Why Fertility Treatment Is Broken (And What Needs to Change) | Tess Cosad on Building Béa Fertility
On this Episode of Why Design, Chris Whyte sits down with Tess Cosad CEO and co-founder of Béa Fertility to talk about what it actually takes to build clinical-grade fertility care that people can use at home.
We go deep on founding during lockdown, navigating a VC landscape where 2% of funding goes to female founders, designing a medical device that nobody thought was possible, and why Béa is already outperforming US revenue forecasts by nearly 100%.
This one’s raw, funny, and genuinely moving. Don’t miss it.
00:00 — Introduction
00:35 — The hospital bed phone call that changed everything
03:32 — Her baby boy is turning one this year
05:30 — From astrophysics to ad agencies: Tess’s founder origin story
10:18 — Founding Béa three days into COVID lockdown
12:07 — The fundraising reality: 283 investors, femtech bias
13:19 — Why Béa is actually a male-factor infertility solution
15:26 — Shame, male partners, and the angry support emails
18:18 — Brand voice, levity, and scrotal cooling puns
22:48 — Investor pushback: “Why are you the person to do this?”
27:26 — The wall of baby photos that doesn’t move the needle
28:07 — The pitch where she was asked about flight schedules
31:45 — The female illustrator who solved the IFU problem
34:17 — Pink it and shrink it: designing a world built for men
38:49 — The Béa product explained: care, device, and the missing pathway
44:08 — Staying lean: AI tools, contractors, and the US expansion
46:04 — Hard lessons: letting people go, the rejection firehose
49:30 — Coping strategies (the healthier ones)
51:38 — New York: outperforming forecast by nearly 100%
52:59 — NHS gatekeeping vs. US insurance: two broken systems
55:25 — What’s next: sperm bank partnership and US scale
57:05 — Quickfire round
Transcript
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Imagine wanting a child and realizing the system
Speaker:wasn't built for you.
Speaker:Not the waiting, not the confusion, not the
Speaker:silence.
Speaker:They're frustrated, it's not working, they don't know
Speaker:what to do, they see their partner going
Speaker:to the ends of the earth and experiencing
Speaker:this emotional stress and trauma.
Speaker:What if fertility care didn't begin under fluorescent
Speaker:lights, but at home with clarity, guidance and
Speaker:control?
Speaker:This is Why Design, where we go behind
Speaker:the scenes of the products shaping our lives
Speaker:and the people brave enough to build them.
Speaker:I mean, to be honest, that first year
Speaker:was really principally just me trying to figure
Speaker:out, like, how do I grapple with what
Speaker:this idea is?
Speaker:What is the vision?
Speaker:What's the potential?
Speaker:Is it actually feasible?
Speaker:In this episode, I'm joined by Tess Cosad,
Speaker:CEO and co-founder of Bayer Fertility, a
Speaker:company building clinical-grade fertility treatment designed for
Speaker:the real world, outside the clinic and inside
Speaker:your life.
Speaker:But this story isn't about tech, it's about
Speaker:stakes.
Speaker:Because early on, one of their first users
Speaker:called from a hospital bed after an ectopic
Speaker:pregnancy.
Speaker:She had emergency surgery.
Speaker:She's down a fallopian tube that impacts your
Speaker:fertility.
Speaker:And yet, here she is saying, I'm going
Speaker:to try again.
Speaker:And I just thought, my goodness, we've really
Speaker:built something here.
Speaker:That moment changes what product means.
Speaker:It changes what design means.
Speaker:In this episode, we talk about designing in
Speaker:the hardest category there is, regulated medical hardware,
Speaker:patient trust, and the emotional reality no pitch
Speaker:deck can capture.
Speaker:I'm Chris White, and this is Why Design.
Speaker:And Tess, welcome to Why Design.
Speaker:Great to have you on the show.
Speaker:Great to be here, Chris.
Speaker:Yeah, wonderful.
Speaker:Well, we're going to dive in.
Speaker:So Tess, you're the CEO and co-founder
Speaker:of Bayer Fertility.
Speaker:You're building clinical-grade fertility treatment that people
Speaker:can use at home.
Speaker:You've raised venture funding, launched in the UK,
Speaker:and now you're doing it all again in
Speaker:the US.
Speaker:But before we get into your background, tell
Speaker:me about a moment where everything shifted.
Speaker:When did this move from, you know, interesting
Speaker:problem to, I'm willing to risk everything on
Speaker:this?
Speaker:Uh, hearing you use the mouthful of clinical
Speaker:-grade fertility care, even I had to remind
Speaker:myself what that is.
Speaker:So a moment that everything changed.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:It didn't actually all change for me until
Speaker:a little while into the journey of building
Speaker:Bayer.
Speaker:Obviously, one of the things that we do
Speaker:at Bayer is we make babies.
Speaker:We help people make their babies.
Speaker:And we started the company in 2020.
Speaker:We closed our first round of funding sort
Speaker:of early 2021 and started to build the
Speaker:product.
Speaker:Sort of brought in a team, raised more
Speaker:funding.
Speaker:It was sort of the venture go-go
Speaker:days.
Speaker:So we raised a lot of funding and
Speaker:scaled up quite a big team.
Speaker:And we're sort of building this medical device
Speaker:and this treatment experience.
Speaker:And on some level, I understood that it
Speaker:was real.
Speaker:And none of it quite hit home until
Speaker:one of our users, one of our very
Speaker:first users, called us from the hospital because
Speaker:she'd conceived with her first Bayer device and
Speaker:had an ectopic pregnancy and was in hospital
Speaker:having had emergency surgery to remove the fallopian
Speaker:tube.
Speaker:And at that point, we'd actually already had
Speaker:reports of positive pregnancies from other users.
Speaker:And don't get me wrong, those were incredibly
Speaker:impactful moments.
Speaker:But this, I think, was the moment for
Speaker:me that it became so very real because
Speaker:we had someone who had a horrible experience
Speaker:and cared enough about what we were doing
Speaker:to call us from the hospital the day
Speaker:after her surgery and say to us, I
Speaker:want to try again though.
Speaker:I am going to try again with Bayer.
Speaker:And I just thought, my God.
Speaker:I think two things hit home for me
Speaker:in that moment was the gravity of the
Speaker:thing that we were doing.
Speaker:I always used to say, oh, we're changing
Speaker:lives.
Speaker:We're changing people's lives.
Speaker:And it feels like such an airy fairy
Speaker:and a sort of like blithe thing to
Speaker:say.
Speaker:And of course, you're helping people conceive.
Speaker:Yeah, their lives are changing.
Speaker:But in this moment, it had never felt
Speaker:more true to me that this woman, this
Speaker:brilliant, brilliant woman, ectopics are high risk, right?
Speaker:She had emergency surgery.
Speaker:She's down a fallopian tube.
Speaker:That impacts your fertility.
Speaker:And yet, here she is saying, I'm going
Speaker:to try again.
Speaker:And I just thought, my goodness, we've really
Speaker:built something here.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What a way to start the podcast.
Speaker:Did she keep in touch?
Speaker:Did she?
Speaker:She did.
Speaker:And she conceived again safely.
Speaker:Her baby boy is.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:Oh, he's going to be turning.
Speaker:He's probably turning one this year, I think.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:It's pretty cool, huh?
Speaker:That is really cool.
Speaker:You know, you're right.
Speaker:We do throw this kind of changing lives
Speaker:around.
Speaker:I've literally said it to people that worked
Speaker:for me before in my profession.
Speaker:You know, we are, you know, what we
Speaker:do is changing lives in some sort.
Speaker:And I suppose you could say that about,
Speaker:you know, most kind of things and services
Speaker:that are impactful.
Speaker:But yeah, you really are there.
Speaker:And that's, you know, if you need a
Speaker:reason to come to work every morning.
Speaker:It's a pretty good one.
Speaker:Many more.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's a pretty good one.
Speaker:And it's interesting.
Speaker:Anytime I'm dealing with a really big fire,
Speaker:the universe gifts us a positive pregnancy report
Speaker:just to remind us that like you're doing
Speaker:the right thing.
Speaker:Huge.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's, you know, we often get caught
Speaker:in that moment of kind of like, just
Speaker:before we started recording, you know, you said
Speaker:you're putting out a tiny fire, you know,
Speaker:and we're dealing with those day in, day
Speaker:out.
Speaker:They're all distractions from, and when you step
Speaker:back, you think about the impact that you're
Speaker:having, you know, and then to everyone that's
Speaker:listening, you know, you're having impact, whatever you're
Speaker:doing, whatever that moment you're in, you know,
Speaker:think about kind of trying to think about
Speaker:the bigger picture.
Speaker:And what a big picture you're having there.
Speaker:So that was amazing.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:Let's dive back to the beginning then, because
Speaker:your journey, really your career, it started off
Speaker:marketing, if I'm correct, you know, and research
Speaker:at an astrophysics laboratory, you know, so a
Speaker:bit of a, you know, stratospheric jump.
Speaker:So how did you find yourself, you know,
Speaker:tell us about that journey from kind of,
Speaker:from marketing and research into, you know, devices
Speaker:and fertility, you know, and kind of being
Speaker:a founder of a hardware company?
Speaker:Yeah, it's, I wanted to be an astrophysicist
Speaker:a very long time ago.
Speaker:And I'm one of those wonderful cases where
Speaker:my mathematical abilities were not quite up to
Speaker:my career ambitions.
Speaker:So I tried, I tried really hard and
Speaker:then I went to business school.
Speaker:It's where some of us failed STEM people
Speaker:end up, I suppose.
Speaker:So that was sort of a very humbling
Speaker:moment that arrived fairly early on for me.
Speaker:So I went to the business school and
Speaker:sort of always said to myself, my dream
Speaker:early on was I wanted to have an
Speaker:office and a cubicle.
Speaker:And I wanted one of those little lanyard
Speaker:badges that clips pull out, tap in, you
Speaker:know, the kind of all those things felt
Speaker:very cool to me.
Speaker:And I went, totally, absolutely, sort of look
Speaker:back on it and laugh.
Speaker:But that felt very cool at the time.
Speaker:And, and I tried to apply to all
Speaker:of the consulting firms and got rejected randomly
Speaker:from every single one of them.
Speaker:So another sort of humbling experience that taught
Speaker:me that perhaps my future was not in
Speaker:a cubicle, but I didn't quite know where
Speaker:my future was.
Speaker:And that was when I created my first
Speaker:startup actually.
Speaker:Sort of not in a typical arrangement, but
Speaker:I went to work for a bigger media
Speaker:company that were trying to create a venture
Speaker:studio.
Speaker:And they funded a project that I brought
Speaker:to them that we were working on.
Speaker:And at the time we built this incredible
Speaker:technology.
Speaker:I did not speak to a single user
Speaker:because I was too shy.
Speaker:So learned that lesson the hard way and
Speaker:launched this amazing technology only to realize that
Speaker:A, it was a little bit ahead of
Speaker:its time.
Speaker:And B, most of the people who we'd
Speaker:built it for were like, ha, that's really
Speaker:fun, but why do I need this?
Speaker:So of course, humbled yet again.
Speaker:And that is when I made the jump
Speaker:into marketing.
Speaker:So I was offered the opportunity to start
Speaker:in that agency as a part of a
Speaker:wider group.
Speaker:And I jumped on it.
Speaker:And I had the best time working with
Speaker:some phenomenally interesting companies, sort of really got
Speaker:deep into strategic branding, positioning, storytelling, sort of
Speaker:developed a bunch of skills that I think
Speaker:serve me now, although, you know, jury's out.
Speaker:But had a really great time building that.
Speaker:But I really was kind of itching to
Speaker:build something.
Speaker:I'd always wanted to build something.
Speaker:And there were two things that I was
Speaker:like phenomenally passionate about.
Speaker:One was creating something that did some good
Speaker:in the world and specifically solved an inequity
Speaker:that felt arbitrary and unfair to me.
Speaker:And two, I was very driven to create
Speaker:a company where people would just love to
Speaker:come to work.
Speaker:The idea of creating something where people loved
Speaker:coming to work felt so powerful and so
Speaker:fun to me.
Speaker:And right around, I'd sort of been running
Speaker:the ad agency for a few years, went
Speaker:freelance.
Speaker:And then I met an embryologist who was
Speaker:talking to me about this idea.
Speaker:I never actually saw myself in fertility.
Speaker:Honestly, it was not on my radar.
Speaker:Of course, you're in your 20s.
Speaker:Like, when is it ever?
Speaker:For some people, it is.
Speaker:For me, it wasn't.
Speaker:And so I sort of met an embryologist.
Speaker:We were talking about the space and the
Speaker:technology.
Speaker:And I think two things happened.
Speaker:One is I really started to see with
Speaker:my own eyes the inequities that exist in
Speaker:fertility in particular and how we've landed with
Speaker:a system that enables people with money to
Speaker:have babies, healthy babies, and people without money
Speaker:to just struggle alone and take chances.
Speaker:And that really, like, plucked at that.
Speaker:Well, hang on a second.
Speaker:That's not fair, that sort of desire.
Speaker:And then, yeah, creating a company where I
Speaker:was able to build a team and start
Speaker:creating that sort of culture.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it was the early days were really,
Speaker:really fun.
Speaker:Really hard, but really fun.
Speaker:Yeah, because you started, well, according to LinkedIn,
Speaker:at least, started in 2020.
Speaker:You said you raised first fundraising in 21,
Speaker:I think you said earlier.
Speaker:So starting a business during a global pandemic,
Speaker:you know, how was that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I incorporated the company literally three days after
Speaker:we went into lockdown, I think.
Speaker:So we're a real pandemic baby.
Speaker:It was interesting.
Speaker:I mean, to be honest, that first year
Speaker:was really principally just me trying to figure
Speaker:out, like, how do I grapple with what
Speaker:this idea is?
Speaker:What is the vision?
Speaker:What's the potential?
Speaker:Is it actually feasible?
Speaker:You know, what we're actually talking about here,
Speaker:the core technology that we built was a
Speaker:medical device that allows someone to perform a
Speaker:clinical insemination procedure on themselves at home.
Speaker:And so if I were to put that
Speaker:into sort of clearer language, we need to
Speaker:create something that allows someone to reliably find
Speaker:their cervix themselves.
Speaker:I know a lot of medical students that
Speaker:can't find cervix.
Speaker:And so there was like a real design
Speaker:challenge in the early days that was like,
Speaker:wow, is it actually feasible?
Speaker:And then, of course, the pivotal question is
Speaker:you need money to build regulated medical hardware.
Speaker:So can we raise money for it?
Speaker:The first sort of 12, 18 months of
Speaker:Bayes sort of 2020 into early 21 was
Speaker:a lot of grappling with like feasibility, building
Speaker:decks, trying to pitch, trying to figure it
Speaker:out and eating a lot of beans because,
Speaker:of course, you're not taking a check at
Speaker:that point because there's no money.
Speaker:The early days were a real grind, but,
Speaker:you know, we made it through.
Speaker:And yeah, how was that?
Speaker:How was that fundraising journey for you then?
Speaker:Because we met at the Fix, didn't we,
Speaker:last year in the Howard campus.
Speaker:And one of the themes there, especially from
Speaker:the investors and the women entrepreneurs was how
Speaker:the cards are definitely stacked against, you know,
Speaker:femtech and female engineers because the majority of
Speaker:the investment landscape is dominated by middle-aged
Speaker:white men who are, you know, they get
Speaker:queasy at best over kind of even the
Speaker:dimension of women's parts.
Speaker:Vaginas.
Speaker:Vagina, yeah.
Speaker:And there was a talk, one of the
Speaker:standout talks was basically the whole crowd just
Speaker:shouting vagina, you know, and it was liberating.
Speaker:But it was, you know, take the fun
Speaker:side of it, you know, it was a
Speaker:real problem.
Speaker:And, you know, you're kind of raising funds
Speaker:as a very complicated kind of problem to
Speaker:solve in a very complicated regulatory and funding
Speaker:landscape.
Speaker:How did you navigate that?
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:There's a real irony to the question, which
Speaker:is we're sort of often lumped in femtech
Speaker:as femtech.
Speaker:But actually, if you look at the core
Speaker:function of the device that we've created, it
Speaker:is a sperm stack.
Speaker:It exists to solve for male factor infertility.
Speaker:Now, there are things around it that obviously
Speaker:solve for female factor infertility, you know, timing,
Speaker:ovulations, all of these are really helpful things.
Speaker:But on broad strokes, the core purpose of
Speaker:this device is it's a male factor infertility
Speaker:solution.
Speaker:And so it always makes me laugh when
Speaker:we're branded a femtech company, because actually, I
Speaker:say to my team, if we were mentech,
Speaker:we'd have raised a lot more money a
Speaker:lot more easily.
Speaker:Yeah, surely with the marketing background, you could
Speaker:play it into that.
Speaker:Well, and I should, right?
Speaker:But what's interesting is still today, women in
Speaker:heterosexual couples, women are the drivers of the
Speaker:buying decisions and timelines and pathways.
Speaker:And a lot of the labor that happens
Speaker:in an infertility context is, labor is probably
Speaker:not quite the right word, but a lot
Speaker:of the work that happens in infertility is
Speaker:on women.
Speaker:And so we brand ourselves to be bought
Speaker:by an appeal to women.
Speaker:I remember you saying it because you, I
Speaker:mean, it's funny, actually, when you mentioned that
Speaker:you were when you started your first business,
Speaker:you were so shy, and you wouldn't wouldn't
Speaker:speak to the customers.
Speaker:And yet, first, our first interaction was you
Speaker:were on stage talking about how times have
Speaker:changed.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think I remember you saying, yeah,
Speaker:it was, you know, it's yet the end
Speaker:user is the male problem, but it's the
Speaker:women that have to empower, it's them that
Speaker:you need to get on board to push
Speaker:it because leave men to their own devices.
Speaker:And we ain't doing anything.
Speaker:We're putting our head in the sand, you
Speaker:know, because it's, you know, it's demasculating, isn't
Speaker:it, to admit that you kind of have
Speaker:a problem down there.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:And it's a real shame that it is,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:Because the more the more shame there is
Speaker:on the male side, the more that, like
Speaker:on the female side, they sort of pick
Speaker:up and do the work that the shame
Speaker:is preventing the male side from sort of
Speaker:sitting with grappling with and engaging with.
Speaker:And what was always really interesting to me
Speaker:is, you know, obviously, not everyone gets pregnant
Speaker:with our technology.
Speaker:That's just the name of the game, right?
Speaker:IVF is not a sure that either.
Speaker:But we would sometimes get complaints into customer
Speaker:support.
Speaker:And obviously you give someone a support email
Speaker:address and they think that anything they say
Speaker:is, you know, not going to be read
Speaker:by a human.
Speaker:But of course, the entire team would read
Speaker:all of these.
Speaker:And like, we feel it in our bones.
Speaker:Like, yeah.
Speaker:And pretty consistently, some of the worst emails
Speaker:we ever got were from the male partner,
Speaker:the husband.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:And look, I have so much compassion for
Speaker:it.
Speaker:They're frustrated.
Speaker:It's not working.
Speaker:They don't know what to do.
Speaker:They see their partner going to the ends
Speaker:of the earth and experiencing this emotional stress
Speaker:and trauma.
Speaker:And they feel powerless.
Speaker:And the moment where they're not powerless is
Speaker:when they get to complain to someone and
Speaker:yell at someone.
Speaker:And boy, do they come out swinging.
Speaker:And it was always so predictable and so
Speaker:painful.
Speaker:And, you know, Chris, we have so much
Speaker:compassion for it.
Speaker:But it was, yeah, a really interesting thing
Speaker:that I learned along the way.
Speaker:I didn't think we'd have to grapple with
Speaker:that.
Speaker:But yeah, we did.
Speaker:Let me interrupt for 30 seconds with something
Speaker:most hardware founders learn the hard way.
Speaker:The skills that get you from prototype to
Speaker:product are not the same skills that get
Speaker:you from product to scale.
Speaker:That transition is where leadership matters.
Speaker:At Kodu, we help physical product companies hire
Speaker:senior leaders who can formalize roadmaps, build world
Speaker:-class teams, and align product with commercial strategy.
Speaker:Director, VP, C-suite.
Speaker:If you are entering a new category, raising
Speaker:capital or professionalizing your product function, this is
Speaker:not a hire to rush.
Speaker:So find me, Chris White, on LinkedIn.
Speaker:And let's talk before you make the call.
Speaker:There's so many layers to dig into, isn't
Speaker:there, from a psychological level.
Speaker:It's horrible but fascinating at the same time.
Speaker:And imagine when you kind of embarked on
Speaker:this.
Speaker:You would have been naive to these coming
Speaker:down the line.
Speaker:And, you know, but wow.
Speaker:It's super interesting.
Speaker:So we've kind of skipped around a little
Speaker:bit because I do this when there's a
Speaker:really interesting topic we can dive into.
Speaker:I kind of go off script.
Speaker:I love going off script.
Speaker:But really interesting because I sat in a
Speaker:few of the side sessions around branding and
Speaker:marketing and some of the guerrilla marketing as
Speaker:well around kind of speaking to men and
Speaker:always adding humor to, I can't remember the
Speaker:one that was at the end of the
Speaker:brand, but it was to do with fertility
Speaker:as well.
Speaker:But is there any, how are you tackling
Speaker:that, you know, in terms of that, you
Speaker:know, the shame and kind of maybe de
Speaker:-shaming it, you know, or kind of helping
Speaker:the men out?
Speaker:Yeah, it's a really great question.
Speaker:So I think there's like, I adjust humor
Speaker:a little bit depending on the stakeholder.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So when I'm talking to investors, I actually
Speaker:quite like to weave a lot of humor
Speaker:and I, you know, drop in the word
Speaker:vagina.
Speaker:If I want to go on level hard,
Speaker:I'll sometimes use the word vulva, like sperm,
Speaker:penis, erectile dysfunction, all of this is like
Speaker:the natural language of what we do.
Speaker:And I think kind of bringing it in
Speaker:with a little bit of levity, like, you
Speaker:know, play with it feels like wrong set
Speaker:of words to use.
Speaker:I'm having like this line of logic, but
Speaker:it's not, it doesn't have to be serious,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:Like you can leave a little bit of
Speaker:room for someone to kind of raise their
Speaker:eyebrows.
Speaker:And then just like handle that with levity
Speaker:and move on.
Speaker:I think the stakeholders where I'm careful is
Speaker:our users.
Speaker:Obviously people who are experiencing infertility.
Speaker:I, Chris, I would not wish that on
Speaker:anyone.
Speaker:It is the worst.
Speaker:And so grappling with it a little bit
Speaker:myself, it truly is just one of the
Speaker:worst experiences you decide that you would like
Speaker:to conceive and then you can't.
Speaker:And the medical system says, we'll go home
Speaker:and try harder.
Speaker:And the NICE guideline says have sex every
Speaker:two to three days for 12 to 24
Speaker:months.
Speaker:Imagine being told to go and have sex.
Speaker:Now for many people that, you know, music
Speaker:to my ears, how great, wonderful, yay.
Speaker:But it's just not practical advice.
Speaker:And like, you know, I don't know anyone
Speaker:in my circles who is like, absolutely, I'd
Speaker:happily have sex every two days for 24
Speaker:months.
Speaker:Why not?
Speaker:Like, you know, like it just doesn't fit
Speaker:with life sometimes.
Speaker:And it takes the romance out of it
Speaker:and the shine if it's just a to
Speaker:-do list.
Speaker:100%.
Speaker:It's a thing that you just have to
Speaker:get done.
Speaker:And so it tears people apart.
Speaker:And so one of the ways, I think
Speaker:we have a very specific tone of voice
Speaker:with users.
Speaker:And this is where I think as a
Speaker:founder, you have to be careful that it's
Speaker:not, I mean, in the early days, it
Speaker:obviously is your voice, right?
Speaker:It kind of has to be while you're
Speaker:shaping it.
Speaker:But in time, it has to become the
Speaker:brand voice.
Speaker:But really to hold people with compassion and
Speaker:really hear them and hold them in moments
Speaker:where they're just so vulnerable.
Speaker:And then in moments where, you know, you're
Speaker:either going to laugh or cry, right?
Speaker:Sometimes people just need to cry and they
Speaker:just need to be held and witnessed.
Speaker:And I think we do a really good
Speaker:job of that.
Speaker:And sometimes they just kind of also need
Speaker:to laugh because there's nothing else you can
Speaker:do.
Speaker:And I think we do a great job
Speaker:of that.
Speaker:You know, we play with it.
Speaker:I write a bulletin every two weeks.
Speaker:And goodness, the topics, you know, we've covered
Speaker:with great hilarity.
Speaker:We covered the trend of scrotal cooling.
Speaker:That was honestly, we've never had a better
Speaker:time with puns ever than writing that one.
Speaker:And, you know, the medical device we've created
Speaker:is obviously it looks big, right?
Speaker:Like, and it kind of looks intimidating.
Speaker:And one of the main questions we get
Speaker:is like, oh, my God, how big is
Speaker:it really?
Speaker:Is it really going to hurt?
Speaker:Like, where does it go?
Speaker:And so we had a really good time
Speaker:with that.
Speaker:I think we, you know, compared it to
Speaker:one of the sort of brooding characters in
Speaker:a romance novel and sort of really played
Speaker:with it.
Speaker:And I think sometimes that tone of voice
Speaker:and to come back to it, that kind
Speaker:of marketing and we are dealing with a
Speaker:space that is shame laden and it's full
Speaker:of taboo and I think just understanding when
Speaker:to use levity to just lighten it.
Speaker:Things are so heavy when you're on this
Speaker:journey.
Speaker:And I think learning how to build that
Speaker:voice and do that has been a really
Speaker:powerful journey.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:Because I imagine that, you know, all your
Speaker:years in marketing and venture building, you're not
Speaker:approaching anything as complex as this, all the
Speaker:different emotions.
Speaker:And yeah, but fascinating.
Speaker:Fascinating.
Speaker:So going back to the investors side, you
Speaker:know, in the early days, what did investors
Speaker:push back on hardest in those early days?
Speaker:You know, what was some of the challenges
Speaker:you had to overcome other than what we've
Speaker:already talked about, I guess?
Speaker:Gosh, I mean, what didn't they push back
Speaker:on?
Speaker:Oh, I'll be honest.
Speaker:In the early days, one of the things
Speaker:I got most was, hang on a second.
Speaker:You're not a clinician.
Speaker:You're not infertile.
Speaker:You've never built hardware before.
Speaker:Why on earth are you the person to
Speaker:make this happen?
Speaker:Also, you're a female founder and 2%
Speaker:of VC dollars go to female-founded companies.
Speaker:So you're fighting for a smaller pool of
Speaker:capital to begin with, right?
Speaker:And then in that pool of capital, everyone's
Speaker:like, wait, hang on.
Speaker:And they're trying to do the math on
Speaker:the percentage chance that this is ever going
Speaker:to become anything at all.
Speaker:And so, of course, it's probably going to
Speaker:come as no surprise that to close my
Speaker:very first round of funding, I ended up
Speaker:speaking to something like 283 investors.
Speaker:And I think I closed 15 of them.
Speaker:And, you know, of course, like I was
Speaker:pretty naive at the time.
Speaker:I'm sort of a little bit more battle
Speaker:-hardened now, I suppose.
Speaker:But you sort of raised 500k.
Speaker:And with this 500k, I thought, my goodness,
Speaker:we're going to build the product and get
Speaker:through regs and get it to market and
Speaker:start generating stuff.
Speaker:It's all going to happen.
Speaker:Of course, that 500k lasted like five seconds
Speaker:to go back out and raise again.
Speaker:But I think certainly the pushback in the
Speaker:early days was, who the hell are you
Speaker:to think that you're going to create this?
Speaker:And I remember, you know, I had a
Speaker:co-founder, a male co-founder.
Speaker:And I remember I was in a call
Speaker:with an investor once.
Speaker:And I kind of didn't hit home that
Speaker:there was any kind of like structural issue
Speaker:at all until this call when he was
Speaker:being asked what his vision for the company
Speaker:was.
Speaker:And I was being asked how I would
Speaker:manage family and flight schedules between here in
Speaker:the U.S. when it came time to
Speaker:launch in the U.S. market.
Speaker:I was like, wow, shouldn't I get, like,
Speaker:I'm driving this whole thing.
Speaker:Like, I'm the one, right?
Speaker:Like, shouldn't I get asked what my vision
Speaker:is?
Speaker:I came out of that call and I
Speaker:really sat with that.
Speaker:And I thought, my goodness, that doesn't seem
Speaker:right.
Speaker:And so there was a lot of pushback
Speaker:in the early days.
Speaker:And, you know, sheer force of will.
Speaker:Even to this day, I think a sheer
Speaker:force of will.
Speaker:We're still coasting on sheer force of will
Speaker:that, you know, exists as a company because
Speaker:raising capital hasn't been easy.
Speaker:But, you know, why you?
Speaker:Why this?
Speaker:Why this technology?
Speaker:Will this company in the market fail?
Speaker:Why won't you fail?
Speaker:You're going to fail like them.
Speaker:What's different?
Speaker:Like, there's all of this pushback happens all
Speaker:of the time.
Speaker:And I think the core theme of everything
Speaker:that has come through is probably, like, we'll
Speaker:find a way because we always have.
Speaker:You know, I now have a five-year
Speaker:track record of, like, biting tooth and nail
Speaker:so that this thing is going to become
Speaker:a thing, right?
Speaker:Like, you know, going gray.
Speaker:I now have a chronic health condition as
Speaker:a result of stress.
Speaker:You know, I'm not the only founder that
Speaker:has one of those, right?
Speaker:And I'm kind of laughing as I say
Speaker:it.
Speaker:When I discovered this, it was obviously, like,
Speaker:wildly painful to grapple with.
Speaker:It's sort of health issues that ironically impact
Speaker:fertility, actually.
Speaker:So for me, there's sort of this.
Speaker:You've got an answer now.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:It's like a universe.
Speaker:It's sort of an enormous fuck you moment.
Speaker:But to be honest, like, I turned it
Speaker:around into like, well, actually, hang on a
Speaker:second.
Speaker:Like, I've given so much up for this.
Speaker:I'm not going to quit now.
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:And so, yeah, like, we're kind of rolling
Speaker:in the U.S. Our first pregnancy reports
Speaker:are starting to come through from users in
Speaker:the U.S. And that's been really rewarding
Speaker:as well.
Speaker:But I think investor pushback continues to be,
Speaker:like, one of the dominating themes of Bayer,
Speaker:which means essentially the dominating themes of my
Speaker:life.
Speaker:And it's very much, why will this succeed
Speaker:when all that has come before has not?
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:I mean, you've got, like you say, you've
Speaker:got five years plus of data now of
Speaker:pregnancies, of successful births, you know, and.
Speaker:You know, that in itself is fantastic.
Speaker:It's awesome.
Speaker:How many?
Speaker:Do you know how many successful births that
Speaker:there have been?
Speaker:So births are kind of hard to track
Speaker:because obviously it's quite downstream of when we
Speaker:planned the whole proceeding.
Speaker:But I think in the U.K. that
Speaker:we know of, probably in the hundreds.
Speaker:That's incredible.
Speaker:We've got, yeah, those that actually come back
Speaker:nine months later and tell us and send
Speaker:photographs, like that's obviously far fewer.
Speaker:But it's incredible when they do.
Speaker:It's incredible when they do.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:I mean, you just need to show the
Speaker:investors that I'm sure you've got a wall
Speaker:of baby photos.
Speaker:Yeah, and it's remarkable how that doesn't move
Speaker:the needle at all.
