How Do Healthtech Founders Win Over Investors?

Intro 00:00
Welcome to Startup Success, the podcast for startup founders and investors. Here you’ll find stories of success from others in the trenches as they work to scale some of the fastest growing startups in the world. Stories that will help you in your own journey. Startup Success starts now.

Kate 00:17
Welcome to Startup Success. In this episode, I sit down with Melissa Hanna, co-founder and CEO of Mahmee, a maternal healthcare technology platform, re-imagining how families receive support during pregnancy and postpartum care. The company’s technology platform and the way they leverage AI has attracted a lot of investors, including Mark Cuban, Serena Williams, and AOL founder Steve Case. The company also had a very successful Series A funding round led by Goldman Sachs. In this episode, we explore how Mahmee combines technology with human-centered care teams to close critical gaps in maternal health, and what it takes to fundraise, and then scale a mission-driven health tech company in today’s evolving healthcare and AI landscape. Thanks again for being here, Melissa. So excited to get into Mahmee, but before we do, would you mind walking us through your background and what led to the founding?

Melissa Hanna 01:30
Yeah, absolutely happy to do that. So, my background is in law and business and healthcare policy. And I began building Mahmee while I was pursuing my JD and my MBA in Los Angeles, after having worked for several other impact-oriented and mission-focused startups with purpose-driven teams, and seeing a number of different CEOs focused on building technology solutions across healthcare and also education, as well. So that’s where I got my start, and I’ve always had a passion for serving others, and specifically in the realms of health and education. Never thought I would start my own business. Certainly, right out of grad school, my goal was to go back to impact-oriented technology startups and continued working with those leaders and bring the new skills and knowledge that I had earned to their work. But then came up for the idea, came up with the idea for Mahmee while I was in grad school and began building it when I graduated.

Kate 02:33
Oh, neat. Okay, so tell us about Mahmee, so the listeners kind of get the full picture and what you’re doing, it’s very, very cool.

Melissa Hanna 02:40
Oh, thank you. So, yeah, Mahmee is an integrated maternal healthcare platform. We are the data payments and workforce infrastructure for maternity care, and we focus on the key areas of support that are typically not covered by or provided by the OB-GYN or the pediatrician or the hospital. They play really key roles, certainly in pregnancy and in postpartum care, but there’s a lot of other key players as well that don’t get as much of the spotlight. We’re talking about lactation consultants, doulas, mental health providers, nutritionists, and then also registered nurses who provide home-based care, remote patient monitoring, and ongoing telehealth support to patients throughout that critical window of time, from the pregnancy all the way through baby’s first birthday. So we cover those key areas of support, and we have a team of professionals who work closely together collaborate to provide that care to families. And what we’ve done that’s unique in our business is that we built the platform that powers not just the service delivery itself for patients to get access to this care, but the longitudinal data set and the payment infrastructure to make it really easy for this care to be covered by insurance across the country.

Kate 03:59
Wow, that’s amazing. First, the need you’re fulfilling, because we can get into that, but then second, just the technology that you’ve built. That’s incredible. So, I don’t think people realize that in the United States, there’s not a lot of support for pregnancies and new mothers. I mean, my kids are in their 20s now, but I remember those days, and there’s just, it’s very limited, it’s very confusing, unorganized, easily fall through the cracks. So, what prompted in your life that this need was out there?

Melissa Hanna 04:35
Well, my exposure to this world of maternal and infant health comes through my own mother, who is a registered nurse, certified in obstetrics, and is a board-certified lactation consultant, and is most well known for having designed some of the most successful inpatient and outpatient maternity care programs in California at major health systems and hospitals across the state. So I grew up with someone who was deep in this industry and very focused and very committed to the well-being of moms and babies, and I was always inspired by that. I always knew how important it was, but to your point about the stats and just sort of the experience of having a baby in the United States, I didn’t understand how costly it is. And I didn’t understand how challenging it can be for families to get the care they need, even when there are professionals across the country who are really committed to providing that care and wanting to see the best experience possible be available to every family. We can all want these things, but the industry can be kind of messy and fragmented and disjointed, and that can make it really challenging for families to get access to the support that they deserve.

Kate 05:40
Absolutely, well, you frame that really well. So for the other founders listening, you have this idea, you’ve been inspired by your mom, which is really neat, kind of full circle here, how do you go about starting to build the technology and taking that first step and deciding, okay, I’m going to do this, I’m going to become a founder. Because I know people listening, that’s a big decision, it’s scary.

Melissa Hanna 06:06
Yeah, absolutely. Because I had been working in startups for years, I was familiar with the ups and downs of entrepreneurial life.I was very familiar with and comfortable working in tech startups, because that’s really what I loved, and it’s what I was really interested in continuing to sort of to build out a career in. In starting Mahmee outside of the career that I had in building companies with other leaders, I brought together an early team of folks that I trusted and felt understood the opportunity and the vision, and that team included my own mom, who is an expert in this space. And so having people around that really get what it is that you see in the market as an opportunity, agree with that, have their own ideas on how to contribute to it, and can provide that honest feedback is really important, and definitely emboldened me and strengthened my vision, and my commitment to working on this challenge. And really fundamentally, the challenge is one that has broad impact for all of us. The United States spends more than any other wealthy developed nation, any other major player on the global stage to take care of moms and babies. So we spend the most of anyone, we get the worst results in return. We have the highest rates of mortality and morbidity, which is serious harm or injury. It happens to moms and babies during this critical window of time, and that just seems really paradoxical, like we’ve got, you know, amazing healthcare organizations and research institutes and technology and tools. And it shouldn’t be that way, that we spend so much, and we’re not able to see the best results in the world for that. And so when I started Mahmee, I established a mission for the company to make the US the best place in the world to give birth, and that became a rallying cry that brought together a lot of really interesting folks that were committed to seeing that mission become a reality. And we all agreed early on that one of the key things that we would have to do is figure out how to connect these disparate pieces of the industry together, that there was a lot of fragmentation, there was a lot of patients falling through the cracks of the systems, as you mentioned. That language is really a great way to visualize the fact that you might be looking for certain kinds of support, mental health support or lactation support, you might want coaching on how to prepare for your labor and delivery experience, and you know these things are out there, but are you going to be able to find them in time? Are they going to be cost effective for you? Can you afford them? Will your insurance cover them? Do you have to coordinate everything yourself, or is something going to be available through your doctor’s office or your hospital? And so that’s what we mean when we say that things are really fragmented. Patients often have to put the pieces together on their own. (Yes.) What we set out to do was to create a technology platform that could connect those pieces in one place for families. And so the first version of Mahmee was an app. It was pure software to connect together patients and providers and allow for that level of collaboration, communication, and really data transparency, because if you have all of that information of mom and baby’s health and needs and goals in one place, then there’s really no excuse for rendering that kind of care. You can’t say that, Oh, I didn’t realize that, you know, the family was looking for that, or I didn’t realize she was struggling with that, or that baby wasn’t gaining enough weight, or that these complications were coming up. And so we saw this first and foremost as a data challenge. How we bring together all of these different sources of data to create a single source of truth to ensure that families are getting everything they need in a timely manner. What we learned over time is that we needed to build other layers on top of the business, and I think that that’s a classic example of the entrepreneur’s journey.

Kate 9:59
Yes, right.

Melissa Hanna 10:00
You sort of stumble into an opportunity, and then through that, through solving that, you stumble into others along the way. And you know if you’re doing it right, you might be on the forefront of actually seeing that opportunity where other people are working on a different part of the issue. And so having confidence in and moving boldly forward toward this, you know, this new idea, this new solution that builds on what you’ve done before, is really important. It’s taking me years to develop that. A lot of times we would see something and say, wait, are we the first to realize that this is a problem? Maybe we’re not, but we might be the first to be in a position to do something about it. And so having that strength of vision and confidence in yourself and your team is really important. We call it making a bold choice, it’s one of our core values at Mahmee.

Kate 10:47
I like that. Okay, you just did an excellent job of walking us through that initial founder journey. I love how you emphasized so much that founding team, building around you, people that were passionate, smart, talented, that could help you. And then how you talked about, you know, it was initially the app, and then you realized it was going to take you other places, and that you’re also committed to this vision. I think you described what happens in a startup perfectly. So, where are you now in this journey?

Melissa Hanna 11:18
Yeah, so we have over 70 million lives under contract with major insurance companies across the country.

Kate 11:26
Congratulations.

Melissa Hanna 11:27
Thank you. So, we’re very proud of that step, first and foremost, because that means that over 70 million people have an insurance plan, whether it’s a commercial plan that they have on the exchange, or through an employer, or a Medicaid plan that they have through access to care through their state Medicaid, to cover Mahmee completely for them. To cover all of those services for doula care, for lactation care, mental health, and nutrition, and remote patient monitoring with registered nurses. So all of these services in one place, individual appointments and group care as well, classes and support groups, the ability to message day and night and get your questions answered across that maternity journey, from the time you find out you’re pregnant all the way until you’re celebrating your baby’s first birthday. It’s such an important window time, a vulnerable window, right, where people have a lot of questions, a lot of concerns. But what we want to make sure is that more than anything, that as a parent, you feel confident in caring for yourself and your family. And we know that there’s a lot to learn, and we don’t want to sort of send it through a firehose to you all at the same time. We want to build and grow with you across that journey. So it’s a very personalized experience that we’ve built. And we’ve got staff across the country that do this with us. We also partner with, we’ve got 1000s of different organizations in our network that are physician practices, hospitals, and health systems, community-based organizations that are referral partners. They send families to us. They let people know about Mahmee being available in their communities. And we also refer back out and make sure that families access all of the different resources and services that are available to them beyond what Mahmee has to offer. So, it’s really important to have that bi-directional referral system, as we call it, to make sure that people are getting all the support they need. I mentioned that the care is covered by insurance. It’s something we’re especially proud of. We don’t want this to be a luxury or a concierge experience for families. We want this to be something that is widely available and is really cost-effective, especially in a time where affordability is something we’re all – we’re all seeing, we’re all concerned with. And having a baby in this country is not cheap, and so if we can help in any way to reduce some of that stress and some of that burden. We’re very glad to be a part of that solution in that way. The other things that are really interesting about where Mahmee is as a technology company is that we’ve built out a lot of capabilities around that core technology we originally had, which was that longitudinal data set. We have grown over time and serviced so many different families, provided support to so many different organizations and their patient populations, we have a really amazing data set to be able to understand what families need when they need it. And so what we’ve done is we’ve invested in AI capabilities that allow us to analyze and quickly personalize, turn around that insight on what families need, where they are. Everyone is in a different place in their own maternity journey, so having personalized medicine is something that we all strive for. So, I’m proud of what we’ve done in terms of taking that data platform that we built and enhancing the capabilities using AI to create a more personalized experience for families, create more engaging tools for patients and providers to connect. And then finally the payments infrastructure that we have is something that’s really unique about the business, and something that we’ve built over time through insurance companies coming to us and saying, we like that you all offer all these different services. We want to make it easy as possible for our members to get access to this. Can we bundle these things together, and so that we’re paying for them in a value-based bundle, and we’re ensuring that every member gets access to all of these things. So that’s a big innovation within maternal health care, not having to raise your hand every time and say I need help with this, or to save, you know, a solution for me on this problem, and instead saying we’re here for you throughout this experience, and there’s a lot of different types of care you can get, and you can log in and access what you need when you need it, versus waiting for approval from the insurance company for this, or trying to find out is someone going to pay for this? Am I going to have to pay for this out of pocket? Right, it’s all there, covered for you at one time.

Kate 15:30
That’s so well thought out. I love that you have this component around insurance payments, because let’s be honest, in healthcare, that’s a huge thing, the payment factor.

Melissa Hanna 15:41
It can be such a pain. It can like its own whole job, just to navigate what’s covered, what’s not covered. How much you’re going to pay for that? When are you going to have to pay for that? What exactly are you going to get?

Kate 15:57
Yeah.

Melissa Hanna 15:57
We’ve all been there with our own healthcare experiences. If we can make it easier for new and expecting parents. Then I think that’s a win for society.

Kate 16:05
For sure. And then the fact that you’re using AI capabilities to personalize it even more, that’s great. Do you foresee using more AI technology as you scale?

Melissa Hanna 16:19
There are a number of different ways that we can enhance the experience for patients and providers alike using AI. A part of the conversation these days is like, are you going to talk to your doctor or talk to an AI chatbot to get help. And that’s really been just maybe too much of the healthcare, like the digital health conversation, so far, in my opinion, because we really shouldn’t be looking to replace humans in healthcare as the solution for how to make healthcare better, right? We are much better when we can care for each other as people, when we can give and receive that support. It’s rewarding both ways for people to connect with other people. How do we create more opportunities for that to happen? How do we operate businesses more efficiently behind the scenes, so that when people are getting help from others, it is a high impact experience, and it does feel personalized. Those are the questions that we’ve been asking at Mahmee. So, rather than, you know, how do we replace your doula with an AI chatbot, we’re looking at, well, how do we make sure you get more time with your doula? She wants to spend more time with you too, and you know there are a lot of parts of healthcare that are administrative, that are bureaucratic, whether it is the payment side, which we have been working in a very focused way on making that a better experience for everyone involved, including the insurance companies. We make it easier for the insurance companies to, to pay for this care, to fund it, to make sure that people are getting access to it. That’s been a big area for us, and there’s a lot of opportunity for AI to support that. But there are other parts of healthcare that, again, are just administrative, and if we can improve those aspects of the experience. It means that people get more time to connect with each other, so I think that’s a big win, and that’s really what we’re focused on as a company.

Kate 18:04
That is such an excellent point, and one that I think we, you mentioned, forget about in this day and age. It’s all about like AI efficiencies, replace humans, make it more effective. But you’re right, if instead the focus is on the administrative right, those type of bottlenecks using AI capabilities there to increase and improve the in-person experiences and care. What a great way of looking at it. That makes me more optimistic. So, I like your approach. You have it so figured out. You have some incredible investors, of course. My producer pointed out that you’ve got Mark Cuban, Serena Williams, founder of AOL. Tell us about the fundraising journey, because you’ve done really well there, and it’s difficult sometimes to get interest in women’s health, let’s be honest.

Melissa Hanna 18:58
Yes, let’s be honest. This has been a labor of love all the way through. We are lucky to have folks that have seen the opportunity, believe in the business, believe in me as a CEO and founder, and the entire leadership team that has built this company with me, and that doesn’t happen overnight. That takes years and years of commitment. Another core value of the company is we find a way, we always find a way. And in entrepreneurship, that’s really the name of the game, always finding a way, finding a way through the challenges that you’re facing, finding a way to address the market, the market’s needs, the things your customers are looking for. And as it relates to fundraising, it’s especially true. (19:46) Finding a way through the fundraising journey is is something that requires a lot of fortitude and resilience, being able to take the rejection, take the no’s, recognize when there is an all-out no, it’s not going to happen, versus a not right now, and how do you turn that not right now into a yes at a later point in time? I’ve experienced a lot of those early on. People said, well, this sounds great, but it also sounds like it’s a really big idea, and are you really, are you going to be able to pull it off? I’d like to see if you can build that snowball, build that momentum to get to get to where you’re trying to go, and you know there’s always going to be folks that are looking for someone else to get in, but you know some of the folks you mentioned are actually the kinds of thought leaders and bold risk takers that don’t wait for someone else, right? They say if like this, if I believe in this, if I see a business opportunity here, I’m going to be, you know, the first money in. So, you want to find folks like that. It takes a lot of asking around. It takes a lot of requesting introductions. I’ve pitched, I mean, at this point probably several 100, maybe as many as many as 500 to 1000 different investors, angel investors and angel networks, venture capital funds, corporate strategic investors. As you go through the stages of developing a company, right, the profile of the investor changes, but the process is still the same. Which is that you’ve got to build that relationship, demonstrate your competency, your knowledge, your commitment. I’ve learned along the way, you don’t have to have all the answers, but you do have to be committed to being at the front of the pack, finding them, and that’s what people are ultimately betting on, that if they back you, even if you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, you know, in the future, or how you’re going to get there, that you’re going to be the one pushing harder than anyone else to find that solution, (21:35) and be there first. Or if you’re not going to be there first, be there with the best solution, so that you can beat the market in that regard. I think that that’s something that is a really important takeaway from all the conversations I’ve had with investors, and the folks who backed this company recognize that healthcare is hard to do. It’s a hard industry to work in. It’s not going to produce results and success overnight. So you have to be really committed to the cause and committed to finding the best solution, and the market beating the product that is, that is going to get everyone to sit up and say, ‘Wow, that’s very impressive. I want to be involved in what they’re doing over there.”

Kate 22:19
Right, you describe the challenges around fundraising really well. You referenced your core value, and you referenced them a couple times. I’ve noticed founders on here that are successful, they tend to really have strong core values in their companies, and they really follow them. That culture, it’s real. It sounds like that’s the case for Mahmee as well, like you take your core values seriously.

Melissa Hanna 22:41
Yes, yes, and that’s something that I’ve learned from other founders over the years, and so I think that it’s something that you can hear about, you can read about early on, but it might seem that those are things that come later, for bigger companies that have these, you know, the mission, the vision statement, the core values, these kinds of systems for how people engage with each other, and, you know, HR departments are for corporations, not for little startups. But in fact, the earlier you invest in incorporating these kinds of elements into your business, I think it increases your chances of success, because these, you know, these startups are just groups of people that are committed to working together to create, you know, a new vision of the future, right. To build something that others around haven’t seen yet, can’t see yet, maybe aren’t even sure is possible. And so you’ve got a core group of people who you know disagree with that, think otherwise. How do you keep them feeling valued, feeling engaged, feeling committed to this? There are some, you know, basic things you can do, but often you know founders might say, well, this is stuff we’ll save for later, like drafting the mission statement, drafting the vision statement, which might be different than the mission statement. What we want to see happen is, you know, we want the US to be the best place in the world to give birth, that’s our mission. What it looks like once that occurs is our vision, which is that there is equitable access to maternal and infant health care. So, for us, those two things connect together. In order for the US to be the best place in the world to have a baby, we’ve got to make sure that everyone has access to a really good care experience. So that’s kind of how those two things function. And our core values are things that you’re right, we, we bring them up, we reference them, we live them out, we recognize people for their performance around them. We also identify when people are not living up to those values in their work. And so, instead of, you know, trying to criticize someone for the work product itself, or their personality, you know, like there’s a better link, a shared language used to say, Hey, you know, we, I kind of felt like you weren’t really showing up today for the team. You were checked out in one of the meetings, and there might be something else going on in your life right now, and that’s why you were on your phone or you’re texting, but like, do you think we can see something different next time? It’s important for you to show up. And so we always show up is another one of our core values that is also really relevant in maternity, because when you’re having a baby, you want your people to show up for you. You want your Mahmee doula to actually be there at your birth. So it kind of has a play on words for us when we say we show up.

Kate 25:20
I like that. I like how, and also you’re right, it’s how you can have conversations with your team. We always wrap up with asking founders to share advice for the other founders listening. You’ve shared a lot that’s going to be very helpful for everyone listening, but anything else, parting advice you want to leave?

Melissa Hanna 25:41
Well, let’s see, I’d say I maybe I’ve hinted at this throughout, in terms of the various twists and turns on the journey that I’ve been on, but this, this work is, it is difficult. It really is a struggle, you know, many times over, and it can be lonely because other people don’t see all the aspects of the struggle. You know, and we’ve got a lot of different social media platforms and places where you can put up the shiny news story and talk about all the great things that are happening, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not other parts that you know are a challenge. I think that one of the most important things that entrepreneurs can do for each other is just to validate that that is a real part of the experience too. It is happening, we even, you know, with close founder friends, like we don’t always know exactly where each other is in the journey until someone speaks up and says, You know, what I’m going through it right now, here’s what I’m dealing with. And so you know it is important to share where you feel safe and you feel like there’s a trusted party to express that to, but also I think it’s equally important just to know that you, you might not always feel safe to express that you might feel alone and you might be going through it, and these things are all very real, very normal, and I frankly don’t know how else it happens without those moments, too. There are the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur running a startup, and I don’t think you can really escape them. So, if you’re trying to, you’re trying to figure out how to smooth the road and make everything perfect, or at least make it look perfect, I’d say you’re wasting your time. Accept the struggle. Accept that the road is going to be bumpy and continue being committed to the solution that you’re trying to bring to the world.

Kate 27:21
Excellent advice. You wrapped that up really well. So, where can listeners go to find more about Mahmee? I want you to explain the spelling, because they need to catch that. Yes.

Melissa Hanna 27:33
Absolutely. Well, the company name is spelled M A H M E E. It’s the phonetic spelling. So you can go to our website, mahmee.com. Especially if you are a new or expecting parent or you know someone who is, please direct them there, or please go there yourself. Check your eligibility, find out what your insurance plan will cover, and what services are available to you, and get access today. Just start getting the support you need. And if you know someone else who could use some help, please refer them, and so that they can also get that support. In terms of investors and organizations that we could be partnering with, we’re always open to having conversations with folks in large healthcare organizations that are looking to partner with us, and plug and play, what we do here, really plug it in and make it available to their communities, They can reach out to me directly, my email is melissa@Mahmee.com that’s M E L I S S A @Mahmee.com. Yeah, I mean, I’ll route you to the right person on the team, but I always like to make myself available and say we’re not some, you know, big, you know, behemoth here that, like, you can’t get a hold of. Just send me an email. Would love to connect with anyone who’s listening in and thinks this is interesting.

Kate 28:46
That’s great. Thank you so much, Melissa. I know you’re super busy, but it was really great having you here and learning more about Mahmee. What an incredible story, and amazing what you’ve done already.

Melissa Hanna 28:57
Thank you so much. Appreciate being on, and honored to be included in this roster of entrepreneurs that you’ve spoken with.

Kate 29:04
Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Outro 29:08
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