EP 33: Maven Founder Kate Ryder, Zach’s Documentary, Adobe's Figma Acquisition and the State of Healthcare

In the 33rd episode Founder and CEO of Maven, Kate Ryder joins to discuss the current state of healthcare, who decides pricing and how, the impact on women, and leading Maven during the recent shifts in women’s rights. Plus Zach returns from vacation and tells us about his experiences and how they led to his development of a street documentary and Logan discusses Adobe's recent Figma acquisition. (0:00) Intro (1:44) Adobe's Figma Acquisition (14:39) Why would Figma do this? (25:47) Zach’s Chelsea experience (28:50) Street documentary (36:13) Most common response (40:46) Advocate for housing (44:08) Welcome Kate Ryder (48:39) Overview of Maven (53:32) Improving the care model with technology (1:00:43) What is Maven providing (1:04:38) Who decides what’s covered in healthcare (1:08:07) Most surprising thing healthcare doesn’t cover (1:13:05) Charging and pricing (1:19:05) How having kids informed decisions (1:22:35) Fundraising as a founder after being a VC (1:26:39) Kate’s take on this market (1:28:45) Leading Maven during societal shifts (1:35:47) Outro Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky Produced: Andrew Nadeau and Rashad Assir Executive Producer: Josh Machiz Music: Griff Lawson 🎙 Listen to the show Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb... Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0... Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/cartoonavatars 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/cartoonavatars 🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@cartoonavatars About the Show A Saturday morning podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett (Partner and Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures) covering the tech news with his friends and other people with industry expertise. Executive Producer: Rashad Assir Producer: Leah Clapper Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA 🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1 Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow 📱 X - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow 🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow About the Show Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member. Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Logan Bartlett?

  Welcome to the 33rd episode of Cartoon Avatars. I'm your host, Logan Bartlett, and on this episode, what you're going to hear is a conversation between Zach Weinberg and I, talking about Zach's endeavors into the documentary world, which caused a little bit of a Twitter shitstorm this week when he was talking about potentially documenting the homelessness problem in New York, in particular around Chelsea, where he lives. And we talk about what he's actually trying to accomplish here, and the outrage that came from him suggesting this online. And so, we go through that. And then, in the

• 0:47Logan Bartlett?

  back half of the episode, what you're going to hear is a conversation Zach and I have with Kate Ryder, who's the founder and CEO of Maven. In full disclosure, my fiance works at Maven. She has been there for three years, and now is leading product marketing for them. And so, Kate and I talk a little bit about that. I actually weirdly lived in Kate's house at the very beginning of the pandemic, which is an interesting story. So, we kind of go through all of that, but it's a healthcare-focused maternity benefits company, or women's benefits, women's health company. And so, we go through kind of the state of healthcare, and benefits, and insurance, and a lot of the stuff that Zach knows very

• 1:31Logan Bartlett?

  well. And so, talking to her about all that, and leading in a world post Roe v. Wade for women's health, and all of those things. So, a really interesting conversation there. I think one of the things that I wanted to hit, and I've never done anything like this before, but after we recorded, the news on Thursday broke that Adobe was acquiring Figma, which is a design company that I know somewhat well. And so, figured, given it's in the software world, given it's kind of what I focus on, although I've never spent time with Figma specifically, I figured it might be interesting. It's a 20-

• 2:15Logan Bartlett?

  $22 billion acquisition by Adobe and there was a bunch of, I posted a little bit about it on Twitter and that got people up in arms in different corners. And so I figured I would, I would give at least a little bit of an overview on it, given it's been slow on the news lately. We haven't done a bunch of news topics recently and this has sort of been my competency of what I wake up thinking about. And, and so I figured I would just kind of talk through that from my perspective. And, and so also I've never, I've never done this, kind of the radio talk show host version of this where I'm just kind of talking into a microphone here, but maybe it's something we can do if, if, if topics are actually interesting enough.

• 3:01Logan Bartlett?

  So for people that don't know, as I mentioned, it was a $20 billion price for, for Figma. There was another, I think it was 6 million in RSUs, restricted stock units. So that's kind of incentive comp for the, for the Figma team. And so if you do the math on a price per share basis, I think it roughly nets out to about another $2 billion. And so it's $22 billion in total compensation for this company. It's the largest private software acquisition that's ever occurred. The, it was disclosed that Adobe is paying 50 times end of year annual recurring revenue. I think most people that listen to this will know what annual recurring

• 3:43Logan Bartlett?

  revenue is, but that is, I mean, the highest public companies right now are trading at 25 times end of year revenue. And, and so revenue, I guess in this case, we can do a little bit of a back of the envelope math here. If they're trading at 50 times ARR for, for end of year, I don't know, maybe that means it's 70 times end of year revenue, which is just a crazy multiple. I mean, we saw a lot of those a couple, a couple of months back, but an insanely high multiple there. The deal was half cash and half stock. They disclosed a little bit of information about, about Figma's business. So it's, it's roughly going to end the year

• 4:28Logan Bartlett?

  at 400 million in annual recurring revenue. That would be up from 200 million, roughly. They're growing over 100%. The business is cash flow positive and they have over 150% net dollar retention, which is, which is Really, really impressive. I think that would put it in the top, I don't know, five public companies or something like that. This would be a public business today, most likely, if the markets were open. And so, and I think this has been regarded for a while as the top one, if not top two or three, private software companies over the

• 5:12Logan Bartlett?

  last couple of years. And so, really, really impressive outcome for the business as well. Adobe is a roughly, it was before the acquisition, roughly $150 billion business. It closed down 17% on the news, just because this was a very high price to pay. I think Adobe trades at something like 10x end of year revenue, and they are paying roughly, I don't know, 60 or 70x end of year revenue for this. And it's going to be, whatever that is, 20 over 150 of their entire, entire business value is going, going to Figma. So, it's,

• 5:52Logan Bartlett?

  yeah, I think the market didn't love it. I happen to think it's, I think it's a brilliant move by Adobe in some ways. I got into a little bit of a debate about what, what the definition of strategic is on Twitter. But I think this is really strategic acquisition for Adobe, for a few reasons. So, in terms of what Figma actually does, and it's important to kind of understand that, and what they got right, in particular, from my vantage point, and again, I'm not an expert, but I do know a little bit about this and a little bit about the market. And so, what Figma does, for people that don't know, it's a

• 6:32Logan Bartlett?

  design software company. And so, the two things that they do well is they do, they combine two components together. So, they combined wireframing, which is kind of low resolution mockups, so to speak, and then prototyping, which is much more higher resolution. And they did that in a multiplayer. Way, right? They did that originally in the browser. And design and product, there's been books written about this and it's been a big trend for a while. But as you think about what design for products is, it really is any digital product that you touch today and how it actually gets built, what it looks like, what the flow is, the simplicity, the elegance, all of that stuff is what design is, right?

• 7:17Logan Bartlett?

  And so it could be the mobile app on your phone, it could be the website you visit, it could be the SaaS product you log into, it could be whatever it is, right? This is the system where B2B companies that are building products, it's where they work. Now, what Figma got right, and when I give the team over there just like an immense amount of credit, they got a bunch of things right, right? The business was founded, I think, 10 years ago. Dylan Field, a really interesting guy. I've been bugging him for the last few months to come on the podcast and now I know why he's been, well, I don't know, at least why I can tell myself that he's been reticent to come on. We'll see after this acquisition if he's more willing to do it.

• 8:01Logan Bartlett?

  But I think this is obvious, but building this into a... Adobe's business has been designed for the longest time, right? And what Figma got right in a unique way was, one, building this for multiplayer lets everyone collaborate in one place so that you're operating, you're building a holistic product rather than individual components that need to be like retrofit back together. And so if you think about it, like the difference between Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Microsoft Word is an individual file. In this multiplayer world, individual files don't exist, right?

• 8:45Logan Bartlett?

  And that allows, there's trade-offs that exist with that, where you can't work offline in the same way that you can with Microsoft Word, right? You download it to your desktop and you can work on it. But what this allows you to do and what Figma nailed particularly well... Is both combining these two elements of the low resolution wireframing and the high resolution prototyping into a single product and then doing that in the browser, right, where you have to actually go to basically a website for the application to work and building it from a first principle standpoint to be truly multiplayer. And they

• 9:27Logan Bartlett?

  did that in a really, really elegant, elegant way. And so there were competitors that did different components of this stuff. For a while, once upon a time, and I know a lot of people still use these two businesses, but Sketch was more desktop oriented and wireframing and Envision was another company more desktop oriented for prototyping. Both those companies have now built cloud products and they, and they've ultimately, I think Sketch now has gone from wireframing, kind of the low resolution stuff into prototyping, which is the more high resolution stuff. And Envision, I know, has, has done the

• 10:05Logan Bartlett?

  opposite of that. What, what Figma did really well was doing this all, all from the start, right? And, and kind of building this browser based product for multiplayer. And that's just a uniquely difficult thing to do. These applications are particularly complicated and it's really hard to both retrofit a desktop product onto, into the cloud, right? And I've never done it, but so I've been told. It's hard to do that. And so taking what, a product that you work on, on your individual desktop and building it from a first principle stand, or from, from a way that's very functional into the browser

• 10:48Logan Bartlett?

  is just a difficult thing to do, right? And then also, also building a multiplayer is a really, really hard thing to do when you're retrofitting an application, right? And so I'm sure Adobe, I know Adobe has tried at different points in time. This, this is a major element of their business, right? And so they, they, they haven't been totally lost that they need to figure out how to go from the single player, me working on my desktop, doing design, right? And then passing off the individual file and all of that to the world of, of multiplayer collaboration, right? And it's something that they've tried. But at the end of the day,

• 11:33Logan Bartlett?

  No one that is, the cool kids that exist in the world, or that exist in Silicon Valley, or at companies, like anyone that's sophisticated and forward-thinking in their approach, they just weren't starting on Adobe's products, right? Which represents an existential risk to the company in terms of their ability to exist for the next five to 10 years, right? And so if everyone's growing up, the 19-year-olds that are in school and are learning design, the 22-year-olds that are going to work at Stripe, or Coinbase, or whatever it is, aren't actually learning Adobe anymore, that represents an existential risk to their

• 12:18Logan Bartlett?

  business. And it was because of this fundamental, these fundamental design decisions that Figma made that allowed them to succeed at the expense of Adobe and some of the other players in the space, right? And so that, we can debate what the ultimate value of Figma should be, but to some extent, this is Adobe waving the white flag, saying, "Hey, the future of collaboration, the future of multi-person design within B2B is Figma, right? And that's where we're going to build around." Now, from an organizational standpoint, Dylan's going to operate as the CEO of Figma, and my understanding is autonomy was an important thing. We'll see.

• 13:02Logan Bartlett?

  I know a bunch of designers on Twitter felt like this was going to be the death of Figma. I know that is typically the way that acquisitions work, is that suddenly the talent starts to bleed out a little bit there, but I don't know. I don't want to presuppose what's actually going to happen from Figma and Adobe's standpoint here. Now, I guess it's interesting, the other thing that Figma has in their product set that is new and early and growing is this whiteboarding tool, which they call Figma, right? And it's kind of this collaborative whiteboarding thing that allows you to operate in space

• 13:45Logan Bartlett?

  and to work remotely in the same way that I might have a whiteboard up here. And if someone were in the room with me mocking things up, you can kind of work in an unstructured way. There's a bunch of competitors in that space. Miro and Mural are the independent players that I think Miro's last round was, I don't know, $15 billion or something like that. And Mural's been a really successful company as well. Vision's built out a product here. Microsoft's building out a product here. So that's a competitive space. But you can imagine, like, as you sort of think through the design lifecycle, you sort of start with this very unstructured whiteboard, right? And then you start to mock it up from a prototyping, mock it up from a wireframing standpoint. And then you go

• 14:29Logan Bartlett?

  into prototyping that actual product. And Figma kind of accomplishes all of those things together in an integrated first principles way. So I guess the question is, why would Figma do this, right? I saw different people online sort of saying Figma should have been or could have been a $50 billion public company, right? Which I don't necessarily disagree with. So a few things. One, the price was very compelling, right? 50 times end of year ARR represents, I think it's the second largest software acquisition price ever, and maybe the largest for a private company or something. I'm probably off a

• 15:12Logan Bartlett?

  little bit on that. But it's just the gravity of those numbers, a $20 billion business with $2 billion of additional RSUs to be spread among the employee base, that cannot be overstated, just the quantum of those dollars, right? And Figma came out and said, after all this, that they had a $16.5 billion TAM as they calculate it, right? They're paying, Adobe is paying more for this company than the stated TAM by the company that they're actually buying, right? And so That's it's just a big number, right? And I think that represents how how strategic Adobe thinks

• 15:52Logan Bartlett?

  this is, but also just the number of people that are going to do very, very financially well on this. And I know I've been involved in some of these acquisition discussions. It's always bittersweet. It's bittersweet for the founder and CEO. It's bittersweet for the board members. This this company caught lightning in a bottle, right? And so I know that there are probably some investors that wanted to that were saying, holy shit, this is such a big price like and our returns are going to be so good here. And then there are other investors saying this is a once in a lifetime investment for me. I want to see how far this can go. Right? And so I'm sure within the boardroom, it was divided in different camps of like whether or not they should roll

• 16:33Logan Bartlett?

  forward or not. Ultimately, investors in general get they have multiple shots on goal, right? And their entire their entire success isn't going to be necessarily tied to this individual investment in the same way that the same way that a the founder and the team here is right. And so what I've seen happen in most of these boardroom settings is is ultimately everyone kind of defers to the founder, right? And so I can't suppose what was going through Dylan's mind at this. Obviously, he's he's become a billionaire a few times over here, and he's a he's a fascinating guy. As I I've never met him personally, but as I've sort of

• 17:16Logan Bartlett?

  known him in the industry, I know he has a lot of interests, and I think he's going to be a an influential figure in the tech ecosystem for a long, long time. He started this company at 20. Now, I think he's only 30. So he's going to we're going to be hearing about him for a long time. And I know he's he was early into crypto. He's he's just done a bunch of angel investing. And so I don't know exactly what the what the calculus was on his side. But I imagine the ability to operate autonomously, the quantum of the dollars that are here, the ability to make a lot of money for all his employees to de-risk a lot of things. I'm sure a bunch of those things played. Played a part in it. Now, why would Adobe do this?

• 18:00Logan Bartlett?

  I think there were a lot of people that were, the finance Twitter element of this, when I said this was a strategic acquisition, I think, I don't know if anyone actually disputed the merits of the acquisition, but there were a lot of people that disputed the price. And so, we alluded to this, or I alluded to this a little bit earlier, but the first thing is, no one, one, this is them admitting that they can't do what Figma is doing, which I think has become self-evident to anyone that sort of looked at the space over the course of the last five years, that Adobe wasn't going to be able to modernize their applications for a host of reasons that we, I kind of touched on earlier. But there's a bunch more, and there's good threads on it online if you hunt around,

• 18:42Logan Bartlett?

  on why it's really hard to take a single-player product to multiplayer and all of that stuff. The other one that I think is just interesting is, I mean, Adobe runs the risk of being obsolete, not just because of, in this market, right? And Adobe has a bunch, has other products as well. But design is kind of the core of what Adobe does. And so if you look at who the, there's two players that have been really chipping away at Adobe. And one is Canva, which is a business out of Australia, Melanie Perkins. I think their last round was done at something like $40 billion. It's more of a prosumer product, right? Focusing on an individual. If you're not a designer, you could log in and use that.

• 19:24Logan Bartlett?

  And that's chipping away at Adobe's business. And then there's Figma, which is more of the B2B version of it, right? And Figma's last round was $20 billion. And so, if I'm Adobe, if I'm sitting there and I'm saying, hey, I'm getting hit on two flanks. One at the individual, kind of prosumer level, one at the B2B, more enterprise level. I would be thinking about what the... What the acquisition could be to do if I wasn't able to build this stuff internally. And I think it was pretty clear they couldn't. If, if, if people didn't like Adobe paying $20 billion for a company, 2X the last round that Figma got done at, I, I imagine they wouldn't like, they wouldn't love Adobe paying

• 20:09Logan Bartlett?

  whatever it would have cost to acquire Canvas business. And so I, I don't know this, but my guess is that, my guess is that just the, the magnitude of dollars it would have taken probably led them in more of Figma's direction, but I don't know. I, I don't know exactly what the inputs into that were. But the, the thing is, and as everyone sort of debated, like, oh, is this overpaying? Is this underpaying? I've seen people call this Adobe's Instagram. I've seen people say that there's no way they're ever going to make this valuation accretive. The reason that I think it's, it's strategic is that Adobe, if they don't do stuff like

• 20:48Logan Bartlett?

  this, they really run the risk of just slowly moving into a mature, very low growth, cash flowing company. And those are valued very, very different than, than the high growth, kind of exciting things with big prospects in the future. And so taking a bet like this on a leader, one, taking out a competitor, but two, taking a bet like this on a leader that's built a product in the way that, that Dylan has in, in their core market that can help modernize, but also future-proof Adobe within one of their core competencies. It seemed like something of a no-brainer to me from their vantage point.

• 21:31Logan Bartlett?

  Now, I, I imagine they started throwing up more and more as the price kept going up and the market kept going down. I, I would have to think they started at some number that wasn't 20 billion and And the market kept sliding down and Figma kept asking for more, that would be my guess. And so there was probably some breaking point where where they were going to be willing to walk away and just keep at it here. But I think it's really impressive to me from the Adobe team and a testament to them that they were actually able to get this done, able to take this level of risk, willing to pay out that amount of money and and take the stock price hit that

• 22:13Logan Bartlett?

  they they did. We'll see, right? Obviously, this thing's going to play itself out and people are going to scrutinize whether or not it was a good acquisition or or not. Figma is going to need to execute really well with an Adobe. A $16.5 billion TAM is really impressive and growing from 200 to 400 in ARR, cash flow positive, 150% net retention. All that stuff is amazingly impressive. And that's why it's it's one of the most special private software companies that has ever existed, right? But we're talking in order of magnitude of dollars that Adobe is going to want to see return on, right? And I don't know how many now with the market turning, how many public software companies are north of $20

• 22:56Logan Bartlett?

  billion, but it's not a ton, right? It's, I don't know, it's 10 SaaS companies, eight SaaS companies. It's Workday, it's Atlassian, it's Snowflake, it's Salesforce, it's Adobe, right? It's Datadog, it's probably CrowdStrike, right? Maybe Zoom still, I don't know. But like, we're talking on one hand-ish, maybe two hands, the number of businesses that look like this. And so Figma is just going to need to execute and probably expand outside of design. And I think they're going to do that with the right boarding product with Figma, but they're also going to need to go do other stuff. And hopefully, Adobe gives them the latitude and the resources to go do that. And hopefully Dylan's able to operate

• 23:41Logan Bartlett?

  autonomously to execute on it.

• 23:45Logan Bartlett?

  Really impressive, just stories start to finish for all the investors involved. I know the index guys did the seed, Greylock the A, Kleiner the B, Sequoia the C, Andreessen the D, kind of a who's who of who probably doesn't need wins, but good on all of them for making the bets that they did. And yeah, this is a historic outcome in software, really impressive for Dylan and hopefully will lead him to actually coming on the podcast and we can talk through some of this stuff. So thanks everyone for listening. Now what you're going to hear next is Zach and I riffing about his documentary and then we'll dive into an interview with Kate Ryder from Maven.

• 24:27Logan Bartlett?

  He is back. Zach Weinberg, thank you for coming back on. How are we doing?

• 24:31Speaker 01

  I'm good. I was on a 45 day vacation. It was great.

• 24:36Logan Bartlett?

  So you lived this summer in the suburbs, right? So in the suburbs, you leave the city and then you come back in in the fall for your, you have two kids, right?

• 24:46Speaker 01

  I have two kids, two kids, yeah.

• 24:48Logan Bartlett?

  For them to go back to school, I guess the older one and the younger one, just to get back to life in the city?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're actually both going to school now. The younger one's in school as well. And normally we, in the summer, we split time. This summer, we didn't make it back as much. I was there, you know, every so often, but yeah, we're back. We're definitely back full time now and school starts in September. So we are back. To be clear, I was not on a 45 day vacation.

• 25:13Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, exactly. For all the LPs that listen for the crypto takes.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  I was just mostly on Twitter the whole time, just, you know, making bad, bad jokes.

• 25:22Logan Bartlett?

  You were on a vacation from coming on this. I was blocked off. So now we have, we have a few that we need to record.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  I was on LP vacation schedule, which is I don't get anything done, but I did meet some very great LPs for us. So we're excited about it.

• 25:38Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:40Logan Bartlett?

  Well, it was a Herculean effort carrying this without you. Thankfully Dick Costolo stepped in, which was, which was helpful and Rashad and all that. So, so you got back into the city and you found, I guess I want to touch on a little bit of the Twitter messiness that you found yourself in over the course of the last, I guess we're recording this on Tuesday, late evening. So you found yourself in a little bit of Twitter messiness. So what happened when you got back into your Chelsea, your Chelsea apartment?

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, now I have to be like careful about what I say, I guess. So the actual, the actual story is I was taking my kids to school and with the hangout at school because it was one of the like wean in days. And so our younger one was coming back early. So I was walking back home with him and my wife.

• 26:27Logan Bartlett?

  Younger one is four?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  He's about to turn three.

• 26:30Logan Bartlett?

  Okay, about to turn three.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, the older one is still, still in class. And so we're walking back through Chelsea area, let's call it. And, you know, I mean, like, if you've walked through Chelsea, and this is in the middle of the day, right? This is like 10:30 AM, 11:00 AM or so. It's definitely doesn't have the safest feel to it. I mean, there are clearly people on the street with mental health issues and most if not nearly all of the time, you know, it's not a safety risk that immediate moment, but then every so often it definitely feels that way. And then you read the news about various issues. Anyway, what actually had happened, and I didn't share this on Twitter because it was a little too odd to share, but on the way back, we were stopping, I was trying to take a picture of my wife and

• 27:17Speaker 01

  our younger son, because like first day of school stuff. And there is a guy in the background, like 30, 40 feet behind, who is just screaming at them and at me for taking this picture on the street, just like top of his voice, crazy screaming. He's actually, and I'm not going to show the picture, picture because I don't want to show this publicly, but I snapped the photo, you know, I'm like snapping the photos. And I can, if you zoom in on the photo in Google Photos, you can actually see him screaming in the background. Fortunately, it was a photo and not a video. So I don't have the audio. And it was just like a few of those incidents where

• 27:54Speaker 01

  It's not, to me at least, like, there's a very clear issue with the safety of the streets. Uh, and with, not just like the cleanliness, it's okay, it's New York, sometimes stuff gets dirty, like, it's fine. But, you know, people peeing and defecating on the streets, there's clearly like drug use on the streets. And yes, not every interaction, not every person is unsafe, but it seems to me that clearly there is a core contingent of folks here that would be better off in a facility or somewhere that's not endangering the public.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Uh, and, you know, we can argue about the fact that there's maybe not like a ton of great options out there, which is true. Uh, but this is the reality of the day, right? Like, the lack of good options doesn't negate the fact that the issue exists right now. So I, I guess, posted a little bit on Twitter, because I had this idea

• 28:56Speaker 01

  to kind of record a day in the life, right? Like, not about singling out any one person at all. In fact, I think we eventually, when we were gonna do this video, we'll blur our faces and things like that.

• 29:08Logan Bartlett?

  You are actually gonna do it?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I posted it on Twitter to find a videographer who would do this, and I had like 400 people DM, I haven't even gotten through the DMs, I had a time, and like unlimited number of DMs from people saying, "I see the same thing, there's a really big issue, I wanna help document it." I mean, most people don't like to speak up in public, because eventually they get canceled, and I guess I'm like post-cancellation now, which is kinda nice.

• 29:31Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, you are, welcome.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  But on private DMs on Twitter, it's like amazing, I got like a ton, so I found this one kid who I, I will ask him if he's willing to share his name at some point, uh, who's at NYU, who's gonna help me put this video, this kinda like day in the life video together to show... The volume and severity of what's going on, not just in Chelsea, but kind of like all across New York City.

• 29:52Logan Bartlett?

  No, and I've lived over the course of COVID, I was in Austin for a little while, I was in Miami, I was in Chicago, I was in San Francisco for a minute, and I was in New York, right, so I've sort of seen different, and it's, it's, it's clearly impacted a lot of major metropolitan cities, like New York certainly isn't unique to this. I guess what I was most interested in is the reaction. So you posted, hey, let's, like, can I find an NYU student to do this? And the reaction to it was interesting, right? It's, there's kind of this, like, I don't know, I mean, maybe you comment on, like, what were, what were kind of the responses? You, obviously you've got a ton of positive DMs, there's a lot of people that see the

• 30:35Logan Bartlett?

  same thing you do, maybe some people that disagree with, like, the tactics of how to go about it or something, I don't know, but like, what were the responses that you got from people and like, kind of the outrage that came, it came out?

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there was all over the place, right? Like, a ton of people saying, this is a real issue, and, and, and big public support. I got unlimited number of private messages, both direct and indirect, of, thank you for speaking out, because it's not something that I can do, and I can't speak out because of fear for, you know, somebody getting on me for not being compassionate and losing my job and all this. I think there's a little bit of private support. And then obviously, there's the folks saying, you know, this is not your place, these are folks that have mental health issues, and, you know, there's economic issues in terms of sleeping on the street, obviously, you know, New York is an extraordinarily expensive place to live, have you no compassion. And I understand,

• 31:28Speaker 01

  I, look, I, I, I get it, right? Like, it is a shit situation, and, to be clear, like, sleeping on the street, and if you're, definitely if you're dangerous, is illegal in New York City. And whether you agree with that or not, it is, it is the case. And I am intimately aware that there is not a bunch of great options for people who have the, you know, this issue at hand, whether it's true mental health issues, or addiction issues, or they just are like down on their luck, you know, so a smaller subset, I mean, I think many do have mental health and addiction issues. But it doesn't change the fact that it's happening. And like, that's the part that I think is really difficult to argue with, where people are like, "Yeah, but it's not fair." And I guess my whole point is like, I understand it's not fair,

• 32:11Speaker 01

  but it's also not fair to the people who have to deal with the safety issues, in particular, people who have kids. It's not fair to them as well. And so by saying it's an issue that you shouldn't go, you know, create awareness for and pursue some sort of like change that you'd like to affect, what you're effectively saying, at least in my opinion, is you're okay with the status quo. Right? You're prioritizing the one issue over the other. You're saying, "Well, I don't have a better idea, but I don't like yours." And what I kept asking people, and I continue to do this, I like to argue with folks who have at least like reasonable opinions, is, "I understand you don't like the idea of enforcing the laws in this case. I get it. It's not a great answer. Please tell me another idea that can actually be done in the next 24 months

• 32:56Speaker 01

  that has some sort of like underlying true impact at any reasonable scale." And most of the answers are, "Well, it doesn't work that way. You have to lobby politicians." And I get, yeah, there's like a whole bunch of long-term stuff I would love to do. I'd love to build housing in every place humanly possible. I'm a giant advocate for housing abundance and getting rid of crazy zoning laws that are regressive. But the reality is, the situation is here right now. You may not like the solutions, but by doing nothing, in my opinion, you're endorsing the status quo and you're comfortable with it getting worse. And we've all seen those videos out of San Francisco. They're not great.

• 33:29Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  I don't want New York to turn into that situation. By the way, when it happens and you have people leave, then your tax revenue goes down, then you actually have less money for the social services, and you end up making it harder to solve problems because you shoot yourself in the foot economically. The whole thing doesn't make any sense to me when you're like, "Well, we shouldn't do, you know, X, Y, and Z in terms of law enforcement." It's like, what do you expect to happen if things go the other way? The situation will get worse. And sometimes, reality is messy. That's kind of my takeaway. Reality's messy.

• 33:57Logan Bartlett?

  So is your hope in documenting this that people just aren't aware that this is going on and to the extent it's going on? And so in documenting, I guess, to what end, right? And so I'm sure you can capture a lot of like fascinating footage on it, but is it that, "Hey, this is a serious problem, and if we don't act on it and enforce laws, then this is going to spiral out of control?" Is that sort of the end of this?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  I think awareness isn't binary. I think there's this, you know, this idea, aware, not aware, like, that's not how this works, right? Like, people are aware of many things they don't think are material, or initially, they've heard of it, they've seen it. And I think the reality of being a local politician or leader in New York City is you have a lot of shit on your plate. Yep. Right? Like, there's a lot of things going on. And so are you aware that we have, you know, like, a safety issue and addiction issue on the streets of New York? Yeah, of course, you're aware. You're also aware of 900 other issues that you're dealing with, or potentially dealing with, and unless there is a, I don't want to say uproar, because it's not the right term, but at least like, a push from local citizens to say, "This

• 35:08Speaker 01

  is important and needs to be solved now," it's just gonna be deprioritized. Yeah. And again, this argument about aware, everyone's aware, okay, sure, they're aware, but they're doing nothing about it. And I think the reality of politics is, like, people respond to pressure, they respond to phone calls, they respond to in-person visits, and I think they respond to visuals as well. So my goal is to say, this is not like a one-time isolated issue, it's not a random event, it's happening consistently across the city. I think some of the pushback was on this idea of, like, recording people. Yeah, that was something that I saw. Yeah, like, first of all, to be clear, in the, in public, you do not have an expectation of privacy. With that said, this is not, the idea, and I did probably a poor job of articulating

• 35:52Speaker 01

  this, is not to be like, "Hey, look at this person," it's to document, here are the type of things going on from a volume standpoint. And so we'll make sure to do our absolute best to not highlight any one person, and to blur faces where relevant and necessary. It's not about, "Look at this person," it's about, "Look at the situation," and the consistency of that situation. My big, that's the number one thing I learned in all this, for, I like to hear the pushback, because it's always interesting, I think it makes... You better at arguing your case because you know what people are going to come back with. The number one thing, at least to me, that I was shocked by was how many people were like, "I don't like your solution," which was to enforce the law and to take people off the streets,

• 36:35Speaker 01

  to be honest, like especially those with mental health and addiction issues who eventually become safety risk, and people don't like that. And so I'd say, "Fine, I don't love doing that idea either, but give me an alternative." And then the answer is usually, "Well, here's these like either lobbying efforts you should do for some future solution that's not going to happen for five to 10 years. So like, that sounds great, but it's not a reality today. I would love to support XYZ, but it's going to take forever." Or, you know, donate money to some local charity or to something, which I'm happy to do, I'm happy to donate money, but the impact that my $10,000 or $50,000 has on a scale of issue across the entire city is a blip.

• 37:10Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  It's like people are just bad at the sizing of this. Like, sure, we can give a little bit of money to this group or a lot of money to this group, but that is not going to fix the core issue. That is a Band-Aid on a wound that's gushing blood.

• 37:23Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  And so like, come back to me with better ideas and I would love to pursue them. But I think, look, you're pressed to make a difficult choice and it's a, you know, picking between the worst options and people just don't want to face reality of the situation. And then what that, and sorry for the long ramble here, but what that means is if you're like, okay, if you're not, if you're not comfortable with a solution of like enforcing the law and keeping people safe today, then in a sense, you're kind of embracing the status quo and saying it's okay.

• 37:53Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, and it's clearly going in one direction. I mean, at a personal level, Tori, my fiance, was chased four blocks. It was in, it was like 24th and 3rd to 28th and 3rd. It was like chased down the street and had to sprint and run into her sister's apartment complex and the doorman had to like barricade the door and block. So like, you know, whatever. One anecdote is not a great way of like proving a point, but it did. At a personal level, it happened, right?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Everybody in New York has that story.

• 38:22Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Either directly or indirectly through a friend and... I am all for advocating for those that can't advocate for themselves. If there is a viable solution that is available in the short run to actually do something. And unfortunately, we don't really have that at any scale right now. And so we have to consider other options, which I do think is in a way cleaning up the streets. And that is my hope, at least for these, the video is to generate awareness that the politicians have to do something. I have learned through entrepreneurship that sometimes it just takes one or two crazy people with a little bit of gumption and the willingness to do the stuff that nobody else wants to do to like affect change.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Is that going to be me and this NYU student recording a video? Ah, probably not, but I'm gonna try because like, it's the only thing I've ever done is just say, fine, no one else wants to do it, I'll do it, I'll do the annoying problem and kind of works sometimes.

• 39:19Logan Bartlett?

  Listen, it's a noble, it's something I've, I haven't seen it to the extent, minus that one anecdote. Um, I guess having, I'm in San Francisco currently and having been here, uh, the order of magnitude feels certainly more severe here, uh, than it does in New York. Um, and I think when you, when you notice this stuff, there's a need to like, to what end, right? Like what, and so I guess for me to date, I've just been like, gosh, that sucks. I hope someone fixes this. And I have to think the, uh, the majority of New Yorkers are kind of in that bucket, right? No one likes this, right? The people that like it are not the people that are living on the street and impacted by it, right?

• 40:01Logan Bartlett?

  They're the ones that are like not in danger of the situation happening. And, and so, uh, I, I guess I appreciate people doing things, right? And trying and just, it's hard enough with the, the calcification that exists in government for anything to fucking happen. And so I, I don't know about this as a tactic. I remember, I mean, remember Coney 2012 back in the day, like one video can, I mean, that was ridiculous, right? And that guy ultimately went insane, but like, these things can be impactful and elicit change. And so it's like, I don't know. It, it's interesting how you, you get characterized as this rich tech executive, uh, trying to do NIMBY-ism or whatever, right? When it's like, Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but at least it's someone trying.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Ironically, I'm the biggest yimby, they would say, out there. I've been advocating to build housing for years, right? Like, to me, the nimbyism is the people saying, "Well, that's your problem. Deal with it." And it's like, you're, you're basically agreeing. I think of nimbyism as like, you promote the status quo and you don't want anything to happen. You're comfortable with the way things are.

• 41:06Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  And to me, the biggest nimby's are the ones saying, "Let the streets, you know, kind of react and, and look the way they are and let it get worse because we're uncomfortable doing anything." It's the same thing as the person who's like, "We're uncomfortable putting up this new building that's gonna generate net new housing because some developer makes a little bit of money." It's like, you can't like, have your cake and eat it too in this situation. Like, the world works in a certain way and unfortunately, it's that magical thinking again, right? It comes back. It's the same stuff as crypto. Imagine a world, and you're like, "Oh, yes, I too can like, imagine a world where there is unlimited housing and it's really cheap because we built it everywhere." Sounds fucking great. It doesn't exist.

• 41:44Logan Bartlett?

  It was pretty funny. Someone, someone replying, and I couldn't tell if they were being tongue in cheek or not, but when I was joking with you about this on Twitter, someone responded and they're like, "I'm having a real hard time pinning Zach's ideological views into one political party or the other." And I couldn't tell if they were being tongue in cheek or not, but your response is like, "Yes." It's almost like I form my own opinions on stuff or something, uh, which is ridiculous.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Shockingly, I will think through an issue and decide if I agree with any party at any time. And I will generally still vote Democratic. I do wanna be clear, I, I appreciate like, the system of the United States actually functioning and to spread my views on, on a podcast. I do think we have some right-wing actors that are like, a threat to democracy. And that's, I don't think that's like, a political opinion about, "I, I believe in this or that." I would like, I'd hope-

• 42:36Logan Bartlett?

  Listen, if you're undermining the election right now, like, you know, safe to say that's a threat. Like, yes, there's, there's crazy people on both sides, for sure, right? One is, one is trying to undermine the system of democracy, right, right now? And so that, that to me is a little crazier, but sure.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  I think I've maybe broke some hearts for people like, I thought you were a liberal. And I'm like, I am generally a liberal thinking person, but I also enjoy my kids having safe passage to school. And I'm willing to say that like, I value the safety of my kids and the other people in the neighborhood more than I value somebody's right to sleep on the street. I'm, I'm sorry, I do. And I think most people do. And it's, they're just like a little uncomfortable saying that. Like, sometimes you have to make a choice and it's not great for everybody. And I think we have to make that choice in this context. And not everybody has to agree with me.

• 43:28Logan Bartlett?

  Good. Well, nodding along, I'm sure will get me dragged into this with you as well. But I, I appreciate you doing something here. And, uh, yeah, hopefully we can figure this out.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  You're the Steve Bannon for this issue behind the scenes or something.

• 43:40Logan Bartlett?

  That's right. That's right. Generally, most issues I am. But yeah, this one specifically.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  All we have to do is launch a little fundraising scheme and here we are.

• 43:49Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, exactly. SPACs are the best way to that.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Didn't, didn't he get arrested for that again?

• 43:53Logan Bartlett?

  I think so.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Like New York, just, yeah.

• 43:54Logan Bartlett?

  I sort of get, I sort of get all the like Trump operatives, uh, arrested for like, you know, nefarious, uh, campaign laws or whatever, or like wire fraud or what, uh, racketeering or something. Like, I get all of them confused. But yeah, I think Bannon got arrested for something too. Kate Rider, thank you for coming on to talk to Zach and I.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  Thanks. I'm excited to be here. I've heard so much about you, Logan, for years.

• 44:17Logan Bartlett?

  I know. Kate, uh, maybe I can give my quick context, but my now fiance, Tori, who we referenced last week, uh, is, what, she's, she's been at Maven now for three years? I guess she joined right around the time we started dating. So, uh, I can almost time it exactly when she joined. And then, uh, we lived in your house, uh, at the very beginning of the pandemic, which is a weird to meet, uh, over a video podcast right now, uh, when I, when I lived in your house in the middle of the, in the pandemic. So I, but I appreciate, I appreciate you doing this. I'm glad everyone got to see live our, uh, our actual meet and greet here.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, totally. It was, um, I remember that. Yeah, we, we left in a, in a rush. I think it was like March 12th, 2020. And then you and Tori moved in. A day later, because you're like, uh, there could be looting. We don't know what's gonna happen. Do you want to just live in this house? You would be doing us a favor. And it was awesome that you guys did that.

• 45:19Logan Bartlett?

  It worked out. It's a wonderful, it's a wonderful place. I know exactly where you're recording. I think that was my office in the middle of the, uh, in the middle of the pandemic for about three weeks or so. And this was, this was, I guess, middle of March, end of March 2020. So kind of a bleak, uh, period in the world. And so I, I, it's a wonderful home and I, I am very thankful that you allowed us to do that. But, uh, yeah, not my, kind of a weird, uh, weird memories associated with sitting there and working on that, on that exact table you're sitting at now.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  And would you have ever thought that two, uh, year, two and a half years later, you'd be engaged to Tori and we'd be doing this podcast? You hadn't started this podcast, right?

• 46:00Logan Bartlett?

  I know, I know. You know, I, as a young boy, I, I aspired to, uh, to have a podcast. And, uh, you know, I, I think, I think every, every white man named Logan's dream is like to have a podcast, podcast one day. And so thankfully, uh, yeah, it came to fruition for me. And then, and then actually, funny enough, Zach and I, uh, we had only met over video and we actually met last week in person. And he told me I, I gave off much shorter energy over video and I'm far taller than he expected in person. So, uh, yeah, that was, uh, that was an interesting kind of like backhanded insult. I wasn't exactly sure how to take that.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  I just assumed you were like a tiny little man with big internet opinions. And it turns out you're actually extraordinarily tall and you're still have big internet opinions, actually. So my assumptions are all wrong.

• 46:53Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, exactly. No, it's an interesting, uh, I mean, you were, we had, we had a fun time on Thursday night. Zach, uh, Zach, hopefully you enjoyed, you enjoyed yourself. Our first, uh, we, I'm sorry, we weren't able to actually get video footage of it. I, uh, I think that's something we probably could have NFT'd out or something, us actually meeting for the first time.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Probably for the best after us having like a few drinks together. I don't think we want to be recording ourselves at that point.

• 47:18Logan Bartlett?

  I think that's probably right. I think about the time Aaron Levy walked in and you said, oh, it's the big Jew himself. I think that was probably, no longer do we want any recording footage of what transpired after that.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  I'm glad you remember that moment because until two minutes ago, I didn't.

• 47:35Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, no, that was a notable moment in my, I don't think Levy knew exactly how to respond to that. But, well, Kate, thank you. Thank you for doing this. And I guess you guys know each other through just healthcare in New York, is that right?

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Yes, and Kate, one of the best lunch and learns to our company right before COVID hit. So it was one of the last in-person lunch and learns in 2019, which was, which was great. So good to be together again, Zach.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  I remember clearly, I remember talking to the team. You had a bunch of people ask very good questions. And then I left and I remember thinking on my way back, I don't, I think I was probably going to the flood iron offices, why did I not ask to invest? I can't remember exactly what was going through my head. I might have been distracted, but that was definitely a regret of mine, not walking out of the room without some allocation in your last or next round. So my bad on that.

• 48:30Logan Bartlett?

  Well, you can't get them all, Zach. You've, you've had a good, a good run. So it's nice, whatever angels actually snuck their way into that, it's nice for you to save some for the rest of us. But maybe Kate, just about lead off and give people kind of an overview. Can you give us the, the quick version of, of your foray into being the founder, CEO of Maven and then, and then a little bit about what Maven actually does?

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Sure. So I always knew I wanted to start a company right at the time when I realized that journalism wasn't going to be my, my long-term career. I was living in Singapore. And I tried to start my first business off the back of one of my, one of the stories I was writing, actually, about the Chinese travel industry. So although that never took off, it definitely made me really excited to one day kind of do it. And my dad, who was an entrepreneur, he gave me a piece of advice at the time, which was, you know, that this sounds like an interesting idea, and I think you'd be a good entrepreneur, but go learn on somebody

• 49:37Speaker 02

  else's dime first. And so I got a job in venture capital. My husband and I ended up moving to London. I got a job in venture capital, worked in London for two years, and then launched Maven off the back of that. So it was a, it was a kind of winding path, and there was lots of learning along the way, and particularly in the two years of venture capital, but really, obviously, excited where we ended up. And very, one of the best pieces of advice I got at Index was, start something that you're passionate about, and that you're, you know, if you're doing, still doing this job in 10 to 15 to 20 years, that you still care about the problem. And so, women's and family health, I still care about that problem, and unfortunately, it's getting worse, not better.

• 50:22Logan Bartlett?

  So maybe tell us a little bit, you alluded to it there, but what does Maven do today? Where did it start at? What was the like insight you had back then? And then what are you, what are you up to today?

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Sure. So Maven is the largest virtual clinic in women's and family health. And so we have a virtual care platform that starts with preconception care and goes through menopause now. We just launched that this year. And the core insight, you know, eight years ago, when I started was, you know, the digital health industry was kind of in, I don't know, at the end of the first inning. And there's some interesting companies, particularly in primary care, and telemedicine, and tracking. And there's this common theme that, you know, that women were the dominant consumer and that they were all trying to craft digital patient engagement. And one of the, you know, it was right around this time that my best friend had a child.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  She was the first of our friend group to have a kid. And her experience and then the subsequent experiences of my friends and then my own experiences. I have three kids today. It was just eye opening how women were really at the center of the healthcare system. And yet this one moment, the beginning of a family and growing a family was so massively underserved. There's a huge business case to be made for it. And so, you know, I, I, we, I thought, wow, this is something, if changing this is something that takes me 10 to 15 to 20 years, but, but we, we really can do something here and shape the entire healthcare industry to be a little bit more designed for women and families.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  And that would be, that would be an amazing opportunity. And so, so eight years later, we're still at it.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  You mentioned digital patient engagement or digital engagement broadly. Can you define that? Cause I always hear that term tossed around and I think it's, it's used differently by different people. So how do you think about it? And how might that differ from just going and seeing your regular doctor or OB in this case?

• 52:27Speaker 02

  Sure. So the way we think about it today is we have a, a digital experience in the various programs that we have. And so we, we look at both touchpoints. So that's, you know, how many ti- and we have different touchpoints. So how many times somebody's opening the app to, you know, the content reads, the virtual classes, they go to the varying levels of engagement with our community and content products, then all the way into how many times are they engaging with their care advocate and their navigator, all the way up to, and how many times they're actually using a telemedicine, you know, booking, booking appointments with providers. We kind of have a hierarchy of, of digital engagement. I think at the time though, you know, eight years ago, it was just like trying to get

• 53:12Speaker 02

  people to engage, period. And, and, and still today, I think you're right, a lot of the companies. Define engagement differently. We define it like a consumer app because we're B2B to C product. And so the only way we're going to be successful is people are using us like they would use any consumer product.

• 53:31Logan Bartlett?

  Kate, so originally you started though, consumer facing was the ultimate. So as I understand it today, because I quasi, I could probably give your sales pitch, having lived with someone for two years that has been an employee. So I guess as I say, as I think about it, which I think I have a pretty good understanding. But you started, you started originally consumer facing and then went B2B and then employer. Was that, was that like a purposeful insight that consumer is where to, where to start with all of this? Or was that like an evolution of trying to understand the distribution methods of how, like, how to actually serve these people ultimately employers and therefore payers

• 54:15Logan Bartlett?

  was, was like the way to actually go about doing it?

• 54:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. Good question. So now, now there's a term for it. There was, I didn't really know the term when we were doing it, but I guess it's called B to C to B, you know, go to market in healthcare. And the rationale in plain speak at the time was if the best way we're able to drive real clinical outcomes and prove that our care model is the better care model for patients than what, what they have today, then we have to have the best consumer product. And so let's go kind of learn and, and try out the consumer market. They're in some ways like they're the biggest critics, you know, any consumer, if they're not liking something, they're going to put the product down. And

• 55:02Speaker 02

  then also because at the time in 20, this was 2014, 2015, 2016, a lot of investors didn't, you know, weren't really, they didn't really understand digital health yet. And so we also had to show momentum in a way that, you know, selling to employers just took a longer time. And so I definitely leaned heavily on some other digital health founders and friends who were taking the same route at the time. So TJ Parker from PillPack is one of them, you know, where he had to, they built a consumer product, but then they had to go get those pharmacy licenses in all the various states. And then, you know, and then they were starting to sell through the, the B2B channels. But, you know, Sean Duffy at Omada, very, very similar. So.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  So it was, it ultimately proved to be the, the right go to market. I, I just think I did not know it was going to take so long. And I think, and so, you know, now in hindsight, we're, we're lucky that we spent those years building a great product. Because now when the scale came, we were ready for it. But, you know, the first few years were a total grind.

• 56:10Logan Bartlett?

  And so the initial product that you launched with, it was, was it like a doctor navigation tool for consumers? Was that the, what was like the original wedge that you got in with to actually get people using the product?

• 56:23Speaker 02

  So the original, um, the original thesis was all about access. So in, you know, so many, so much of what I observed in my friends and in my own experiences was, you know, we were such uneducated consumers going into these big moments of, you know, starting families, getting pregnant, going through IBS. And so we, we needed to, to A, meet way more types of providers who could support us. So there was mental health, nutrition, you know, women's health, physical therapy, doulas, midwives. I mean, there are so many amazing providers in women's and family health that are not part of traditional reimbursement models. So one, it was how do we provide access to all of those different types of providers?

• 57:05Speaker 02

  And, and build this kind of holistic care team. And then two is how do we do it in a way that's more modern than, you know, waiting three weeks to go to the doctor. And so that was the on-demand telemedicine component. And so, you know, that was the core insight. It wasn't necessarily async at that point. And we knew we had to go B to B. We were actually pitching our, our first B to B product, which is a maternity product, um, you know, even before we launched the consumer product. But it was, it was always very much about the care model itself. Um, and how do you use technology to actually improve the underlying care model?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  How did you think about in terms of the? Content and then actually the clinical staff that the patients would, I always think patient, but that the members would ultimately get access to and how that relates to their primary care doc or their OB and the interaction of, you know, the questions they're asking and the actual doctor they're seeing in person.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the reality is when a lot of women get pregnant for the first time or go through IVF, they don't have an OB or a clinic. So we see that today in our data, but just kind of from, you know, just a lot of conversations. It was very clear with my own personal experience as well. And then when you're going to an OB, sometimes you're seeing somebody, other times you're just in a practice. So you're not actually building those enduring relationships. And I think also that the in-person patient experience is you're only going once a month and, you know, you might have 10 minutes with the doctor. And so, so much of IVF or pregnancy happens outside of those 10 minutes and whether it's, you know, nutrition, support,

• 58:44Speaker 02

  or you're managing a high-risk condition, or mental health, or just kind of career coaching, which is one of our more popular provider types. All of that is, are ways in which people are using Maven outside. And then we're complementing that in-person experience. And then postpartum, there was nothing. So that was also one of the core insights when we launched was, you know, everything stops right after the baby is born. There's no paid leave at that time. Like, a lot of people didn't have leave. There were no return to work programs, no health plan programs went beyond nine months, none of the apps did. And so it was kind of like, we complemented that in-person care model during the nine months of pregnancy. And then when postpartum hit, we actually were

• 59:29Speaker 02

  the core, the primary provider because there were no, there was nothing else.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  So the whole idea was to make sure that you were, almost by design in a sense, like complimentary to the very specific but narrow, I guess, medical care you would see from an OB where you have to be physically present and focus on all the kind of like supportive care and access challenges for, in a sense, everything, everything else? Is that like a fair way of thinking about it?

• 59:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say there's a core prenatal model today. And that's this kind of you go to the doctor once a month and you may know them well, you may not, and then you deliver in a hospital. And ours was there's so many gaps around that core model. And then postpartum is like a large, large gap. Return to work, you know, 43% of new moms don't return to the workplace after having kids. That's a large gap that's not supported. And then even before that, you know, we launched our fertility product in 2017. The whole, you know, IBS, I've freezing, surrogacy, adoption pathways were also not part of the traditional model. So there was, there was not just the complement to the nine months of pregnancy, but it was

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  all of the things around that to really equalize the care.

• 1:00:44Logan Bartlett?

  Can I actually ask what you guys living health care, probably, you know, it's probably intuitive to this, but like I have, I have health insurance through, you know, a payer, right? There's someone that, that provides me health insurance through Redpoint as an employer. Why, why is this like all of these things? And what are all of these things that, and we've touched on it throughout the discussion, but what are the, are all these things that are like above and beyond what I would actually get from my provider of health insurance through Redpoint? Like, why does this? And I know there's other businesses that have done well. Levango acquired for whatever, tens of billions of dollars.

• 1:01:26Logan Bartlett?

  And then there's Hinge Health and there's a bunch of other benefit companies that have popped up, but like, why are these incremental things that exist at all? And I guess why is women's health a unique one specifically, Kate?

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  I mean, in an ideal world, none of these benefits would exist because the, your core health provider would cover it all. And, and so, you know, I think we don't live in an ideal world, which is why there's such a large and growing digital health industry. I think for our market specifically, what's really different and why we started with building the largest women's and family health telemedicine network is the wedge into the consumer experience. Is with primary care, with chronic disease management, with mental health. You know, a lot of that is getting patients to the right provider and helping them understand,

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  you know, that match and giving them that high-quality care. And I, and you know, and often making it tech-enabled and you know, that's more convenient and whatnot. But with us and with women's and family health, there's just parts of it that are not in the healthcare system in the first place. And so fertility is a perfect example of that. I would imagine, I would hope that maybe you now have fertility benefits through Redpoint, but you know, a lot of the health plans don't cover it and haven't covered it. It was, it's a huge driver in sales in the market. And then with maternity benefits, what's happening is a lot of companies see maternity

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  as their top cost when it comes to healthcare spend. So if you think about a big Fortune 50 employer and you know, like 10 to 12% of their entire healthcare budget, which could be billions of dollars, is spent on maternity care. And then they have this big problem where a lot of women are not coming back to work afterwards and they look at their maternity spend and you know, there could be high rates of NICU spend or high, you know, high C-section rates. And so that's an area where they want to better clinically manage it. And they also want to, you know, really help women transition back to work and be able to breastfeed when they go back to work. So again, there's like major gaps right there.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  And then moving into what COVID really exposed was how burnt-out parents are and how managing your kid's health as a parent while managing your career is also just added stress and continuation of the journey. And so we also have a parenting and pediatricist product. And then menopause, which we just launched this year, that was another that was similar to fertility, there was just like nothing there, period. And employees have started to ask about it and as a lot of these benefits leaders look for, you know, equitable benefits and DEI is really important to them, you know, you kind of have to invest in these areas. So very. Similar similar to like the hinges or the others in that there's a major medical spend

• 1:04:29Speaker 02

  category here where they're trying to control costs, but different a little bit where this is a huge DEI benefit in a way that maybe some of the other medical benefits are not.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe for like a little history and then Kate, I'd love to get your take on this. If you think of the way healthcare has been paid for, you know, most healthcare is reimbursed by an insurance company. We don't have to go into who pays for the actual underlying insurance, but you know, it's meant to reimburse for medical care, right? Like the, it was designed around providing care by doctors, kind of the easiest way to think about this, for very specific set of work that they would do. And in many cases, it's not, it's not like perfectly this way, but based on the amount of time that it would take and the complexity of what that doctor was doing. And you get these situations in

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  healthcare where not everything is about the like specific medical care that the doctor is providing. There's like supportive care benefits, all and actually in women's health, this is probably one of the biggest areas where it's not just about, you know, the physical exam or the diagnostic procedure. There's like plenty of stuff around it, but our healthcare system was not really designed to pay for that stuff. And so you see employers having to pony up money for like extra benefits that the typical insurance plan just simply doesn't cover. And then you kind of combine it. And I don't, Kate, this is, this is, I'm curious what your take on this, but you know, the, the history of designing who gets paid

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  for what and what's paid for by insurance is going to negotiated by a panel of doctors with Medicare and then it kind of like trickles down from there with the commercial insurance companies. And most of those doctors are basically like old white guys. And so you've seen like significant under reimbursement for women's health because the people sitting in the dark room deciding on what is covered and what isn't, and what's medical care and what isn't medical care are basically just like old men. And we're paying for that now downstream. At least that's been my impression. I'm not like a super in the weeds on the exact codes.

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, listen, I think there was a very famous picture during the last administration where everyone's talking about maternity benefits. And there is this big, you know, debate like, oh, my gosh, why should the average taxpayer have to pay for maternity benefits? And it was a room full of men and there was not a single woman in that room. And it was basically saying like, you know, only women should pay more for their health insurance and healthcare because they're the ones having the babies.

• 1:07:13Speaker 02

  And so I think, you know, that that point of view has certainly led to, I think, underfunded area, major underfunded areas and just enormous gaps in care. And I think we see it in the statistics. You know, the United States has the worst maternal death rate among all peer nations and in, you know, in the developed world. And that's actually increased during COVID by 21%, which is pretty horrifying. And when you look at C-section rates compared to, you know, what the World Health Organization would recommend in a country, you know, of like the US, we're 20 percentage points above

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  that. When you look at just all of these, these stats compared against many, many other, other countries, I mean, we're just consistently last.

• 1:08:08Logan Bartlett?

  Hey, Kate, and so maybe like a specific one on that because you bring it up and it's interesting to me. So like, as I understand it, at a very literal level, like there's these outcome related services that maybe my health insurance covers, right? And, and so one of those could be like pregnancy, but there's a lot of things that exist outside of pregnancy that could be preventative or educational or supportive from a benefit standpoint that, that. Would be helpful, that's not actually the childbirth. Like, and so I guess, one, is that right? And two, you use the example of C-sections, which I think is an interesting one. And I would love for you to drill down on that because as I understand it,

• 1:08:53Logan Bartlett?

  C-sections are very easy for the doctor and very hard for the woman. And basically because of how the incentives are structured, the doctors, we disproportionately lean on C-sections in our country. Because the doctors, it's predictable. They can get back out of the surgery room exactly when they want to versus the randomness associated with a non-C-section childbirth, right? Is that, can you touch on those two things, just to expand on that point?

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would think of it as like, what is the most surprising and yet important thing that insurance typically doesn't cover that you help with?

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  So I would say that the most surprising thing about what insurance doesn't cover is pretty much everything outside of your core OB visits. So whereas, you know, the technology in the labor and delivery rooms has gotten better and better, it's certainly much better than it was 100 years ago. There's just really obvious things like the way that doulas, that presence of a doula can reduce the C-section rate. And so at a population level, I mean, it would make sense to reimburse doulas. And you're starting to see some of that across the states. But, you know, that, that whole concept was just, even though the economics and the numbers just proved what, how important that would be, just not there. I think in mental health, we still have a long way to go.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  One out of five women suffer from some kind of perinatal mental health issue. That's also not baked into reimbursement models and can lead to, you know, worse outcomes. And so, you know, things like this, like for instance breastfeeding. Breastfeeding, higher breastfeeding rates is linked to lower rates of heart disease in women. That's a little bit longer term than just the, you know, the short term, but heart disease is one of the top killers of women. And so you would think that like just little tweaks to the model would, from a population level, really actually drive better outcomes and reduce costs. And so none of that was being taken

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  into consideration. And then even areas like miscarriage, you know, one out of four or one out of five pregnancies end in miscarriage. And there's just nothing there. And so those are some examples of just, you know, fertility aside, like even in the core pregnancy episode, there's just so much that's not covered. Women tell physical therapy as well, pelvic floor. And then when it comes to C-sections, you look at some of the incentives then that is women are going through this experience and now they're in the healthcare system where there's, you know, tons of misaligned incentives. You know, the childbirth is the number one reason for hospitalization in the US. Lots of money is made on childbirth.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  And so there are things sometimes in hospitals where on the labor and delivery floor, they might have a rule where a woman can only labor for eight hours and then they have to do the C-section because it's heads and beds. Or, you know, some, or it could be the doctor's choice and the doctor's just trying to kind of get through a certain number of patients that day because they're paid more when they do the C-section versus just kind of a vaginal birth. And, you know, there are great doctors out there and there are great hospitals out there, but there's also, you know, not great doctors out there. And there are also rules in some of these hospitals that are to minimize medical malpractice

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  versus do what's best for the patient. And so, you know, all of this is what as a woman is going through and a family too, I mean, a couple really, is going through this very vulnerable experience where it's not just your own health, but it's the health of the baby that you're, you know, bringing to the world. Everything is just so cosmic all the time and so existential. And so to think that you're going through this big experience in a system that's actually not designed for you and sometimes is designed in ways that are not helping you, I think you just, you just need such an advocate and Maven is that advocate to help you through all of these decisions that you have to make.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  From an economic model standpoint, so you sell through to an employer. And so the employer says, I have a employee population of X number of people. Some percentage of that are women. Some percentage of that are women who are likely to give birth in the next, you know, however many years. So this is like a target population is important to me. But unfortunately, my current insurance plan, of which as the employer, I'm paying the premium or some percentage of the premium, it's just not covered. So you come in and fill that gap. How do they pay for it? You don't have to give away the exact pricing, but like, how did you think about charging and pricing the benefit there, given it's on top of insurance that the employer is

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  already at least contributing towards?

• 1:13:52Speaker 02

  So we fit really nicely into the model of what a lot of chronic condition companies do and disease management companies, which is, you know, there are a certain number of pregnancies per year or a certain number of IVF journeys or, you know, surrogacy journeys. And so we, we just charge based on who utilizes the program. And so what we, with the employer is looking at is the spend affiliated with fertility, which is, you know, a lot of employers right now are starting to cover fertility period. And the average cost of an IVF cycle these days is almost $25,000. So a lot of employers are freaking out at the, the cost.

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  One out of eight couples, you know, is infertile and other, you know, 20% of millennials are in LGBTQ relationships. So they're like, wow, these could be really big numbers here. So that's number one. And then, you know, that leads into pregnancy and pregnancy that's high risk that can be, you know, lead to complications. You could have, you know, half a million, million dollar babies that are really driving up your medical spend. And so what employers are looking at is beyond just member experience. How do we take an area that could be, you know? Millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on their scale. And how do we put in a program that's going to help our patients and give them the best memory series, but also help us control our, our costs?

• 1:15:21Speaker 02

  And in the case of fertility, maximize the dollars that we're spending. Because in the fertility market, you don't want your, your, your people going through three, four, five IVF cycles. Ideally, it's only one because it works on the first try. And so they're thinking about that and then they're thinking about just overall maternity costs because more IVF leads to higher risk pregnancies.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  Do you give them any sort, them being the employer, any sort of calculator savings model? Like, how much of this is, I actually go into the weeds and model the data because at the end of the day, it's a financial decision? And how much of this is, you know, I want to be a good employer for women and this is a benefit I'm willing to pay, kind of above and beyond, even if it doesn't necessarily savings at the end of the day? It's actually, you know, net dollars out.

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  Oh, no. It's all modeling. Um, so I think, I mean, if, if you're a really small company, you're, you're doing this for talent, attraction and retention. So you're, you're probably not going to model out as much, but no, no, when you get into most, I don't know, 5,000 employees or more, um, you're modeling out the savings. And, um, so, yeah, we have our ROI calculators and all of that.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  I figured that was the answer. That, that's the thing that's always the most interesting to me is we talk a lot about the gaps in care and more from like a medical and outcome standpoint, like what we would want people to have. But actually, at the end of the day, you end up having to prove there's real financial savings, even if that gap is material and kind of like ethically an issue. It still comes down to a financial decision by, I assume, what, the benefits group and the CFO? Who's typically making the call?

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's usually benefits.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  And you know, I think that what has been really cool to see is some of these benefits leaders, if you, if you think about it, like they're, a lot of them are women and they're looking at this not just for cost savings. So it's not like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna, you know, remember that's some of the highlights of my career, putting in that awesome Musco skeletal benefit, like really important, obviously, but like, not like, wow, I'm gonna remember this forever. This is like, I am improving society. I am doing something that I wish I had access to. I look at these under-supported moms around, um, around the office or these, you know, the LGBTQ community that's just been left out of all of these care models and I'm gonna fix

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  that. And so that's super cool. And, and I think what makes Maven almost, you know, it's a, it's a double bottom line. It's, it's truly, not only is it attacking spend and driving better clinical outcomes, but it, it truly is changing things in the way that our, our, you know, our system and our government is, is not.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  This is kind of a probing question, but if, if it didn't save money and actually cost money to provide kind of this extra benefit, do you think people would still buy it? And, and how, like at what price? How much would this have to be a premium on top before people would like seriously hesitate?

• 1:18:24Speaker 02

  Well, I think if, if that was the case, you would just be limited to the employer market that is really competing for talent. I think with us, I mean, we have so much growth through payers and it's the payers that are the real unlock and, and open up, you know, the entire employer market and the full, then they have fully insured and they have Medicaid. Um, and so, you know, we can work in all of those markets because of this. And I think to your, you know, I think there would, there's a bunch of companies out there, um, it's probably an answer to your question where, you know, they, they can maybe sell into Fortune 100s that are really competitive on talent and then, you know, small tech companies or whatnot, but they don't really grow beyond that.

• 1:19:05Logan Bartlett?

  Kate, one, I guess at a personal level, so you started this company when you were married, but no kids, is that right?

• 1:19:11Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:19:12Logan Bartlett?

  And now you have three. How has that informed, like, I mean, you've been a user of the product and through three different pregnancies and after. Like, how has that informed product design or decisions? And can you just talk a little bit about what it's like to actually have lived the product three times through?

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and more. I mean, I actually started, I had a miscarriage before I even had a pregnancy, a viable pregnancy. So that was my first experience and very kind of unexpected accidental pregnancy and then a miscarriage. And so, you know, that's an example where we were the first product to have miscarriage as part of our core prenatal care model. And I think it's something that our team and certainly some of our clients really, really love. I remember actually, one of the first clients staff that we signed up in 2016 or 2017 had a member of their benefits team going through a miscarriage and they wanted to launch us early.

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  And we were like, we actually have a product for that, which is very cool. And, but yeah, listen, I think I have, each pregnancy has been really different. And I truly believe that it's so important to live the experiences. It's made me a better founder. There's still so much I don't know on so many different of our pathways that I rely on tons of, you know, interviews with, with people who have gone through it. You know, we're doing tons of Medicaid roundtables at the moment to understand the Medicaid experience while, while being pregnant. But, you know, just thinking about specific product features, you know, the, the whole,

• 1:21:00Speaker 02

  I think the, actually, one thing that it really did, I've had to have some real grit to, to get this business off the ground. I mean, we almost failed multiple times in the beginning. I think because I was using my own product and I knew that it was helping me a lot. I mean, particularly even through the miscarriage, I talked to like six different providers on Maven to process it because they give you no information in the system. And kind of worked it through there. And then for my first pregnancy, I mean, I think all first time moms are freaked out about everything. Um, the third is totally fine. But, um, but anyways, I was, I was going through it and, and having things happen to me like get, getting carpal tunnel syndrome, which is like a, you know, your, your, your

• 1:21:41Speaker 02

  hands and arms are tingly and getting a sciatica or, you know, it's hard to walk. Um, and, and going to my doctor and, and getting nothing. And she's an amazing doctor. She's like, I, I don't, I don't know who to refer you to because I don't know who's in your network. And then finding I had no physical therapist in my network to help or, you know, the, the toughness of going back to work, the toughness of breastfeeding that first time. I mean, as I was using it, um, A, it was, it was just validating everything that we were building and giving us more resolve to just keep going because I, I think, you know, there was always the, the capital needs and would be able to kind of extend the runway until this business really took off. But I think we always knew, and I always knew we were solving something

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  that no one else was, was doing. And it was, it was really, really important and helpful. And, you know, finally, thank God it, and it took off.

• 1:22:35Logan Bartlett?

  Uh, it's interesting. One of the things I wanted to ask you about, uh, kind of related to all of that. So, so you've been on both sides of this table, right? You, you were on the fundraising side and then you were fundraising. Uh, I'm curious, uh, I mean, you saw some of the tricks of, of how VCs operate, right? Uh, how did that, I guess, what's it been like to be on both sides of the table? And, uh, where did you have more empathy from trying to understand the fundraising process as a founder that had previously been a VC? Was that able to, uh, augment, you know, how to run a process or, or some of the advisors that you brought in or anything like that to make it easier? It sounds like

• 1:23:18Logan Bartlett?

  maybe not, given you, you said there was a few failures along the way and having to get through it, but interested in how that informed things for you?

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  I actually think it didn't prepare me as much as I would have thought. I understood term sheets and I understood and I had an incredible network coming out of Index and a lot of the, some of the partners there and a lot of the entrepreneurs in their network invested in Maven. I was always super tight with Rich Lee, their amazing lawyer, who was, you know, helping in the early days on terms. So I understood that part, but what I didn't understand was when you are running a process, you need to drive a process and it needs to be, you need to elicit some kind of FOMO, particularly in the early rounds.

• 1:24:05Speaker 02

  I mean, now it's kind of nice because it's like, hey, here are numbers. But, you know, in the Series A or the Series B, I mean, it was, I think the mistake I made in the seed and then the A, and it was a founder friend took me aside and was like, this is what a process looks like. And he was like, you know, you do this and then you do this and you talk to this person and, you know, you never reveal your cards. And it's actually the opposite of operating. Like when you're operating, you're trying to move fast, be transparent, get to a quick decision. And fundraising, it's like a little dance that you're doing. And investors are trying to sniff all the time. Is this a competitive deal? And, you know, and I get it, they're operating with very little information, but

• 1:24:48Speaker 02

  you know, really the A or the B. But it was, I switched how I did things and I got some real coaching for the Series B. And that was the round where, I mean, we had, we had signed some big deals at that point. So we did have, Series A was just pure vision, but the Series B was, was, we had some, some great early traction, but it was still vision. And I had, I understood at that point how to run a process. So we did get multiple term sheets versus, you know, previous rounds, it was, it was rough. So that was, that was definitely, I couldn't believe it, that the entrepreneurs in the background before they were showing up at the partner meetings of the fund I worked at, they were just wheeling

• 1:25:30Speaker 02

  and dealing with all of these, with all these investors. And it's not just a game to get a term sheet, but it's a game at around, you know, what the, what the valuation's going to be.

• 1:25:39Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, well, I'm sorry you got stuck with such tier two funds like Sequoia and that Series B. So it feels like you ended up doing okay, all things considered. It's interesting. I mean, I actually think people now, you were going through that in, in what, 2018, right? I almost think today, or at least over the last two years, it almost got like a little too contrived and the lack of authenticity. Like, all the lessons that that founder taught you, I think they probably posted them on some forum somewhere, because everyone learned all the same lessons of like, trying to create FOMO and all of that. And it led to like, this transactional lack of like, I don't know, authenticity at times when people took

• 1:26:20Logan Bartlett?

  it to its furthest extreme of like, trying to build this momentum and all of that. And so I actually saw it go the other way of just like, almost too much of that element of like, prescriptive fundraising. So.

• 1:26:34Speaker 02

  And then the market crashed. So there we go.

• 1:26:36Logan Bartlett?

  Exactly. And then the market crashed. That's exactly right.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna ask, like, what's your, what's your take on this market in particular in terms of like, previous valuation expectations and multiples that people were paying relative to where you think it's going? And this market primarily being defined as like employer benefit, as opposed to more niche and kind of like, direct competitors, but the broader employee benefit market?

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think about it less as like, who your buyer is, because, you know, it could be payers, whatever. And I think it's, it feels to me, it's more about, you know, are you just a healthcare services business with a little bit of tech enablement? Or are you a true technology company? And I think if you're a true technology company, operating within healthcare, you can get a lot more scale, leverage, margin, true innovation when it comes to delivery, care model, and all of that. And I just don't think that the first wave of companies that IPO'd really were true tech companies or are true tech companies. You know, I think that when COVID hit, you saw a bunch of, you know, it's, it's, there's such a stickiness and it's interesting that

• 1:27:45Speaker 02

  once you sign some of these big deals, like it's pretty hard to kick you out. There's inertia, there's a million competing priorities. But I think when COVID hit and, and then some of these companies, you know, made even further strides, they, they were never scaling in a way that, you know, their underlying unit economics were just getting better and better over time. And I also think that they just, they weren't allowed, they weren't able to be as nimble and, and personalized, I think, as a lot of the, the tech should be to really drive that engagement and outcomes as, as they, as they could have been. And so, anyway, so I, I think that I'm excited for the next wave of digital health companies

• 1:28:26Speaker 02

  to go public and maybe, you know, we'll, we'll probably be in that pack. And it's, it's kind of, you know, really showing the market, actually, you know, those companies, they did a lot of great work. They were kind of, they paved the way, but they, they weren't the, necessarily the, the companies that are going to be the enduring ones.

• 1:28:45Logan Bartlett?

  I want to ask just kind of a, a question that I think is very unique to your business in that there's been a handful of like lightning rod societal events that have sort of occurred during your tenure running Maven. I guess most notably, Roe v. Wade being overturned at the Supreme Court. And I, I can imagine there's elements of that, that are drawing a ton of attention to women's health and, and benefits like this, right? At the same time, I'm sure it's also traumatizing to a large portion of your, of your members as well as employees, right? And so it's kind of this unusual thing where I can imagine this is driving.

• 1:29:29Logan Bartlett?

  In some ways, tailwinds for the business and the need for a service like yours, or the attention paid to a service like yours. On the other, it's like this major societal event that a lot of people view as like, one of the worst travesties to happen in the United States over the course of the last, whatever, 30 years, right? And so, as a leader, kind of going through that, can you just talk? I feel like it's so unique to your business, and you're so, like, maybe the only one that can really weigh in on something like this. How has it been to lead in that environment?

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, listen, I think it's been harder to lead at other times that are, to me, this is very black and white, and that's helped. I mean, to me, abortion is healthcare, it always has been, it's, you know, it's one of the top surgeries that women get in their, in women's health, period. It is, you know, like, one out of five women will have an abortion by the time they're 45, so it's, it's just part of healthcare, and sometimes, it's a personal decision, why, you know, people have one. Sometimes, it's a medical decision that's privately made between a doctor and a patient.

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  And so, leading through this has been simply, I think, ensuring that we have clarity of thought and a message, and the message is really simple, and it's that. And I think now, as we look to continue to lead through it, I think it's really important to bring a lot of the data to the light around what this is going to do to maternal health outcomes. Like, for instance, in a lot of these states with all these trigger laws, they already have, you know, 2X more maternal deaths than states without the trigger laws. So, you see a lot of these adverse outcomes, and it's only going to increase. But I think that the thing that also is really interesting, and, you know, the economics

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  has been divorced almost from this, these policies, because, you know, we just saw, for instance, in a southern state, they, they woke up, and they're like, "Oh, my God, we're going to have..." 3,000 more high-risk pregnancies next year. We already can barely pay for the pregnancies we have. How on earth are we going to pay for this? And they're asking the federal government for money. And so I think that, you know, it is, it is, it's, it's just the beginning. I also, I know that SB 8 has been in place in Texas for, you know, a while now, and the first SB 8 babies have been born. And so they've been able to trace some of the outcomes,

• 1:32:08Speaker 02

  even looking at hospital-level data on, on those families and those moms and... Kate, SB, SB 8, can you, can you elaborate on that, just for people that don't know? Sure. That was a law in Texas that went into effect that eliminated abortion to six weeks in, in the fall, in September of 2021. And that was kind of the case that everybody kind of, that, that was the writing on the wall for Roe v. Wade. And, you know, it's, it's really sad. A lot of the maternal morbidity, which is the, you know, short and long-term complications that, that come with, with pregnancy, it's all preventable. And, you know, a lot of them had just way more adverse outcomes, hysterectomies, you

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  know, just really long-term health complications for all of these women because they couldn't get the abortion. And there's also a lot of, in the provider community themselves, because the laws are so, in some of the bounty states, so punitive. And, you know, they're saying some, in some states, providers can go to prison. The providers don't know how to treat women with miscarriage, women with, you know, that really need that support. I mean, I personally, having had a miscarriage, cannot imagine going into the hospital and having people be afraid of me. And that's what's happening in all of these states. And when I really, really needed the care and I didn't know what was happening. So I, I just think, you know, and, and by the way, the other, the other piece of data there that's just...

• 1:33:37Speaker 02

  horrific is that already 50% of US counties don't have an OBGYN. So they're called maternity care deserts and it's in a lot of these counties where a lot of these more draconian laws are are being put in place. And so, you know, provider shortages are expected there as well. So in the states that, you know, New York, California, where you can you can get full women's health care, it is going to be fine, but really it's it's it's terrible what's going to happen to so many women in in all of these different states that that restrict this access.

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  It's almost like it's we really haven't seen how bad this is going to get, right? It's it's super early in the cycle.

• 1:34:20Speaker 02

  It's very early. And so I think going back to your question of leadership, you know, it's it's it's such a shame that it's so politicized because this is again, just health care. It's it's health care, core women's health care. And and so I think it's just continuing to lead with with data because the data, the data does, you know, presents a very, very bleak and dark picture across all fronts. You know, women's rights, economics, clinical impact, I mean, society, children's health. I mean, it's it's all bad.

• 1:34:54Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's sobering. Anything else on your side, Kate? This is this is this is fantastic. I really appreciate you, Baron, with with our questions here and internet connectivity issues. Zach, anything on your side?

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  No, this is great. I mean, I I think it's always interesting to see both the financial realities of like, how do you build a business and how do you position value for the customer? But in a healthcare setting where it's not, at least in terms of, I think, many is like many people's outside perspectives, it's not just about the economics, but you have to actually be able to do both. You have to kind of win on the better care and win on the economics to be able to build like a venture scale business. And that's what's going on here. So it's pretty cool to see.

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks.

• 1:35:47Logan Bartlett?

  Alright, so that'll do it for the 33rd episode of Cartoon Avatars. Thank you to Kate Rider for coming on. Thank you to Zach Weinberg, per usual. And look forward to seeing everyone next week on the 34th episode of Cartoon Avatars. Have a good weekend, everyone.