William Leonard
Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Atlanta Startup Podcast. My name is William Leonard, your host for today. I’m eager to be sitting down with Jessica King, who is the CEO of FlowIntell. Jessica, welcome to the podcast.
Jessica King
Thank you, William.
William Leonard
Yeah, it’s great to see you again. Jessica, you are one of the winners from the 22nd Startup Runway Showcase, where you won the Women’s Empowerment grant. And that was an incredible showcase that day. And I think we’ll talk a little bit more about that. But, I would love for you to give us maybe a 30-second minute overview of what FlowIntell is.
Jessica King
Yeah, for sure. FlowIntell is a firm tech, biotech startup that’s focusing on endometriosis. Endometriosis affects billions of women worldwide and it has painful symptoms that overlap with PMS and IBS. It usually goes undiagnosed for years, goes undiagnosed for up to a decade, and most women only find out about it because they’re facing some fertility or infertility. So our mission is to change that trajectory by offering a non-invasive, accessible at-home solution that screens for endometriosis and empowers women to take more control of their productive health by having this at-home testing kit, followed by telehealth support afterward.
William Leonard
I love it. And this is a really big problem, not only in the US but really across the world that millions face as you mentioned. How did you come across this problem to one who had the passion to solve it and to actually have the willpower to go say, “Hey, I’m going to build a company around endometriosis?
Jessica King
Yeah, actually, when I tell people about this, they don’t believe part of the first part of how I got started on this. So backtracking, I grew up with my mom was unemployed, and we had very limited access to healthcare. And I didn’t even know about endometriosis, doctor visits were an absolute luxury that we couldn’t afford. The medical bill was potentially always haunting us. So I actually never even signed OB-GYNE. And so I got to grad school, and I had a health care stipend that allowed me access to a student health care center. So I had never heard of endometriosis. And fortunately for me, I never experienced endometriosis-related pain. And that’s kind of given me a little bit of clarity to advocate for those who do because I don’t have like that, that necessary influence of personal suffering. I was actually working entirely on a completely different project that use the same principles in the same proprietary nanoparticle. I was actually working in the brewing sphere. I was trying to develop an essay that would test for some impurities that are present in beer while you’re brewing. Around the same time, I had three friends, all of them were unrelated, they didn’t know each other, and they were all in their 30s or 40s. They were all facing the same challenges of fertility, none of them were able to get pregnant, and they were having unsuccessful IVF, miscarriages, and lack of egg retrieval. And these women didn’t realize that they had endometriosis until it was halfway through their process. And it was probably within a month of each other all of them came up to me and said, “Oh, I have Endo, trans that I have Endo, trans that I have Endo.” So I looked at my pepsin advisory said, “Hey, is there a chance that we can redirect the research that we’re doing and see where this can take off? And so because of them, it became a passion point of mine to work on endometriosis.
William Leonard
Wow, that is so interesting, because you’re thinking about doing your capstone project. And now you’re like, this is actually a real problem that I can go out, do research, or build for and potentially solve an issue for millions of women each year. And so tell us more about the company and how you plan to practically deploy this non-invasive device to solve for endometriosis. And maybe you can get into a little bit more about the root of the problem here as well, which I think stems around misdiagnosis or lack of diagnosis, right? Because talk about how the symptoms can overlap with core problems like PMS or IBS. Tell us more about that and why misdiagnosis happens?
Jessica King
Yeah, I think that there are quite a few reasons for it. I think that there’s just a general taboo and lack of discussion about reproductive issues. Regardless, I think that a lot of women aren’t able to advocate for themselves. Maybe they don’t feel comfortable explaining what endometriosis is. Maybe they don’t have a name for endometriosis. Ironically, the same lab that I was working and doing my graduate research, my first master’s degree. One of the proprietary nanoparticles I was using was used for drug delivery for endometriosis, and one of our lab study that was published with my name on it. And I didn’t even know it was being used for endometriosis. I was just credited for having developed a nanoparticle that could be used for this. And so I think that there’s just a big word Endometriosis with not a lot of big knowledge surrounding it. So again, like you mentioned, the symptoms of endometriosis are usually told to women that it’s part of being a girl, it’s part of having your menstrual cycle. It’s elevated pain, it’s constipation, IBS, it’s painful periods, it’s pain during intercourse, things that people don’t really talk about, you don’t usually sit down with your group of girlfriends at a cafe and talk about these things. And so that’s why we’re developing this as a screening kit, is if we think that there is if a woman thinks that she’s having some kind of issue, and she can’t necessarily put a name to it yet, then this as a screening kick can allow her to then go advocate for herself and say, “I think that this could be indicative of endometriosis.” Hopefully that also kind of bridges the gap for people who don’t have accessibility to OBGYN people that live in medical deserts like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, where access to OBGYN is pretty scant, or people who are in low income marginalized by poor communities that can’t afford the frequent visits that are necessary to finally get to this very invasive diagnosis. So we hope that this kind of bridges that gap and allows people to more accessibly discuss it with more confidence, we think
William Leonard
Increasing access to healthcare, more specifically test kits like this, in areas that you mentioned that are medical deserts is so important. And I think a venture firm can build an entire thesis off the back of that, right? We’re in such an advanced country, but also we see sort of the disparities that exist at certain levels of healthcare, that it’s like, wow, this is we’re in 2023, why can’t this certain demographic of people who just because they live 40 miles outside of a major metropolitan area, can’t get the same access that somebody who lives 10 miles from the metropolitan area can get.
Jessica King
Exactly. And it’s also about the quality of care, not necessarily always have the option to go to an OBGYN that truly understands you if you’re living somewhere and you only have maybe your choice between two OBGYNs and you don’t feel like they’re listening to you. That can really turn you off as well, and make it really hard for you to even want to discuss it. And I think that as women, sometimes we take a backburner approach to advocating for ourselves mainly because we’re always very preoccupied with everyone else’s needs. So we don’t advocate a screening kit, like you mentioned, it’d be helpful in any kind of situation like that,
William Leonard
For sure and let’s talk a little bit more about Startup Runway and how you were one of the 10 finalists on stage pitching that day in September, and ultimately became one of the three winners who won a non-dilutive grant for your company and for our audience who doesn’t know to level set. Startup Runway is a pitch competition connecting underrepresented founders to their first check riders and investors organized as a nonprofit. Winners get 3 $10,000 non-dilutive grants for their startups. And so, Jessica, tell us more about your Startup Runway experience, maybe from the beginning of how you found out about the program to apply, to go through the process and what some of your core takeaways were, as a finalist, and now as a winner.
Jessica King
Yeah. I actually found out about it through one of the accelerators that I’m a part of here in Orlando. And so I had done two other pitch competitions prior to this. I’ve thoroughly prepared my pitch deck with the help of inventors at the accelerator, we were going over the PowerPoint, basically, just everything that the accelerator tries to help you with. And I think that there’s only so much that you can rehearse before you actually get on stage because then that becomes completely different. But one of the things is that this isn’t just a regular pitch competition where you’re on the stage in front of the audience. This one, which I really found so valuable was the breakout sessions that you mentioned with the individual investors. And it was very nerve-wracking, but in retrospect, it didn’t have to be as nerve-wracking. It’s a really very supportive, remarkably supportive environment. You get a chance to engage with investors pick their brains about various issues and you get all the feedback. And they post challenging questions that really make you think. And I think that the biggest takeaway is that and this goes for anyone that makes it to a competition after the application process, once you get accepted, you’ve made it to that point for a reason. So these people that are sitting across the table from you are genuinely interested, they want to hear more about the venture, and they might believe in what I’m actually doing and want to offer that support. And that’s not something that you commonly see as a founder, because you’re so accustomed to hearing no or not right now, or we can’t offer you this. And I think a lot of founders have like that, “No”, constantly being told in their ear. And this competition helps remind you that you do actually have big supporters out there. So I think that’s the biggest takeaway.
William Leonard
You’re right. There are supporters and people who are wanting and operate with your best interest in mind. And how do you go about preparing? I don’t know if this was probably wasn’t your first pitch competition that you’ve done. But also, you’ve been through an accelerator before you’ve sat in front of investors, how did you go about preparing for this showcase?
Jessica King
Well, I did the drive from Orlando to Atlanta. And if anybody was sitting in the car with me or driving next to me, they probably would have seen this very crazy woman who just kept repeating key figures, allowed to make them more verbally pleasing. So I think it’s truly honestly, you just try to engage yourself in ways of describing your product in your mission that truly does tell a story and tells your story, and more importantly, tells a story of, in my case, my future customers, the women that need this product. So you really need to have that mentality. In terms of the coaching sessions, like I mentioned, I think that was the scariest portion. But I’m so thankful for them, they went so incredibly well. There were ideas that popped up that I had only briefly touched with my accelerators and mentors, things like product lines and licensing, these are things that we hadn’t really paid much attention to before. And so when I got back to Orlando, that was like, the first thing that I typed up was like, “Hey, we had kind of put this on our backburner. We had sideline this, can we talk about this during our next meeting”. And that was actually really exciting,
William Leonard
Right, and you talk about the mentoring sessions, which, after each showcases one of the biggest, most positive points of feedback that we get from Star participants is that they were able to talk to mentors who have built companies, scale companies work in the world of healthcare, let’s say and can give you unparalleled insights into go to market strategy, distribution, financing, how you think about building and targeting your initial core customer. So I’m glad that you got tremendous value out of it conversation. And yeah, and so now post-Startup Runway, you’ve got this $10,000 non-dilutive grant for FlowIntell, what is what’s next on the horizon for you all, as you think about building the company scaling, and growing?
Jessica King
Yeah, so we’re so grateful and thankful for the $10,000 winnings, it’s going to be put to great use to further our mission. Right now, we’re focusing on securing funding from the National Science Foundation, through SBIR grants. SBIR grants are made specifically for small businesses, and they provide non-diluted funding up to $235,000. For businesses like ours, they have to be a big risk in the science sphere. And it’s a very competitive process. So our pitch was already accepted. We are so excited about that because that’s a significant achievement. And now we’re doing the next portion, which is ensuring our application is as strong as possible. So we are investing a portion of our winning strategically to build as solid of a team as possible because we know that the National Science Foundation doesn’t just care about good ideas. They care about the people that are going to make that idea possible. So we want to strengthen it by building our advisory board getting, you know more people on our team, and solidifying these strategic partnerships that will really help cultivate it and make this as appealing of an application as possible for the National Science Foundation, which is any of my NSF people that are looking over the application have to happen to be listening to the podcast.
William Leonard
I love it. No, that is a great plan of action. NSF is a tremendous organization that pours capital into transformational projects. And it’s like this is something that could be truly transformational for improving women’s health and access to health care for women across the world. World not even just in the US.
Jessica King
What I love about the National Science Foundation because I’ve worked with them to secure more academic-based grants, this is the first time applying for an SBIR, is they purposely say in the wording that they want something that’s risky, disruptive, and groundbreaking, and it’s kind of almost some of the most opposite things that you hear about when you’re talking to more traditional financial investors are like, Oh, that’s, that’s risky that they like disruptive, right? But they’re always like, oh, that’s risky. That’s scary. And the National Science and Science Foundation is like, bring it on, let’s go with the scary stuff.
William Leonard
When you always have to take a risk when you want an outlier outcome, you can get that by being super conservative. So it makes a lot of sense. But Jessica, this has been a great conversation to learn more about your background, FlowIntell, your Startup Runway experience, and your vision for growing and scaling the business here over the next few months and years. And I’m excited because if there are any listeners out there right now who are thinking about applying to start a runway hopefully your story and experience, encourage them to go to startup runway.org and apply to be a part of our next showcase which is happening on December 7 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta. So Jessica, I really appreciate your time and look forward to watching you build and grow FlowIntell.
Jessica King
Okay, thank you so much for having me today. I appreciate it.
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