Walk Away or Go to War? Female Founder in Male Fertility & the F*ed-Up Questions still Being Popped

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Welcome to Low to Grow, the podcast transforming life's toughest moments into personal motivation.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: I'm Annie, a Forbes under 30 technology founder whose entrepreneurship journey ran alongside a mental health awakening.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: In each episode, I sit down with inspiring individuals who have each faced incredible challenges, tackled it head on and emerged stronger on the other side.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Together, we'll explore their stories, unpack the lessons that they have learned, and also understand how they managed to turn challenges into opportunities for personal growth.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Whether you're navigating uncertainty in your personal life or simply looking for motivation to keep going, this is your space for the honest conversations that you will want to hear.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: You might just prompt them to take the first step towards better mental health.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Now, let's dive in.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Welcome to today's episode of Low to Grow with Lily Elsner, the founder and CEO of Jack Fertility, the world's first high-store based fertility testing for men.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Offering lab-based semen analysis results without needing to sub-fit in the clinic.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Jack Fertility has received plus coverage by QuintuQ, Les Howe, The Sunday Times and many more.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: But what makes Lily's story compelling isn't just her own entrepreneurial success.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Lily had a rich corporate career taking her across the US before finally arriving for her MBA in Oxford.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: While in this episode, we will explore the experiences that have shaped the drive that Lily has today in creating a company that tackles a very important area of health, fertility for men.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Now, Lily, thank you so much for being on this podcast.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: I want to start by asking you, who do you think will benefit most from listening to our conversation today?

 

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Lily Elsner: Great.

 

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Lily Elsner: Thanks so much for having me, Annie, and really appreciate being here.

 

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Lily Elsner: In terms of who I think will benefit most, early stage folks who are just starting out in their career, to people considering a pivot, because my big message is it's never too late to follow your passion.

 

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Lily Elsner: And similarly, you know best what you are capable of.

 

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Lily Elsner: And so I say, just do it.

 

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Lily Elsner: So whether you're earlier, later, hopefully I can share a lot from what I've learned on my founder journey.

 

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Lily Elsner: And similarly, choosing not to stay in corporate.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: So Lily, how did your own career start?

 

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Lily Elsner: Taking you way back to the very beginning, I grew up thinking for sure I was going to be a physician.

 

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Lily Elsner: From as early as I knew what a physician was, I wanted to heal people and make them feel better and get to sort of nerd out on science while applying it to human health to make the world a better place.

 

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Lily Elsner: And what I discovered from first going to a science and math high school to then studying biology and then ultimately discovering bioethics and philosophy at Wellesley College, an all-women's college in Boston, through experiences in not only research labs, but also clinics and then working for the US Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC, I realized being a physician was a terrible fit for me.

 

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Lily Elsner: I'm too much of a softie.

 

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Lily Elsner: I had to work so much on professional distance.

 

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Lily Elsner: I was haunted by every patient I ever saw and started uncovering the major issues in US health care and just through the way the system is set up, and seeing the bigger issues that most people were sick, not because they were exposed to various types of diseases, but rather they were suffering from systemic deprivation and poverty.

 

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Lily Elsner: So I realized that was not the right role for me.

 

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Lily Elsner: And I think it's really hard, especially when you're young and driven and gunning for something.

 

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Lily Elsner: I mean, I never considered anything outside of being a physician or at least something within the allied health professions.

 

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Lily Elsner: And it was really shocking to suddenly, despite being top of my class and graduated with honors and doing all of these things, to realize that actually this role that I thought was perfect and all I could ever see myself doing was actually really badly suited to me and who I am and what my strengths are.

 

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Lily Elsner: And so ultimately, through the mix of sort of asking myself why I wanted to do this so much, what was it I really wanted to achieve, I really was trying to fix some of these deep seated problems as I imagine many of us do.

 

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Lily Elsner: But more importantly, I wanted to make that change in a large scale.

 

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Lily Elsner: And I realized for me and for, again, my skill set, there were so many things I didn't even know about.

 

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Lily Elsner: And that was particularly learning from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

 

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Lily Elsner: So I started seeing how, basically, how the sausage gets made in terms of health care.

 

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Lily Elsner: And there are so many areas I didn't know about.

 

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Lily Elsner: And furthermore, I started learning what my strengths were and what was valued and what areas, something that was holding me back, for example, in science was actually a massive strength.

 

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Lily Elsner: And whether it was corporate communications or PR, all of these things are really valued when they're in the context of whatever the discipline is.

 

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Lily Elsner: And I really looked back and was like actually growing up in a rural area, I really only knew teachers, pharmacists, people.

 

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Lily Elsner: I just interacted with my everyday life and I realized I'd never even met an attorney.

 

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Lily Elsner: And especially being a philosophy major as well as biology major, I decided to follow that well-trodden path to a big law firm actually after I graduated, because I really wanted to find out what these lawyers that were making all the laws that were dictating healthcare in the US, what they were doing.

 

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Lily Elsner: So I discovered this amazing world that was so much nicer than STEM and the sense of life sciences, because I was like, these laws are written down.

 

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Lily Elsner: I'm not having to observe so much of the scientific method and come to conclusions.

 

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Lily Elsner: Rather, it was quite easy to say this is either within scope or out of scope of legislation, or that's been litigated and that has it.

 

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Lily Elsner: So I absolutely loved working at a big law firm in Mergers and Acquisitions in New York.

 

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Lily Elsner: I discovered that so many of the things that I was having to sort of detract from my personality to be a better scientist were actually huge boons that I could just sort of be myself at work and be great at what I did.

 

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Lily Elsner: I actually got really interested in Mergers and Acquisitions board governance.

 

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Lily Elsner: And so I ended up going to Capital One Bank and working for their board of directors, where I actually realized all of the things I was good at and all the things I really enjoyed from strategy to risk management, to getting into the weeds on numbers, was actually what board directors do and leaders of companies do.

 

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Lily Elsner: And that process of really empowering myself and learning what it takes to be in one of those high and sort of valued positions, but realizing that there's so much more than just the title that comes into that and realizing where my skills were and what I love to do.

 

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Lily Elsner: And again, that sort of systemic level of change could happen.

 

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Lily Elsner: And so for me, there's that process of not forcing myself to do something just because society or other expectations that you have to have a terminal master's degree, or you have to have this thing to be perceived as great.

 

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Lily Elsner: And for me, it was so much about the satisfaction of the job, but also realizing that at the end of the day, I'm the only one who matters in terms of perception, because I'm the one who has to live with my choices.

 

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Lily Elsner: And so ultimately, that's what ended up driving me to get my MBA.

 

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Lily Elsner: And ultimately, to come to the UK is because I started getting really interested in the relationship with regulators and banks.

 

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Lily Elsner: And the FCA in the UK has a really interesting regulatory relationship with Fintech.

 

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Lily Elsner: And because I was primarily with the board working with our regulators, I realized actually, this is so fascinating, some system has figured it out.

 

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Lily Elsner: And so I came here to the UK initially thinking that I would work in Fintech and actually rediscovered my scientific roots at Oxford.

 

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Lily Elsner: Realized I could speak corporate and translate it to the scientists and vice versa.

 

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Lily Elsner: And that's a whole job set in itself.

 

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Lily Elsner: So worked as head of strategy for an AI drug discovery company for about a year and a half.

 

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Lily Elsner: And then during that time, my co-founder and I came up with the idea for Jack Fertility.

 

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Lily Elsner: And we decided, you know what?

 

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Lily Elsner: We've learned from the best.

 

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Lily Elsner: We've seen how all these leaders and decision-makers make their choices.

 

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Lily Elsner: And let's get in the driver's seat ourselves.

 

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Lily Elsner: Let's see.

 

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Lily Elsner: We've talked a big game.

 

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Lily Elsner: Are we really ready for that challenge?

 

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Lily Elsner: And it's been an amazing experience since.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: That is quite the career journey.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: And it sounds like you really took the process and the time to try different things and to really learn from each situation that you were in, where your strengths are and where you can better apply them.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: And that's what you then seeked out for your next experience.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Listening to you talk about it, it sounds very straightforward.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: But I'm sure that when you were going through it, you know, maybe sometimes the next step wasn't that clear.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Were there any points where you were uncertain about what you would next do?

 

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Lily Elsner: Definitely.

 

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Lily Elsner: Yeah, it sounds so clear in retrospect.

 

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Lily Elsner: But I think, I mean, the biggest and probably most painful decision was to not go to med school.

 

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Lily Elsner: Especially that unlearning of saying, you know, I've committed to this.

 

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Lily Elsner: And even when you're so young, I was like for half my life, such all the times I can remember, I've been gunning towards this one goal and thinking, you know, especially with the narrative around resilience and grit and sticking things out and making sure that you overcome all these barriers.

 

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Lily Elsner: I think I learned the hard way what the difference is between overcoming like obstacles that are worth contending with and then actually what I was discovering, which was this is the wrong fit for me.

 

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Lily Elsner: And there are so many ways to be involved in whatever area you're passionate about.

 

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Lily Elsner: But it doesn't have to be I don't need to be a doctor to work in health care, I don't need to be necessarily clinician to make a huge difference to human health and that there's so many things that just because I said I wanted to do, it was really not really that role that I wanted to do necessarily, but it was the impact that that role has.

 

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Lily Elsner: And so yeah, especially saying, I'm not going to get a med school, I'm going to go into law, I think everyone was really shocked.

 

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Lily Elsner: But at the end of the day, by doing that, I realized, you know, my family's still going to love me, my friends are still going to support me.

 

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Lily Elsner: And then that made it a little easier when I decided after, I mean, I took the LSAT, I applied to Lidz Law Schools, I got everyone to write recommendation letters, and you have to put yourself out there and say, I'm going to law school and tell everyone you're going to law school, and then turn around and say, yeah, actually, I thought about it.

 

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Lily Elsner: And after a school asked me for several hundred thousand dollars, I don't care that much and I don't really want to go.

 

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Lily Elsner: And again, what you learn is that usually your harshest critic is yourself.

 

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Lily Elsner: Because really, most of your closest family and supporters, they just want you to be happy or they want you to achieve whatever they're bringing to that relationship.

 

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Lily Elsner: And thankfully, I'm lucky enough to have a really supportive family and to not have a lot of pressures that many people have of whether it's income or support or other types of caregiving.

 

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Lily Elsner: But really, it was trying to find that fit because I knew, again, to be a lawyer, I was going to have to change so much about myself.

 

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Lily Elsner: And I already seen inside a big law firm, I'd seen inside of going in-house and I knew that that was not the career I wanted to have.

 

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Lily Elsner: I'm looking 10, 15, 20 years down the line.

 

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Lily Elsner: And so I think that was one of the most difficult decisions again.

 

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Lily Elsner: I was like, now I've done it again.

 

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Lily Elsner: And then saying, I'm going to go to business school was also, it made a lot more sense then because I was saying, look, I want to pivot and the MBA is so flexible that it gives you a lot of different routes into whatever you want to do.

 

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Lily Elsner: However, it really made me sort of strengthen, strengthen my core, not necessarily physically, but emotionally and in terms of my galvanizing, what I was looking for out of my career and out of my purpose.

 

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Lily Elsner: The other great thing about an MBA is that so much is done on personal development and professional development, that I didn't need to have it all figured out when I got there.

 

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Lily Elsner: It really crystallized as I went through the process.

 

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Lily Elsner: So yeah, it was really, really hard.

 

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Lily Elsner: But I think making, I knew it was the right decision for me, because again, I was the one who was going to have to sit there, whether it was in a law firm or in a courtroom and having to do this job.

 

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Lily Elsner: I knew that was just not the reality I wanted to live.

 

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Lily Elsner: And I was really the only one that had the consequences of that.

 

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Lily Elsner: So yeah, and it got easier every time, I'll say that too.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Throughout that process, Lily, did you have any mentors who guided you through that?

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Or was it something that you were able to approach by yourself?

 

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Lily Elsner: Well, it's a great question, because I was always looking for mentors.

 

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Lily Elsner: And I think many people have a very clear like, oh, this person has guided me consistently and consistently.

 

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Lily Elsner: And I've now since, and actually, especially through business school, have met some folks that I would name as mentors.

 

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Lily Elsner: But actually, I had a really lucky experience in some ways in that I had the right people at the right time who, in some ways, I have kept up with, and in other ways, realized that those were the right people at that time, and we sort of grown apart.

 

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Lily Elsner: But for me, the mentors that really helped were people who backed me and sort of lifted me up in the sense of identifying my talent or saying, you're really great at this, especially thinking about in high school and college.

 

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Lily Elsner: But I will say that a lot of it was learning how to listen to my inner voice and know both through the analysis of the feedback I was getting, because sometimes I wasn't great at stuff.

 

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Lily Elsner: I was like, I should be really good at this.

 

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Lily Elsner: I should be really good at everything else about my, say, my CV tracks that I should really love doing X, Y or Z, because I'm getting results in this area and I keep getting awards or I keep getting high grades.

 

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Lily Elsner: But then realizing, I frankly didn't really care.

 

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Lily Elsner: I'm a competitive person, so I liked winning to an extent.

 

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Lily Elsner: But beyond that, I was like, there has to be more to life.

 

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Lily Elsner: In terms of mentors, people I was able to vocalize that to even if for an hour or two.

 

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Lily Elsner: There were a number of people who've been really helpful.

 

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Lily Elsner: In that sense, even if I didn't know them that well, who've particularly thinking about, for example, at a law firm, chatting to some of the senior partners and saying, oh, you know, what do you have done anything differently?

 

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Lily Elsner: Or what would you do in my shoes?

 

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Lily Elsner: The way, whether they responded either positively saying, yeah, you've got what it takes and you should do it.

 

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Lily Elsner: But also then hearing sort of what they weren't saying of like, you're not going to enjoy this.

 

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Lily Elsner: Like, yeah, you can do it and you'd be great at it.

 

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Lily Elsner: But would you like to live that life?

 

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Lily Elsner: So, yeah, in each of my roles, I had the positive mentors who backed me.

 

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Lily Elsner: For example, I had an amazing boss at Sherman and Sterling, Maria Zaino, who taught me frankly everything I know that's made me great at my jobs.

 

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Lily Elsner: But that was because one, she's spectacular, but also there's a lot she told me there.

 

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Lily Elsner: She said to me, she was like, you are not going to like being a lawyer.

 

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Lily Elsner: You can absolutely do it, but you're going to hate it.

 

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Lily Elsner: And she was right.

 

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Lily Elsner: She was totally right.

 

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Lily Elsner: So yeah, I think people put a lot of pressure on having a mentor, and it's great to cultivate a mentorship relationship.

 

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Lily Elsner: But I also think that's a narrative that often puts a lot of pressure on people.

 

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Lily Elsner: So I would also say to folks listening, don't worry about having a formal, formal mentor unless that's something you really want to achieve, and rather take what you get in terms and leverage that as you develop your further relationships throughout your career.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: So from the mentor that you had, what was like the most resounding piece of advice that she gave you?

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: Apart from of course telling you that you won't enjoy being a lawyer and practicing in the field.

 

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Lily Elsner: That was pretty, I mean, it was great because she had, she had seen me work for about a year at that point.

 

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Lily Elsner: And she just said, she was like, you are going to run a company someday.

 

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Lily Elsner: And I was like, wow, really?

 

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Lily Elsner: I was like, shock, because in never in a million years did I think I would become a founder either because I am, I'm very interested in how organizations are run and policies and governance, and how from that, almost again, being a scientist, right?

 

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Lily Elsner: I'm so fascinated by the order of things and how one thing affects another, and sort of testing things out.

 

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Lily Elsner: But that piece of advice, one, was to even consider something outside of the narrative I was telling myself in my head, but the other really was to think about what I wanted my life to look like, and that sort of bigger picture of like, how do you want your days to be?

 

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Lily Elsner: What do you want your hours to look like?

 

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Lily Elsner: And she actually had a lot of really great advice about everything for, especially as a woman, like thinking about building a family, when you want to have that, what kind of flexibility and things that you wouldn't otherwise think about, about child care, planning your career around that.

 

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Lily Elsner: But also just genuinely like, do you want to work in downtown Manhattan?

 

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Lily Elsner: Like, do you want to have a big sort of skyscraper kind of job, or do you want to have a home office, or all of these things?

 

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Lily Elsner: And I think she did a really good job, and many other mentors that I've had, and actually a great book that I'm sure many people recommend is like Designing Your Life, where you think about really the minutiae of what you want your future career to look like, and being really honest with yourself.

 

00:17:02.820 --> 00:17:12.860

Lily Elsner: I think it's really easy, especially in the age of social media, to get swept up in sort of the images around what success looks like, but also getting to the core of how do you want to feel at the end of the day.

 

00:17:12.860 --> 00:17:27.660

Lily Elsner: And one of my favorite things that I always say in mentorship relationships, when I mentor people and what I learned, again, the hard way, but also made a lot of whether it was not going to med school, not going to law school, some of these things, it was like, I always say, choose what you want to complain about.

 

00:17:27.660 --> 00:17:32.300

Lily Elsner: Because if you, I thought at one point, I wanted to go into the charity sector in health care.

 

00:17:32.300 --> 00:17:38.260

Lily Elsner: And I realized like there's so much strife around fundraising and navigating so many of the different aspects.

 

00:17:38.260 --> 00:17:47.460

Lily Elsner: And I was like, these are not complaints that I want to have because the stakes feel so high and just emotionally, that's really hard for me.

 

00:17:47.460 --> 00:17:54.520

Lily Elsner: And part of why I went, I mean, again, just transparently why I went into this big law firm, I was like, it's rare that budget is a concern.

 

00:17:54.520 --> 00:17:57.080

Lily Elsner: And I wanted to try that out.

 

00:17:57.080 --> 00:18:07.320

Lily Elsner: As you can relate, being in labs and in all STEM subjects, there's so much you're always thinking about in these various risk factors that you're trying to mitigate.

 

00:18:07.320 --> 00:18:14.740

Lily Elsner: And for me, I wanted to try out the fancy, I mean, literally suits was shot outside my building in New York.

 

00:18:14.740 --> 00:18:18.140

Lily Elsner: And so that's a very vivid depiction of what my life looks like.

 

00:18:18.140 --> 00:18:21.480

Lily Elsner: And then at the bank, I wanted to sort of see what that would look like.

 

00:18:21.480 --> 00:18:28.900

Lily Elsner: And similarly, coming to the UK and giving myself permission to try, I think was another major point.

 

00:18:28.900 --> 00:18:32.420

Lily Elsner: Because I mean, in all of these things, yeah, I didn't go to med school straight out of college.

 

00:18:32.420 --> 00:18:36.060

Lily Elsner: Like you can go to med school anytime or whatever health profession.

 

00:18:36.060 --> 00:18:38.840

Lily Elsner: Similarly, you can go back to law school anytime.

 

00:18:38.840 --> 00:18:57.280

Lily Elsner: What I wanted to do is really take advantage of the opportunities that came my way, especially when I had an opportunity to like really test myself before I committed, which is a long way of saying that is probably the biggest piece of advice outside of just reading me and giving me that feedback that my mentor gave me.

 

00:18:57.280 --> 00:19:04.780

Annie Wenmiao Yu: How do you feel about your earlier different corporate experiences influenced how you lead now at Jack Fertility?

 

00:19:04.780 --> 00:19:19.180

Lily Elsner: Yeah, how I lead, I think the most incredible gift I got from those jobs was getting to see how you do this on a global scale and planning for being at that level.

 

00:19:19.180 --> 00:19:20.720

Lily Elsner: I think you can know too much.

 

00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:25.920

Lily Elsner: I think that was a struggle I had to overcome when I was starting the business.

 

00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:39.980

Lily Elsner: Because you're used to having to manage so many different stakeholders and my roles, even the capital one, I was working with the entirety of a federally regulated bank with many different diversified financial services.

 

00:19:39.980 --> 00:19:51.900

Lily Elsner: I'm dealing with 60 plus people for one board meeting, plus all the board directors and their staffs and this and that versus when I'm planning for a board meeting for Jack, it's me and Nick.

 

00:19:51.900 --> 00:19:54.460

Lily Elsner: You go from such extremes.

 

00:19:54.940 --> 00:20:03.180

Lily Elsner: But at the same time, we have massive aspirations for the company and knowing what I need to do now and do it in a risk-managed way.

 

00:20:04.580 --> 00:20:19.540

Lily Elsner: Also to be ready when the big opportunities come, that was an amazing experience to do that without having to worry about the extreme risks that come along with a startup.

 

00:20:19.540 --> 00:20:36.700

Lily Elsner: For example, knowing how to set up legal agreements from day one to make sure that we don't get sued or our IP isn't protected or some of these really core things, I got to learn and learn from the best at in the law firm or similarly in the bank.

 

00:20:36.700 --> 00:20:51.200

Lily Elsner: Tricks about leadership in terms of the vision that I want to project, I got to learn from again, so many different really masters of the craft through the consultants we had or the advisors that the organization had.

 

00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:52.220

Lily Elsner: I got paid to do it.

 

00:20:52.220 --> 00:21:04.680

Lily Elsner: That's what was the other amazing thing about all of this is like getting to paid to learn at that caliber and then have that double down upon when I paid to learn at Oxford.

 

00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:11.560

Lily Elsner: Then had that iterative approach as I worked in the startup before this, and now getting to test it.

 

00:21:12.760 --> 00:21:17.160

Lily Elsner: Those have been the major influences, I'd say, on my leadership so far.

 

00:21:18.360 --> 00:21:23.440

Annie Wenmiao Yu: How are you finding running your own company, and especially as a female founder?

 

00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:27.780

Lily Elsner: The gender aspect is definitely an interesting one, but I do love it.

 

00:21:28.080 --> 00:21:38.380

Lily Elsner: I think part of why Nick and I started this company, initially was from Nick's lived experience of trying to get tested during COVID.

 

00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:42.340

Lily Elsner: He came to me as a science friend and said, why doesn't this test exist?

 

00:21:42.340 --> 00:21:50.600

Lily Elsner: Why can't I mail in my sperm when we're doing PCR tests through the post, everyone's sending every type of fluid through the post?

 

00:21:50.600 --> 00:22:00.580

Lily Elsner: I said, look, the livestock industry entirely runs on artificial insemination often also sent through the post, so we need to figure this out.

 

00:22:00.580 --> 00:22:19.120

Lily Elsner: For me, I think mixing the urgent need of the mission as we discovered, how prevalent infertility is, that sperm counts down almost 60 percent over the last 50 years, and then same thing, there's about one in six couples experience infertility.

 

00:22:19.120 --> 00:22:25.460

Lily Elsner: All of that data was there and we realized how much people are having to go through needlessly because male fertility is so treatable.

 

00:22:25.460 --> 00:22:32.920

Lily Elsner: The mission piece was really important, but to your question, we really were ready to break out of that corporate mindset.

 

00:22:32.980 --> 00:22:39.860

Lily Elsner: I think why I was unhappy most of my job, because of course I'm painting a really rosy picture of all of those roles.

 

00:22:39.860 --> 00:22:45.540

Lily Elsner: They were brutal in terms of working really intensely, really late into the night.

 

00:22:46.060 --> 00:22:53.340

Lily Elsner: If I left the office while I was at the law firm for 10 PM, that was an early night and was there usually between 7.30 and 8.

 

00:22:53.340 --> 00:23:05.040

Lily Elsner: Worked most weekends and loved it in a lot of ways, but also realized how much of my life and my autonomy I was giving up to those systems and realizing that I had very little control.

 

00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:14.060

Lily Elsner: It was all great when it was going well, but especially when things got more difficult, I really hated not being in control.

 

00:23:14.060 --> 00:23:29.820

Lily Elsner: This was an amazing opportunity with Jack to not only test and passionately pursue fixing the massive societal problem, again, with an amazing business behind it in terms of how we were addressing it and why we chose to make it a business and a health tech company.

 

00:23:29.820 --> 00:23:39.060

Lily Elsner: But really at the end of the day, we were like, we want to find out if we've been criticizing every manager or boss or whoever we've ever had.

 

00:23:39.060 --> 00:23:42.180

Lily Elsner: Is it really them or are we the problem?

 

00:23:44.140 --> 00:24:04.540

Lily Elsner: That's what's been extraordinary is getting, like I said, and described it as being in the driver's seat, is pushing ourselves and doing things that scare us, or doing things that we don't know anything about, and trying to find the humility to ask and find out from others how to do things, and admit when we don't know, which I've always found a little bit tough.

 

00:24:06.780 --> 00:24:26.280

Annie Wenmiao Yu: Lily, just looking back on all of your experiences, including the ones that you have had at Jack Fertility, when do you think that you were maybe, I guess, at your lowest point, or the most uncertain about where your life or your career is going?

 

00:24:26.280 --> 00:24:28.780

Annie Wenmiao Yu: And how did you get out of that stage?

 

00:24:28.780 --> 00:24:29.560

Lily Elsner: Sure, yeah.

 

00:24:29.560 --> 00:24:46.660

Lily Elsner: I mean, being, again, transparent, trying to build, we started building Jack Fertility in 2022, which coincided with sort of the start of all the inflation, like the market beginnings of whether we turn into recession or not, like the slowdown in capital funding for startups.

 

00:24:48.180 --> 00:25:05.180

Lily Elsner: And so we went from being these, like, excited MBAs launching this company to realizing that the early stage capital markets are almost, there's almost no capital for early stage companies, especially in hardware and especially in consumer health.

 

00:25:05.180 --> 00:25:20.660

Lily Elsner: And so despite doing our absolute best and making these beautiful materials and pitching hundreds of investors and getting nothing but really positive feedback over and over, everyone's like, you're doing all the right things.

 

00:25:20.660 --> 00:25:24.740

Lily Elsner: There's just, you're pitching to brick wall basically, because there's no money there.

 

00:25:24.740 --> 00:25:32.800

Lily Elsner: That was really tough, especially because we've, of course, being seasoned professionals at this and leveraging mixed background and consumer insights.

 

00:25:32.800 --> 00:25:51.540

Lily Elsner: I mean, we did hundreds of interviews with not only individuals themselves, men thinking about their fertility, women planning for their families, fertility experts, GPs, all of these different folks, and thousands of digital marketing surveys validated this to the extent it's really possible.

 

00:25:51.540 --> 00:25:55.720

Lily Elsner: And then saying to investors, like, here's every possible green flag.

 

00:25:55.720 --> 00:26:00.800

Lily Elsner: Please just fund this in all sorts of colorful ways, you know, pitching, pitching, pitching.

 

00:26:00.800 --> 00:26:07.820

Lily Elsner: And having it be, you know, just saying either whether the fund doesn't have any money or they don't want to invest that early.

 

00:26:07.820 --> 00:26:19.880

Lily Elsner: And hearing no over and over and over again, and knowing that we've not only done our best, but we're exceeding all expectations and getting every 360 feedback on what we've done.

 

00:26:19.880 --> 00:26:25.460

Lily Elsner: And saying like, you know, rip this apart, say whatever you need to say, like don't, no holds barred.

 

00:26:25.460 --> 00:26:33.600

Lily Elsner: And just realizing that like your best, it's not that your best isn't good enough, but you're just not in the right place at the right time.

 

00:26:33.600 --> 00:26:35.580

Lily Elsner: And I would say that was probably our lowest point.

 

00:26:35.580 --> 00:26:43.480

Lily Elsner: And particularly actually to your question about being a female founder, is realizing how real and how deep that bias is.

 

00:26:43.480 --> 00:26:47.620

Lily Elsner: Especially pitching as the CEO and often by myself.

 

00:26:47.620 --> 00:26:57.780

Lily Elsner: I had some really extraordinary moments where I was like, oh my God, you are not seeing me for my accomplishments, my CD, my skills, my background.

 

00:26:57.780 --> 00:27:10.380

Lily Elsner: Like you're seeing a woman and bringing all these different biases, particularly to investment conversations where, for example, last summer we were pitching a lot and I just had so many in quick succession.

 

00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:21.580

Lily Elsner: People say to me, just these shocking things and really realizing that they were not only not taking me seriously, but frankly thought I had no idea what I was talking about.

 

00:27:21.580 --> 00:27:27.220

Lily Elsner: You get into this deep cycle of saying, is it me?

 

00:27:27.460 --> 00:27:36.680

Lily Elsner: You questioning everything, maybe I am really bad at this or maybe all of my other normal metrics of success are telling me such mixed messages.

 

00:27:36.840 --> 00:27:40.520

Lily Elsner: I think that was really my lowest because I was like, I have done everything right.

 

00:27:40.520 --> 00:27:48.440

Lily Elsner: I've done the, followed the podcast, I've followed the, I have a degree from Oxford that says, I know what I'm talking about yet.

 

00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:50.680

Lily Elsner: That doesn't seem to, nothing matters.

 

00:27:51.960 --> 00:27:57.100

Annie Wenmiao Yu: What was the worst thing that a potential investor has said to you?

 

00:27:57.100 --> 00:27:58.180

Annie Wenmiao Yu: That's a great question.

 

00:27:58.220 --> 00:28:12.060

Lily Elsner: I mean, there's sort of a, I would say, the things that hurt the most were, one, I had someone really question me whether I knew what an acronym was for customer acquisition cost.

 

00:28:12.200 --> 00:28:16.800

Lily Elsner: I initially, I thought it was like a sort of oh, ha ha ha, polite kind of thing.

 

00:28:16.800 --> 00:28:19.380

Lily Elsner: Then he was like, no, do you know what the acronym is?

 

00:28:19.380 --> 00:28:27.240

Lily Elsner: I thought he was making some sort of rhetorical point, but he genuinely was asking me, I was like, not only do I have an MBA, I've been doing this for two years.

 

00:28:27.980 --> 00:28:30.560

Lily Elsner: Frankly, anyone in consumer would know it could consumerize.

 

00:28:30.560 --> 00:28:33.380

Lily Elsner: Also, this is our third conversation.

 

00:28:33.380 --> 00:28:37.240

Lily Elsner: How dare you ask me, do you ask, who else do you ask that question?

 

00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:38.800

Lily Elsner: Do you know what it means?

 

00:28:38.800 --> 00:28:45.600

Lily Elsner: Just genuinely in that and I'll share also that was in the context of so many other things where he kept questioning.

 

00:28:45.600 --> 00:28:48.600

Lily Elsner: Again, I was like, oh, is this a big picture question?

 

00:28:48.600 --> 00:28:51.320

Lily Elsner: He was like, no, can you define this?

 

00:28:51.320 --> 00:28:52.240

Lily Elsner: Can you define that?

 

00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:53.740

Lily Elsner: Do you know what that means?

 

00:28:53.740 --> 00:28:55.500

Lily Elsner: I was like, would you ask Nick that?

 

00:28:57.040 --> 00:29:21.300

Lily Elsner: Not to mention, I think the other very common thing, and one of the other worst things that's happened was the final, it was like a final investor committee where I think people always think Nick is the scientist because he's a man with glasses on, and Nick has not taken science since high school, which is totally fair, that's not his specialism.

 

00:29:21.300 --> 00:29:27.340

Lily Elsner: Frankly, nor should he need to given what he's working on, what his professional background is.

 

00:29:27.340 --> 00:29:34.440

Lily Elsner: But it's so shocking where we'll be in a conversation, they'll look at Nick and be like, oh, I get why you're here.

 

00:29:34.440 --> 00:29:37.040

Lily Elsner: And then they look at me and say, this happened at IC.

 

00:29:37.040 --> 00:29:39.200

Lily Elsner: Someone said, so Lily, why are you here?

 

00:29:39.220 --> 00:29:42.200

Annie Wenmiao Yu: I was like, what's your answer to that?

 

00:29:42.200 --> 00:29:59.900

Lily Elsner: I mean, my answer was not only is my background perfectly suited to this, but if you're asking about a consumer product, like our primary customer is women, like if you're going to say, oh, this needs to be built by your ideal customer profile, which I can define an ICP as.

 

00:29:59.940 --> 00:30:00.680

Lily Elsner: That's a hard thing.

 

00:30:01.080 --> 00:30:07.120

Lily Elsner: It's hard not to get bitter about this and defensive, because it is really shocking.

 

00:30:07.360 --> 00:30:16.200

Lily Elsner: But my answer was, I'm building this product for women like me and for families like ours and for really understanding our market.

 

00:30:16.200 --> 00:30:19.140

Lily Elsner: But also, my CV is perfect for this.

 

00:30:19.140 --> 00:30:26.220

Lily Elsner: If you saw my CV, of course she's been, you probably wouldn't know it's a she, but yeah, of course I run this company.

 

00:30:26.220 --> 00:30:28.400

Lily Elsner: Why are you here?

 

00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:39.000

Annie Wenmiao Yu: Picking up on a point that you mentioned just now, like you said, you're building a consumer product and the target customer would be women, but it's Jack Fertility and I thought it was about semen testing.

 

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:40.880

Annie Wenmiao Yu: Can you explain a bit more about that?

 

00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:41.760

Lily Elsner: Yeah, perfect.

 

00:30:41.760 --> 00:30:43.660

Lily Elsner: I appreciate you asking because it's very true.

 

00:30:43.660 --> 00:30:47.360

Lily Elsner: I mean, it is a very inherently male test.

 

00:30:49.120 --> 00:30:55.880

Lily Elsner: So the reason that we are targeting it towards women is that women have a very much more direct relationship with their fertility.

 

00:30:55.880 --> 00:31:13.060

Lily Elsner: So everything from making the decision to have children, as well as thinking about getting fertility testing, there's so much that's been done in femtech and amazing brands like Fertility, for example, has been really great about developing the narrative around getting tested before you start trying for children.

 

00:31:13.320 --> 00:31:27.600

Lily Elsner: And as the average age of parents is now increasingly into the mid-30s, there's so much that you can do prior to trying for children that will improve outcomes, will improve the health of the pregnancy and the health of the resulting child.

 

00:31:27.600 --> 00:31:37.460

Lily Elsner: But, and what I get often, especially from angel investors, when I pitch Jack and they say, you know, it's going to be really hard to convince men to get tested.

 

00:31:37.460 --> 00:31:44.440

Lily Elsner: That's where I initially am like, actually, we've done a huge amount of research that says, especially millennial and Gen Z men are already thinking about this.

 

00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:46.620

Lily Elsner: They just don't have a way to get tested.

 

00:31:46.620 --> 00:31:54.840

Lily Elsner: But really, especially for our initial launch, there's so many women who have gotten tested and are trying to convince their partners to get tested.

 

00:31:54.840 --> 00:32:02.120

Lily Elsner: And that's really the major reason men don't get tested, is the lack of access to appointments and the barriers through the NHS.

 

00:32:02.120 --> 00:32:08.980

Lily Elsner: Like you have to actively try and conceive for a year in a heterosexual relationship before you can get on a list to get a semen analysis.

 

00:32:09.260 --> 00:32:12.680

Lily Elsner: And then the waiting lists are 3 to 4 months, usually depending on your trust.

 

00:32:12.680 --> 00:32:28.420

Lily Elsner: And so if you're trying for a baby, every month matters and people are so used to being able to kind of on demand, think of the Amazon Prime generation, like we're so used to being able to have whatever we want pretty much as soon as we want it versus with fertility.

 

00:32:28.420 --> 00:32:31.320

Lily Elsner: There's a lot you have to get right to be able to conceive.

 

00:32:31.320 --> 00:32:36.360

Lily Elsner: And then if there's something wrong, it takes so long, and especially as people are waiting to have children.

 

00:32:36.360 --> 00:32:42.580

Lily Elsner: And if you're proactive, there's so much you can do versus when you're reactive, it gets very expensive very quickly.

 

00:32:42.580 --> 00:33:06.000

Lily Elsner: And the quickest way to do that is to overcome all of these massive user issues of saying, you know, instead of pay loads of money to go to Harley Street regardless of where you live in the UK, go do something really awkward and embarrassing and emasculated on the clock in a little room or in most places, they don't even have sample rooms, they have a disabled bathroom.

 

00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:09.240

Lily Elsner: To get some results that you don't really know how to understand.

 

00:33:09.240 --> 00:33:19.900

Lily Elsner: Like there were just so many issues and that's why we chose to do the harder path of taking Jack direct to consumer because that demand is there and people are ready to get tested.

 

00:33:19.900 --> 00:33:28.740

Lily Elsner: But I think women are, we always call the female partner in a heterosexual relationship a CFO, the Chief Fertility Officer.

 

00:33:28.780 --> 00:33:36.120

Lily Elsner: And they usually are making the buying, they're making not only all the buying decisions for the household, but also for the fertility planning.

 

00:33:36.120 --> 00:33:40.780

Lily Elsner: So that's our first customer will actually be women for this.

 

00:33:40.780 --> 00:33:42.440

Annie Wenmiao Yu: That's a really interesting insight, actually.

 

00:33:42.440 --> 00:33:45.220

Annie Wenmiao Yu: I don't think I would have thought of that, but you know, it completely makes sense.

 

00:33:45.220 --> 00:33:50.220

Annie Wenmiao Yu: One other question, some young professionals, they might be working in corporate, they might be starting their own company.

 

00:33:50.220 --> 00:33:54.760

Annie Wenmiao Yu: And I feel like women will experience both spoken and also unspoken buyers.

 

00:33:54.760 --> 00:33:56.320

Annie Wenmiao Yu: What would your advice be to them?

 

00:33:56.320 --> 00:33:58.400

Annie Wenmiao Yu: How did you manage to stay motivated?

 

00:33:58.820 --> 00:34:04.820

Annie Wenmiao Yu: When you were facing all of those rejections when you were pitching, and I guess sometimes even day to day as well.

 

00:34:04.820 --> 00:34:06.120

Lily Elsner: Yeah, I really appreciate you asking.

 

00:34:06.300 --> 00:34:14.680

Lily Elsner: I'll be honest, I'm still figuring that out, because it's a monumental thing to contend with and to try and overcome.

 

00:34:14.680 --> 00:34:18.120

Lily Elsner: And I would say the one thing is it is real.

 

00:34:18.120 --> 00:34:34.220

Lily Elsner: Like I often, when I mentioned gaslighting, often that's what's even more pernicious about the unintentional bias, is that you not only spend the time and have this reaction to that bias, but then you have to sort of go through the spiral of, well, was that bias?

 

00:34:34.220 --> 00:34:35.380

Lily Elsner: Was that on purpose?

 

00:34:35.380 --> 00:34:36.920

Lily Elsner: Am I being too sensitive?

 

00:34:36.920 --> 00:34:39.580

Lily Elsner: And it can really take over your mindset.

 

00:34:39.580 --> 00:34:43.520

Lily Elsner: And especially I've contended with that a lot in corporate environments.

 

00:34:43.520 --> 00:34:56.000

Lily Elsner: And I think the most important thing you can do to do to navigate that is first develop something like, I like to call it like your own board of directors and really sort of map out the skills that each member of that board has.

 

00:34:56.000 --> 00:35:07.380

Lily Elsner: So, for example, I think of mine as usually like my mother, my few of my close MBA friends who are very, you know, they're in either in a similar industry, have been in my shoes.

 

00:35:07.380 --> 00:35:13.460

Lily Elsner: And I may not convene the board all at once, but I do have sort of have the same question to all these different members.

 

00:35:13.460 --> 00:35:18.800

Lily Elsner: I usually have some guy friends on there and say, hey, do you think this is normal?

 

00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:28.000

Lily Elsner: For somebody to say that that's been particularly helpful, especially within venture converse or like investor conversations, because I'm like, am I being too sensitive about this?

 

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:36.060

Lily Elsner: And they'll either say, yeah, I wouldn't worry about that or, oh my God, or anywhere in between.

 

00:35:36.060 --> 00:35:47.600

Lily Elsner: And then finally, people who are much more senior or people who really values aligned to me, who can help me sort of stay my path, but I'm particularly bad and I'll share, hopefully again, to be helpful to others.

 

00:35:48.080 --> 00:35:54.980

Lily Elsner: Like I will really like sort of marinate on things and I'll get really obsessed with thinking about stuff.

 

00:35:54.980 --> 00:36:10.500

Lily Elsner: And what I've learned through contending with the brutality of big law and big banking is that you have to just talk it out and then let it go or action things that you want from that because it's so easy to literally drive yourself crazy.

 

00:36:10.500 --> 00:36:18.660

Lily Elsner: And that's where I also say, I use the term crazy flippantly, but genuinely having, it took me getting to my lowest point.

 

00:36:18.660 --> 00:36:22.620

Lily Elsner: I've had a few low points similar to that before, so I knew what to do.

 

00:36:22.620 --> 00:36:24.920

Lily Elsner: But that was a new iteration.

 

00:36:24.920 --> 00:36:32.500

Lily Elsner: And so having a trusted therapist or other credentialed person to help coach me through that was really critical.

 

00:36:32.500 --> 00:36:37.380

Lily Elsner: And so I would say developing those relationships before you get to that space is really important.

 

00:36:37.380 --> 00:36:51.980

Lily Elsner: And it doesn't have to be anything too intense, but I would say that talking it out, airing those things and then finding other support groups, whether it be nothing too formal, unless that's what you need and what you find.

 

00:36:51.980 --> 00:37:07.460

Lily Elsner: So for example, having a core group of other female founders to speak with, whether it's just through WhatsApp or through more formal networks, I found those and trying them out and being willing to say, hey, this isn't for me and moving on quickly.

 

00:37:07.460 --> 00:37:18.560

Lily Elsner: I think that's the other major point, but those have been critical for getting through some of those big decisions, whether regardless of your industry, I think that would be helpful.

 

00:37:18.560 --> 00:37:24.800

Annie Wenmiao Yu: I think what you said about talking out or letting it go and having a very action-driven approach, I think that's super useful.

 

00:37:24.800 --> 00:37:42.340

Annie Wenmiao Yu: I myself am also someone who can marinate, as you say, on something, and I've just realized for me writing it down and then deciding to not take an action or to take an action and then just closing it, just really takes a lot of mental load off my own brain, and it just allows me to have more time to actually do things.

 

00:37:42.340 --> 00:37:44.240

Annie Wenmiao Yu: That's important and productive.

 

00:37:44.240 --> 00:37:46.820

Annie Wenmiao Yu: So yeah, definitely resonate with that.

 

00:37:46.820 --> 00:37:50.040

Annie Wenmiao Yu: Before we wrap up, Lily, I'm going to ask you our podcast staple.

 

00:37:50.040 --> 00:37:54.440

Annie Wenmiao Yu: What do you think will enable more people to have better mental health?

 

00:37:54.440 --> 00:37:55.980

Lily Elsner: I appreciate you asking.

 

00:37:55.980 --> 00:38:03.780

Lily Elsner: One of the most important things you can do is to be consistent with whatever practice you choose.

 

00:38:03.780 --> 00:38:08.540

Lily Elsner: So like you mentioned journaling, like I aspire to actually be able to write it out.

 

00:38:09.520 --> 00:38:14.540

Lily Elsner: I usually find I get to like a really intense point and then just like anger, right?

 

00:38:14.540 --> 00:38:19.700

Lily Elsner: And I think because as you just mentioned, it's so important to write these things down.

 

00:38:19.700 --> 00:38:26.120

Lily Elsner: And that's something I'm trying to get to because when I'm consistent with it, it makes such a difference.

 

00:38:26.120 --> 00:38:33.600

Lily Elsner: And similarly, I think I'm a rowing coach outside of work, or used to be before work took over my life again.

 

00:38:33.600 --> 00:38:46.660

Lily Elsner: But exercise is extraordinarily important to me and finding the right exercise that brings you joy, aside from not only the endorphins of the exercise itself, but something that you genuinely look forward to and see it as a release.

 

00:38:46.660 --> 00:38:55.220

Lily Elsner: Like the mix of those two and with those two pieces, saying the key is consistency and something that works for you.

 

00:38:55.220 --> 00:38:58.240

Lily Elsner: That's how I hope people have better mental health.

 

00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:05.520

Annie Wenmiao Yu: Doing something consistently, something that you enjoy, and also having your own board of directors, both for your personal and also your professional life.

 

00:39:05.860 --> 00:39:08.240

Annie Wenmiao Yu: I think those are my main takeaways from our conversation.

 

00:39:08.240 --> 00:39:11.200

Annie Wenmiao Yu: It's been really, really such a joy having you on.

 

00:39:11.200 --> 00:39:24.660

Annie Wenmiao Yu: Thank you so much for being so open about sharing your own experiences, and really giving quite useful tips that other young professionals can also use as they go through their own careers and maybe come to different points where they felt that they want to pivot.

 

00:39:24.660 --> 00:39:27.980

Annie Wenmiao Yu: That's a wrap for this episode of Low to Grow.

 

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Annie Wenmiao Yu: If you learned something today, help more people to find this conversation by hitting the subscribe button and leaving a review.

 

00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:37.880

Annie Wenmiao Yu: Keep growing and until next time.