Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Modern Fertility Co-Founder Carly Leahy on disrupting the future of fertility for women and tactical advice for starting a startup

Transcript

Modern Fertility Co-Founder Carly Leahy on disrupting the future of fertility for women and tactical advice for starting a startup · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Carly Leahy for Female Startup Club. Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Female Startup Club. I'm your host, Doona Roshin, and today I'm joined by someone I've been admiring from afar for a very long time, Carly Leahy, co-founder of Modern Fertility.
• 0:26
  Modern Fertility is a women's healthcare company that set out to launch the world's first at-home fertility hormone test in 2017 alongside Afton Vetri. Since launching, they've successfully gone through Y Combinator, raised $22 million in funding, been named as Fast Company's number one company for innovation in healthcare, and expanded their product range to a pregnancy test, an ovulation test, and an app for women to track their cycle.
• 0:54
  Their mission is to empower women to understand their bodies and their fertility in an easy-to-digest manner that takes out the fear you can experience when going through this important milestone in a woman's life. Carly's background in lead creative roles for huge companies like Uber and Google has been a major factor in the success of this business. Her skill in creating and marketing a brand for the modern-day woman really shines through, and in this discussion, you'll find so many tactical pieces of advice and information that you can take directly into your own venture.
• 1:23
  This is Carly for Female Startup Club. I've been following along the modern fertility journey for a couple of years now. I think I actually first heard about you guys on an episode of Girlboss a few years ago and I was so inspired by your company and I feel really honoured that you're joining me on the show today to talk about the innovation and the disruption that you've had in this critical space for women. Yeah.
• 1:47
  So thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. This is so fun. I'm excited to chat. Me too. I'm eager to get back to the early days and go back to the very beginning to understand how you and Afton met, how the business got started. What was those early days of thinking about modern fertility?
• 2:08
  The good old days. The good old days. So let's see, where do we begin? A little background on me. My background is in the creative and brand world. So I started out in creative agencies. I worked in-house at Google on creative teams and then in-house at Uber building non-rider driver products like Uber Eats.
• 2:27
  Um, and when Afton and I met, I was at Uber at the time and believe it or not, we met through a non, well, not anonymous, it was a very good friend, but it was a blind date. Essentially. Uh, we did not know each other and I think everybody assumes, you know, you know, we were friends all of our, our whole lives and we had sort of decided we were going to do this our whole lives. But, um, it was actually a very good friend of ours that sent the most epic intro email of all time and said, you two, you two have to meet. Um, and I think we were going to do this our whole lives.
• 2:56
  So we met for coffee. I was very much focused on my career, very much focused on what I was doing at the time. And Afton, my co-founder, my brilliant co-founder, was very bullish on fertility. And she had had sort of an early exposure to the fertility space. She had worked in health care private equity and had seen sort of the ins and outs of the fertility clinic world.
• 3:22
  And she couldn't believe how reactive the fertility system really was. You couldn't really understand what was going on in your body until you were having trouble conceiving. It was kind of backwards. So she was hell bent on creating something to help women get access to what was going on in their bodies earlier. And when she and I met, I basically told her, this sounds cool, but baby stuff is not for me.
• 3:49
  So I think this is something we can talk about as it relates to how do you come up with an idea or where do you know like your places or how do you start to just build something? For me, it was a complete blind spot. I thought being a feminist meant kind of pushing away all of the motherhood stuff. I always thought I wanted to be a mom, but I was focused on my career and I didn't think fertility was for me because I associated it with baby stuff that I wasn't ready for.
• 4:18
  And the more I started, I mean, Afton is brilliant. She, as soon as you start talking to her, you're just like kind of in this world of, wait, wait a second, this is so interesting. I don't love not knowing what I don't know. I consider myself...
• 4:32
  you know, an intelligent woman. And it stuck with me in our conversation. You know, I really don't know all there is to know about my reproductive health. I don't know some of the fundamentals. So I started reading clinical papers. I started reading books and I got sucked into
• 4:50
  The fact that there was so much about my reproductive health and fertility specifically that was sort of left out in this world where I had been preventing pregnancy my whole life, focused on my career. And I sort of just assumed, you know, it would happen one day. But the reality is we're waiting longer to have kids.
• 5:07
  We've got stuff to do, but our biology is exactly the same. Fertility declines over time. And that doesn't have to be scary. It is what it is. And women need to be able to have tools to help them understand where they are in that trajectory, especially as we're waiting longer. So the origin story is one of Carly being totally blind to sort of this thing that I think many women are sort of...
• 5:32
  are in the same shoes. So for me, it was kind of this really nice ability to authentically take a stance in this thing that I didn't think was for me and make it for me. So Afton and I have always talked about, you know, the clinical and science forward aspect of modern fertility, but also the authenticity and the community and the support that we provide. And those two things together are what really create the modern fertility experience. So
• 6:00
  I really do think sometimes your blind spots are the things that you're most well-equipped to come bring to the world. And now we have this brand that talks like this, you know, because nothing had ever broken through to me before, but it's not dumbed down. She wants all the information. I want all the information. Give me the things I need to know so I can plan proactively and plan ahead. So that was the beginning. And we started just working on it together. And we actually applied to Y Combinator.
• 6:30
  I quit my job. And we said, you know, we're doing this thing. So that was kind of the introduction. And I'll just say to that point, I feel really fortunate that I was in a position to be able to say, yes, I'm going to quit my job and go do this. You know, I didn't have student loans. You know, I...
• 6:50
  had a little bit of savings and to myself, it was sort of this, the worst thing that happened is, you know, I, I have to go get a job in a few months, you know, or, and I don't think everybody's in that position. So I just want to say also there's sort of this myth of like, just quit your job and do it. And like, it's not that easy. It's not that easy to do that. Um, it was sort of like a sliver of time. I knew I don't have kids yet. You know, I don't have, I don't have a mortgage, um,
• 7:17
  Let's do this and see what happens. And I feel lucky that I was in that place. Yeah. You were able to like assess the risk and be like, you know what? Now's probably the time I'm not deep in debt and deep in bills that I, I can't take that risk at this point. Yeah. I think that's really important to note. Definitely. That's a tough one for a lot of people as well, especially if you don't have access to the friends and family capital that you also might need to raise around those kinds of times where you're kind of looking to networks and,
• 7:44
  And you haven't got a base to start from for sure. But that's so funny that you met on a blind date and that you guys decided to build this company together. Was that blind date, was it with the intention of you guys becoming co-founders or was it the intention of you being friends and essentially you kind of giving your opinion on the creative side of building a business? Yeah.
• 8:07
  My co-founder Afton is so brilliant. It was absolutely a co-founder date, but she was, you know, she was, you know, she's feeling me out. I, I was, I was feeling her out. I, I, I was never the serial entrepreneur that she was. So I didn't, I didn't think I needed to start a company in order to, you know, make a mark on the world. And, and honestly, as a creative person coming from sort of a brand and marketing background, um.
• 8:31
  I didn't think that was possible. You know, I did think you had to be in finance or an engineer, and that is not the case at all. And that's another thing that we can talk about. This is about understanding what people want. This is about being a team player and motivating people. This is about being really organized and following through with everything you do. It's about being somebody that people want to work with. And you can build up those skills in any functional area.
• 8:58
  And I was very fortunate that I have a partner often who's, who is very well steeped in, okay, here's what we need to do, you know, to, to lay the fundamental groundwork. And I've learned a ton from her and then I,
• 9:09
  The thing that we did to build Modern Fertility is find the people who have done each piece of what we were trying to do in a really smart way before, in some way, shape or form, track them down and talk to them. So if you are a learner and you're not afraid to talk to people and ask for advice, you can really do it no matter what your background is. So in the early days of getting started with Modern Fertility, Afton and I had a list. We built the company on a list.
• 9:36
  Acton's list, Carly's list. And we would both kind of like look at each other's list and add things and kind of trade things. And we don't know about this. Let's find an expert here and an expert here. And then we really talked to the people who were really smart at the things that we were trying to figure out. And we both have our expertise in the areas, you know, that we're really good at. So we were able to cover those. And then slowly, but surely, you know, you find people to join your team who are really experts at those things that you were asking experts for
• 10:05
  And there's also no, it's no sort of like magical, oh, all of a sudden a company has been created. It was a list and it was every day, all day, ticking through our list toward goals that both of us had aligned on in order to sort of put one foot in front of the other.
• 10:22
  And so when you were doing that process of going through this list and, you know, speaking to people, experts in their fields, I imagine people in the medical space. And then I also imagine like tactical things to get things up and running and, you know, maybe unique perspectives and things like that. Was that all prior to Y Combinator? And you got yourselves to a point with some kind of MVP, minimum viable product for those listening who don't know what that is. Um...
• 10:48
  to be able to get into Y Combinator and then launch from there? Like you hadn't launched yet at that point? Correct. We had not launched or announced the company yet, but we had basically laid the groundwork and we were able to say, here's how far we are from bringing the first comprehensive fertility hormone test that you can take at home to market.
• 11:06
  And I can back up a little bit just so everybody knows what we're talking about. Modern Fertility, we're a women's health company. We're really focused on making sure women have access to fertility information before they're ready to have kids. And like I said, it's because we're waiting longer. We actually need to understand what's going on in there earlier in life.
• 11:25
  And our core products that we're talking about right now is a fertility hormone test you can take at home. It's the exact same panel of hormones that a reproductive endocrinologist would test if you walk into their office and say, you know, I'm having trouble conceiving or I'm thinking about egg freezing. It's just a fraction of the price and it's more accessible. So that more accessible piece was the core piece. And while everyone else in Y Combin, not everyone else, that's a gross exaggeration, but there are many sort of SaaS companies and tech companies that are watching, you know,
• 11:54
  their, their, their adoption curve skyrocket with people joining their software. We were doing a clinical study, you know, like we are a health product. We were recruiting our medical advisory board, working with physicians, obsessing over the research. And we launched and published a concordance study that proved that the fingerprint test that we are offering is concordant with a traditional vein of puncture draw that you might get if you go to, you know, a lab and, and, and do
• 12:23
  It was the exact same panel of hormones. We were just bringing a new collection method to make it easier and more accessible and more affordable. And that was the sort of work that we were doing while, you know, everybody else was sort of like growth hacking. Not that we didn't growth hack in our own ways because very early, you know, Afton and I, we wanted to build our reports and get this information in front of women. So we worked with mobile phlebotomists.
• 12:49
  And we worked with physicians to help women get the get the blood testing through sort of the traditional method, just so we could give them the insight, help them understand what was going on. And as a wellness test only, it's always been this balance of saying, here's here's what your hormone levels are and here's what they mean without being a diagnostic. Here's how you can start a conversation with your doctor.
• 13:09
  So that was also a line that we, you know, we needed to get really good at helping give her information, but making it super crystal clear that she and her doctor are the ones that, you know, decide what to do around this information. Yeah, it's obviously a very deep and personal and intimate space to be playing in a woman's life. Absolutely.
• 13:32
  Yes. And that's another piece of advice we got very early on was, you know, when you're an early stage company, your startup, people say, do not think about brand. And as a brand person, that was not an option. So I think I think that's another sort of bonus when you do have a skill set that is a little bit unique and different, you know, to a founding team, especially founding team in Silicon Valley. Use that. So, yeah.
• 13:59
  For us, it wasn't just about, you know, making sure women had access to lab testing. It was about making sure there was such thing as fertility, not just infertility, making sure you feel comfortable understanding what's going on in your body and not it not having to feel like, you know, it's your baby crazy or something like that. These sort of like weird undertones that are associated with understanding fertility. So yeah.
• 14:23
  Very early on, we really cared about how we felt, what we said, what we meant, why we matter,
• 14:30
  And I think that really served us well. And one small example of like a million examples was very early on when we were building our logged in experience, which is a very customized dashboard that each woman gets based on her hormone levels and the lifestyle factors she shares. And we basically break down, here's what your hormone levels say, here's how they can help you understand your ovarian reserve, how many eggs you have, time to menopause, potential success in egg freezing and IVF, all of that stuff.
• 14:58
  We did a color study because we didn't want her to think there was a good or a bad. There's no red or green. There's no like green light or red light. We're all human beings. We're all on sort of this spectrum. We all start with the same number of, not the same number, but we all start with
• 15:17
  a large number of eggs like in utero and we lose those eggs over time. And that is just like the way our bodies work. So how do we, how do we normalize that in a way that that doesn't have to feel scary or this big kind of like mysterious thing, because you know, right now fertility and having a baby is just, maybe it will happen. And that is crazy. Like we don't, we don't say maybe I'll have a retirement fund. You know, we don't say, you know, like maybe I'll like,
• 15:47
  I don't know, maybe I'll like win the Olympics. You know, we work super hard to get to where we want to be. So fertility shouldn't be any different. And if there are tools that exist, which there are, to be able to take a look inside our bodies, we should be able to have those tools. So brand is another thing that mattered. And we can talk more tactically too about like what exactly that meant building when. Yes, I definitely want to get into that. But before we do, I want to sort of stick around that early point
• 16:15
  early time in the brand, when you've just come out of Y Combinator, I want to know, like, what was the process after that? Because obviously, you come out of Y Combinator, you get some capital, you've been able to like really define your offering, who your audience is, I'm sure all of that kind of stuff. But then what happens next? Because I imagine in this space, you need to hire credible people who are medical professionals, I imagine you need to
• 16:42
  spend a lot of money to put this together. So what's the next phase of bringing a brand like yours to life in those early days? Yes. Great question. And while many people are,
• 16:54
  hiring, you know, engineering teams, we were hiring clinical researchers. Again, another difference. We did hire amazing engineers as well, but that's a little bit different. So yes, we were focused on bringing the actual hormone test to market. So when we left YC, we announced that the company existed and we opened up pre-orders for the monofertility hormone test. We said, here's what we're doing. Here's what we're all about. You know, here's what we've
• 17:24
  the, we were, you know, you're always, you're scared about, you never know how it's going to go. Um, especially sort of like creating a new market for something, you know, Hey, there, there's something called fertility, not just infertility. We can get ahead of this stuff. The resounding response was how has this not existed before, which is, which was amazing. Um, and it, we put our heads down to build it and make, make it happen. Um,
• 17:50
  So step one was building our medical advisory board. We have over time, that was sort of this combination of connections that we had had. And we were searching for the right people who are experts in the space on everything from, you know, the core hormone that helps you understand ovarian reserve, AMH, Scott Nelson, the premier expert on that one hormone to Dr. Nantaki Douglas, who's the chair of our medical advisory board. She's a reproductive endocrinologist.
• 18:15
  who has done amazing things, both on the research side and on the care side to help women and build their families. So that was sort of step one. And at the same time it was, okay, now let's, we have to build the digital experience to map to this excellent clinical experience and this clinical operation that we're developing as well. So we very early as part of developing that digital experience started a community
• 18:43
  And very early, we started a blog. Neither the community nor the blog had, I'm doing air quotes, you can't see me, but ROI, like immediate ROI, right? This is, again, like an investment in something that you cannot, you know, show the spiking numbers like other products might be able to, but we were so convinced that there was
• 19:08
  that there wasn't a great resource for women to be able to proactively understand what was going on in their bodies, that we could be the thought leaders. We could really talk to women and human speak about what was going on. And not just about our product, but about anything related to, you know, fertility and reproductive health. So those two pieces, creating that community for people who are just trying to figure out what their timeline should be, people who are in between, their communities for moms, their communities for people who are trying to conceive,
• 19:36
  What about that in-between place where you just want to see, you know, I just got engaged, but I'm, but not COVID. And, you know, should I wait to have a kid? How are you thinking about this? So we found that there was a huge need and gap for that. And then on the content side, you don't see...
• 19:53
  you know, SEO juices flowing to your blog for months and months and months. It's about finding out what people care about. It's about creating the best possible content, working with our medical advisors obsessively to make sure the caliber is really high. And we just kept at it until we started
• 20:12
  really gaining traction. And we started seeing that women were really finding us through, you know, through our blog. So those, I'd say those two pieces really early on have laid the groundwork for how we think about, you know, bringing customers in, taking care of them, doing it in a way that is brand additive. If we had our way, we would never do an advertisement. We would just do education. Like, did you know this? Did you know that, you
• 20:40
  did you know you're born with all the eggs you've ever, you'll ever have? Do you know you actually take turns ovulating out of each ovary? Do you know, you know, there's all these just amazing, amazing things that we were so lucky as a brand that we get to dig into and like an obsess about. So that's really been our approach. And the more that we're able to to just provide the education, the stronger sort of our, our whole ecosystem becomes. Yeah.
• 21:05
  Yeah, absolutely. That's so interesting. And it's funny because you're saying those things and I'm like, I actually didn't know that.
• 21:12
  I think what you guys do really well is your tone of voice and your language is like approachable. It's safe space. It's like easy to understand. It's easy to digest. It's not some scary jargon, heavy, you know, la-di-da thing, which is really important. And that obviously brings us into the brand overall. And I'm super excited to talk to you about this because obviously something you guys are doing really well is the actual brand, how you look, how you sound, how you feel.
• 21:41
  It's amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. And I do want to talk about your background in these creative roles within companies like Uber and Google and how that has prepped you essentially for your role now in creating a brand from scratch. And what you've learned from your lessons at those companies and what you've been able to bring across. And especially for women who might be listening who are starting a brand or who are in that kind of creative space.
• 22:09
  What's important to understand when you are in this process? It's about 50 questions all put into one. Oh, I love it. Oh, I love it. Okay, let's see. Let's see. Let's see how we do. So very early in my career, I was a brand planner, creative strategist on very well-known brands in the U.S.,
• 22:32
  And I worked on the P&G business mostly. So on Tide, Downy, Duracell, Gain, all of those, Olay. So very, very early, I was exposed to brand fundamental work, how important it is to have a brand pyramid. This all sounds very floofy, but it's super important to understand what your brand attributes are, what you believe as a brand is.
• 22:55
  you know, to separate functional benefits of your product and emotional benefits that you want people to feel and to really lay those out. You know, of course, everybody talks about a mission statement sort of in Silicon Valley. And that's important, too. And then sort of like that tip of that. The pyramid is really like your brand essence. Like what is your, you know, Volvo is about safety. You just know it. Coke is about happiness. You just know it. Like what is everything you're doing sort of laddering, laddering up to?
• 23:23
  So really, really putting a stake in the ground there and being able to separate, you know, what does your brand say and how is it different from what your product positioning is? Because very often in a go-to-market, it's about, and you need a positioning statement for, you know, for your product. But I would also say for your brand itself, who is the brand? And then, you know, like, what is the product within the brand?
• 23:43
  I think very often, and for us as well, our original brand was very much like, this is our new product. You know, like we're bringing this new thing to market that's never existed before. And you kind of have to evolve out of that a little bit. So first thing I'll say is brand fundamentals. You can just Google around, Google a brand pyramid and see like sort of what that structure is, put a stake in the ground. And then as your team grows, it's helpful for everybody to be able to rally toward those things. And then they'll change. And that's okay, too.
• 24:13
  And then from a brand identity standpoint,
• 24:16
  it's so important to be consistent with what you're putting out there. It's important to have guardrails. It's important to develop something that feels like you. And no matter what we'll have sort of like, if you work with a, you know, one designer to help you create an identity, a logo, a color palette, no matter what you will blow it up as you actually start making things, you know, as you start putting Instagram together, as you start, if you try direct mail, if you try a video, you know,
• 24:45
  The brand will just sort of like flex and expand based on all of these channels. And that's okay too. As long as then you take a look at it all and you're like, Oh, we need to reign this in. You know, we need an illustration style. We need a photography style. We need it to feel uniquely us. One thing we have noticed a lot of like a lot of lookalikey things, right?
• 25:08
  happening. I'm sure, I mean, millennial brands, um, all start to sort of like blend together, but like we notice things that we've done that like, that we see other brands do, you know, there's all sorts of, there's, it just kind of gets a little muddy. So you really need to sort of tighten it and create an identity that is you. Um, and sometimes that means like restricting your color. Sometimes that means restricting the things you do and it can feel like a little tricky, but, um, that piece is, is super important.
• 25:35
  And then I think in terms of like actionability, like how do you then like bring your brand to the world? It's with every single touch point that you put out there. But one of the most important is your voice and your tone. And we have M on Her Fertility. We have an amazing content team. At the very beginning, you know, we didn't have an amazing content team. We had, you know, Acton and I, and I was working with writers and we would get, we put down in writing, like, here's our voice. Here's how we sound. We do this. We don't do this.
• 26:04
  And now our content team has an amazing editorial style guide. Hannah, who leads our content, is just wonderful. And we have like attributes of our personality. It's like, you know, and it's very thorough. And we talk about ourselves as sort of like your best friend, if your best friend happened to be an OBGYN who knows everything about reproductive health, but not just knows about it, actually does research to make it better. Yeah.
• 26:31
  So it's like, and we kind of measure ourselves against that all the time. And we have all of these little sort of like things we do and don't do. So documentation is really important as the brand evolves. It's all going to like flex and change. But as long as you like set these moments in time for yourself to then kind of like hone in and create new guidelines and really take the time to do that, you'll be in a good place. And even us.
• 26:54
  We have things on our website. We have things in different places that are still outdated to us in terms of how our brand has evolved. But there are certain things that perform really well. There are certain things people really like that may not align with our perfect brand, the way we want it to look or feel or sound.
• 27:11
  So we can talk about that. Also, it's the classic tension of like, you know, performance marketing and growth and brand. How do you make sure those things work seamlessly together? And we're very lucky. Our team is really focused on making sure she has the best possible experience. And that always comes first.
• 27:28
  and we'll never do something just because like, you know, it's going to help us grow that isn't in her best interest. But sometimes like the ugly thing, the ugly thing wins. So how do you, how do you sort of, how do you rectify that? I don't, I don't think that's a new challenge for anyone. For sure. It's a day to day one. I was actually reading your reviews and I was picking up on this one particular woman had said, you know, she felt that she wasn't embarrassed to have, um,
• 27:53
  something like your pregnancy test, like in her cupboard, like showing on her shelf kind of thing. Like it's not.
• 27:59
  It's not a package that needs to be hidden anymore. It's a package that needs to be shown. Exactly. Yes, I love it. I'm looking at it right now. Amazing. And I totally get that because I just think you guys have done such a good job at the packaging. And I imagine it also stands out against these kind of outdated things of, you know, pregnancy tests that are online. I'm not online, on the store shelf at the moment. So, yeah, it's really cool what you guys have been doing.
• 28:27
  Thank you. Yeah, we've talked a bit about the hormone test. We very recently, all remotely during shelter in place, launched two new physical products and an app.
• 28:38
  the app we're actually doing some more around the app tomorrow. So stay tuned, or I don't know when this will air, but maybe it's already out there. But our community has been asking for, and this is one of also the challenges that we can talk about that too. Our community has been asking for so much more. They want more from us, you know, like I want to understand this part, this part, this part, and pregnancy and ovulation tests were two huge things.
• 29:04
  Huge things we continue to hear. Do I even ovulate? I don't know. I was on the IUD for six years. I don't know. You know, am I, is an egg dropping out of my ovary? And it's a very good question. And our belief, and we've seen this from our community, is she wants to know that even if she's not trying right this second. She wants to know if it's all working well down there. And that is like revolutionary in this world where you walk down the aisle and they're all have babies on them. You know, it's.
• 29:33
  Like these tools, we can use these tools before we're actually trying. Same with the pregnancy tests, right? Like I think it's something like 46% of pregnancies are unplanned. You know, we need pregnancy tests sometimes. Like we just do. So we should be able to have those and like not be embarrassed to have them in our medicine cabinet. So yeah.
• 29:55
  Yeah, I, it's really, it's really, what are all of the things that we feel like aren't for us that could actually help us understand our bodies? You know, where can they be improved? How can we make them more efficient and affordable? And how do we sort of like democratize access to all of it? And then how do we help you sort of like paint one picture of what it's all looking like? So your fertility changing over time with the hormone test, and then like more on a micro level, your, your cycle, you know, day to day, month to month.
• 30:25
  Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a product that we all need. I really hope that you guys expand globally. Speaking of the kinds of touching on challenges that you face, I imagine now getting to the scale that you are at, one of the challenges could potentially be getting it, you know, to everyone around the world. And obviously that's a big challenge to have, a good one too. Is that something you guys are trying to do? Is that in the future? Yeah.
• 30:53
  Oh, there are so many things we're trying to do. It's, it is at our stage. It is, and this, this also may sound cliche, but it is about trade-offs and it's about prioritization. So we want to support women everywhere. We also need to be able to navigate, you know, the regulatory pathway for wellness tests everywhere. We also need to be able to
• 31:15
  serve our customers, our current customers with reordering more over time. We have to be able to support our community and bring our community in line with the rest of the experience. So the short answer is yes, absolutely. We want to help every single person with ovaries on the planet get access to this information and we will stop at nothing until we do. We'll stop at nothing until we stop hearing, I wish I would have known this or I wish I would have had this.
• 31:41
  We hear that every day from older women or women who have had trouble. So until we stop hearing that, unfortunately we are like only getting started with fertility.
• 31:50
  issues because we are waiting longer to have kids. But until we stop hearing that, we have not done our job right. So yes, we are thinking about all the things as it relates to expansion. It's just, you know, we still have to really ruthlessly prioritize what we're focused on. Because if you
• 32:13
  It's it can be it can be messy. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I want to talk about marketing. And obviously, it must have changed a lot in the early days when you were kind of just starting to grow and getting out of YC versus now having raised, I think, 22 million dollars or whatever really cool amount you've raised so far.
• 32:35
  What's the difference now to your marketing style and what are the kinds of levers that you're pulling to acquire new customers at scale and get the word out there to your target customer? Yeah.
• 32:48
  The biggest difference is an amazing marketing team. So when we first started out, we brought on one growth marketer who is incredible and basically held down 14 channels and experiments. And we were just trying to see, literally, we were just trying to see, okay, where,
• 33:08
  where can we reach her? What should we do? And over time, now we've been able to say, okay, let's focus on email and life cycle. Let's make sure she's got a great experience when she comes in and takes the test and understands the value of the test. If she has trouble, let's help her. Let's invite her to the community. Let's help her understand her fertility the next year. So that whole piece now has somebody focused on it, which is amazing. We have a focus on social. We have a focus on personal.
• 33:38
  product marketing, which in tech land is, I've worked with tons of product marketers, but product marketing is different everywhere you go. In some places, it's very much like marketing the features of a new product. So at an Uber, for example, like on Uber Eats, it was like, hi, we have this new like split the order with your friends feature, that kind of thing. Or product marketing can really be more brand focused. Like what do we need to stand for? And like, what are the big sort of broader campaign issues?
• 34:05
  initiatives we need to do over time in order to like end up standing for that. So, um, product marketing, I would say in, in startup world often like comes later. And that's another, I would,
• 34:17
  If there is advice to give, I would say, yes, growth marketing is really important. And like, that's where most people focus because it's so you have to be so sort of tangible about the money you put in and the money and like the sales you drive. But brand and product marketing is just like a game changer in terms of guiding the ship.
• 34:36
  from everything from how do we message and bring new products to market to how do we make sure this all ladders up into something cohesive. So now we have somebody focused there, which is which is amazing. So that's the difference. It's the difference between lots of experimentation and sort of like really starting small on the marketing front to like building a team where people can be focused and really, really thoughtful in each different direction.
• 34:59
  channel. And then we can really understand how those channels connect and work together. Yeah. Really having the experts who know that specific channel and they know it really well. And before you have the market, the big marketing team. So what we did was, you know, we worked with great consultants who were good at
• 35:15
  you know, certain different marketing channels. And that's okay too. You can test into different things before you, you know, have raised around or before you're ready to sort of like hire a full-time marketing team. We didn't, you know, we've only now sort of like really, you know, we really feel like we have like a marketing organization, right? But for a while it was,
• 35:35
  hey, you know, affiliates and influencers, you know, it feels like, how do we get it? It feels like the Wild West out there. Like, how do we find an expert who's really good at that? So you don't have to be an expert in everything. You just need to find the people and you can set up, you can set up a small scope for a month, you know, at like X hours a week or something. You can, you know,
• 35:55
  establish KPIs for whatever that channel is, and you can check in on it. And then you as a founder are able to learn, okay, is affiliate and influencer something that makes sense for my business? Is it too early to tell? Should I invest more in this? And then often, there are all sorts of different companies now, like agencies who allow you to, you know, like work on sort of with a contract, like on a contract basis with an expert that then you can hire even. And
• 36:20
  So you can sort of like test drive these different things to see how they work for your business. I think I saw a company recently, I sort of advertised in the lean Lux newsletter called marketer hire, I think. And it's basically like that you hire these like contractors from huge companies who have worked on building away building Airbnb, et cetera. And I was like, God, that sounds really cool. Exactly. And many of them are moonlighting. Like many of them are like a side hustle, right? Yeah. But
• 36:47
  that's exactly it. You want the person who's done the exact, that exact thing is an expert at that exact thing. And they've proven, yeah, exactly. They've worked at one of these companies you've heard of that has done really well. So yeah, don't stress about hiring. Yeah. Getting your full marketing team in the door day one, it's just not going to happen. It took us years to do that. But we said, okay, what are all the channels we could possibly talk to her through and how do we find somebody who's really good at
• 37:12
  I love that. That's such a great piece of advice. And on that note, what is your key piece of advice for women who do have a big idea and want to start their own business? Key piece of advice.
• 37:30
  Aside from the fact that your calling and your idea actually might be something that you didn't know anything about to start or was a total blind spot to you. I think the key piece of advice is what I was alluding to a little bit before with the list that Afton and I started with.
• 37:46
  People say, you know, some people say like, you just know when you know that you're going to like quit your job and start a thing. And there's never a good time. It's kind of like when deciding to have a baby, like I don't think there's ever a good time for that. So I think it's my advice would be start a list.
• 38:05
  Um, like what are all of the things that you need to do to accomplish what you want to accomplish and then chunk it up, break it up and like chip away at that list every day. There's no way you're going to be able to accomplish everything in a day. It can be completely overwhelming to get started because there's, there's so much to do.
• 38:22
  But what if you made yourself basically an outline from today to like the launch of your company? And like, what would that outline look like? And then like, what would you do tomorrow to chip away at that outline? And then it's about like accountability to yourself. So Afton and I are both very, we're just very conscientious, very like type A people. And we did not have any interest in wasting our time, you know, in like, um,
• 38:48
  you know, kind of like doing this halfway, we were, it was like, we were either doing this with everything we have or not. So, um, I think that having a partner who has that mentality also does really help. And I know, um, I know co-founder dating and finding that right person can be really tricky, but if you have that within yourself, that's amazing. Yeah.
• 39:09
  And to like stay diligent, diligently attacking that list every single day. It really does take every single day. Like in the beginning, it is every single day you are like working at that thing. If you want to get there quickly, you know, if you want it to manifest quickly.
• 39:25
  If you, you know, want to start sort of like a lifestyle business and do it on the side, like you can add as much or as little as here and there. And that, that's totally fine too. I'm talking like, you want to go out and you want to raise money and you want to, you know, you want to like drive growth and you want to do, you want to, you have big plans, like set, set up your guidelines for yourself and like, hold yourself accountable to this. And I think as well, I've spoken about this before. Yeah.
• 39:53
  is the compound effect of all of those small steps that you might not think is a big idea. But on the day that you don't feel like doing anything, just do the least hard task and just get one little thing done and it will all compound. Yeah, sure. And often it's not like you're not often like you're not every day like doing slides or writing docs or whatever. Often your days are from early in the morning to late at night. You're on the phone. I preach. Experts and people and a consultant to help you with this.
• 40:23
  especially customers. So I found that our very early days were like a lot of us like talking to people and trying to put the pieces together. And then, yeah, and then we had to sort of document, okay, here's where I am, here's where I am. And Apt and I also, you know, we had our list, but we also just use our inbox as like,
• 40:40
  Here's the update here sort of as a to-do list as well. But it can feel, it's sort of like, yeah, what do I physically do to get my company off the ground? And I was always really frustrated that nobody could tell me like how they started their company, like tactically. Why can't you tell me? And I think it's, as your company grows, I think you might get more like, you might get more removed from like the nitty gritty, but I remember very clearly that.
• 41:04
  every little, every little step that we had to take in order to make this happen. So yeah, it's an everyday tick through the list piece of advice. It's so funny that you say that because that's literally why I started this podcast was to understand like the actual, but how, and like, how did you grow and how? I know. And even me now with you, because we have, you know,
• 41:28
  I'm like, yeah, and it was this kind of, it was like this phase and this phase. And maybe we can have another conversation where it's like, okay, I started this document. It said this, then I talked to this person. Then we tried and experimented with this. But yeah, every time I talk to other female founders, I always try to give them, here's a really tactical tidbit. Here's what I learned here. Here's what I learned here. Because I found the exact same thing. Nobody really, it's very broad strokes, which can be frustrating. Yeah.
• 41:55
  You should document those tactical tips that you send and just like keep publishing them online or something. That would be so cool. I should. I should. I should. Many things we should do. Yes, I know. I'll put it on my list. Yeah, put it on that list. We are up to the six quick questions. Ready to go? All right. Question number one is what's your why? My why is to...
• 42:20
  Work on something that matters with people who are way smarter than me. I get to learn from them every day. And I know this is a rambling why. And lead with kindness, because I think you can be a really strong, powerful leader and be very kind. And I think often women leaders think they have to be something else or, you know, firm or something, but you can really be yourself and you can be kind and be a good person and really motivate people that way.
• 42:48
  I appreciate the ramble and I agree. It's so important. Question number two is what's the number one marketing moment that's made your business pop? So I'm going to say our thought leadership. So we do something called the modern state of fertility every year. And we've seen a lot of success with that. But this year we did one digging into fertility and finances and careers.
• 43:16
  And we actually had done the whole survey of asking women, you know, how are you thinking about timing for kids? Like, do you want to get to a certain career milestone? Do you want to get to a financial milestone? And then COVID happened. And we went back and redid the whole thing and talked to all those people again and said, hey, how about now?
• 43:39
  And it was crazy. 60% plus people said, I'm reevaluating, you know, actually having a kid. So to be able to do something really timely that was really connected to everything we're all about, which is planning earlier for kids, was really cool. And we were fortunate to get a ton of pickup and exactly for the right reasons, right? Like it's about what your brand is about and what we want to help women with in the world. So that is the stuff that really,
• 44:08
  Um, yes, it's, it like helps the business, but it just like it, that's why we do what we do. So I love that. It's funny how COVID has had those moments of like impacting brands in a really positive way. Um, when it's obviously a really negative thing that's happened in the world, it's, it's quite funny hearing those tidbits of, you know, how it's changed for brands. Fascinating. It's really fascinating. Um, question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? Um,
• 44:38
  In nonfiction books.
• 44:40
  I love nonfiction. Eric Larson's book on Churchill that he published this summer is amazing. I love reading about like American history. I don't know what's wrong with me. I highly recommend a book called You Never Forget Your First, which is a biography of George Washington by a woman. And like 99% of the biographies written on George Washington have been written by white men.
• 45:10
  the way the history has been written before and it's amazing. So, um, I love, I love nonfiction and I think, and I especially love it in times of crisis, I think, because it helps me remember that like, I'm so lucky so often or, and so, you know, people there, there has been so much
• 45:33
  suffering in history that it actually helps ground me. I know that isn't super uplifting, but I also love knowing that the people in history were like, had minds and thoughts. And it just like, it just blows my mind. I don't like that they were so smart and so flawed. So there's something about that that really helps me connect with like why we're all here and what we're doing. And I really do think you learn from what has actually happened in the world. So
• 46:03
  That's where I go. Yeah, absolutely. Especially in times like today where the world is a crazy place. Question number four is how do you win the day? And that's around your AM and PM rituals, things you do that keep you feeling productive, successful, kicking your goals. I have a sweat every morning in some way, shape or form.
• 46:29
  thing I do. I, um, I played field hockey in college. So I think being a collegiate athlete, it just kind of, it kind of sticks with you. So it doesn't really matter what the sweat is. Sometimes it's a bike ride. Sometimes it's a run. Sometimes it's a walk. Sometimes it's a few pushups, but, um, a sweat every day. And Afton knows this, my co-founder Afton knows this too. If like, you know, we're up really early or something and I haven't gotten my sweat in, she's like, Oh no. Cause it's kind of like, and my fiance says this too, that
• 46:59
  Like he has to, we have to, he has to like run me in the morning and then I'm, I'm good. There's something about your body having problems.
• 47:05
  you know, persevered in and of itself. It feels really powerful to me. And like, even before the day starts. So you've already accomplished something. Now everything else is sort of gravy. I went through a phase of doing freezing cold showers for like four, the last four months, I only stopped recently. And it's that same feeling where I was like, I can do anything I want, because I just overcame this freezing cold shower, which makes me want to cry. Yeah.
• 47:31
  Wow, I'm impressed. I haven't done that one yet. Should I? Oh my God, you absolutely should. It is so good. And especially like, this sounds really weird, but do it in winter. Like start it when it's really something that you are like, you're going to come out of that shower and be like, I'm so proud of myself because no one else is doing this. I can tell you that.
• 47:48
  This is a big thing. Okay. And just one quick side note is I also think having been an athlete in college, there's so many interesting pointers around the mindset that you develop from being an athlete. And I've been reading a lot about those parallels between your productivity and your performance from athlete to entrepreneur. So that's a really interesting insight. Yes.
• 48:14
  And your leadership. I sometimes will be in our all hands meetings and I'll have these flashes to being the captain of my high school field hockey team. And I'm like, we did the same, you know, you're doing psych ups, you're motivating people, you're connecting, you're, and, and, you know.
• 48:31
  in college sports too, but it doesn't have to just be a college sport, you know, high school sports, middle school sports are really formative also. So I think I learned how to lose. I learned how to, I mean, I learned how to win, but I, but, but I learned, um,
• 48:46
  I learned how to take feedback because being coachable, you know, you have to be coachable and it doesn't feel good when you mess something up and you get, you know, you get feedback. But like, that's how you got it. You take it. You use it. You fuel it. You move forward. Team player. Exactly. I think it really. This is another cliche that it builds character. But for me, I was I was out there, you know, from.
• 49:10
  you know, seven years old playing on teams. And I think, I really think that, that, that helped me. And again, I, I was not an entrepreneurship major or finance major, but like team sports plus creative person, I'm here to say is a good, you will succeed plus middle children. Yeah.
• 49:30
  For sure. I'm also a middle child and I'm an advocate for middle children. Question number five is if you only had $1,000 left in your business bank account, where would you spend it? Research. And research talking to our customers and research putting out something into the world that actually helps people, a la our clients.
• 49:58
  research into finances and fertility and COVID. Because that is the stuff, that is the core of what we're doing. We're trying to move research forward. And if we only had a thousand dollars left, I would want to, I would want to get out what the state of fertility is today and make a difference through research. Incredible. And last question is, how do you deal with failure? And it can be like personal experience or it can be just your general mindset and approach.
• 50:29
  I am one of those people who can rationalize a disappointment and then make it make myself happy about it. So I'm very lucky that I have those tools.
• 50:43
  I'm a big planner. So I think ahead and I have an idea of like what success looks like or how I want things to go. And when they don't go that way, I am very disappointed because I'm a planner and I have like carved this out in my head. But once I have some time to sort of sit with that disappointment, I am able to reframe like the new goal. So I think I'm lucky that I have that tool and I 100% learned it from my mom who is like,
• 51:11
  onward and upward. You put your, you put your one foot in front of the other. Um, there was never any whining allowed in my house. You know, there, it was, um, when something sad or disappointing happens, like life, life moves on. And that was, that was really, she just, that's always how she operated. So I think,
• 51:30
  I'm very fortunate that I have that muscle because I do think it's a muscle and a tool. And I'm glad I had it before starting the company. For sure. The sun always rises tomorrow. It does. Thank you so much for being part of the Female Setup Club podcast. I absolutely love chatting to you. And I'm going to be cheering for you on the sidelines for what you guys do next. And I hope that you guys go global. I hope that you kick all your goals in this really important space.
• 51:58
  Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
• 52:05
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 52:29
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 52:52
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 53:08
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 53:33
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 53:56
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.