Founders Friday 004: Life As A Non-Technical Co-Founder with Will Sacks, The Fertility King @ Kindara

Will Sacks is Co-Founder and CEO at Kindara, the fertility awareness app that provides tools to understand fertility and be in control of their own body. Kindara has achieved phenomenal success having significant press in the likes of Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, New York Times and Forbes. Their first product Kindara Fertility for iPhone has been ranked #1 on the App Store Medical Charts. In this incredibly diverse conversation our talk ranges from wire framing and programming to vasectomies and uterus', it's a must listen! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: Why Will started Kindara and how he got the initial product off the ground, without being able to code? Should Founders learn to code or learn how to be the best CEO they can be? How and what was the wire framing process like? What advice does Will have for other non-technical co-founders? How does Will feel being a male CEO for a female product? How has Will created this community of incredibly engaged users? How has Will managed to grow his audience so effectively? What has Will learnt from raising $1.7m in angel and VC funding? What is the hardest aspect of fundraising? What advice would will give to a startup thinking of raising funds? How is Will planning to transition into the world of hardware? What theories of The Lean Startup did not work for Will? Items Mentioned in Today's Show: Will's Favourite Books: Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Gabriel Weinberg 4 Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win by Steve Blank Eric Ries: The Lean Startup Will's Fave Blogs Seth Godin: Circles of Marketing Brad Feld: Blog Paul Graham: How to raise money Marc Andreesen: Reasons You Won't Get Funded Will's Must Have WireFraming Tool Balsamiq

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

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  It's Friday and that can only mean one thing here at the 20 Minute VC. It's time to interview an incredible and inspirational founder, which is why I'm so delighted to welcome the brilliant Will Sacks, founder at Kindara, the fertility awareness app that provides tools to understand your fertility and be in control of your own body. The app has achieved phenomenal success with features in BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Forbes and New York Times. Will really is a truly incredible founder who today walks us through the journey of a non-technical founder creating a startup. But first, if you're in the middle of the recruitment process, head on over to www.hiringscreen where they have put on a special deal for the 20 Minute VC listeners.

• 0:45Harry Stebbings?

  However, the package is only for the first 200 people that get there, so make sure you're one of them. But now it's time to hear from the main man himself, it's Will Sacks.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 1:02Harry Stebbings?

  Will, thank you so much for coming on the show and this incredibly special episode of Founder's Friday.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks for having me here, good to be here.

• 1:11Harry Stebbings?

  Now, I'd love to start off by you telling us a bit about yourself, your background and Kindara and for any of our listeners who maybe don't know, a bit of background on what Kindara is.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure, so Kindara is a reproductive health platform for women. We make an app that's very popular on iOS and Android and we make a connected fertility device. And so Kindara, we have two main uses.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  If a woman is trying to get pregnant, Kindara can be an incredibly valuable tool to help her do that. It's based on tracking fertility signs and then analysing those signs so a woman and her partner can understand what's going on with their bodies and what's going on with their fertility and help them get pregnant faster. Or for women who don't want to be on the pill for whatever reason, Kindara is an effective form of, or can be used to avoid pregnancy naturally and it's been shown to be, the method that we use has been shown to be as effective as the pill. And so those are the two main uses and we have some other things planned in the future that we can talk about. And and then my background, so I grew up in Canada, I studied engineering.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I was very bored in all my classes and thought that I couldn't see how they were ever going to be useful to me in my life. And so I started building stuff in college with a bunch of other guys and we built a solar powered race car and raced that from Chicago to Los Angeles. And that was the first time I really had built something like that and something that we had all seen in our minds and then we made it real. And I was like, wow, this is pretty much the coolest. So this is what I want to do. And so since then, I've started a couple of companies. Uh, one was a DVD vending machine company. Uh, then I had a lighting company and then I got interested through a conversation with my wife in fertility and reproductive health and started Kindara.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  And uh, since then, I I moved from Canada, lived in New York and lived in China briefly and now we live in Boulder, Colorado in the US.

• 3:13Harry Stebbings?

  And did you do the developing yourself?

• 3:16Speaker 02

  No, that was, that was a big question at the beginning because that right when we started. I was thinking, should I teach myself to code? Because I had an engineering degree, mechanical engineering, but I had done some developing. Uh, or should we hire somebody? And I decided that the skill set I wanted more was how to build a company. Uh, and so we decided to hire somebody else to do the development.

• 3:41Harry Stebbings?

  And so did you bring on a CTO at that point or was it a freelance?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, man, we we brought on a friend who, I can't remember if we gave him the title CTO or not, but we were looking for a CTO. And it was very difficult because we didn't have anything at that point. It was me, my wife and an idea and a few thousand dollars. And so we wrote a posting for CTO and we were looking around and and one of our friends said, hey, I can do this. So we ended up working with him for a couple of years right at the beginning. Um, and you know, we, that was more of my education in entrepreneurship and how to build something versus actually building something that people wanted to use.

• 4:26Harry Stebbings?

  And looking back now, do you, do you wish you had learnt code or do you think it's far more important to to learn to build the company itself?

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Wow, that's a great question. You know, there are two very different paths.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  I think for me, I'm happy that that I didn't become a developer and and just because that's not really what feeds my soul. I always, we did some coding in university and I I've spent a bunch of time on MATLAB. And after four or five hours on MATLAB, my brain was fried. Like I I couldn't even have a conversation with people. I was just using this part of my brain that that felt the, you know, not the part that I would that I love to use or that really rejuvenated me as a person. So I think for me, the right answer was to focus on how to build a team, how to build a company, how to raise money, how to motivate people. Uh, how to communicate a vision, like all of that feeds me more than developing.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  But for other people, I think the answer would be the opposite. Like if somebody likes coding and that's what that's what feeds them. I think it's a great option to just build it yourself and get it out there, get users, build some traction. And then that all of that is worth a lot.

• 5:43Harry Stebbings?

  And did you have any problems in terms of wireframing, in terms of getting the actual idea that you had onto paper for your CTO?

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Um, no, because I'm a product guy, like that's that's part of my skill set and what I like to do. And what I think I'm good at is conceptualizing a product and turning it into wireframes. I think that's where my skills end, like it ends at the wireframe. So I I can make the wireframe and understand like the user flow and the user experience that we're going for. Uh, and then we had, uh, we hired a designer to take those wireframes and make them look nice and wrap them in a cohesive brand and then we gave that to our CTO to build.

• 6:28Harry Stebbings?

  And are there any wireframing tools that you'd recommend?

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Uh, we use Balsamic, this is way back. I think Balsamic has a web version now.

• 6:37Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's, you know, pencil and paper, I think, is a great tool. Uh, we made a lot of, like, you can make really cool mockups with pencil and paper. I've seen people do cool stuff where you have an iPhone on one piece of paper with the screen cut out. And then you have different screens behind that screen and you can show transitions and you can get a long way in terms of user experience with pencil and paper.

• 7:02Harry Stebbings?

  And then, and then reverting back to Kindara itself, it's a female fertility tool.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:07Harry Stebbings?

  How is it then, you obviously mentioned that you had a conversation with your wife and became interested by the concept. How, how is it then being a male CEO for a female product?

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's pretty cool. Um, at the beginning, I had, I was on, I was not as comfortable as I am with this stuff now, like, I'm. I talk about this every day now and.

• 7:29Harry Stebbings?

  The fertility king.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  I, I talk about like cervical fluid and reproductive health and basal body temperature and pregnancy, you know, like every day.

• 7:38Harry Stebbings?

  Basic Friday night for most guys, don't worry.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's kind of cool, you know, when I'm talking to other guys about it, because even other women too, like, a lot of people don't know about this stuff. It's a taboo. Topic, at least in the US and I think in most places.

• 7:54Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  And so it's not something that a lot of people talk about or know a lot about. And so it's cool for me to be able to. To know what I know about it now and to talk about that to other people. Um, and. You know, Katie and I came to this from the birth control angle, like, when Katie introduced me to this subject matter fertility charting. It was in the context of a conversation about birth control and I was asking her if she would go on the pill. She said, no, she hated the pill. And she asked me if I'd get a vasectomy. And I said, no, I don't want to get a vasectomy. And then she introduced me to fertility charting and, and I thought that it was.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Like BS, I thought it was the rhythm method and that it wasn't effective. And she gave me a textbook to read and I read that textbook and realized, wow, I don't know anything about this. And. Moreover, this is legit, like, this has been scientifically proven. There's studies that show that it can be used as a method of contraception as effectively as the birth control pill. And, and so we have a personal experience now of using this as our method of birth control for the last five years. So I definitely have that personal experience to talk out of and that gives me some credibility.

• 9:06Harry Stebbings?

  And you don't you don't think the lack of personal experience means it's difficult for you just to empathize with situations?

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Well, definitely, I don't have a uterus and and I.

• 9:18Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  So I don't know what that's like, you know, and and I can't pretend to know. To have an experience of what it's like for women to to experience a monthly cycle. Um, so I at least I know what I don't know.

• 9:31Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  And we've got a seventy percent female team, and I think that's important.

• 9:36Harry Stebbings?

  I think I think you must be leading the tech industry for equality.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think we're up there and and I think that's that's an important part of our mission as a company.

• 9:45Harry Stebbings?

  And you you have a phenomenally engaged and growing user base on Kindara. How how have you created this community? Um, and are there any tactics or strategies that you'd recommend?

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, there's a great book that I'd recommend on this subject called Traction. Uh, by Gabriel Weinberg.

• 10:05Harry Stebbings?

  Okay.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  And somebody else and and basically the the thesis of that book is that every company grows differently, like there's a different strategy. For growth that that each company will have a different strategy. And and there's a bunch of them and through in this book they go through all of them and and list them all out and so. The way that we've grown is by fostering our community, like being incredibly attentive to what our users want in the product. And then giving it to them and telling them, hey, we listened to what you said you wanted. Now we built it, here it is.

• 10:37Harry Stebbings?

  And where do you listen to them? Is that on like Facebook feedback forums, kind of? How how do you get their feedback?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, we launched in two thousand twelve and this was when the lean startup was really popular. You know, the whole concept of minimum viable product. It's the pendulum has kind of swung a little bit back the other way now, but. What we did is we spent two weeks coding. And then launched what we had, so it barely did anything. It was like a very initial version of the app on iOS only it had two screens and barely did anything and like fifty people downloaded it. And of those fifty people who downloaded it, you know, ten sent us emails saying like, hey, this is really cool, but I wish it could do this. And then so so we just. We we've just been really attentive to listening to what people want.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  From the beginning and building the product around serving their needs.

• 11:32Harry Stebbings?

  And how have you grown this audience out from that fifty? I mean, you know, it's often the biggest challenge, just growing your audience. How have you managed to do so so effectively?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think for us, it's been mostly word of mouth, honestly. And and that word of mouth has come from building a product that really serves people's needs. So like Seth Godin's got this circles of marketing diagram and in the middle is the product. And he's like, if you don't nail the product, whatever you do outside of that is not going to be as effective. And. And so we've really focused on make the product really good. And get people to tell their friends about it because they think it's awesome. And and that's worked for us.

• 12:12Harry Stebbings?

  And I'd love to talk about like fundraising now. So you've got this fantastic product, you've got a fantastic audience. Have you taken any external funding?

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, we've raised about one point seven million in angel and B C funding thus far.

• 12:27Harry Stebbings?

  And how did it go? Was it a was it a difficult experience? Was it quite quick? What were your thoughts on it?

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Uh, it was difficult, um.

• 12:35Harry Stebbings?

  What were the hardest parts?

• 12:37Speaker 02

  I think the hardest part was that at the beginning I didn't know what I didn't know. And and that's what's great, you know, about your po- your podcast and just the amount of information that's available out there now. About how to start a startup, how to raise money, what to focus on, what words to use, what questions to be able to answer. You know, I didn't know any of that when we started in two thousand and eleven. And. And so we raised a little bit of money from friends and family. I had very little uh startup, like fund adventure funded startup experience. Um, and then I think the hardest thing from then till now has been.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Keeping the company going and growing while fundraising, I've always found that to be incredibly difficult. Because fundraising takes so much energy, it's like a full-time job and then some. And then running a company is like a full-time job and then some. So. That's the hardest thing that I found is how to balance keeping the company growing and. Doing the fundraising and we're just about to announce some more funding and. This time around, it was a lot easier because we finally got to the scale where we have a team that can keep the company running and then I. Basically just checked out and said, told the whole team, I'm gonna be fundraising for the next ninety days. I I basically can't do anything else, uh, you know, good luck with the company. I'll I'll see you in ninety days kind of thing.

• 14:01Harry Stebbings?

  And what advice would you give to founders entering around the funding or say yourself entering for a new startup? What would you give advice wise, having been successful now?

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, well. I would, I would break it down into like a twelve step program, you know?

• 14:19Harry Stebbings?

  Okay.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  And the step one would be just educate yourself about fundraising. You know, spend a week reading everything you can uh on. People's experiences, Paul Graham from Y C has an amazing article on fundraising that you can just Google and find.

• 14:38Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely, and all the links will be in today's show notes, just to let you know.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  Oh, cool. Yeah, it's it's a really long article, you know, it takes like half an hour, forty five minutes to read, but it's just exceptional. So that I'd say that's step one, like educate yourself on. How it's done, what to look out for, just so you know the right words to use um and. Mark Andreessen also has another great article on fundraising, which is basically like all the reasons your startup won't get funded. And so he's like, if your team is not good, you won't get funded. If your market is too small, you won't get funded if. You know, if if there's giant competitors and you need too much money to even compete, you won't get funded. So. And he goes through all those reasons and and lays out what to do in each case. And so. I think that's really important. Before you even start, you wanna make sure that your plan and your company and your team.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Is fundable. Because it's so much easier going out with a with a. A tight story and a team that's fundable than it is going out with something that's. That's not quite there. So I'd say get it all together. And sometimes that could take months. Like if the team's not right, you might, before you go fundraise, you might have to spend time figuring that out and finding. The person you need to join the team to make the team right.

• 15:51Harry Stebbings?

  And then finally, I'd love to hear, this one's actually from Elizabeth Kraus, an investor of yours at Merch Lanes. So I would, well, Elizabeth would love to hear your thoughts on transitioning from an app to a connected device company.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. So. Hardware is harder, I would say, than software. And it takes more capital. The turnaround time from when you have an idea to when you actually have a product that works and is ready to go is much longer. So. I would say just be prepared for that, for if anybody is thinking about doing that. It takes more money, it takes longer. I think ultimately it builds more of a competitive advantage, just because hardware is hard, like it's not easy. People can't rip you off in a weekend hackathon. Um, like they can with an app potentially. So I'd just say be prepared for that. And. And what else?

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, like there's different skill sets too. So you need people who can do firmware, mechanical, electrical engineers. It's just different people that are needed. So if anybody is gonna build a connected device, just make sure you find people who've done it before and and know the problems that need to be solved.

• 17:03Harry Stebbings?

  And how did you entice people to your vision of Kindara? Was there any kind of narrative that you told?

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. I I s- the narrative that I told and that I still tell is that. In our society, it's still sucks to be a woman in so many ways. Like, we don't live in a society where women are are given. Same kind of opportunities, the same kind of technology, same kind of information, same kind of respect as men are. And that I want a world where. Women and men are treated as equals. And Kindara is a company that exists to create beautiful technology for women. To help empower them around their bodies and their health so that they can feel good. In their bodies and feel respected and celebrated. And so what we're doing is a is is.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Serving that mission and that's how I've inspired people to join the team and to invest and. And to be part of what we're doing because. We're trying to create a world that works better for everybody and specifically works better for women and I think that's inspiring.

• 18:06Harry Stebbings?

  Truly inspiring and I'd love to now dive into a quickfire round where I say a short statement and you give me your immediate thoughts.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 18:14Harry Stebbings?

  So let's go for your, other than traction, this is one of my favorites, sorry about this one. Other than traction, what's your favorite book and why?

• 18:25Speaker 02

  Favorite business book or just book in general?

• 18:27Harry Stebbings?

  Let's go for, let's go for business book first.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Uh, I think Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank is that, that and. And Lean Startup by Eric Ries, they're kind of the same book, one is like condensed and one is much longer.

• 18:42Harry Stebbings?

  Were, were there any theories of the lean startup that didn't work out for you? I mean, obviously you've had huge success with some of them. Uh, were there any that didn't work out as planned?

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the V, the, in MVP viable, like that's the hard one because how do you know what's viable? Maybe something, maybe what you think is your MVP is not, not quite viable, like it needs just a little bit more polish. In order to be viable and then it can be a success. So that's what's difficult is you launch something and then, and then you're always thinking, wait. Maybe if it had been a little bit more polished, we would have gotten a different result and taken things in a different direction. So that's the hard part about Lean Startup for me.

• 19:21Harry Stebbings?

  And then what's the hardest aspect of being a founder for you?

• 19:25Speaker 02

  I think the hardest thing is. That it's a marathon and a lot of people think it's a sprint. And I thought it was a sprint at the beginning and it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. So you gotta pace yourself.

• 19:37Harry Stebbings?

  And then when I say successful founder, who's the first person that comes to mind?

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Uh, Steve Jobs.

• 19:44Harry Stebbings?

  Your favorite newsletter or blog?

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Uh, I really like Brad Feld's blog, Feld Thoughts.

• 19:51Harry Stebbings?

  And Brad will be on the show next week, next Wednesday.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Oh, nice. Yeah, tell him I say hi. He, so he's like, uh, he's a VC, but he, half the time he writes about very personal things and, and the, the inner game of entrepreneurship, which I find really valuable.

• 20:07Harry Stebbings?

  And, and then finally, you're, the next five years for you and Kindara.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  So in five years, I want Kindara to be the go-to women's health app for women all over the world. Uh, for women from when they get their period, all the way through to menopause, I want us to be able to offer value and help them understand their cycles better. And to have a suite of connected devices that make that easier.

• 20:34Harry Stebbings?

  Well, Will, the fertility king, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been great having you.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Thanks, Harry.

• 20:41Harry Stebbings?

  And don't forget to check out the blog at www dot the twenty minute VC dot com, where you can find all the links and resources mentioned in today's incredible episode with Will. And if you haven't had a chance to check out Hiring Screen, head on to www dot hiring screen dot com and sign up to their package for the twenty minute VC listeners. Remember, only for the first a hundred. And if you have any questions, feel free to email me, harry at the twenty minute VC dot com. Thank you so much for listening and we look forward to seeing you in the next episode.