When Joanna Strober speaks about the catalyst for her shift from venture capitalist to founder of Midi Health, you can't help but lean in. Her passion for addressing the neglected healthcare needs of midlife women courses through this episode, where we uncover the nuances of estrogen's impact on everything from anxiety to joint pain. The journey is personal, transformative, and a vivid illustration of how one woman's entrepreneurial spirit is rewriting the narrative on women's wellness.
Building Midi Health wasn't just about launching a virtual healthcare platform; it was about weaving a comprehensive care network that could be as accessible as it is sophisticated. Joanna takes us behind the scenes of her company's strategic approach, discussing the hurdles of healthcare regulations and how artificial intelligence is poised to streamline care. Moreover, she reflects on the delicate balance between serving both as a primary care provider and a specialist in hormone management, navigating the intricate tapestry of state licensing and ensuring informed patient choices.
Tune in for a candid conversation that traverses Joanna's remarkable transition from investor to entrepreneur, revealing the resilience and adaptability required in the face of Silicon Valley's shifting landscape. The episode rounds out with a poignant discussion on maintaining work-life balance, turning crises into opportunities, and the shared mission that drives Joanna's work. Her story, from juggling motherhood and her career to her steadfast dedication to women's health, inspires a reflection on the transformative power of passion-driven entrepreneurship.
Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/
Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/
Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/
When Joanna Strober speaks about the catalyst for her shift from venture capitalist to founder of Midi Health, you can't help but lean in. Her passion for addressing the neglected healthcare needs of midlife women courses through this episode, where we uncover the nuances of estrogen's impact on everything from anxiety to joint pain. The journey is personal, transformative, and a vivid illustration of how one woman's entrepreneurial spirit is rewriting the narrative on women's wellness.
Building Midi Health wasn't just about launching a virtual healthcare platform; it was about weaving a comprehensive care network that could be as accessible as it is sophisticated. Joanna takes us behind the scenes of her company's strategic approach, discussing the hurdles of healthcare regulations and how artificial intelligence is poised to streamline care. Moreover, she reflects on the delicate balance between serving both as a primary care provider and a specialist in hormone management, navigating the intricate tapestry of state licensing and ensuring informed patient choices.
Tune in for a candid conversation that traverses Joanna's remarkable transition from investor to entrepreneur, revealing the resilience and adaptability required in the face of Silicon Valley's shifting landscape. The episode rounds out with a poignant discussion on maintaining work-life balance, turning crises into opportunities, and the shared mission that drives Joanna's work. Her story, from juggling motherhood and her career to her steadfast dedication to women's health, inspires a reflection on the transformative power of passion-driven entrepreneurship.
Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/
Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/
Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/
Hello and welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast, where we're going to talk to founders, innovators, ceos, investors, designers and artists. I'm talking game changers about their big world shaping ideas and what sparked them. I'm your host, Rajiv Parikh. I am CEO and founder of Position Squared, an awesome growth marketing company based in Palo Alto. So, yes, I'm a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, but I'm also a business news junkie and a history nerd. I'm fascinated by how big world changing movements go from the spark of an idea to an innovation that reshapes our lives. In every episode, we're going to do a deep dive with our guests about what led them to their own eureka moments and how they're going about executing it and, perhaps most importantly, how they get other people to believe in them so that their idea could someday become a spark for the ages. And if you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can also send feedback to us directly at spark@ position2, the number two dot com. This is the spark of ages podcast.
Sandeep Parikh:Hey, so excited for a guest today, why don't you tell us about her?
Rajiv Parikh:Well, the guest today is Joanna Strober, a pioneer in women's health. She's someone that is revolutionizing healthcare for women in midlife by expanding care options and, perhaps more importantly, is changing the way we think and feel about it. I love that. It's one of those areas that a lot of people get very uncomfortable about. Over the past 20 years, there's not been much researched on on women in this age category, and one of our goals is to change that, because women have been so underserved by the entire healthcare industry, particularly when it comes to, for many, uncomfortable subject of menopause.
Sandeep Parikh:You know we are not women you and I, but we have women in our lives that we love very much and you know I hear from my wife all the time like man, I wish there was more research about maternity stuff. Or he recently I guess recently, four years ago had a baby and so felt like really underrepresented in terms of like how much actual science and data there was around women in healthcare. So stuff like this, I think, is super important. I'm so glad that we're having this conversation.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah, I mean, my wife is definitely. We've had four kids. They're older, so something that I definitely hear a lot more about, and I'm glad people are finally talking about this, and so Joanna is really bringing that to light. She's the founder of Midi Health, an early stage startup building a virtual healthcare platform specifically for those women in midlife and, by the way, there's a lot of studies that are done, but most of them are done on men, and so part of what she's doing is enabling that whole world to come to fore. Their care is designed by world-class experts, delivered by compassionate clinicians and actually covered by insurance. What Insurance is going to cover it? Does insurance do that? Every now and then, it actually covers something essential.
Rajiv Parikh:Previously, in 2014, Joanna founded and was CEO of Kurbo Health, a mobile and online platform to help kids, teens and their families eat healthier and lose weight, and then she sold it to Weight Watchers in 2018, so she got a success out of it. Prior to founding Kurbo Health, Joanna spent 20 years in the private equity and venture capital industry. She was a partner at Blue Chip firms, including Bessemer Venture Partners, a top firm, and Symphony Technology Group. Joanna focused on consumer internet investments, including notable transactions for Blue Nile Baby Center, e-toys, flycasts and Gloss. com. So she knew things from the venture side. So she knew what the pitch?
Sandeep Parikh:Right, she came from the venture side. See, this is interesting. I'm a Hollywood boy, so that's like being in the studio system forever and then eventually like selling your own show and becoming the creative. That's a cool perspective to get.
Rajiv Parikh:Joanna is also the co-author of Getting to 5050, a random house book on women and leadership. She has JD from UCLA and was Phi Beta Kappa as an undergrad at UPenn. And in 2023, Joanna was named to the Forbes 50 over 50 list for innovation. Joanna, welcome to the spark of ages. Joanna, welcome to the spark of ages.
Joanna Strober:I'm excited to be here.
Rajiv Parikh:So we're so excited to have you. Let's start off with the basics, first of all, who is Midi designed to help and what's the pain point you're trying to solve for your audience?
Joanna Strober:Big question. So Midi is designed to help women 35 to 65 with really all the things that they are going through for their bodies as you age. As women age, they have estrogen in their bodies, and estrogen is actually something that surges in puberty, which is one of the reasons why you might find 13-year-old girls acting a little crazy. But around 35, estrogen starts to fluctuate and it goes up and down as estrogen goes down over a period of time. There are an entire variety of symptoms that are created by that. We're talking about anxiety, depression, joint pain, sleep issues, hot flashes, which is the stereotypical one that you think about, but there are so many more issues that are basically happening in women's bodies because of this depletion in estrogen, and so, actually, if you look at most of the care that women need during this age category, it's related to that. So what we basically created is an online platform to get expert care from people who are trained in taking care of women in this age category for really all the things that they're going through during that time.
Rajiv Parikh:That's amazing. I'm glad you saw that as an issue and as a need, and so often when we talk to investors and entrepreneurs they're looking at the world to find a problem to solve right. There's a big windfall on the other side and you are a venture of capital. Capital is at one point, so I'm sure you saw that. But for you and for this one and even your previous company, this is very personal and the problem kind of came to you right. So can you tell us a little bit about how you inspired to launch Mitty?
Joanna Strober:Yeah. So what is so interesting is that venture capitalists talk about a menopause company. Right, like everyone's like oh, let's find a menopause company. So menopause means that you haven't had your period for a year, it's all. Menopause means so here it was 46, 47.
Joanna Strober:I start stop sleeping Every night. I was waking up around 2 o'clock in the morning and I just couldn't go back to sleep. So I started trying to get care and I went to a Primary care doctor and they said well, you could take sleeping pills, but you can't take them very often because they're addictive. I went to a sleep specialist and they try to see path and that was not my problem. Tried melatonin, tried a bunch of things and you know, quite honestly, when you don't sleep what happens to you. You get foggy During the day. You actually overeat because you're trying to compensate for the fact that you're tired.
Joanna Strober:So all these things were being were happening to my body because I was not sleeping and it took me a really long time. No one said to me this is perimenocause, this is related to your hormones, and so as soon as I found that out and I got to a hormone specialist online, I paid them $400. Two weeks later I was sleeping through the night. Amazing, it is a very quick fix, but you need to know to ask for it, because if you don't go to a women's health Specialist, they don't give it to you. And then the other thing is that most of those women's health specialists are not covered by insurance, and so you have this concierge thing where they charge huge amounts of money, and I'm delighted I want women to make money more than anyone else so if these doctors can charge $2,000, which is what they do in New York City, wow, that's fine.
Joanna Strober:But that is not. That's not scalable health care. And so really, what I wanted to do is say look like once I learned about it and I was sleeping and I started talking to all my friends and they were going through the same things. I was like, well, someone needs to create a company to fix this. And, honestly, one thing that had changed is because of COVID. We could now get insurance. So prior to COVID, laws changing in health care, you wouldn't have started this company because you wouldn't been able to get insurance coverage. But with this change, now we could, we could, we could really scale expert care and have it covered as part of regular health care.
Rajiv Parikh:Right. Previously you could only get reimbursed if you were there in person, exactly, and so now you could actually fundamentally change the the way it was done, because telehealth was actually covered right. So I do want to get to this, because I think that's really an important nuance. How is MIDI changing the process for how this type of care was handled previously? How did you go from taking this pain point for women to turn it into a business that could scale?
Joanna Strober:off. Well, I'm not gonna tell you it was a quick process, it just happened in a minute, right?
Rajiv Parikh:You just thought of it and you're like, let me just put all my Knowledge, combined it with the health care boom. I have a company.
Sandeep Parikh:She dropped it as a LinkedIn post and then bam, the money came rolling in walking.
Rajiv Parikh:She's at a coffee shop in Los Altos, just bumped into everyone and boom, there's a company. That happens all the time.
Joanna Strober:So we really started with care protocols. In the end, this comes down to care. Our number one thing is that we need to provide you expert care. So we spent months, almost a year, building out care protocols for each of the different symptoms, and what we learned through our customer interviews is that we needed to have hormone opportunities, non hormonal prescriptions, supplements and lifestyle so four buckets of care for every symptom. So then we went out to people around the country and we basically talked to the experts and wrote out these care protocols For that.
Joanna Strober:Then, at the same time, or actually a little bit after, we started doing a pilot. We had two providers and 50 women and we started doing visits with them and, with a very rudimentary Text system, getting their feedback after every visit. How did this feel to you? How did this feel to you? Are you feeling better than really getting their feedback in the process? At the same time we were doing all that, we were working on the insurance contracts, because the insurance contracts take a year to get. So we basically started on day one with insurance contracts and Testing our care at the same time. So by the time the tests were done, we were able to launch with insurance covered care, which is our key value proposition.
Rajiv Parikh:That is. That's really significant, right? Because what, as you're talking about previously, this is a concierge thing or something that you have to test on your own, and so now you turn this into an actual service that can get reimbursed. And so, in thinking about this, how do you build your go-to-market strategy? So how do you find these patients? I'm sure in the beginning a lot of people knew you and you could ask around a bit, but now you're going to scale like thousands of folks a week. How do you get there?
Joanna Strober:Yeah, so the first 200 patients were my friends in Los Altos. Right, we definitely started with the people in Los Altos and I'm so grateful to those first 200 patients who are willing to trust us. But now we are seeing thousands of patients a week. So the, the business strategy, or the go-to-market strategy, really has three components. Component number one is direct to consumer. It is, in the end, we are a consumer company, we are serving consumers. We need those patients to love us and that is our. That is the most important thing that we do. In addition, we are having employers who are telling their patients that their insurance coverage will count for going to MIDI, and so we have large employees who basically say look, we, we care about this Population, we want to support this population, and they just add us to their insurance plan so they don't have to pay anything extra as, like, a wellness benefit would just get added to their insurance plan as a as a medical benefit. So it's actually very easy for employers to add us. And then, finally, the, the long-term goal is to basically build this layer of care across the country and Partner with in-person providers to be their partner.
Joanna Strober:So let's talk about what happens when a woman comes to me. They come. Maybe they've had a mammogram, maybe they have not, maybe they've had a colonoscopy, maybe they've had their immunizations. We send a lot of women to get mammograms. After we get the mammograms, we are actually finding cancer. So then we have to send you a cancer provider, or we're getting you a colonoscopy and we're finding things there too. So 50% of the women who come to us don't have any other medical care. They probably haven't gone to a doctor for four to ten years Other than urgent care. So we are getting them connected into in-person care so we can continue to be their expert in in women's health and then we can make sure they get the appropriate in-person providing In-person care. So long term, the way I want to build the company is to basically say we will have partners in every state across the country and we will make sure that you get the best in-person care that you need and will be your virtual care partner.
Rajiv Parikh:So, yeah, what you're discussing here is the way you've conceived this, is this where you are the main caregiver or the main doctor or health care provider for the, for the woman or for the patient, and or are you? Are you today partnering back and forth? You're talking about partnering as a future thing, but it sounds like right now Would they come to you first? Is that the? So say, I'm on a company provided plan. I want to talk about some symptoms I'm experiencing. Would I go to my doctor or would they recommend your firm?
Joanna Strober:So it's really both. Honestly, um 50% of the people come to us and they have a doctor right? So then they've been referred to us because we are their hormone specialist. For example, a lot of women come to us who have cancer. They need a hormone specialist to help them because they've gone into premature menopause or they've gone into Early, you know, basically hard, terrible menopause symptoms because of their cancer treatments, and we can take care of those. So then we partner with their doctor. But I don't know how much you know about the shortage of primary care physicians in this country.
Joanna Strober:But the reality is it's a huge, huge problem huge problem, and so most women, actually, it turns out, don't have a primary care provider and they haven't gone to an objyn. So for those women we can become their primary care provider. We don't want to take you away from yours if you have a great one, but the percentage of people who have a great one is pretty low. So we can basically act as the front door to health care and then we can refer you to whatever specialist is appropriate, but we can take care of all of the immediate things. And then you know quite honestly I mean I joke a lot If you think about women 35 to 65, there's three major things there's hormones, there's weight and there's sex, and those were really good at and so we take care of those and we can stand you elsewhere for everything else.
Rajiv Parikh:And I think the interesting part about this is that those areas, the understanding and treatment of them, are not necessarily as lucrative or pay as well for the actual health care providers.
Joanna Strober:They pay less. That's correct. We mean, is it society? We don't pay primary care particularly well and we really don't pay this type of care particularly well. So it actually gets to what I think of as the health system challenge and opportunity for us, because health systems want this care, because they want to have a relationship with these women, because these women are going to be they're, they're directing a lot of health care dollars, both for themselves and for their family. But if you're a health care system and you have a box and that box is for a person, a provider, you're never going to put another box for this type of care. You're always going to add cancer or another specialist. That gives you a lot more revenue per box and they can't build more boxes, right, like you're not going to build more boxes. So instead, using us, we can be their virtual care box for this type of care and then refer into them for all the things that they find out very valuable.
Rajiv Parikh:In a way, it's a net benefit to the entire system. It's a huge benefit to the entire system. Everyone wins at every level. For you, the reason that it works for MIDI is because you've built these care paths and you don't have necessarily the physical infrastructure. You still have a significant infrastructure. I'm sure there's technology infrastructure. There's all the folks that you've hired for it Is that where you're seeing that ability to create value at all sides?
Joanna Strober:We don't have in-person care, I don't have to worry about paying for receptionists, I don't have to worry about paying for the overhead of having offices. Then also, we can really use technology to scale this care, which is super exciting. We're using AI to record all the visits. After every visit, the NPs don't have to spend the time writing a note Instead it's immediately created for them.
Joanna Strober:It gets sent out to the provider. We're also using AI to review all of the care plans to make sure that nothing was missed in the care plans. I actually think we're going to be offering much higher quality of care than anyone provider could by using technology to scale this care. Essentially, what we think we can do is then add challenges and additional health things as we go. Then we can use the same provider group to really scale a care.
Rajiv Parikh:That's terrific. That's what we're talking about. When you're scaling a company like this, there's so many challenges. You already got through your early stage round with friends of mine like Felicis. Now you've gone to a Series A round where you just raised about $25 million from Google Ventures, which was leading, in addition to having all your previous investors join in as part of that round. As you move through this and you've seen this on multiple sides what's the biggest surprise that you've seen so far as you go to scale Mitty?
Joanna Strober:Actually, I'm going to say the surprise on the upside is the reception has been so incredibly rewarding, quite honestly, there are more women investors who are excited to solve big problems. I think women's health is being seen as a big problem to be solved. It has been really rewarding to see the reception of investors, quite honestly, who are excited about what we're doing and see the potential. Yeah, I would say it's actually been. It's been a really nice funding process. I have enjoyed getting to know people. It has been remarkably unstressful.
Rajiv Parikh:That's amazing, no now, sorry, there's more than that. There's got to be some challenge. You are definitely.
Joanna Strober:There are always challenges, but two years ago, when we started, it was not like this. I want to like say I went to investors and they're like what are you talking about? Don't think it was easy two years ago. There was a lot of skepticism when we first started, but now that we're proving it and now that we have so many women coming to us and it's working, so now it's like oh yeah, now you should fund it to scale.
Rajiv Parikh:That's amazing. Yeah, I think that's the. You have to get over that initial hump to create awareness of the category and then, once you're in it, people are seeing the response. What I've been heartened by is just doing research on your company and just every time you post something, there are just hundreds of people commenting on it. There's just such energy, enthusiasm and I'm sure that's infectious, especially amongst, I think, all your investors. The ones that are the lead investors are all women. There's a huge outpouring and it's just fantastic to see From your point of view. In terms of regulation, you're in this semi-regulated world regulated in terms of the care that you offer, but you're also talking about nutraceuticals or holistic supplements and those sorts of things. What are people saying with this notion of disrupting? You're in the regulated space. You're also in the semi-regulated space as part of this. So how does this work out?
Joanna Strober:That's a weird. It's an interesting question the regulations that we're.
Rajiv Parikh:Sorry, I specialize in weird questions. Okay, no, it's a good one Regulation.
Joanna Strober:that's most challenging for us is just all the corporate practice of medicine laws and then also each state having to get NPs licensed in every single state and doctors licensed in every single state. The amount of money we've had to spend to do that just feels like such a waste. There's no benefit to society to having every state having their own regulations and their own licenses and it's a huge barrier to entry for people going into this business. It's just cost us millions of dollars and not millions of dollars that's been any benefit to anyone other than that's how a virtual care company has to function. So those regulations do make it. So it's very hard to have competitors because you can't do this without millions of dollars. You can't start and do it.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah, and you have to be in every state, like you're saying. You can't say I offer a national plan and say, well, I'm going to skip North Dakota because it's a small state.
Joanna Strober:Right. So then employers, when we want to work with them, they're the ones who said you have to be in all the states. So that's been, I would say, like regular regulatory. That's actually the hardest thing that we deal with. You know, the supplement thing is actually more about research, right that there's not enough research on supplements, and there are really good supplements that we can advise, that people take and we tell them. You know, there is some evidence and if you don't want to take hormones or if you don't want to take prescription medications, there's enough evidence that we might suggest certain products to you. It would be good if there was more regulations, honestly, around quality of those products.
Joanna Strober:So we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that they're high quality, because you know, there's a huge, huge variance there. So I might prescribe you black cohosh or I might prescribe you magnesium, but making sure you have one that is high quality is an interesting challenge. And then we're also in the weight loss medications. So you know, another huge opportunity and challenge with the weight loss medications the preauthorization. So we might prescribe you a medication but then making sure the insurance company is willing to pay for it, and then finding new alternatives when the insurance company is not willing to pay for it. So there's a lot of. There's just a. We're dealing with a very heavily regulated industry here.
Rajiv Parikh:That's right. So there's so many different ways of thinking about it. You can solve the problem, as you talked about, through lifestyle changes. You can work on the problem through prescription medications, and then there's supplements that you can take as well. That may be really effective. You just mentioned getting into the, the GLP one right, world right, the world of Osempic and WeGavi and all these other players. Are you, are you in that space? Yeah, how are you working with that? Because, at one point, well, with menopause it's frequently associated with the weight gain, right, and? But this helps you lose weight. At the same time, there's concerns about bone loss, and on both sides, right. So how do you think about it and do it? In a way, I'm sure you're thinking about it ethically, but maybe you could just talk about how you think about it.
Joanna Strober:I think that women deserve choice and I think the goal for me is the ethical thing is to give people options and then let them choose. So, for me, if you are a woman in midlife and you've have gained a lot of weight, I would like to tell you there are a variety of options that you can use. Here are the benefits and here are the risks. And you've choose, and I feel really strongly about that. I don't think we as a men, as a we're not, I'm not a doctor but I don't think the doctors should choose. I think they should give options and then we should let patients make the decisions. Now, there is a pricing issue, right, which we cannot ignore, and that is a societal issue how we're going to deal with that pricing issue. But if you're a patient and you're eligible for one of these medications, you should have access. We should give you that. We should give you that choice. Now, if we are prescribing a weight loss medication to you because you are in that category of people, we're also going to tell you that you need to eat extra protein because you're going to have some bone loss issues. We're also going to tell you start lifting weights, right, like we're going to give you all the information as a woman in this age category. If you're losing weight, you need to be lifting weights. You need to be actually eating more fiber, you need to be massively increasing the amount of protein that you're taking, and we'll support you on that journey.
Joanna Strober:But what I really want, and I feel so strongly about this, is when women come and they say well, my doctor won't give me this and my doctor won't give me this. You wouldn't believe how much of that we get. And I'm like you know what? If they're eligible for it, give them what they want. Like, why are they stopping? Why are the doctors being gatekeepers and saying, no, you can't have this unless there's a good reason for it. And one thing I found is there's a lot of value judgment that goes into the doctor saying no, and then also, honestly, there's a lot of education. They just don't know. So if you don't know and you're an attendant at visit, the easiest thing is for them to say no.
Rajiv Parikh:That's right. That's right. They don't have enough time to explain it to you and go through the nuance, understand how it's going to work for you. And so, because of the way MIDI practitioners are providing the care, you're helping them understand the different choices they have and you can outline it to them. You can have it in written form. They can go back and forth with you as they think about it. Through the digital platform there's so many you can really help them think through something and you can iterate with them, which I think is a huge value at.
Joanna Strober:Yeah, I mean. I'll give you one example testosterone for women, right? Testosterone for men is approved, testosterone for women is not approved. Women actually have three hormones in their body. They have estrogen, progesterone and they have testosterone.
Rajiv Parikh:Oh my God, they do, they do, you know what If women have low testosterone?
Joanna Strober:it's a really good correlation to low libido, but also it's a correlation to your bones strength, into your moods. Is that proven 100% with an FDA? No, the only FDA proven thing is for low libido, right? So if you go to your doctor and you are experiencing low libido and you're also interested in trying for testosterone for some other things, most doctors will say no, right, they say it's not approved for that. But in Europe they give it to lots of women and it is seen by many doctors. You know, both in Europe and the United States is something that women should be taking. So we have arch providers trained to say to you look, here are the proven things, here are the things that might help you with, here are the downsides that you need to consider, and if you'd like to try it, we'll prescribe it for you, and I, you know I'm super proud of us for that, because the goal is to give women and I mean you know, then, everyone deserves this, not just women, right, everyone deserves options, and I think that's what's super important.
Rajiv Parikh:Right, and I think that's that's because what you're doing is you're highlighting practices that are that others are trying, where they may not be researched because, unfortunately, women are not the subject of as many studies as they have for men. Right, that's a huge problem, right? I'd like to learn more about what. What got you to this point? So you've been in the world of technology, you know you did this early in your career. How did you discover that passion for wanting to be part of the technology world?
Joanna Strober:I never thought I actually would Do this. I grew up here in Silicon Valley, but when I was growing up here, everything was just chips and I had no interest in technology at all. Quite honestly, I Went away to college, I went to law school, I worked as a lawyer and then I came back here and I started working for a law firm here and my clients were early dot-com companies. The best one it was a company called vintage Bines. It was selling wine on the internet one of the first companies selling wine on the internet and I was the lawyer. And so I went to a board meeting and there were all these venture people who thought very highly of themselves and the company wasn't working that well and the venture investor said you know, how do you sexist selling on the internet? Why don't you start putting sexy labels on the wine and maybe it will sell better?
Joanna Strober:So, um, I Started spending all my time actually just thinking about internet companies and just got so excited by the consumer internet and I wanted to not be the lawyer anymore and I wanted to get involved in that. So I started telling everyone that I knew that I needed a new job. I didn't really care what it was it just had to not be the lawyer and I had to get out of what I was doing. That summer was opening an office in Silicon Valley and I called David Howan, who was a friend of another friend, and I said David, I'd like to come work for you. And he's like well, you don't know anything about technology. And I said well, I can learn.
Joanna Strober:And I'm still, to this day, grateful that he hired me as his analyst and this was that's fantastic 1990s that and so I became a really early consumer internet investor and invested in companies like eToys and baby Center and Blue Nile and Hot jobs, so a bunch of really early comm companies, and that's kind of how I got the bug.
Rajiv Parikh:That's amazing. So you, you're the corporate attorney, and so the corporate attorney has to be there during the board meetings. You'd listen to the venture capitalist talk. You had this image and I did that. These were these amazing people that were just super savants. And then you actually sit in the board meeting with him. You're like, oh I well, in my case, I went to school with some of these folks. They're okay, they're pretty good, but maybe I have some other points of view that could be useful. And then it kind of you saw, was it the impact you could have? Is that what drove you towards more consumer and tech is that you, you could directly reach the individual Versus someone who'd sell through a business you know, honestly, I think my driving interest is solving problems.
Joanna Strober:To me, what's most interesting is using technology to solve what I view as Is real problems, and so something like how do you choose a diamond to get married to someone was actually an interesting problem. Yes, I was pregnant when I funded baby center in 1998. I was pregnant, I had no information and I started talking to the baby center founders and reading those emails and I was like, oh, this is pretty cool, but to me, to me, what's interesting? I don't actually care that much about technology. To be honest with you. What I care about is how can you use technology to solve problems?
Rajiv Parikh:That's fantastic. That's, you know, baby center, my, my good. My close friend is Steve Fram and I know and cone pretty well, so it's a bit of what a cool intersection they really. They really helped a lot of Moms and parents right amazing.
Joanna Strober:Yeah, it's so amazing.
Rajiv Parikh:So you got to be involved with solving big problems, technologies and enabler, and, as a venture capital Investor, you were able to spend that time with them and and really learn a little more about them and Get to see those problems. Not the good part about being a venture capitalist is that your risks are spread. You get to see folks do big things and you get the the weighted average of all that. Usually the big ones drive all the rest. And then you said, well, no, that's not enough for me. I want to actually go and be an operator. I want to go run one of my own. You have this wonderful return on risk profile. Why would you go and just go for one big thing?
Joanna Strober:Well, so here's the thing now. I feeling I'm incredibly lucky to get to do this right and it has to be much less stressful for me than it would be if my entire life was on this Company. You know, now actually I have the risk profile of someone who can go take a big risk and and if it doesn't work out it's okay, which actually makes me a much better entrepreneur, quite honestly At least for me, for where I am in my life like if I was depending on this to send my kids to college, I would have a harder time, I think, going for it and swinging for the fences and building this into a multi-billion dollar company because I'd be thinking about whether they were going to go to school, yeah, so for me personally, it's actually a great stage in my life to do this, because I can pour my energy into this and and I can have the right risk profile that I probably didn't have before.
Rajiv Parikh:I wish I thought like you when I did my first one. So I had kids, we are kids, I don't know how you're being this, and my wife and I both decided to start a company together, moving to Palo Alto for kids. Anyways, I wish I thought more risk-adjust in a more risk-adjusted manner. But you actually started your first company, kerbo, when you were in your 40s, which is really amazing. So you had this experience as an investor and then you said how I'm gonna go start my own and and how do you feel? Was it everything you expected?
Joanna Strober:This is hard, right, like it's not, that it's not hard, and Kerbo was really hard. This is so much easier than Kerbo. I I don't know what I was thinking. You know, I talked now to people about childhood obesity. I'm like, oh well, I was gonna try to solve childhood obesity. You know, sometimes when a problem is not solved, it's not that it's waiting for like an easy solution and you can just like come and solve it. Child obesity is really hard. Um, and I'm I'm super proud of what we built, but oh my god, it was so hard, and I'll tell you a funny story. So one of the things that I loved about Kerbo is that it worked. Kids.
Rajiv Parikh:Oh my gosh, it works.
Joanna Strober:But then there was no more recurring revenue and I couldn't even make an argument that there should be, because the kids didn't need us anymore. They kind of felt like they learned the skills. Wow, when I started thinking about whether I would do another company.
Rajiv Parikh:The joke is my kids used to say recurring revenue, occurring revenue, recurring revenue, like they were like that's the one thing that my kids were trained on like never start a company that doesn't have recurring so you had a big impact, and it was such a good impact that you didn't have the recurring revenue subscription situation, but you did solve a big problem, or you did at least make it a childhood obesity continues to grow, but at least you had a way to solve it, which is really fantastic. If you were to go and look at what your favorite technology or innovation or invention is, something that got you thinking about Technology I know you say you like to solve big problems and technologies supplies it. There's just, is there something that's magic to you?
Joanna Strober:know what. The things that I care about are actually pretty simple. Like I love the auto audible, I love listening to books, I love podcasts. Like this is not fancy stuff that I that I use. I don't really use any fancy technology, but I do I love the fact that I can listen to any book wherever I am. Yeah, I don't use a lot of gadgets, I'm pretty simple.
Rajiv Parikh:I think that's, you know, audible is not a simple technology, right? I'm sure it. It looks that way. It looks like, oh, someone's just recorded something, or even a podcast. There's a lot of work that goes into it. I'm you know. As you market yourself, I'm sure you're seeing that as well. So there's a lot of I mean, I'm with you. I love sitting in my car and just picking, you know, going just literally on Spotify, picking a podcast and then picking the episode and going, and it's just, you have it's a much More fulfilling drive than it used to be. So I'm with you. I love a lot of sense.
Rajiv Parikh:So in a couple of your different startups you had these are these eureka moments right? Or was it a moment, or was it something that you kind of fell into? Was it something that struck you that made you do something like this? Like, do these entrepreneurial Gigs? Or or, like you talked about the wine, one right where you're at the? You know You're at vintage vines and it's something you're like. I think I could do this better than them. Is there something like that?
Joanna Strober:So just think about this one in particular. I Think who is so interesting to me is that and we talked a little bit about this like menopause company, like people like to say that we're a menopause company we did start by thinking like we're gonna give people access to hormones and that was actually a big opportunity. It wasn't a nothing but like. With this, it's been more of a journey of learning what women want and then adapting based on what they, what they want and what they need and what they're asking us for. So to me, what is most important is really being adaptive to your population and not not really being stuck on what you think you should be offering them, but instead learning from them what they need and um.
Joanna Strober:So I guess it's not really one moment, it's really a it's a journey and I'm learning, particularly with this company, that journey of oh okay, women need testosterone. Okay, let's go study testosterone, let's find out that actually testosterone has amazing benefits for women, and why are they not getting that? Or women need access to these weight loss medications. Why are they having to pay a membership fee? Like, what is the point of a membership fee if I can offer it to them with insurance covered things? So like it's kind of a journey more than a like a one off off thing.
Rajiv Parikh:So, sarah, you're listening as you're in the world. There was a moment where I think you felt you know with your child, with childhood, you know with Kerbo and childhood obesity, and there was a moment with MIDI where you were dealing with the difficulties of perimenopause, right yeah, and that made you think more deeply and so you see this as more of a process. As you go into it, you start to ask questions, you get answers and you let the journey unfold. Is that a fair way of characterizing it?
Joanna Strober:Yeah, that is right, that's great. And you know, yeah, for me that's what it is. It's not like a one time thing.
Rajiv Parikh:It really is a journey with the people that you're providing services to, to understand what they need Is there a person that was it, your mom, your dad, someone that you came into contact with that made you think you know, you're in Silicon Valley, you're growing up in Silicon Valley. Was there something there or some event there that said hey, you know, I could be an entrepreneur, I could be someone that creates these or be involved in this ecosystem?
Joanna Strober:Honestly, no, I don't think. Until I was in my 40s I even thought I could be an entrepreneur when I was early in my career at Venture. We didn't find any old women. We didn't find women Right. So I had a lot of like models of people who were doing this that I thought I could. I remember the woman from Marimba. I don't remember her name, but she was on the cover of the magazine.
Rajiv Parikh:That's right. That's right. She was on Fortune magazine. I remember her. I should her name will. Her name will pop to me as after a while she's the only woman that I knew for like 10 years.
Joanna Strober:So it really wasn't something that I was thinking about doing quite honestly. It was not like I like saw these people who were doing this and that, but it took me a long time before I actually thought of myself like that. I kind of thought of other people like that, more than me. So that was actually kind of a journey for me, I guess, thinking like that.
Rajiv Parikh:But now, that's amazing yeah.
Joanna Strober:Now there are a lot of amazing young women who are starting companies and I'm super proud of them.
Rajiv Parikh:I'm sure you're getting to mentor them as well, so that must be really gratifying. Okay, so now we have a game for you, okay, yes, it's my time, okay, something takes over here.
Sandeep Parikh:Joanna, this has been an awesome conversation. You know you talked about loving to listen to books on Audible. Well, folks, you can listen to your book on Audible, right? You're an author as well. You wrote Getting to 50-50, how Working Parents Can have it All by Sharing it All, and why it's Good for your Marriage, your Career, your Kids and you. That's the title that I read off of Amazon, and so this seems like it. You know, it's like a work-life balance book, and I thought well, what better way to sort of experience this than by hearing your work-life balance through a work-life balance quiz that I put together?
Joanna Strober:Oh, my God okay, let's see how good you are at your own book. Oh my God, yeah, exactly, that came out in 2008. You do understand. It's been a while, yeah, so let's check it.
Sandeep Parikh:Let's check it and you know. So. This is like one of those magazine style quizzes where at the end you'll have like a rank of like where you are in your work-life balance. So let's see how you do. Okay, how often do you work, say overtime, or bring work home, would you say? Every night Rarely, okay, okay. So I'm going to go with frequently, yeah, frequently, frequently, of course, or if there was a very frequently, I should put that in.
Rajiv Parikh:There should be like a negative point for that one. Okay, great Done. The question is, when you stop working.
Joanna Strober:The question is not like you have not bring work home.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. Are you ever not working? Great Answer no, okay, how would you? How do you rate your personal time right now? Do you feel like you have? A have enough personal time for your hobbies and relaxation. B occasionally find time for yourself, or C I know I hardly have any personal time. Where are you?
Joanna Strober:there, you don't have any personal time. C.
Sandeep Parikh:None, joanna. Okay, all right, I think we can see where we're headed here.
Joanna Strober:This book was written when I had like little kids.
Sandeep Parikh:My kids are gone, so yeah, so you're at the one stage of life. You're at the one stage of life, so not dissatisfied with your amount of personal time, you would say, okay, you know what? Then You're going to get a point for that You're going to get, you're going to go for, Change the points for B.
Rajiv Parikh:You're going to.
Sandeep Parikh:You're now at zero Because since you had negative one, do you? Well? Do you feel there's a list of leads in this one? Do you feel stressed about work during your, when you, when you take personal time? Or A no, you can switch off easily, you're fine. B, sometimes, but not always. Or C yes, it's actually a constant worry that I'm stressed.
Joanna Strober:I'm going to give you an answer, but in the book. Okay the sentence that we said that I remember really strongly. And we said you can choose whether to be stressed or depressed. Most people they called it one of those categories and that often working moms were more stressed and there's actually a really big depression factor for women who are staying home. So those were actually choices that often you made and they were both hard choices. So I just want to kind of say that for me stress is just fine.
Joanna Strober:So my goal is is not I've been stressed, I'm stressed a lot, but it's exciting stress. It's not like stress that's damaging and that's. It's hard for me to answer that question because I have this opportunity to build this massive company and change the world. That's stress goal, but that is so exciting.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah.
Joanna Strober:So it's not bad stress.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay, I like it. I'm going to go that. Then, on the one point you know sometimes, but not always, and I love that framing because you know, as a performer, something that we always say to each other is like hey, when you feel nervous, just tell yourself that nervousness is actually excitement. What you're feeling is excitement and if you frame it that way, it just it does a psychological little flip to you or it's all of a sudden a positive feeling. So I love that. So how often do you check your work emails, messages outside of quote working hours, which it sounds like maybe you don't have non-working hours, but do you segment some time for yourself to never check emails? Or are you you kind of at the whim of your, of your notifications?
Joanna Strober:I think you're going to think that I'm very insane. I I am at the whim of my notifications.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay, all right, great. How would you describe your sleep quality? Do you sleep like a log?
Joanna Strober:I sleep quite well. Hormones. So you sleep like a log Hormones, I sleep magnesium, and I have a cortisol manager, all of which was prescribed to me by Midi and I sleep quite well.
Rajiv Parikh:Using her own product.
Sandeep Parikh:I feel like, in the end, if you're sleeping well, you're doing it right, you're winning. I'm going to give you a bonus point for that. Thanks, because you also built the company that helped you do that. So okay, here are your results Four, five, okay, four. So actually you know what it didn't turn out. You skipped. Workaholic wizard, you're not. You're not. You're the tight rope walker. You're doing great, you know, but let's face it, you're one. Unexpected email away from from a circus act says this quiz Okay, you balanced your work and your life like a tight rope walker, you know, maybe it sways a little bit too much towards work, so maybe it's time to consider a little me time. Maybe it's time to play some pickleball, joanna, I like hiking.
Rajiv Parikh:I like to play.
Joanna Strober:But you're in the perfect place for lots of hikes.
Rajiv Parikh:You're in Los Altos. There's a million hikes right around the corner. I used to love running Rancho San Antonio. It's a just amazing hike.
Joanna Strober:Yeah, we live in a beautiful place, so that makes it easy, we are so fortunate like that.
Rajiv Parikh:Okay, that was. I hope you had fun with that game. Here's some more questions. I have two daughters and an entrepreneur wife. What would you advise my daughter about the key pain points for a female entrepreneur Key pain points that they need to solve for? So if someone's thinking about following your footsteps, what are the pitfalls they should be mindful of?
Joanna Strober:I guess it does get back to the book. The most important career decision you make is who you marry unequivocally. So whatever you want to do in your career whether you're an entrepreneur, or whatever you want to do your partner you have a partner is really the most important decision you're going to make. So that's my best advice.
Rajiv Parikh:Totally agree with you. Having a partner in life makes it a lot easier, especially a super supportive one. Right, it's very clear it's hard for female entrepreneurs to be taken seriously, at least seriously in the past, by VCs, and I wonder to your perspective of how that's changed For any young founders in the audience, especially the women. Can you tell us how to go about finding mentors, people who could believe in you, who you would seek advice from, and what was some of their advice to you?
Joanna Strober:You know, I just ask advice from everyone. So one thing I found is that if you are vulnerable and you're willing to just tell people here's a challenge that I'm facing, and you don't try to take a lot of their time, you really are very willing to be helpful. One thing you should not do is go on LinkedIn and say I'm looking for a mentor or I'm thinking about breaking into digital health. Can I have 30 minutes of your time to talk about that? Don't do that.
Rajiv Parikh:That's gonna be tough right.
Joanna Strober:But if you send a note and you say I'm working on this specific problem, I'm looking for this specific type of feedback, you're much more likely to get advice. And so just talk to lots of people and get their input and then process it and figure out what to do with it.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah. So be open and let one thing lead to the other, but be really open about it. This is something that I've lived by as an entrepreneur of over 20 years. As an operator how do you turn moments of crisis into moments of value creation?
Joanna Strober:Boy, have you figured that out?
Rajiv Parikh:I'll give you my answer after yours.
Sandeep Parikh:That's why we're doing this podcast is to get as many answers to this question as we can.
Joanna Strober:I don't know that I have a great answer for you on that. I think deep breath is good. Trying to take a pause before reacting is something that I'm working on personally, so that I don't just react, but I pause and breathe and think before acting, and surround yourself with people who are really good problem solvers with you. So there are going to be problems and you know, one thing I'm so grateful for is with my co-founder and my other teammates. Having people around you who you can be really vulnerable with and you can have these discussions so you can try to problem solve together is really valuable.
Rajiv Parikh:Those are wonderful answers. I will tell you when my back is to the wall and I feel like it's the end of the world, I will sit down with Evernote or a pad of paper and I will just write out how I'm going through absolutely hell, and I'll just be angry at the world and I'll use so. Anybody who reads my, who reads this, someday, will think I'm a nut or neurotic, and but then usually in the process of writing I will get it out of my system and then I'll look for that opportunity to change and that I'll start seeing in the seeds of that nightmare. Whatever, that crisis is something that we can turn around and, like you, I'm very fortunate to have great people around me, great business coaching, ceo groups, folks in the office, friends and usually they're very understanding.
Joanna Strober:Yeah, I have great friends and I think that's another thing. That's like I can call them morning, noon and night and say help, and they help.
Rajiv Parikh:I'm very fortunate they just jump right in and they put up with you. In my case, put up with me acting pretty irrationally, but it's wonderful. So, after going through a number of things, a number of events, as an investor and then eventually, as an entrepreneur, what do you think makes a startup successful? What key metrics are you paying attention to to decide whether you believe a venture is successful? Is it product, adoption, usage, profitability, employee? What do you feel like gets you there? It gets someone there. It doesn't have to be your company. It could be any company when you look at it from the outside.
Joanna Strober:Wish I had a great answer to that one too. You know, I think building some you know I'm not an expert in all technologies right, so I think building something that people really need is kind of key to all of this, and making sure that you find something that people need and then building it in a sustainable manner, depending on the financing environment. So the really great companies are going to go out of business now because the funding environment isn't going to support them, and they're really good companies it's just, for whatever reason, they spend too much money or they grew too quickly, or so I think finding the right product and then finding the right financing strategy is it really has to be both, and then timing. That timing is key too. So, yeah, those are my best suggestions.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah, I'm with you there. There's a lot of good companies that just because of timing, they don't work out, and I've been through that experience. It's very difficult when it happens, when you have something great, and it's one of those times where funding is not available and that's just the way it goes, even with some of the best VCs. So at our podcast, at the Spark of Ages podcast, we're big believers and the idea that teamwork is critical and you mentioned that of how you've had some great founders. So in your case, one of the individuals who's a major part of your team today is your partner, sharon Nears.
Joanna Strober:Yeah.
Rajiv Parikh:Can you share with us what it's like to have such a deep partnership with someone over your career and what's the biggest change that Sharon brought out of you?
Joanna Strober:So Sharon and I met on a baby date in 2021. We both had babies at the same time, and we were this other woman who's an investor. We were the only two women that she knew who were having babies and going back to work, and so she had, like, invited us to become to have dinner together with our newborns, and so we've been friends for a really long time and so we wrote our book together. So we've just developed a really good friendship and support network for each other. We're very different. Our work styles are very different. Everything about us is actually very different in how we get things done, how we think about the world, but she is a fabulous partner to me, so we've really just learned how to collaborate, and so I feel really lucky. That's fantastic.
Rajiv Parikh:It's fantastic that you've had someone like that to be with you all the way through, right? My final question is so you've taken MIDI Health and it's been super successful. It established itself. It's serving tens of millions, maybe a hundred of million women around the world, hundreds of millions of women around the world and you've come to a point where you've built it up in such a way that you can turn it over to the next someone else that you've built up over the time there your successors. What would you think about doing next?
Joanna Strober:So when my oldest daughter was born, I was working a lot and my mom told me that if we came to her house every Friday night for dinner, she would make sure we had a really good family dinner. And so for the past 25 years we go there for dinner and even when the kids are gone, she still cooks for me and my husband and we have this really nice dinner with them on Friday night. So my goal is to do that for my kids and grandkids. So I'm going to be doing MIDI for a while, but when MIDI is over I think I'm going to go be a babysitter.
Rajiv Parikh:I love that. That is so awesome. I think there is something, too, that where your kids you think you're going to keep working forever, and then this your kids start to have kids and then it just changes your perspective completely, and so it's such a wonderful thing to think that way. Joanne, I really enjoyed having you on our show. You have so many amazing insights. We love what you're doing for not just women but for everyone in building this great company and really taking your energy and making it infectious, and I really appreciate that about you.
Joanna Strober:Thank you, this was really fun.
Rajiv Parikh:Thank you Music.
Sandeep Parikh:All right, great interview. How are you?
Rajiv Parikh:feeling I was just blown away. I thought Joanne was just this amazing combination of passion. She has energy. She learns from her personal story. She's almost like a scientist in how she breaks down a problem and then socializes it and builds up from it. There's so much that's interesting about her. The one thing I really took from her is that this wasn't something she was going to do as a child. She just it came to her that she was going to do that. That even when she was a venture capital, she didn't see herself as an entrepreneur. It came to her after spending some time as an investor at multiple places.
Sandeep Parikh:Well, it sounds like she was really led by the actual mission philosophy, without it being so like prescribed Right. It was like, oh, I actually just want to change the world in this way and the best way to do it is through entrepreneurship. Not necessarily that I really want to be an entrepreneur and now let me look for a problem to solve, so I think that's really cool. I also just like I have a wife who we have a kid and thinking about women's health a lot, and so much changed from pre-baby to post-baby and so much stuff that is not covered by insurance that we've been exploring in terms of her health and stuff like that. It's like I want to sign her up for this and I just hope I'm just so. I'm so like sort of moved by the mission and I just agree with your sentiments, like you're not just changing things for women, you're changing things for everybody because, let's face it, healthy, healthy women is going to be healthier. For everybody.
Rajiv Parikh:So she's de-mystifying condition that women face as they get older is just part of the natural process of aging, and so she helps us understand it that this is something that you can treat, you don't have to live through it. You can actually live normally and live well and enjoy those 40s and 50s and 60s in the way that you want to, and I think that's something that's very aspirational and something that's heartening to hear that your friends don't have to my friends or my wife or my family, they don't have to suffer. I mean, they can live a better life and that's really heartening that she's helping to put all that together 100% Like whether it's menopause or periods or floor health, like all these things.
Sandeep Parikh:Like I'm so glad this stuff is getting de-mystified and it's great to hear someone who's leading the charge.
Rajiv Parikh:All right. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the pod, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and everywhere podcasts can be found.
Sandeep Parikh:Yes, the show is produced by myself, sunday Parikh and Anand Shah, with production assistance by Teran Talley and Jesse Deep, and edited by Sean Maher and Matt Greenleaf.
Rajiv Parikh:I'm your host Rajiv Parikh from Position Squared, a top-notch growth marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Come visit us at Position2.com.
Sandeep Parikh:And this has been a top-notch effin' funny production.
Rajiv Parikh:And we'll catch you next time in even more top-notch form. And remember, folks, be ever curious and top-notch and top-notch Music plays. Thank you.