Leah  00:21

Hi, thanks for being here. And welcome to Season Two of The Founder Mindset, brought to you by ATB. I'm Leah Sarich, your host, and I'm super excited to talk to more Founders about the human experience of being an entrepreneur. In this podcast, we're digging into what it really feels like to build a company from nothing. I was a broadcaster for over 20 years. So I've interviewed thousands of people, but entrepreneurs, not that many. And yet they have the best stories. They're solving big problems. And they're creating incredible impact. But it is hard work. So why would they do this? Let's find out. Joining me in studio today is Dr. Christy Lane, Co-Founder of Flora, an InsurTech company that allows women to buy low cost insurance to cover future fertility treatments. Christy, thank you so much for being here today.

Christy  01:18

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Leah  01:21

Absolutely. Well, as we always do with these podcasts, we kind of go back in time, if you will, and start with, when did you first sort of figure out I'm going to be an entrepreneur?

Christy  01:32

Oh, great question. I mean, I'm a scientist by training, originally, so it definitely wasn't in business school. I'd always kind of been entrepreneurial-curious. But the real defining moment, I would say, was probably during my postdoc, and that would have been like 2008, I was at the University of Michigan, and was doing some really interesting research in wearable devices. And wearable this is, you know, early generation wearables, pre Apple watch stuff, and was just so excited about the data that we were seeing and the insights we were able to gain from the wearable data. That's when I started thinking, man, there has to be a business in this. We have to be able to get this interesting data and insights to be able to help people in day to day life, and so really, five years later, on my first maternity leave from the university was when I started my first company. But that was probably the first time when I started seriously thinking about it was.

Leah  02:35

And was that what turned into Vivametrica. It was, tell me a little bit about that.

Christy  02:41

Vivametrica I started in 2013 on my first mat leave, and that company was really an evolution of that research. My research around using physical activity data in particular to help understand risk for chronic disease and also mortality. And so I originally thought that that company was going to be kind of a public health company. We were going to have an app and help individuals understand their risks and then make lifestyle changes to improve their risk. And our first customer ended up being the world's largest reinsurance company called Me and Agree, and that's how I ended up in insurance and insuretech. We had reinsurers and insurance companies paying for our algorithms to better underwrite life insurance risk and later things like disability risk. But, so it was pretty interesting that, but that was my first foray into entrepreneurship, and it was definitely straight into the deep end.

Leah  03:45

You know, as I like to do in this podcast, I like to pick up a little bit on the tidbits that I hear that fly by, like you started this on your first mat leave? Yeah, can we just talk about that for a second? I mean, I've had two kids. I know what mat leave can look like. I wasn't starting a company when I was on mat leave.

Christy  04:01

You know, I was full time at the University as a professor, and you can't really do both, starting out, at least, and so not there's actually more to it. I not only was it mat leave, but I moved the whole family down to Silicon Valley, and was living down there, building this company. And thankfully, I was also a visiting prof at the time at Stanford. But, you know, my husband left his job, and he stayed home with the baby, and it was, you know, there was a lot going on.

Leah  04:31

Wow.

Christy 04:32

It was very exciting times.

Leah 04:34

No kidding, that's unbelievable.

Christy 04:38

That was fun.

Leah 04:39

That's a whole family effort, is what that is.

Christy  04:41

Oh, 100% I was telling you about all my podcasts, but I often talk on podcasts about, you know, entrepreneurship being a, you know, family affair, and especially for, I'm gonna call it out, especially for female entrepreneurs and moms, like, if it wasn't for the support of my husband being, behind me the whole way. He was also the CFO of this company, right? It wouldn't have been possible. So he's awesome.

Leah  05:06

Wonderful. So this is Vivametrica. And if I got this right, it was acquired in 2020?

Christy  05:11

Yep, yeah. It was acquired by another Canadian health and wellness company, which was pretty quickly acquired by TELUS.

Leah 05:19

Well, there you go. Congratulations.

Christy 05:21

So it’s out there. The tech is out there, somewhere.

Leah 5:24

That's amazing. Congratulations.

Christy 5:25

Thank you.

Leah  05:25

And then this brings us to Flora now. Now tell me where this came from.

Christy  05:29

Oh, this is a combination of my career background, but also my personal background. So Flora is, at its heart, an insurance product for women, initially, to be able to protect their infertility risk. So women can buy a policy between the ages of 20 and 34 and if they end up needing fertility treatment, then we pay for it. But we're also building community around this, so enabling women to have support around infertility, or just understanding the risks. And it initially for me came from the fact that I personally experienced infertility. So two of my three kids, I struggled with infertility and needed treatment, and holy moly, was it isolating and emotionally impactful, but also expensive. Even in Canada, I had to pay out of pocket and and then I had a surprise third in my 40s. So.

Leah 06:28

Wow, surprise!

Christy 06:30

Surprise. So I've two daughters and a cute little four year old boy. So you know, this was like 2011 kind of thing. When I was going through this, I was thinking, there have to be better ways to support women, both financially and emotionally psychologically. But at the time, I was building this other company and really deeply engaged in both healthcare and InsurTech. And so when I sold Vivametrica, I was doing, you know, quite a bit of consulting and InsurTech, and at the intersection of InsurTech and healthcare and and also starting to consult and build some models in infertility. And about two years ago, I was introduced to my Co-Founder, Laura McDonald. She's another Canadian woman lives in Winnipeg, and she and I got introduced through a common connection in insurance. And she was thinking about the same problem, just for a different reason. She had seen a close family member go through infertility, and I kind of watched all of the same things going on. And with her background in, you know, women in finance and InsurTech as well, she was thinking the same thing, you know, how do we solve this problem in a, in an innovative way? So we met and and really started working on it together about two years ago. It was a tail end of COVID, so we didn't actually meet in person until probably six months in and then we met in Toronto and shared a hotel room. Oh, so that was, that's startup life, right.

Leah 08:00

Isn't it though? That's amazing. So, let's talk a little bit about infertility itself. You know, I didn't struggle with it, per se, but I did have two miscarriages right out of the gate. And even then you start thinking, Oh, am I going to need this? And how expensive is this? And even the miscarriages themselves were really devastating. And people just don't talk about this, and they don't talk about infertility. And, you know, back in my house, reporter days, I would do stories on infertility, and we'd hear numbers like, one in six couples struggle, and you just don't hear people talking about it. What do you think's going on there?

Christy  08:30

So first of all, sorry about your experience. I was talking on a podcast earlier today about miscarriage, and, you know, similar problem to infertility, nobody, at least when I was going through it, I also experienced miscarriage, and it's devastating, but had nobody to talk to. And same with infertility. So, you know, 10, 15, years ago, nobody was talking about these things. I would say that has evolved. Gen Z is different. We've done some market research with some great partners, and found that at least 50% of women in the Gen Z population are already thinking about fertility, and they're doing things like freezing their eggs. But they're also just wondering, how, alongside all of the other issues they're facing, like they can't afford houses and how are they saving for retirement? How are they going to pay for fertility treatment? So it is stats wise, one in six women will need some kind of fertility treatment. And thankfully, the conversation is evolving. You know, my two daughters know what infertility is. They know I went through it. They have friends who were born through IVF, for example. So that being said, there are still limited solutions, and so that's where with Flora, we're looking to come in and fill that gap, both from a financial perspective, but also from building community and just making it okay to talk about these things. You know, it's the reality of life, and people want to have babies, and it's not always easy.

Leah  10:01

That’s right, that's right. I remember really thinking that, you know, you just think you're gonna have a baby and it's gonna be great, and then you know, you have a miscarriage, or you don't get pregnant, and you're like, What is going on? Why is this happening to me? And has anybody else been through this? And then all of a sudden, those conversations start, but you're right. People just don't talk about it. But I'm so glad to hear that Gen Z is starting these conversations.

Christy  10:20

They are, they're just seem to be a lot more, I don't know, transparent with what they're thinking about. I also just think things have evolved where, you know, fertility treatment as a science has changed significantly over the past decade, and success rates are slowly going up, and people are just more open to it. And also, I mean, the big stat I have to call out is women are having babies later in life. You know, it's, I think last year was the first year ever that more women over 30 had first babies than under 30 ever before in history and so but like WHO, World Health Organization has declared infertility as a global health crisis in need of new mechanisms of funding, so.

Leah  11:08

Oh, wow, that's incredible. Yeah. I mean, I remember I had my first baby at 35 and it was a geriatric pregnancy. Really. I had never heard that phrase before.

Christy  11:19

Don’t get me started on that term. All three of my babies were geriatric. And then imagine being, you know, I was 42 with my third. That's, I don't even know what you call that, it’s beyond geriatric.

Leah  11:28

But, you know, we're laughing here, but really you're solving an issue that is deeply personal and it is deeply challenging for couples. And you and I were talking in the pre interview about how, you know, you keep hearing this is a niche product. It's not niche at all. Talk to me a little bit about the market that you're addressing here.

Christy  11:50

Yeah, I love this question. So, you know, in context, when Laura and I were first pitching Flora, you know, to investors and potential partners. Oftentimes we heard that term niche. This is a nice niche product, and it's really not. Our market is all women of childbearing age. You know, all women between the age of 20 and 34 who may someday want to have a baby. And that's a lot of women, 50 million women in the United States, you know, and about 5 million in Canada. And so there are more niche products in fertility when you start to get into the like loans and financing around IVF, for example. But what we're doing is definitely a huge market.

Leah  12:39

Definitely, this is great and a wonderful solution, but you've touched on this already. But what I also love about it is that you are, in fact, creating a community around this product and this issue. How important is it for you to have that community? And why did you decide to build that community?

Christy  12:56

Uh, I think because it's a multi faceted problem, and absolutely being able to pay for treatment is a big part of it, right? Like that alleviates a lot of stress, financially, allows for women to plan for it. But as I mentioned, my personal experience and other women I've talked to, and we've done a lot of market research with women. The community side is huge. Women want education. They want to be able to understand their risks. They want to be able to communicate with other women who are at the same stage of life as them. So whether you're buying a policy when you're 20 or your mom bought you the policy and you just want to talk to talk to other 20 year olds about what they're thinking, you know about sexual health. You know, what products are they buying, what services are out there? So we're also as part of the community, bringing in, even at onset, some amazing perks and benefits and partners, so things like, you know, microbiome, tampons and women's health telehealth services. So really, just enabling a whole infrastructure around supporting women through, really their their whole journey.

Leah  14:13

I love this. Yeah, it's amazing and very successful. I mean, so far, you've got a pre seed round of 1.5 million. Congratulations.

Christy  14:20

Thank you. Yeah, we, we've been successful in raising just over 2 million so far in this market. Is, you know, we're pretty happy about that. And I would say, I think this might be one of your questions, but the fundraising, obviously, is, is a big part of it. But I'd say the hardest thing for us has been the insurance side. Because this is a brand new product, so this has never been done. People ask, you know, are there existing competitive products? There aren't, you know, there are loans in financing. There are group level coverage. So like a large employer might pay for it, but there's never been an individually owned product with individual risk selection and so…

Leah  15:09

And why would you go that route? What does that do for your customer?

Christy  15:12

Yeah, so what it enables us to do it by doing individual risk selection is price it competitively and at a level that women can afford, is the first part. So right now, only fortune 500 companies can afford group policy. So the big companies in the US are called carrot and progeny. They'll sell to an Apple or a Microsoft, but there, there's no underwriting, there's no risk assessment, so they're paying for everybody in their employee base, so it's expensive. So you've got everybody else, 80% plus of people with no coverage. Those are the gig workers and small to medium businesses, or, you know, people who aren't working. And so we wanted to be able to cover everybody, and by doing the individual underwriting, we can price it really competitive, you know, at low cost, right? It's like the price of a Netflix subscription, we say, or even, because Netflix has gone up a lot recently, so annoying, like three, you know, three lattes a month, kind of thing.

Leah 16:17

Really?

Christy 16:18

Yeah.

Leah  16:19

That’s really cool. And it's just help me understand how it works then. So then the one, it's for that woman, and she can take it wherever she goes. Is that right?

Christy  16:26

Yeah, absolutely. So how it works is between 20 and 34 you have to have no known infertility to start. And then you go through a quick underwriting process, you get your price, and then you pay your monthly premium, you know, ranging kind of between $15 to $75 a month, depending on age and some other things. And then if you end up requiring treatment, we pay for it. And it's important to mention that it's not just IVF we're paying for, we're paying for your initial consultation with a fertility specialist. We'll pay for medication, we'll pay for IUI, and then eventually IVF if you end up needing that.

Leah  17:04

And what happens if you end up not needing it?

Christy  17:07

Well, essentially, then it's like any other kind of insurance, because it truly is insurance, but we like to think of it as, you know, this is positive impact insurance, where truly it is women, at this point, funding one another's risks. So it's really, you know, it's not, it's pooled in a way, you know, where, if you don't end up needing it, somebody else does. And that's, I mean, that's also the business model, right? Of insurance.

Leah  17:31

Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, you alluded to this, but yes, everybody that sits in this chair, I like to ask them, you know, when you're building a startup, inevitably, there's going to be one or two moments where you're just like, Ah, this is a do or die moment, or this is a major pivot we're going to have to do. Or I'm just not sure I can do this, moment. And so I'd like to ask you, Christy, the same So think back on that one moment you actually, I think, said something happened recently that you wanted to share. What’s that do or die moment for you?

Christy  18:01

Well, so I did allude to it. For the non insurance people listening to the podcast, we're what's called an MGA, a Managing General Agency, which means we do everything related to the insurance. So we sell it, we manage the policies, we manage the claims, but we don't have the funding for the backing of the risk, so to put the money to pay claims, essentially, and so what you have to do, it's called capacity. So you have to go out to the market, and we worked with an amazing broker, but you have to go find what's called a fronting carrier. They're the ones that give you the paper that you can write your policies on, and then a reinsurer, those are the ones that are going to pay the claims. They have the big dollars. And that has by far been, probably that one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my entrepreneurial and just in my, you know, career, we were getting very close, and we got very close, and that, I can't give details, but essentially, one piece of the puzzle came back with with a major change. And you know, it was one of these Do or Die moments where we just had to make the decision, do we, do we go ahead with this? Or do we kind of, you know, reevaluate where we're at? And in the end, it worked out, thankfully, it worked out really well. But getting capacity in this world apparent, sometimes it can take five six years, or you won't be able to get it at all. So apparently, for us, we did it in under 18 months, which…

Leah 19:31

Is incredible.

Christy 19:32

Yeah, we were pretty excited about and also the fact that it's a brand new product. So, normally these underwriters, are used to looking at experience data, so they'll go, Oh, it's a new home insurance product. We have billions of data points on home insurance we can look to. No one's ever done this, so there's no data. So they're having to put their trust in us in that we've built these models appropriately. And so there's a few times along the way where we had big meetings or big calls where we just were just grilled, absolutely grilled on these models. And you're, you're just hoping to come out of it unscathed, and in the end, we did.

Leah  20:08

But, let's back it up to what that actually felt like, though. So you're the one that's on this call, and you're getting that, yeah, I just don't see it like or maybe it's just not going to happen for you. What's it like in that moment when you're actually, you said you're having this conversation, you know, with your Co-Founders, going, Is this the moment?

Christy  20:24

Like it’s, oh my goodness, great question. I mean, it's stressful, you know, it's absolutely one of, you know, it's really like a gut punch, you know, like it's a physical feeling of, oh my goodness. And actually, in my case, it was an email that came in prior to a call, and I opened it, and you just kind of just kind of feel nauseous, right? Like, yeah, a little bit sick. Where you get that, you know, the cortisol rushing through your bloodstream, and you just have to roll with it. I'm saying that because that's how I deal with it. It's like, this is what it is. We're either going to do it or we're not. And I'm an optimist, you know, I'm an eternal optimist, and so I'm always like, it'll be fine, it's going to be fine, and it's, it'll work out. It doesn't always work out. So there's always that initial, like, gut punch feeling, and then the Okay, like, let's just, let's just get it done. Let's just figure out if it's going to work and if it's not, we'll have to go another direction.

Leah  21:24

How do you even get to that place, though, where you're like, okay, you know what, I mean, we're just gonna have to figure it out? Because that seems like a bit of a leap to me, honestly.

Christy  21:31

I mean, I would say, with my first company, all the mistakes were made, right? Not all, but, like, a lot of mistakes were made. There were a lot of learnings. That was my first time doing everything, and it was very much like I said, straight into the deep end learning as you go. And I think what as an entrepreneur, you come to realize is you're not always going to win. There are going to be failures and, but the people that end up being successful and making it happen are the ones that just keep going, like, you just, you know, you look at that email and you're like, Well, this is shitty, but I just have to figure it out. You know, you can't quit so, but it, I mean, it just takes time and experience when these things happened to me the first time around. Just devastated. You know, I would have reacted very differently, been very dramatic, get a lot more upset now. I mean, it's, you know, it's, you get a little battle hardened. I would say.

Leah  22:34

I've heard this from multi time entrepreneurs that, you know, the second, third, and fourth time, you're like, Okay, let's we'll just do our best. If it doesn't work, we'll just either pivot, we'll wrap it up, we'll do something else. But you there's a level of confidence that you get, like, we did everything we could, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

Christy 22:52

Yeah.

Leah 22:53

But the one thing that I think of, particularly when it comes to flora, is this community that you've already built, and you know, there would be a responsibility to the community, even your colleagues, there's not a ton of you, but I mean the responsibility that you would have to each other even.

Christy  23:04

Well, I think it is all of those things. I think it's also the investors, sure, you know, early stage companies you're taking, you know, angel investing, early we had an amazing in this case, Venture Studio, a lot like Thin Air Labs, called Highline Beta in Toronto, and they made a really, really early bet on us. And so, you know, there's that fiduciary duty to the board and the company, but there is also the feeling the need to to execute and to to actually do your best to get it done, but there are times where you just can't. And I think that, again, is an experience thing where you realize that you are going to have failures and things are going to be bumpy, but just have to get through it. That might be the worst advice ever, just get through it. But it is, honestly, it's like, and I talk to younger entrepreneur, young entrepreneurs all the time around just trying to have an optimistic attitude and just keep going. Get up the next day, have your coffee and do your best right like that's all you can do.

Leah  24:14

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Leah 24:37

You are an investor as well, and you're an advisor to many startups. How do you characterize these Do or Die moments for them, and how do you help coach them through that?

Christy  24:48

Yeah, as an investor, so I, you know, I'm on the venture capital side in insurtech and fintech, and the companies we invest in are series A and B. Be. So they're usually a little, you know, a little bit further along. They usually have a management or a leadership team in place, more seasoned and are scaling. So those are different problems, right? Not, not easier by any means. Some of the biggest drama I've seen in companies that I advise is at that stage, the growing up stage, right, where you're like, you've got product market fit, you've maybe got a couple million in revenue, and then, but now you've got some investors that are saying, where's 10 million? Where's 50 million? And so those are different conversations, um, than with early stage Founders.

Leah 25: 44

Sure, you know, out of curiosity, what are those conversations like?

Christy 25:46

Oh, it totally depends. There's one, again, can't give details going on right now, super successful company, but raised a later stage round. This isn't in our portfolio, but raised a later stage round, and they're now under pretty heavy pressure to bring in new streams of revenue, and that conversation is around, potentially a change in leadership.

Leah 26:06

Wow.

Christy 26:07

And, you know, transitioning Founders, not necessarily out, but to different roles and bringing in, because there's a different skill set to go from zero to one than one to two and two to three, right, yeah. And so I think those are some of the hardest conversations with Founders, around letting go a little bit and maybe realizing that, you know, they're not the one to take their baby, no pun intended,to the next stage.  

Leah  26:39

Yeah. Oh, fascinating. Okay, cool. I love that. We talked a little bit about this too, about how being an entrepreneur really is like the all hands on deck, even in the family, right? It's a very it's a business that is 24/7 you know, it affects everybody. Can you talk to me a little bit about what it was like having your family and building your businesses?

Christy  26:57

I do. I do talk quite a bit about this concept of work life balance, you know. And there are new terminologies coming out for it all the time, but it that is a skill to be learned, I would say. And I will be the first one to put my hand up and say I did not master it initially. You know, I was in my first business. I was all in, you know, all limbs in, and my husband was there alongside me, and it was all work, all the time. Well, I mean, obviously not all the time, but my life was essentially work or my family, right? Yeah, I didn't have time for other family. I didn't have time for friends, I didn't have time to work out. I didn't have time to sleep, you know, so it's that's something that I think as I've aged and, you know, as a serial entrepreneur, I've come I'm in a very different place than that, and now with three kids, you just have to be very intentional about your time. I'm very intentional about my time, very different from my first business, where now I'm like, I'm working during work hours. I if I'm off, I'm off. If I'm with my kids, I'm with my kids. And that doesn't work for everybody. And you'll see these people on LinkedIn and podcasts saying, promoting the hustle culture and that you have to be always on and investors saying they're always looking for the Founders who will take a call at any time anywhere. And I don't agree with that, but that's just my personal stance, right? I my family is number one to me, and you know, but there's some bumps along the road getting there, absolutely for sure.

Leah  28:41

I also wonder too, if this younger generation isn't calling for more balance and, yeah, more of a life that isn't all consumed, with work.

Christy 28:50

I mean, good on them.

Leah 28:53

Yeah, right. Not sure it's gonna work necessarily.

Christy  28:57

That's the thing you know. You know being, I'm Gen X. You know, there's all sorts of funny names about Gen X, yeah, um, there, there. But again, there has to be a balance there, because the work does still have to get done. It does. And so it's like, does there need to be balance? Absolutely, but do you need to put your head down and do the work if you want to be successful 100%? It's being great with time management, prioritization and knowing that balls are going to get dropped. Yeah, you absolutely can't do everything. That's right, right? Yeah, you just can't, okay, and that's okay. Yeah, you know you do your best.

Leah  29:35

So, the one thing that we talk about at Thin Air Labs a lot is creating meaningful human impact. And I know you like this stuff. Okay, just for the record, she just put a big smile on her face. Um, what do you think about creating meaningful human impact in the world? What does that look like for you? And maybe is for Flora as well.

Christy  29:54

My research starting out in my early career as an academic, my very, I talk about this a lot recently, my very first research study was in high risk pregnant bed rested women. So they were high risk pregnancies, bed rested, wow, in hospital, and we're talking like some of them the entirety of their pregnancy, wow. And this was in the late 90s, aging myself here, and it was also during SARS. I don't know if you remember SARS, yes, of course. And so family couldn't even get in to see these women. So I had this research path, so I got to go in, and I was probably one of the only people they got to talk to. Anyways, that study was looking at what was the physiological impact, but it was the first time that I was like, wow. First of all, no one had ever studied these women, like standard of practice in clinical care. No one cared enough to say, is this actually good for them? Should we be doing this to these women? And it was the first time I was like, holy moly, this stuff that I'm working on can be impactful. You know, because out of that, not huge change, but there were some changes came about, and then, as I mentioned, when I started the first business, my goal was to try and help people understand their health, and that's kind of always been my goal. Help people use data, now AI, but use data wearables to help people understand their health. Help them make small changes that will improve their overall lives. So I, I've always been about that health technology and really helping people. And, you know, I'd hoped that with the first company and we, we did that. I think, you know, we got through to some people. But I'm, like, particularly extra passionate about what we're doing at Flora, because it combines my personal experience with infertility and knowing you know how isolating that is and how little education there was like, How does someone with a PhD in healthcare not know that there would be risks for infertility of someone my age? I didn't know. How did I not know that? I didn't know that because it's not out there. There's no you know, and unless you're intentionally going and looking for resources, I don't even know where I would have looked. So that's a big part of Flora is helping women understand what their risks are, but also just creating this community around, like, open discussion, like you mentioned, let's talk about women's health. Let's talk about periods. Let's talk about, you know, all of it, perimenopause, menopause.

Leah  32:29

Don't get me started on the menopause. Nobody's talking about this. Yeah, it's having a bit of a moment, though. I would suggest.

Christy  32:35

It's, I mean, thankfully it is. And as someone who, like, had a baby, like I had my baby in my 40s, straight into perimenopause and again, still not many resources. So I think Women's Health is also having a moment that's evolving, though. Yeah. So for me, it's really like, how can we help, not just women, either men, like, we want to build products for men, families, build a community around having healthy lives.

Leah  33:02

Yeah, I was just gonna ask that when you mentioned the men, because, you know, fertility, it takes two people, right? So there's usually another person involved there, that has a tendency to be male. That's what I mean by it's not just women's health like this impact is broad, 100% families, right?

Christy  33:21

Well, and, yeah, and it's interesting, because when I was going through, you know, I was the one physiologically with the infertility, my husband physiologically was fine. But I remember going through month after month, you know, not being successful. And then, actually, my very first time I got pregnant with treatment, I had a miscarriage, and I just remember being torn apart. And my husband was too, but he absolutely had nobody to talk to, right?

Leah 33:51

I bet.

Christy 33:52

Like, it's isolating for women, but there's maybe, you know, there's maybe the odd person, yeah, the girlfriend or my mom, you know, because my mom had him for so that's a piece too. That's really important to us. Is supporting everybody in the journey. Is our initial insurance product, just for women? Yes, but we want to, you know, support people who want to build families.

Leah  34:14

Great. Well, as we move to the end of the conversation, you know, I like to end on the same two questions. Okay, so let's start. So you're the Co-Founder of Flora, and you're writing the story for flora. How do you hope the story goes?

Christy  34:25

It would be what I just said, in a nutshell a little bit. But I mean for Flora, I really, truly want to see this become an impactful company, but also almost a movement of financial security for women who want to build families, the ability to like, plan and pay for we just did some amazing new branding, by the way, I'm going to give a shout out to Daughter. Yeah, they did our rebrand. It's not released yet, but you know, where we landed with them was this concept of plus motherhood. So like the plus sign that you see when you're pregnant, but it also means a lot of other things. And so it's, you know, the ability for women to do all the things they want to do, and then maybe have a baby. So go to school, have a career, travel, have, you know, multiple partners, whatever you want to do, and then if and when you want to get there, you get there. And we're there financially to support you and with the community. And would love her just to support as many women as we possibly can in North America, and just, yeah, be positive impact insurance.

Leah  35:39

I love that. I love that, okay, and as the Co-Founder of the company, let's talk about you yourself as a Founder. How do you hope your own personal story goes?

Christy  35:49

I would say, as mentioned, I have gotten better at balance. You know, I still have three little kids. My kids are 11, seven, and four, you know, I at this point, want to build something that is impactful and like, you know, inspirational to my, I always just, I always see my daughters, but my son too. Do you know what I mean? And have them see what's possible, and whether or not they become entrepreneurs. My one daughter wants to be a vet at this point, which I love, and who knows what the other two are, too, too young, but I think just doing something impactful, but also being able to spend a ton of time with my family, right? Like, I love traveling, and I love taking my family places and planning trips and stuff. So I, I think it's a life of having impact and hopefully building Flora to a point where we could sell it, I'd be amazed, and then I can just travel indefinitely.

Leah 36:50

Sounds wonderful.

Christy 36:53

Yeah, just just, you know, I'm in a pretty happy place right now. Like, there's not, there's not a lot, you know, additional that I would look for at this point,

Leah 36:59

How wonderful.

Christy 37:01

Yeah, it’s a happy place.

Leah 37:05

That's incredible. Christy, thank you for this conversation.

Christy 37:08

Yeah. Thanks for having me

Leah  37:17

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Leah 38:00

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