Interview: Finding the Right Co-Founders

Felicia von Reden founded Ovom Care in March of 2023, alongside her two co-founders, Dr. Lynae Brayboy and Dr. Cristina Hickmann. Felicia comes from a background of venture building in healthcare and started the ideation journey with Merantix in 2022. She looked at a variety of cases before setting her targets on the Fertility Space:
“I decided to dedicate myself to the fertility care market for two reasons. 
The first one being, the need for data-driven solutions for the reproductive care market is enormous. Today, 17.5% of the global adult population is infertile, the market is growing at a double digit CAGR. The care that is provided today is outdated and restricts access to many many people. This combines a huge societal need with a significant market opportunity. 
The second reason is personal. I was myself diagnosed with endometriosis during the time when onward deep in ideation. I was faced with very low success chances for my own reproductive future. Understanding that the care structures in place where lacking the support I needed pushed me toward - alright let’s build the reproductive health solution I want and need for myself. Looking deeper into the space, I understood the tremendous benefit data-driven solutions and specifically AI can have for fertility patients: better outcomes, reduced costs, and most importantly better support. Customer pain points, market potential, and the potential value add through AI were my framework to understand what kind of company I want to build. ”
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How did you qualify what kind of co-founders you need to bring this vision to life? You also have a fairly unusual setup. You are a CEO, a COO, and a Chief Medical Officer. You also don’t have a CTO as a founding member but you have one on your team.

“I am a huge believer in hybrid care models in healthcare. The physical aspect is needed to not just provide comprehensive care to patients but also to capture monetary value.  Specifically in reproductive health, you need to rethink the entire patient journey - including brick and mortar elements to move the needle for the patient. 

This being a given, you identify the puzzle pieces that are required to now bring together personal care with technology. The company structure, the vision determines who is needed to bring this to life. ”

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How did you find Lynae and Cristina?

“The first founder I knew I needed was the Chief Medical Officer. Someone who understands the processes, the industry and would be the credibility backbone to give our customers confidence that what we are doing is the best in care that they can get.

I put out an ad through the Merantix channels for a Medical Co-founder and just wrote my case in the description, fully transparent upfront. I had about 50 applications in a week. Lynae saw the ad on LinkedIn, and was at the time looking for a position for someone else from her team as they were winding down. We started talking and I initially thought that given her seniority, she might only be interested as an advisor. However once we got talking, we never stopped communicating and she very soon joined as a full-time co-founder on the Ovom Care journey.

What worked most efficiently here was not necessarily defining exactly what I want this person to bring to the table but putting the vision forward and then having someone onboard onto the vision, not onto the requirements. If I wrote a more standard job description, Lynaey probably would have looked right past it as she was not looking for a job, but for a vision and mission to join on.”

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Did you intend to be a 3 person founding team from the start?

“Not necessarily, we however realized very quickly that with a brick-and-mortar operation, which is a heavy burden, we would need someone to spearhead that front of the company. I came across and attended the very first IVF x AI conference in Croatia in order to learn more about the industry and make connections. I spent 2 weeks reading medical books in preparation for the conference in order to have a better understanding of the panels and be able to hold a conversation with, what was going to be, exclusively medical professionals.

I met a lot of people at the conference and fortunately got to speak very briefly with Cristina, who was the organizer of this conference and is an IVF expert and serial entrepreneur. In our conversation about the industry and what it needs, we realized that we are effectively talking about the exact same thing.

Cristina then went back to London where she was in the process of opening her own digitally enabled clinic. Over the next few months we actively kept in touch. Cristina visited the Merantix AI Campus multiple times, met the entire team, the investors, other founders in the ecosystem and slowly we came to the understanding that joining our efforts makes sense and she came onboard as a full-time cofounder on the team.”

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What is your learning or advice out of finding 2 high caliber co-founders from such diverse sources?

“I would say that without having a strong support from the investors, I probably would not have been able to convince them to join. The fact that Merantix was willing to commit so many resources, both financially and strategically to the success of this venture, gave a new level of credibility to the case. I was not just a venture builder wanting to enter this space, we were a deeply experienced team with resources and connections to make it work. Validating the Private Equity angle alone, which is just one of the parts, was only possible with intros to top tier investors and getting their view on the case early.

On the actual scouting side, I would say that putting yourself and your case out there is the bare minimum. Putting in the work to go to conferences, topic meetups or simply reaching out proactively to people you think are relevant is mandatory. Speak honestly and openly with people about what you want to build and if you match on the vision, that’s a great first step to a co-founder match. It’s scary to go to a conference full of Medical Doctors, at any point whoever I was talking with could have just ignored me or considered that I’m not worth their time, and this a completely valid way to feel but overcoming this is what will make the difference in the end.”

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