Future of Fertility_Lyndsey Harper: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Future of Fertility_Lyndsey Harper: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Abby Mercado:
Hi, I'm Abby Mercado, an IVF mom, former VC investor, and CEO of Rescripted. Welcome to the Future of Fertility, a podcast dedicated to shining a light on the entrepreneurs and innovators who are changing the face of family building. With billions in funding over the past few years, we'll introduce you to the people, the ideas, and the businesses that are changing the fertility industry and in turn, millions of people's lives. The future of fertility is bright. Now let's get into it!

Abby Mercado:
Dr. Lyndsey Harper is the co-founder and CEO of Rosy. Rosy is an app specifically for women to increase sexual wellness and education with a focus on low libido. Developed by doctors and psychologists, Roy is the first of its kind platform for the 43% of us who experience sexual concerns. This is a podcast about fertility, when we're fertile, we can procreate by having sex. But what if we're not having sex? And what if we're not having sex because we're not happy having sex? I'm so excited to dive into these important topics with Lyndsey today. Welcome, Lyndsey. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah, thanks for having me to talk about all of our favorite things. I really appreciate it.

Abby Mercado:
Yes, I think firstly, thanks for, like I've never given an introduction like that is just so open about sex, like it's something we all do. So thank you for just enabling me and all of us to have this conversation.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah. I'm so glad to do that because so many people have done that for me and so it's great to pass it on and I hope some of the listeners will pass it on today as well.

Abby Mercado:
Awesome. Dr. Harper. Lyndsey would love to just hear about you, about the founder. I think the most interesting thing about a lot of these businesses just comes from the founder and why the founder decided to do what they're doing. So who is Lyndsey? Tell us all about her, where were you born and raised? What did you do before this? All the things.

Lyndsey Harper:
I am, as we mentioned, originally from Arkansas. I grew up there, went to college there, went to medical school there. I don't think that I would have really ever left had I not met my husband. And he is also from Arkansas, but went to SMU and was really excited to move to Dallas. So whenever I was looking for residency spots, I ended up choosing Dallas, and we've been here ever since. And whenever I was in private practice, I, after I completed residency, which was four years, I was in private practice for about eight years, and I love women's health. Like I was, I am definitely doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing because I love having conversations like this. I love taking care of women. Truly, there's nothing better in the whole wide world. And what that allowed me was an opportunity to understand something about the world that I don't think a lot of people get to really understand, which is that to the fact that you, or the statistic that you quoted earlier, 43% of women have a sexual problem. And so what was happening in my practice was that I was hearing women share their, like deep, dark secrets every day, all day, and I had zero idea what to do to help them. I had spent two weeks in an erectile dysfunction clinic in medical school, like I wasn't even specializing at that point, it was just general training. But even as the women's health physician and specialist, I had zero training in women's sexual health. And I think that's just, like, looking back on it now, it's almost just impossible to believe, like how can nearly half of women have a problem and their doctors have never, have never even taken an hour lecture on how to help them with it? You know what I mean? So whenever I started, the wheels started turning. I was like, oh my gosh, this isn't just my problem. Like most, if not nearly all of OB-GYNs do not receive this training, and this isn't just my patient's problem. Like nearly half of women are having these problems, that's a huge deficit. And what happens because of that is that women feel like they're the only ones suffering because no one's talking about this stuff. So they're thinking and they're coming to me and saying, I feel like I have three heads or I think my partner is going to leave me, or I'm experiencing so much anxiety about sex that I can't even get in bed at night. What? These are serious effects that are not taken seriously like they are for men on our lives and we really have to start taking them seriously, so I got really mad and then I got really motivated.

Abby Mercado:
Got energized right before they said.

Lyndsey Harper:
Exactly, exactly. You got to get really mad. And so then, I mean, I had literally the best practice and I still, these are all still my good friends, I'm going to cry thinking about it. But I was like, guys, I think I'm going to do this. And they were all so supportive. And still to this day, some of our biggest supporters and it was just like a launch baby bird. What are we going to do? How are we going to go about this? What are we going to do to fix it? And really, our mission is to create a safe space for women to erase sexual shame and isolation, but also to access evidence-based resources to improve their sexual health. And that's so important to me because I feel like there's so much, like especially now, there wasn't as much four years ago, but now it's like everywhere you look, it's this supplement to make me want to have sex or this yoni egg or this vaginal steam or whatever. And it's like, AH! I want to be a safe.

Abby Mercado:
Haven't had that one yet. But I'll just.

Lyndsey Harper:
Look around, although don't buy it. But we really want to create a place where women know that they'll be supported, know that they'll be included, and also know that anything that we talk about is going to be talked about from a space of data and research, and we're going to be sharing that, just like your clinician or your physician might with you in the office. So that's what Rosy's all about, that's what my life is now all about, and I'm obsessed with women's sexual health.

Abby Mercado:
Amazing. I have a gazillion follow up question. So what made you, what was Lyndsey like as a little girl? Did you always know you wanted to be a physician? Did you always know it was going to be a OB-GYN? What was that about ...?

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah. So whenever I was little, I wanted to either be a doctor or a babysitter. And also on the first day with my husband, I was like, just say, you know, I want to have a lot of babies.

Abby Mercado:
And you were, so you and your husband, you said you met in college.

Lyndsey Harper:
We met, now we met when I was in medical school, ... 24.

Abby Mercado:
You're you're still young.

Lyndsey Harper:
I was, yeah, I was young and that was aggressive. But babies have always been very, like just children and being a mother, like that's just been a super important part of my life. So was either a doctor or a babysitter. And then I did some babysitting and I was like, maybe this isn't it, But I definitely was very dedicated to going to medical school from probably high school and beyond. And when I was in college, I got a job. My dad, I should say, got me a job. I didn't get this job on any of my own. ... at a women's hospital in Arkansas. And the doctors there were so great to me. And they let me, they taught me so much, they involved me in so much. And so by the time I got to medical school, I had a tie to women's health. Like I felt the need, when you get somewhere unfamiliar and you see something familiar, like a familiar person or something like that's how OB-GYN felt to me because I was like, oh, I have some context of what's going on in this situation. And then I started to understand that I love surgery, like love, and I also really didn't want to take care of men, after my two weeks and the erectile dysfunction.

Abby Mercado:
Erectile dysfunction, I was going to say, like maybe that was a turn off. I don't know.

Lyndsey Harper:
Which is so funny because it's like considering what I do now, the fact that was such a huge problem for me at the time is hilarious, but I really didn't, like I just wanted to hang out with women all day. And I love like, all the things about women's health, like beginning to end, that was definitely it for me.

Abby Mercado:
Amazing. Thank you for walking me through that. So.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah!

Abby Mercado:
Another kind of, another question that came up for me, you must have been a, when you were in private practice you must have been a fabulous physician just because so many of your patients would come to you with these issues and these problems. Like I have to think that, tell us a little bit more about, basically what I'm trying to ask you is tell me a little bit about that 43% statistic. And I'm like, my hypothesis is actually maybe under perhaps?

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah, I think so too, for sure.

Abby Mercado:
Comfortable talking to their physicians about their sex lives?

Lyndsey Harper:
Yes, I like to stick to the data, but I also think that 43% is underreported, especially when you, like I, this is all I talk about all day, every day. And everyone literally never has one person ever been like, oh, I've never had a sexual problem, that's, okay.

Abby Mercado:
Right.

Lyndsey Harper:
Everyone has a question, many people have a concern. And so there is a need for this safe space. But those concerns can range from all over the place. We really started actually with low desire because that's the most common complaint, at 38% of women say that they have low sexual desire. But there's also trouble with orgasm, trouble with arousal, sexual pain, trouble with lubrication, sexual trauma, body image issues, how to talk about sex, just becoming more sex positive, resolving sex and religion, like the mushroom never ends. And that's what's so cool about this, is that we have such an opportunity to change the experience of sexuality for people throughout their entire life, not just at one moment in time. And then when we're able to change that for one person, as we were talking about at the beginning, they're able to pass that to their children, they're able to pass that to their friends and offer this new paradigm of sex positivity, maybe reaching out to someone about a sexual problem. Because I have seen so many times, literally every time I speak publicly, there will be at least one person, usually a handful of people that come up afterwards, tears, tears no one's ever mentioned this, I've been suffering for a decade. My partner and I have never talked about it. And they're just feel this wave, I don't think the word is relief, but just, oh my gosh, someone out there is giving a voice to what has been so silent for so long and that is just such a powerful opportunity. And when you think about that worldwide, like not just for your practice but for the whole world, that is what really excites me because there's such a, such an opportunity right now in this moment of the world's history for us to really make a dent in this.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, but your passion is so clear, it's crystal clear. So you mentioned that everything that Rosy does, everything that Rosy offers to the consumer, is grounded in research. So in terms of coming up, what the app looked like, what the app does, like what was the process there, being such a science-driven person and being a physician, I have to think it's an amazing app, right?

Lyndsey Harper:
Backing you!

Abby Mercado:
Can you talk through your process there?

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah. I mean, there is always that balance because I am very like logical and A plus B equals C, And so the original version of the app, I was sitting in a meeting learning like all of the interventions for low desire, like I mentioned, is where we started. And I was like, oh, that could go on a platform, that could go on a platform, that could go on a platform, and then there's the MVP of the app. And first of all, I was like, surely someone's already done this. Like, surely this is, surely this isn't like a new idea that came to Lyndsey, but it was, or I'm sure other people had thought about it, but for whatever reason, it just hadn't come to fruition. And so that was originally how it came up, which we, I knew that educating, offering women evidence-based education about sex and pleasure improves their sexual function. That's a hands down like, unequivocal result. And so we offer tons of education and sex positivity. And then the second piece is erotica, which is a super fun piece of the app, but everyone in the medical community is huh? But we know that erotica improves sexual function, particularly low desire. And so that gives Rosy like a fun, lighthearted, really engaging piece that doesn't feel so heavy all the time. You know what I mean? Like, you're not working on a problem all the time. And then we have also subsequent to that original launch, we've added community because we know how important it is for women to connect on these topics. And then also we have coaching now both in the group format and then the individual format. And just recently we launched workshops which are like live events where we learn about a specific issue with maybe a thought leader, with a sex therapist, potentially with a sex medicine doctor like myself. It's just a cool, safe place where you know that the information you're going to get is legit. And those things are really important to me, and I think they're really important to other women as well.

Abby Mercado:
So, okay, you said sex medicine doctor. So.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah.

Abby Mercado:
Did you have to, tell us about that? What does that mean?

Lyndsey Harper:
So whenever I started thinking, what the heck, why did I miss? What did I miss? I asked around really, on, on, in these OB-GYN Facebook groups, which are crazy but so powerful. And I'm like, hey, what if, I wanted to learn more about this, where would I go? And I heard about this medical community called ISSWSH, which stands for the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, it's a mouthful. And I went and joined that organization, became a fellow of that organization, which and have demonstrated like my commitment to the field and also expertise in the field in terms of research and things like that, which is another really cool piece of the business, which is that we're able to, with academic partners, publish and generate lots of novel research and data around women's sexual health that no one has ever had insight to in the past just because nothing like this has ever existed. So it's fun to think about how can we take studies that usually involve 15 or 20 women, now we have studies that involve 2000 or 20,000 women, right? And that just makes the data itself more powerful. And that's part of my commitment through Rosy to really giving back to the field of women's sexual health and women's health in the larger sense as well.

Abby Mercado:
That's amazing. It's clear that there's definitely some pioneering here going on. So, I have so many questions, but what has surprised you about essentially making the progression from physician to physician-entrepreneur?

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah, there have been a lot of surprises along the way, and there continue to be. I think that something that always surprises me is how we as physicians are taught or handed down this narrative that we're not good business people or we don't have good business intuition, and I think being able to rewrite that script.

Abby Mercado:
Cool! Provides that narrative because I've heard what doctors ...., over and over again, but I really hear a lot of physicians who just like very clearly debunk that and talk very loudly about debunking that.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah, it's helpful. I think just like in every, in every like pocket or cohort that you look at, there are some people who are good at things and some people who aren't. But I don't think it's great or I actually think it's harmful to say doctors are bad business people.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah.

Lyndsey Harper:
I think in fact many of us are great and I think that learning to trust my intuition and I love the fact that I truly in my heart always have the woman, the patient, the member, whatever we, however we call her at, in the center of the decisions and what is best for her, I think that really centers the company in a way that wouldn't be if it were started by someone who was not a physician. And so I think it's a really unique differentiator that the other benefits that's brought to the business are that our physician sort of recommendation engine is now more than 5000 doctors and therapists. So we have more than 8% of OB-GYNs in the country now recommending Rosy to their patients in three years. So. There's a lot of really good things that come along with that in addition to, anyway, so I think it's been a surprise, but there have been a lot of negative surprises too. But I just like to talk about the positive ones, but I'll be happy to go in the negative ones if you want to.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah! Maybe if you had to give Lyndsey, give that Lyndsey of three years ago a piece of advice, knowing what you know now, like what would that be?

Lyndsey Harper:
And this is something that I really have to continue to give myself advice on now, which is that I think that each of us, especially when we're super passionate about something, have the ability to accomplish so much more than we could ever dream for, even for ourselves. And I think particularly as women, we have to really ingrain that narrative into ourselves over and over multiple times a day, because there are so many times for, for whatever reason, whether it's quote-unquote imposter syndrome or challenges regarding funding and connections or whatever reason we want to insert there, sometimes it feels pretty, pretty challenging. But I think if we can look three years ahead and say, wow, like, that's pretty awesome, that it's just important to keep going and to not lose faith in your, in yourself and to not sit too long in self doubt because there's always someone who will help you. That's been such a refreshing like part of this journey is like just the ability to reach out and ask for help. And I cannot remember when there was a problem when I remembered to reach out that someone didn't respond in kind. Do you know what I mean? I think for me, the hard part is remembering to reach out because I get stuck in I can solve it, I can fix it, and then you get like buried in your own thoughts and you're like, oh, wait, I had this whole world of other people who want to help available to me, I just have to ask. So probably that's another really important piece for me.

Abby Mercado:
Totally. And I feel as an entrepreneur, like you've been doing this for a few years now, it's like you want to help other people.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah! Other person.

Abby Mercado:
So, it's important to like, visually remind yourself to like there are people who were Lyndsey.

Lyndsey Harper:
Sure!

Abby Mercado:
I totally I feel the same way all the time. And then it's almost become a cliche, but in terms of imposter syndrome, I feel, you know, my coach is always telling me whenever I like get that, get those self doubts and those feelings of imposter syndrome. She's, we literally just talked about all the great things that you've done.

Lyndsey Harper:
... Yeah.

Abby Mercado:
Giving yourself permission to go back and refresh your memory on all of the really awesome things that you've done when you've faced a problem that you think you might not be able to accomplish or what have you. I feel such a powerful exercise for entrepreneurs.

Lyndsey Harper:
I think so too. I agree with you. I think maybe I should keep a log or something because sometimes I'm just like, what? I don't know what did I do.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah! No.

Lyndsey Harper:
Maybe it's better to have a poster, like, great things.

Abby Mercado:
For, like.

Lyndsey Harper:
I don't know.

Abby Mercado:
Like, like newspaper, you know when people, like, have newspapers...

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah!

Abby Mercado:
...

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah!

Abby Mercado:
Your office. It's honestly, like, I guess there's good rationale ...

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah, that there's value. Yeah, exactly. Don't knock until you try it.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, so I'd love to hear about, just going back to the difference between being a physician and now like a technology-entrepreneur. I would love to hear about the first year of the business. And how did you actually, from a tactical perspective, start this thing? Like how did you learn about building an app? Like how did you piece it all together?

Lyndsey Harper:
Whenever I was thinking about Rosy and just ideating, the way that I decided to approach it was to partner with a sort of design and development firm for equity in the company. And the agreement was that they would get us to market meaning to launch, and then that in my mind would allow me to raise a first pre-seed round because we would have a product and market potential early customers and then I'd be able to raise and that's it. That's what happened, thankfully. And so what happened during that process is I started to learn, it felt like intern year of residency where you don't know the language, you don't know the players, you don't know the structure, and there's just a lot to learn really quickly and you feel stupid 99% of the time, and then every once in a while you have .... I have a good idea. Let me think...

Abby Mercado:
That was a really smart question.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah, exactly.

Abby Mercado:
.... me.

Lyndsey Harper:
And so it's just, it's just a process, just like everything else where you start to incorporate the sort of framework of design and development into your workflow. And I never, I don't, I'm not a technical founder and I don't want to ever be, I love my role, but I do know a lot more about it. And I also know how to think more in a way that can help me communicate better with those different team members who are super obviously important and integral to the team. And so actually another big important piece of this is that when we hired our first engineer, the team that was rolling off helped me to interview this person. So I interviewed for like cultural fit, growth opportunities. They interviewed from a technical perspective, and since then we've been able to replicate that, to transfer the technical knowledge and also the technical sort of investigation as we've hired. So that worked well for me. It could, I could potentially see how it could be risky, and I think many founders are in the situation where they're hiring contractors for that very early stage. And I think that that can be challenging because sometimes those those incentives are misaligned where if you're not a technical founder, it's extremely, I would say it's impossible to communicate exactly what you want the product to be from a technical perspective. And so there's, it's just a, it's not going to ever end up how you want it to end up. So for me, having a partner who had equity in the business, we were both incentivized to try to get something of quality and of that could work and was engaging to market so we could work through any of those, not, me not really knowing like that deficit on my side. So if there's a possibility for that, that pathway seemed to be the right one for me.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, I saw that you have won some Webby Awards, which is super impressive for a seed stage company. That's awesome!

Lyndsey Harper:
Thank you!

Abby Mercado:
So hopefully things went well with that group and the handoff was easy too, so.

Lyndsey Harper:
I go, nothing was easy. Let's just get a different word there.

Abby Mercado:
.... It seemed smooth from the outset.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yes. Okay. Perfect. Yes. I feel so proud of my team. So the design of the app actually was done. It's been redesigned a couple of times because we're almost four years old, but it was done by our in-house designer and she's just so extraordinarily talented. And I feel like I talk about this all day, every day, because literally everything she touches, she just ... oh, and I just feel like it's magic. But I also feel like engineering is magic because literally it can take an idea from someone's brain and bring it to you in your house, I don't know. It's so freaking cool.

Abby Mercado:
Oh, delivering babies is magic, I'm sure you.

Lyndsey Harper:
Thank you. I love that to you. I find a lot of wonder, but I just I'm so appreciative. And the relationship that we have as a team is really special. And I've tried to build Rosy and this is an ever evolving endeavor, but I've tried to build it in a way that's sustainable for me as a person, as a founder, and also for my teammates who like left, this is something I still, like, it's a little bit less. I don't experience this as much now, but I remember the first person who quit their job to come and work with Rosy, and I was like oh.

Abby Mercado:
Are you sure?

Lyndsey Harper:
... Are you serious? Are you, is this, are you sure? And that was our designer. And anyway, it's just stuff like that, which I was like, oh my gosh, this is such a gift and I want to honor that. I want people, when they leave the company, to be in a better professional and personal place than they were when they came to us. And no matter if that's a year or ten years or whatever, like, I feel like that's my responsibility to each of those people. So I'm so grateful for the output, but also the camaraderie.

Abby Mercado:
Oh! ... You just ... a lot of really cool things in the past 30 minutes, but I feel like that's probably my favorite. Like it's, it really is a gift. It's a gift.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yes.

Abby Mercado:
That's an amazing thing for a founder to say about her team. And I wish, I could give more founders add that perspective. Now, it's like the things that can, that can make, it is truly the thing that can, that brings startup team.

Lyndsey Harper:
For sure.

Abby Mercado:
Team.

Lyndsey Harper:
... Person, and it can be such a distraction with turnover and knowledge and it's, man, if we can really dig in and believe in each other and believe in this mission and not get distracted, like we can do something so big and when someone buys into that, it's a moment for sure.

Abby Mercado:
Oh, I love it. Okay, so switching gears. So I wanted to, I wanted to ask a little bit about, I want to talk about just like some societal factors in this industry and specifically just like something that, so we, we sell fertility meds on our site, right? And so we work with ... and among very many other things that we do, we are a media company, but that's a small thing, a small part of what we do, and in working with our partner Pharmacy is an observation that we've had, one of our partner pharmacies once told us that 60% of our patients are on SSRIs. And it is well known that SSRIs can lower libido. So I just, I wanted to have a conversation about that and just hear from a physician who has a sexual health and wellness start up.

Lyndsey Harper:
Absolutely!

Abby Mercado:
SSRIs in the world and what's right, what's wrong and what we're doing.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah. So here's the thing, SSRIs as probably 60% of your patients are on them, that makes a lot of sense. I would say probably in the general OB-GYN population that's maybe 30. And I can understand why that goes up for patients who are experiencing infertility, obviously. And that's a super stressful time and I am all about getting access to evidence-based interventions, one of which is an RI, when you have a mental health challenge. Like I have, had so many patients and closer friends, family members who have struggled with depression, and for me, it's, it's a lot like sexual health, like when you ever you're not allowed to talk about it, whenever you're not allowed to seek help, that really compounds the problem. And when I, whenever you're able to have a frank conversation with your healthcare provider and have access to therapy meds, what situational changes that need is that can be life giving. So that is important for context, that we really have to take mental health challenges, anxiety, depression and everything else very seriously. Now, when it comes to sexual health, it is also important that when we prescribe a medication that we counsel the patient about potential side effects. And when you're on ... decreased desire and also diminished arousal and orgasm are frequent complaints. And the problem with the way we prescribe right now and is that the older medications in this category are better covered by insurance. So they're on, they're $0 co-pay or $5 or $10 or they're on the $4 Walmart plan or they're easily accessible and they're cheap. The problem with those medicines is many of them have more general side effects when it comes to SSRIs, like low desire, like weight gain, other things like that. So what we want to counsel our patients is that if you start on an SSRI and you experience a sexual side effect, just like if you experience something else that you come back to your prescriber and you say, hey, I had this side effect, they can then document in your chart and say Lyndsey failed Lexapro because she had low desire and that was a bothersome symptom to her. Then my physician can write me a different one that maybe is more expensive on my plan but has less sexual side effects because I failed the first one, does that makes sense?

Abby Mercado:
Yeah! Totally.

Lyndsey Harper:
So it's an interesting, like we have to know what's going on. What I don't want patients to do is to hear SSRIs affect sexual function negatively, throwing the SSRIs in the trash, right? Because patients with depression who are untreated do worse than patients with depression who are treated in terms of sexual side effects. So depression is also really bad for sex, right? But also are SSRIs. So what we're trying to do in that situation is to optimize the treatment in which in many cases is medicine. So if you're experiencing a sexual side effect, know that something that you can go to your doctor for and know that there are alternative treatments that will affect your sexual function less.

Abby Mercado:
Awesome. Thanks for breaking it down for me. And that was really helpful, especially for some of the audience who might be curious.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah!

Abby Mercado:
About SSRIs and these issues. So in terms of the, I'm interested to hear from you about the generational outlook for sex. So Gen Zs are sex positive. Let's, would love to just hear from you about generationally, how are we doing better?

Lyndsey Harper:
There's so much, that is so encouraging, isn't it, that Gen Z can have open conversations with their friends, with their partners about consent, about STI testing, about, and they carry so much less shame than many of the rest of us do. And so it's interesting to think about where that came from. Did we pass it on? I don't think so, because I think most of us are still trying to figure out how to say the word sex, how to talk to our kids about it. But they've been raised in a, in a society with more external influences than we had. And for better or for worse, those influences do have effects on, on the global population. And hopefully one of the positive ones has been sex positivity. And so I think in addition to the work that we do, this generation can teach the rest of us a lot because we watch them having these conversations, we hear them and we're like, oh, she didn't blow up in a cloud of smoke like she had, ahe said it all and then nothing happened!

Abby Mercado:
... completely rad. And she didn't go like ... itch because she said the word sex. Oh, my gosh. Good job, millennial.

Lyndsey Harper:
Exactly. I know, one of our investors, actually, who's in her fifties, the other day was telling me how she was at a bar, and these two, like women who she thought were Gen Z, were telling her all about their STI testing and their sex lives. And she was like, it's just so refreshing. She was like, I don't think I can ever do it, but it was awesome. And so I think there's a lot to be learned about, hey, this is a fact of life and there's really nothing to be ashamed about. A lot of the narratives that we carry about sex being bad and dirty and making us like slut culture and all of this stuff, that's all made up. And so we have the opportunity to just be like, that's all made up, and we don't have to carry that forward with us anymore. And that can be such a weight lifted because it's such a heavy weight for so many women to carry in so many different ways. And if there's an opportunity to just lighten that by a tent, then I think we, we not just me and Rosy, but we as a world have done, are moving at least in the right direction. And it feels that way most of the time. But there are setbacks along the way where these ideas are not being carried forward. And so we have to continue to push because I don't think it's going to just happen at least as quickly on its own without people pushing the ball forward.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, absolutely. And I know that it's, this is not just the women's health industry. There's a whole ...

Lyndsey Harper:
Right.

Abby Mercado:
And under the women's health industry that is focused on sexual health and wellness and that is absolutely fantastic. And I'm curious about, speaking of that industry and funding, have you in raising money for Rosy, has that been challenging or investors like what instance? Are they like, yeah, get this like, here's some money.

Lyndsey Harper:
Does anyone that's having a...

Abby Mercado:
... Founder call me because I need membership.

Lyndsey Harper:
That's good. I was going to say, does anyone come on and say fundraising is easy because I want to talk about that.

Abby Mercado:
Because they wouldn't be invited back?

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So fundraising, it's, I was very nervous about it. Obviously, I'm a doctor, what the heck am I doing right? I don't know even the first thing. I had to learn a lot about business models, I had to learn a lot about pitch decks. I had to learn a lot about what makes a different type of investor in that category? What kind of instrument should you raise on? Like lots and lots of learnings. But I was also very worried about how people were going to receive this. Where are they going to, were the men, because I was pitching to mostly men, especially the first round, were they going to make crass jokes? Were they going to like, completely shut me down and make me feel stupid? What was going to happen? And what I found very quickly, and this has been my fundraising experience throughout the whole entire time, I've only had one really crappy investor pitch, and that was last round, and it was just so weird, I don't even know what happened. But everyone's like, yeah, everyone's like, oh my gosh, this is just, interest is piqued and curiosity kicks in, right? So whether they invest or not, you can feel that there's an acknowledgment that this is a huge deal and that something needs to be done about it. You know what I mean? Whether or not they.

Abby Mercado:
... Got so bad.

Lyndsey Harper:
It really is. And it just, yeah, it goes it goes to show what like a deep and wide issue this really is. And what a huge opportunity from an investment perspective it really is. I don't think that there's any, like I said, founder who's especially very early stage and unproven and first time and very seemingly riskiness focus or niche as I like to hear.

Abby Mercado:
....

Lyndsey Harper:
Be sure to say that to me and anyway so it's really not at all it's actually the opposite of that. And there's so much opportunity that it's my job to illuminate because it's been intentionally buried for millennia.

Abby Mercado:
Okay, So you tell us about the app. I just want to quickly touch on go to market. So.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah.

Abby Mercado:
You're direct to consumer, but it sounds like you also work with providers. So would love to learn a little bit more about how you guys work with providers.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah. So when we first launched, actually, we only worked with providers, but we still called ourselves direct to consumer because we, the consumer is unfortunately who has to pay for Rosy because women's sexual health, as I mentioned, is not really yet acknowledged by insurers, by the medical field as something that they should be spending their dollars on. But there's some of the research at Rosy, we are working to change that because it's my position that nobody should be paying for Rosy, it should be a benefit, that's just, that seems very obvious to me. But we're going to work on convincing people of that. But so we went, so the reason why we went to providers and OB-GYNs specifically is because I am one. And I knew that when I encountered this problem in my office, it's a major kind of like pain point for me as a provider because I want to help my patient, but I don't have the training, I don't have the time. And I really, I feel bad letting her down. So I felt like we could convey to physicians that there was an evidence based physician founded, easy to access and beautiful to experience platform, that they would incorporate that into their practice pattern and recommendation. And that has been the case, that's been great. And that physician network for us is now over 5000 OB-GYN or doctors and therapists, which were super duper proud of. We also knew, though, that to raise money and we're going to need to scale faster than we could through that channel. So then we did start some more intentional DTC direct DTC efforts, including a paid social, paid search, things like that, and that allowed us to turn up the volume in a way that resonated with venture capital for our next round of funding.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, that makes sense. And I think if we know anything about selling into providers and the digital health space, it's, like there's got to be something for them. And it's like, obviously providers are amazing people, right? They just want to help.

Lyndsey Harper:
Right.

Abby Mercado:
This makes their job easier. That's fantastic. And that becomes a really easy sale.

Lyndsey Harper:
Exactly.

Abby Mercado:
Really easy, because nothing is ever easy in the startup world.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah. And it makes it a lot more. And also you have to be very intentional, I think, when you're innovating in women's health and digital health more broadly, to think about the physician as a stakeholder, I think there's so many companies who start out with like, in competition to physicians psychologically, like that's their position. Your doctor doesn't know anything, so come to us and it's, oh, that's not a good idea.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah.

Lyndsey Harper:
It's a bad idea. So I think if you can think about how do you, how can you continually make their lives easier, like in an authentic way while helping them to serve their patients better, then that's a win-win obviously proposition. So that has been super important to us as well.

Abby Mercado:
Amazing. You've already shared just how multifaceted the app is and like a little bit about what's coming up next for Rosy and I am so excited. So what we love to ask at the end of every podcast what you rescript about the fertility industry, about the sexual health industry, about the hormonal health industry, basically this rather industry that we all play in. What's the one thing, if you had to crystallize it that you would rescript?

Lyndsey Harper:
Reimbursement.

Abby Mercado:
I didn't. .... let's get nerdy. That's awesome. Thank you for saying that. Usually it's like something very much, I am, every .... deserves that. But like in relation to the fertility. ...

Lyndsey Harper:
... Dollars. There's the deal, like if you're going to make any progress, it has to make financial sense to investors, to people who leave their jobs to come and work for you. Nobody does things if there's not a financial incentive. Sorry, guys, that's where we are today. And if that is not the case, like if you can't get what you're trying to do or paid for and that woman has to pay for every single thing out of her own pocket, that is not fair.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah.

Lyndsey Harper:
It is not right. And none of these businesses are going to get anywhere without a path to reimbursement. So it's super frustrating, but that's why we all have to stick together and continue to be really loud because otherwise nothing's going to change.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah. Payers ...

Lyndsey Harper:
Payers, where are you at?

Abby Mercado:
... hopefully something that'll change soon. I know there's a lot of smart people working on this problem, so fingers crossed the ball gets somewhere soon.

Lyndsey Harper:
Yes.

Abby Mercado:
... Amazing, and Lyndsey's amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Where can people learn more about Rosy?

Lyndsey Harper:
Yeah, so just come to our website, which is MeetRosy, M E E T R O S Y.com, or if you want to just check out the app, it's free to download, you can go to the App store, R O S Y and download and check us out and see what you think.

Abby Mercado:
Amazing. Thank you so much, Lyndsey. I learned so much and I loved talking to you. I feel like I could talk to you for forever.

Lyndsey Harper:
Same, Abby!

Abby Mercado:
I'm sure we'll talk soon.

Lyndsey Harper:
For sure. Thanks so much for having me. It's been a true pleasure.

Abby Mercado:
Awesome. Talk to you soon.

Lyndsey Harper:
Bye.

Lyndsey Harper:
Thank you for tuning in to the Future of Fertility. We hope you'll leave here feeling empowered about all of the exciting innovations taking place in the fertility space. If you liked today's episode, don't forget to click subscribe, and be sure to check out Dear (In)fertility, our popular podcast/advice column where we chat with experts about all things fertility, infertility, and pregnancy loss. To learn more and to join our free Fertility Support Community head to Rescripted.com.

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