providers that have specific subject matter expertise, so
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  we'd love to have you as advisors. We're always looking for great entrepreneurs,
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  So if you know women entrepreneurs that are innovating in women's health, digital health,
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  life sciences, technology, we'd love to invite them to be they're part
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  of our cohorts or showcase them in our Dolphin tanks. So there's so many
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  ways they're all on our website, pretty easy to find Springboard Enterprises dot org.
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  Again, thank you so much, Natalie, and you heard it.
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  Here is Springboard Enterprises org. And if you would like to get in touch
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  with Natalie after the fact, please do not hesitate to reach out to my
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  email either at Ashlan at Incubate Coalition dot org. So thank you to Natalie
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  and the entire team at Springboard Enterprises for all of the very important that you
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  do for women entrepreneurs. And Natalie, thank you for joining me today,
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  and thank you to our audience for listening and always sharing feedback. More from
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  Incubate at www Incubatecoalition dot org. A special thanks to Olivia Lukani and John
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  Stanford and making today's podcast. Keep innovating everybody you've been listening to making Medicine.
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