S1EP01 - Don't Elizabeth Holmes Me with Somer Baburek

This is The Capital Flex. I'm Naseem Sayani. This show codifies the capital playbook because no founder should have to learn the hard way. We talk about what really happens behind closed doors, the bias, the breakthroughs, and the things no one says out loud. If you've ever walked into a room and felt the system wasn't built for you, you're in the right place. Hello, welcome to The Capital Flex. My guest today is Summer Barbrek. She is the president and CEO of Hera Biotech. Gynatech, a women's health company focused on commercializing AI-powered diagnostic tests and devices that will significantly improve access, accuracy, and the standard of care for women. Summer and I met a few years ago in San Diego at the Women's Venture Summit and became fast friends, like in the moment. And we've shared just an endless array of stories about all things venture and the things we would change and throw out and fix and redo. Uh, and so I'm so excited to have you on the Capital Flex today. Welcome to the pod.

Thank you. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I'm gonna try to contain myself. I'm gonna channel my inner cool girl so people will be like, oh, she's been here.

That's cool. It's all good. So for everyone listening, can you please introduce yourself a little bit more and tell everyone a bit more about Hera Biotech?

Sure. So as you said, my name is Summer Babarik and Hera is my baby. I founded Hera in February of 2020. Hold your applause for perfect timing. And then lived life through the pandemic going, is anybody ever gonna care about anything other than COVID again? I don't know. but hey, I have a hell of a business plan as a result of that. My background's on the business side. I have an undergrad in entrepreneurship from the University of Texas. I have a master's in data analytics. It's an MBA focused in data analytics from LSU. I spent 10 years in life science venture capital, drugs, diagnostics, and devices before I moved over to the founder side. Fell in love with women's health in my undergrad, invented a medical device around my labor and delivery with my first daughter, and I now have 3 daughters, so I have 3 times the reason to fix all things women's health.

Oh, I love that. It's your— that's right. You have a house of girls. I remember this.

We are the house of estrogen. If anyone is looking for estrogen, we've got you covered. We have 5 dogs and they're girls too. So we've got you. Just don't even worry about it.

You have 5 dogs?

Really? I do.

I didn't know.

I do. I have 5 dogs. I have 2 Italian Mastiffs and then we have 3 French Bulldogs.

No kidding.

I have one dog. We have it. We have pondered adding others, but right now we have the one and she, runs the house. The rest of us are like tertiary to her lived experience in the house. We're just obviously here.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, of course. Yeah. So, you know that the mission of this podcast is to get into the fundraising stories of female founders. In some cases they're great and you get the check. And in, in more than often though, there are adventures in these experiences and they are riddled with the chaos, uh, that we often talk about. In, you know, corner conversations or hush stories or over text. And we don't often talk about it out loud the way that, you know, I like to do things and then we just have to get into it. And so that's why the podcast was necessary, cuz I wanted us to just talk about it and share the stories and hopefully start to codify the insights and the learning so that other founders have a toolkit before they start to walk into fundraising. So that is why we are here. So to start off, Uh, how would you characterize your fundraising experience?

How has it gone?

What kind of— what 3 words would you use to describe the experience?

That's not fair.

Only 3?

Only 3 words? Okay, I will use 3 words, I guess, but I will say that Hera has successfully raised just about $5 million. So I am ever so thankful and grateful for the investors that we have because they're true believers and they come back in in every round and always make sure that there's an ability for them to do that no matter their check size. So that's been really important for us. But I think honestly, I was having a conversation with another female founder who's amazing. Her name's Dr. Pinky Patel. She runs Myri Health.

Myri. Yeah, I know her. She's great.

She's amazing. And so she and her are like the real, real, like we'll text each other horribly vulgar things and like songs to pump each other up or whatever. But one of the things that we finally equated the female founder experience to was the Dementors in Harry Potter. Oh no. But it's so true because it's like you have these memories of when it worked or when investment went well, and then this investor comes up and asks you a question that every investor that's ever said no is asked, and it's usually like a blocking question, and it just feels like, no, you're feeding off my PTSD from all the other people. That say the same stupid thing that you just said. And it's 'cause, oh, that's just how it feels. But I, I think it is, I think it is grueling. I think it is exhausting and I think it is empowering.

I like the, I like that combination of words. Tell us a bit more about that combination.

Yeah, so it's grueling. It, it's, it's just nonstop and it can feel very, very overwhelming at times. And it's exhausting because of that. You just feel like, oh my gosh, am I ever just, am I ever gonna get there? Is anything ever gonna just work out? But I think it's empowering because even if you're dealing with 6 months of nos, you look back and you're like, well, I'm still here. I figured it out. I made it work. Like I'm creative. I'm dragging this thing through whether you think it's valuable or not, it is. And that is empowering to me. I always joke, like, I'll pat my shoulders and I'm like, I got big shoulders. Put it on there. Go ahead. Let's see. Challenge accepted. Strong as hell. Let's go. I got my stripe.

Sure. It is that combination of being very, very hard, but also, you know what, I'll stand on that mountain and I will, I will get this done. And I, I think every, I think every founder goes through that, but female founders in particular. Go through a very special version of that because when that dirt gets loose, it, it gets real loose, right? And that, that, that mounting can get unstable pretty quick. So do you wanna take us through one of your more problematic stories if we wanna get into?

Yeah, no, I'm totally, I'm totally down. And I love, I just wanna say I love this because we're, as founders, we're not allowed to say these things. Like you're not allowed to because it's, it, and it, it's so visceral for me as a, a female who grew up in a very loving household, but a very antiquated household, right? Because I'm adopted. A lot of people don't know that. My dad was 51 when I was born. So this would be the equivalent of your grandparents raising you. And mind you, neither of my parents went to college. Like, so worlds apart, like, from anything. And so it's that very— it feels very much like, be a good girl. Don't make people upset. Don't say anything that could burn the bridge. You know, do the right thing. And it's BS because you have tons of people out there doing the wrong thing and they should be called out. They should be ashamed of their behavior. And we don't have to say names publicly. Like, no one's asking anybody to be freaking, you know, put on trial for libel or anything. But still, still, they need to— they know who they are. They know who they are. Yeah. So I think One of the stories I, I have two stories I'd really like to share. One of them was very expected, you know, like it, it's a stereotypical story. Like people are gonna see it coming from a mile away. And then the other is very like, holy cow, is that really happening? So I'm gonna start with the one that you'll see it coming from the get-go. But we had a strategic and potential strategic investor, big company, lots of money, and we went through just scores of due diligence because corporate VC's very different than regular VC. And so we had just been put through the wringer on all of this. And the CEO who was an elderly man, seriously elderly, insisted that we meet to go over the terms on which they would invest, which I thought, okay, yeah, sure, great. In person, let's do this. You're not afraid of COVID anymore. Cool. But he insisted that we go to this specific restaurant that I was like, there's no need for us to go to that restaurant. Like I would go on that rest to that restaurant with my husband on a date. There's no reason for us to go to that. Whatever. I, I just chalked it up like different generation. Like they have, they go have a nice lunch when they're gonna talk business, right? Okay. So we went and he was just obnoxious. Like you could tell, I was like, act like you've been here before, man. Like he's ordering all this stuff and I'm like, You're just doing this 'cause it's on the company dime. Like, it's so obvious. It's just weird. And so we're talking and he literally got a paper napkin from the bar and like flipped it over and he's like, all right, now let's talk. Let's talk terms. And I was like, okay, big dog. Like, ooh, whatever shall I do? And so he starts writing on the paper, like, we're gonna invest this amount of money. This is, you know, what we're gonna get for it and this is what we're gonna do and these are the extra strategic things that we're gonna bring in beyond the money and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, this is a really good deal for you. He's like, and I'm, you know, I'm doing this 'cause I like you. And I was like, oh, thank you. And I was so proud of myself because in my naivety, 'cause this was like one of the first conversations I had around fundraising, I got up and I walked over to the bar and I got a napkin and I came and I sat back down and I was like, Here's the math that gives me a $750,000 valuation.

Oh my, less than a million.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And he was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand the value here. Let me help you. And he redoes his math exactly the same. And at that point I was like, oh, you think I'm stupid. Like it just hit me like, oh, you You think you're saving me from something like you, you think this is helpful. And I said, oh no, no, no, your math is wrong. Let me show you the math. And I redid it and I said, oh yeah, you know what? It's still $750,000. I said, that's not a good fit. That's, that's not a good valuation. It's not, it doesn't reflect the market size or the opportunity here. And I understand that you bring value beyond your dollars. but that doesn't translate to valuation.

It's an, it's an extremely low ball. I mean, severely low ball.

And so I just very politely, 'cause I am a good girl, said, you know, I appreciate the opportunity, you know, no hard feelings really. You know, you've prepared us really well for future conversations and it's just, it's just not gonna be a fit. And he told me I was making a mistake and he told me I was doing a disservice to my investors. And I just said, you know, I appreciate the feedback and I left. He proceeded to email the men on my board.

Oh my. Mm-hmm.

The men.

Who's on your board? What's the, what's the makeup of the board?

At that point I had 2 men and a female and myself. Okay. So it was a 50/50 board, right? And he only emailed the men on my board.

Oh boy.

And he blind copied me on it and basically emailed them to say that the CEO was unfit. I was inexperienced, I was making bad decisions, and I was probably like violating my fiduciary responsibility to the company. And I read this and I panicked because I thought like, I just founded this company and I'm gonna get fired by my board.

Right. So couple of things have happened, right? One, he's totally lowballed the offer cuz he thinks he's doing you a favor, which he probably would not have done with a male founder. Two, when you balked at it, he decided to mansplain the numbers to you because maybe you can't do math. And then when you said no, now he's offended and he's decided to now email your board, but not the whole board, just the men on the board, because now there's a way to hustle it. And make the young woman look like she doesn't know what she's doing.

Right. And so I sat, like, I sat there kind of panicking for about 30 minutes thinking like, okay, how am I gonna manage this? What am I gonna do? Because I didn't take the napkin. Like, how am I gonna prove to my boy? Like, he could tell them anything, you know? And I, I can only tell you what he told me, right? And so before I, I was like, okay, I've gotta respond. And before I could respond, one of my board members replied and the email was simply, all communication to the board of Hera Biotech should be given through the CEO. Your email is unwelcome and unprofessional.

Oh my God. Amazing.

And I just was like, okay, maybe I'm not getting fired. Maybe I'm not gonna get fired 'cause like, at least I've got one. And then very sh— like almost immediately after that, the other one hit. So they must have like high-fived in cyberspace. And it was like, we do not communicate about company matters with people outside of the company. If you have something to say to the company, say it to the CEO or keep your comments to yourself, basically. And I just thought, and that's why you're thoughtful about the board members.

Oh my goodness. That, that is one of those beautiful moments where the board steps up and protects the company and the CEO the way that they're supposed to. That is what you want your board to do.

That's fantastic. And what was crazy is this guy was the CEO of a company that one of my board members owned.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah. So I felt like it was gonna carry a lot of weight coming from, like, he, right? He had leverage. And subsequently he got fired.

Oh my goodness.

That's— yeah, not directly because of that circumstance, but I can't imagine that that level of unprofessionalism wasn't a factor. So, but that was a fun one. That was a real fun one.

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Well, the minutes you were holding your breath between when that first email happened and when the first response happened, you're just sitting there going, oh my God. What in the world?

I had a whiteboard and like 3 times I had started like double checking the math. Dear sir, kindly STFU.

Oh my God. And what is the likelihood that that would happen to a male CEO?

I can't even imagine. I mean, I just, I'm a board member and advisor for another company that's male-led. And he just went through a really tough negotiation and I walked him through it with the help of one of his other advisors. And it was a, I mean, he would, he negotiated hard and tough and he got his terms right. And it was very acknowledged. And I love this about him. He was like, you wouldn't have gotten that. I'm like, no, I can tell you what to do. And if you do it, it has a good shot of working. If I do it, it won't work.

It won't work.

I'm just a witch.

Oh, it's so frustrating. It's, it's just differences in behavior. It's differences in perception and behavior and what people think they can get away with.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Which is such a shock to me. And I know this might come as a shock to everybody cuz I, I do live in Texas and we raised a lot of money here in the beginning and I never felt like a female CEO. I never felt like a different founder or a minority founder. I was just a CEO. I mean, that's one bad example of something awful that happened, but it wasn't until we started raising money outside of Texas that it was like, oh, you're a female founder. Oh, we have a night for female founders to pitch. And I'm like, what is that, like your poor night? Like what? I don't understand what that means. Or like, oh, we have a, diverse founders competition you should participate in. And I'm like, I like my odds. Where are your boys at?

Right, right, exactly. Oh, exactly. It's, it's so— well, it's, it's— and this is, it's similar on the fund manager side, right? When we're out fundraising, we want— I just want to fundraise, but there's always, there's org that have their, their diversity sleeve and they want, oh, we should— you should talk to our diversity leaders. Like, I, I don't, I don't want that sleeve. I want the main sleeve.

Yeah. The main sleeve is richer. I want that one. It's richer.

I want that one.

Yeah. It's kind of funny. Yeah. So, you know, we do what we do.

You made it through.

We made it through. I didn't get fired. He did. Bye, Felicia.

Oh my God. Is there, is there a, is there a, a big learning or aha for you out of that that you think is useful for other founders?

I, I do. So first of all, I immediately thought this is why you're very thoughtful about the people that you put on your board, right? And it's so true. I had, I'm, I am very blessed and I have worked very hard to have a very good broad network. It's gotten even broader since I founded Hera, but I had a lot of people to choose from. I had a lot of people willing to be on our board in the beginning, and I was very thoughtful about the people that I put on it. And it was very much an analytical plus intuition decision. And a lot of the intuition was like, I just think this person's going to have my back, you know? And it was so true. So I say this a lot, but trust your intuition, like that gut, training your gut and training your intuition is so important because it actually will fail you far less than all the data and analytics in the world.

Yeah, absolutely. I believe that also. My, my gut has never been wrong.

Yeah. And I'm a data analytics person, like that's my master's. So it's, it means a lot. Like you should have all the data, but then at the end of the day, if your gut's like, yeah, I don't care what the numbers say, like this isn't good, then don't do it.

Then don't do it. Don't do it. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have one more for us?

One more. Okay. This is the one that's gonna be weird. And this, oh gosh, I had won a pitch competition, got a meeting with a very, very well-known, we love female founders fund, right? Like, oh, all the wonderful people and all we back is this and you know, blah, blah, blah. And I was on the phone with 3 women, 2 were PhDs, one was an MD. I mean, supposedly smart, right? They've got good degrees and One of the women, and I've watched her since then in Hitch competitions and in other things, and I recognize now that her thing is, I'm not going to ask the question unless I think I can embarrass you. Like, I'm a poke holes person, but not in a positive way. It's not like I'm trying to find the gaps to understand if we're okay with the gaps and how we can help you fill the gaps. No, it's like, I gotcha, I gotcha on this one. And I know I gotcha. Right? And so the other two women were asking great questions, you know, market and, and you know, how it's gonna be deployed and workflow and you know, ROI metrics and all this stuff. And she's a PhD, Boston PhD, and she immediately starts running down the most inane and ridiculous questions asking me like what reagents were used in bench experiments that we're in the discovery phase of. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know the answer. I can get you the answer to those questions. I'm happy to get our CSO on the phone. I'm happy to get the inventors on the phone and all of these things. And she's just like, well, I just think you should know more about this. And I was like, okay, well, I think you should ask more questions about finances, but here we are.

Right.

Sure. I mean, I didn't say that at the time, but we get to the end of the conversation. And she's, it's just, it's, it's not about the questions, it's about how she was asking him. And it was very much like, I want you to feel stupid. And at the end of it, she's like, well, I guess I just have one more question for you. And I'm like, okay, sorry to disappoint. And she goes, how can you assure us that you're not going to be some Elizabeth Holmes situation?

Oh, come on. Oh yeah. Really?

Yeah. And I, I think the thing I am most upset about is that I tried to answer the question.

Oh, that, that's always, that's always the regret in retrospect, right? Is that even trying to answer that.

I shouldn't have even— I should have said, that is a disgusting and inappropriate question, and if that's the best question you can formulate, perhaps you should leave questions to other people.

That burden that gets put on women, female founders in biotech, for me, is one of the things that makes it It makes me so angry because we do not Newman any male founders ever.

No. You know, and it, it was really gross. And I think what I'm, I'm so upset about is, A, she asked the question cuz that's just stupid and ignorant. People do ignorant things. B, neither of the other women on the call said anything. They didn't, they didn't do anything. They let that question stand. And see, I tried to answer it, which was really disappointing for me. And the only thing I will say in her— to her benefit is, if you're ignorant, thank you for putting it out there. Thank you for showing me who you really are so that we can waste no more time and we can move forward. It's so much better than the quiet bias because that strings me along for months, right? The I'm an ignorant person and I'm going to ask you an ignorant question. Ah, cool. Bye. Later. See ya. So yeah, but I, I think the lesson there is sometimes the people that you think should be in your— this is the, these are the people that should invest in me. They should be in my corner. We're the perfect fit. They're not. They're the worst offenders. No man has ever asked me that question.

It's, it's such a, it's a prevention question, right?

Right.

It's for sure this prevention promotion problem that happens, and we know it happens with female founders all the time, and it is not exclusive to male investors. It happens with female investors also, and they're almost more unconscious to it.

Yeah. Well, and I, it, we talk about it a lot with females. Like I say a lot of times, and I, I have 3 girls, all different ages, but we're dealing with middle school and elementary and girls. Mean. And I don't know why we cannibalize our own. I don't get it. I've heard so many people talk about older women in industry who sometimes think they're doing us a favor because they had to endure so much to get where they were, whatever. You're not doing anybody any favors. I mean, that was not this lady's excuse. She's a cute little old lady who's spending husband's money and married well and got her PhD in MRS. Degree. So good for you. Live your life. Pretend you're important and relevant, but thank you for putting your ignorance on display so we can all just say, oh, she's dumb. I have to move on. Like, I, you know, okay, bye.

Yeah. Well, and those are the signals, like you said, as soon as you start to hear those things, it becomes the check that you don't want. Yeah.

You're like, nevermind. That's fine. I don't, I don't need to make you any money. Right.

At all. No, at all. Exactly. I'll make other people money. This is not the check that I want. Goodness. So, and that, that, and that's, that's the aha from it, right? One is don't answer, don't answer the unreasonable questions. And two, you hear those triggers, you go, well, thank you.

That's, thank you. Gotta go.

Gotta go. Yeah.

Yeah. We, I laughed so hard because after that, I mean, it was like a whole devolution for me. Like I dyed my hair dark, even though I'm a blonde, I wouldn't wear red lipstick. Like I didn't wear black forever. And what's funny is I finally had that this moment where I was talking to a girlfriend of mine who's a founder, fantastic company called Reveal It, Adriana, and she's Hispanic and she's like, oh girl, they asked me that. And I'm like, how are you channeling Elizabeth Holmes with your—

how do we close?

Yeah, with your Hispanic self. And she's like, oh, is that why you dyed your hair? It looks so weird, dark, like you should go back.

That's like, oh, I've, I've heard that question come up in investment committee meetings once or twice, and, and I've had to stop the conversation and say, wait a minute, we are not going to answer that question because that is, it is unreasonable and we shouldn't do that to female founders. I'm just going to take it and put it over there and we're going to keep going.

That whatever the, whatever you want to say about Elizabeth Holmes, and we can all say a lot of things about Elizabeth Holmes, a dude is doing that technology now and any success that he has, that's on her back. Like she, that's on her.

Yeah.

Because the only reason anybody knows what the hell you're talking about is 'cause of her.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yes, there was fraud and yes, she lied and I get that there's like real bad things in there, but we can't put that burden on every other female founder that we just can't.

No, Bernie Madoff was a real piece of garbage too, but not every male investor is Bernie Madoff either.

Right. Right. We just can't do that.

No.

Oh God, it makes my head hurt.

These are the stories, right? When we're 90 drinking our whiskey and playing bridge, we can be like, do you remember? We'll be living in our commune, drinking our whiskey, drinking our whiskey, eating like coconut cream pie at 2:00 PM in the afternoon and being like, I say a big F you to all of you.

Yeah. So amidst all the crazy, are you seeing any points of light or things getting better across the ecosystem? Is anything shifting?

I think it is, but I don't think it's where we would've hoped it would be.

Okay.

So this is so hard to say. I don't think the women's health funds are doing anybody any favors. Like, I just don't, because many of them, not all of them, of course, this is a big broad stroke. So there's outliers and you can DM me and I'll tell you the outliers. But there, there are outliers. But the broad majority of the quote unquote women's health funds or fintech funds really are direct-to-consumer tech plays. You know, I don't care how many apps you put in the App Store to track your period. My philosophy is if you can't figure out when you're going to have your period by now, you have a problem that you need to see a doctor about. Like, it's because you have something like endometriosis, which makes your period completely unpredictable. And so you need a real health solution. No amount of daily affirmation is going to fix your endometriosis or fix your PCOS or your ovarian cancer or any of the very real diseases and chronic conditions that women have to just deal with all the time. I've seen it. I've kind of gone through these waves now where it's been like, oh, well, there's all these women's health funds. Like, why aren't they funding you? Well, because I'm not an app. Because I'm not a cheap and cheerful cheeky technology that everybody can download. That's not what we are. We're a hard science play. We're real diagnostics. We have a biobank, we have a database, we have regulatory hurdles and things like that. But what I am seeing is what I'm gonna call the real serious life science funds starting to say, okay, wait a minute. I think there might be an opportunity there. As opposed to all of them hiding behind the excuse of, oh, there's all these women's health funds, why you should be flush with cash. Well, first of all, there's like 7, so stop it.

So many. Yeah. In quotation marks. Yeah.

And nobody would have to have those if you did your job. But yeah, so I think that that's a trend that's shifting and I think people are beginning to understand and maybe they're learning the lesson of digital health. There's only so much we can do directly with the patient. Not that it's not important, not that it's not valuable. Anything we can do to empower, educate, and make women's lives easier, make people's lives easier, is great, right? However, there's a point where we need to engage a medical professional, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's, you know, I think that's the next— I think it's the next, but I also think it's the actual real big opportunity in women's health. And I think people are starting to recognize that.

Yeah. Well, there's a really, I agree with you, there's a real tangible transition happening now where there was a lot, a lot of money went into the B2C solutions and some have continued and some have failed. And now we're actually looking for the B2B plays that maybe have a B2C extension around them, but it, it, it has to be connected to the provider. Or the clinician or to the research or to the science. That has to be the anchor with something touching the consumer or the patient around it. If it goes the other way, the scale is extremely hard or impossible because we have to know, we have to know how it's gonna get paid for. How, how will it get paid for? And if we can't figure that out, it's not gonna work.

Well, and even if your answer is the patient's gonna pay for it, which patients do, like they do. Yeah. It's an insane thing to think about, but this is a very specific example in healthcare where the patients have proven time and time and time again that we will pay for it. Oh, absolutely. We don't give a rip if our insurance covers whatever it is. If we deem it important and necessary, we will pay for it, which is unique in healthcare. And I do think, I wish more investors would recognize that, that it's a unique opportunity to give you ample time to get that coverage that most healthcare plays have to wait for. But I also think that it's critical from the provider standpoint. Like, when is the last time you showed up to your doctor's office with a piece of paper that you printed off at home and was like, ha ha, look, I have this. And your provider was like, oh, thank goodness. I don't have ChatGPT and I am unable to function without it. And it— no one does that.

No one does that. Yeah, you're right.

No one. So at some point it has to come the other way because she's gonna show up with a piece of paper that's like, oh, this company online shipped me a tube and I, you know, sat in it after sitting on an egg for 5 minutes and you know, now I have endometriosis and the doctor's gonna go, I don't know what fresh hell that is, but we have a test from Hera and we'll, we'll shoot this now. We'll figure it out.

Right.

Yeah. So, you know, it's just, it's kind of that silliness of like, it's so obvious in so many places. Why isn't it obvious here?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. We're, and we're getting there, but we're not quite there yet.

We are.

Yes.

Not quite there yet, but we're, we're getting there.

Yeah, absolutely. What's your, if you had to choose your one big must-know tip for female founders as they head into fundraising, what would, what would you wanna say?

Oh man. Know your financials. Know your financials inside and out. Female founders tend to be, let's use the favorite word, weak in their financials and whether they've built it or how they present it or how they understand it. It's not weak. If I am giving my opinion, when you look at how women budget things, they approach building financials similarly. It's the big pieces, right? It's the big picture. It's the big pieces. This is how much it's gonna cost. That's how much that cost saved. And it's like, yeah, but you've gotta have all the, if I didn't spend this, I'd have to spend this and then it would be, and if you like, you need to have all of those pieces in there and you know them, you know them 100%, but if they're not built in No one else knows it. Like my husband's a CFO and our, and I'm, I know all of my financials for Hera inside and out. My personal budget is on a pivot table and I want to puke every time he pulls it up to talk to me about all these. And I'm like, I don't, I don't give a rip that I spent $10 more on groceries that week versus this week. And you want to know why? Our grocery bills, this, that. I don't give a, I don't give a rip.

Right.

Investors do. So you've gotta have that, like, we're gonna spend $2,000 more in this month, but that's gonna equal this in revenue because it's all marketing expense, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. That would be my big, like, advice. Just, just know it. Get a good person that can build you a good model. Put sensitivity analysis in it. And investors are, are information gremlins. Don't feed them after midnight. Don't get them wet. Don't give them more than they need. Answer the question that's asked. Don't answer questions that weren't asked because they can—

they—

if you give— they already have plenty of reasons to say no. Don't help them. Right.

No, I agree with you. It's— I, I will ask for financials because I want to poke in and dig around because I'm a, I'm a finance brain also. Uh, but what I'm really curious about is the sensitivities. And what I'm really curious about is the trend lines. And what I'm really curious about is the puts and takes on why money is here and not there. And I'll poke around and see it, but what I actually wanna do is have the conversation and have the founder take me through it and tell me why this and not that, and why this and not that. And some founders do it really, really well, and some are taking me through the line items and like, I don't, I don't need the line items. I need the talk track that sits on top of it. And if you can do that really well, we're gonna have a, we're gonna have a really great working relationship. But if you're just walking me through line items, then there's something about your financial acumen that, that's gonna need some work.

Yeah. My thing when I was in VC was, I want you to talk me through your financials because I wanna understand how you're thinking about it. I don't actually care what the numbers are. I mean, they have to be good, right? I don't care what you've put down on the sheet of paper. I want to understand how you're thinking about doing these things. How are you thinking about allocating cash towards different products and why? Is it because they're marketed different? Is it because it's a different way to get them into the market? What is it? And that's the important piece. And, and I think female founders tend to be a little bit defensive around financials. And, you know, everybody thinks that the conversations like, Oh, your formula's wrong in cell B32. No, stop it. If your formula's wrong in B32, who cares? Just say, I'll fix that. Actually don't say, I'll have my CFO fix that. Thanks for pointing that out. He got it wrong. I'll fix it. You always have people to fix things, right? But yeah, just, it's really more about you can read the numbers and I, this is why I love having initial conversations without my deck up. You can read my deck. You don't need me to read you my deck or I wanna talk you through why we got started, why we're in the indications that we're in, why the markets are so big, why we're gonna differentiate, and how we're gonna attack. And you can read all the rest of that, but if you know how I'm thinking about it and you know the strategic decisions behind what we've done, that's so much more important than just saying like, oh, they're launching this in 2025 and that in 2026.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely agree. So a couple of quickfire questions and then I've got, I've got 2 to wrap us up. So what is the quickest check you ever closed?

Oh, 2 weeks.

Oh really?

2 weeks. A physician. Yeah.

We had a pitch.

He went on a vacation. He came back from his vacation and said, I'm gonna write you a check.

Oh, that's fantastic. Who is your most unlikely investor?

Ooh. Texas ranchers.

You've told me this story. I was hoping you'd say that. Yes.

Yeah. I pitched a group of guys, gentlemen actually, in the Rio Grande Valley, which is where I was born and raised. It's all ag and farm money. And they, what they care about is their daughters, their wives, and their nieces and their granddaughters and their daughter-in-laws. And we just made the pitch very unafraid or unfrightening and just said, look, we're talking about a uterus and every single one of you guys have been elbow deep in a cow trying to get a calf out. You've all touched this organ. And they were like, oh yeah, absolutely. That like, and they just, it was like, oh, you've got a problem, you have a solution and it's a big problem and you've done this before.

Done. That's incredible.

Yeah, they're, they're great. They're some of my favorite investors.

Oh, I love that. That's amazing. What is your must-have self-care ritual given all the crazy you deal with every day?

Okay. It's not self-care. I don't do a whole lot of self-care.

No, I think I don't either. I called it that cuz there was no better word to think of. But what, what's the relax?

I, after I get done working, uh, we have about 30 minutes before we have to go pick up our little one at daycare. And start all of the practices and whatever. And my husband and I have a glass of bourbon.

Oh, I love that.

Every afternoon we sit out in our driveway, like our whole neighborhood knows us, that we sit in our driveway and we drink a glass of bourbon and we watch the kids get off the bus.

Oh, I love that. That's wonderful. Yeah, that's good. Uh, what is the title of the book that you're gonna write one day?

Oh my gosh. I have the title of the venture fund I'm gonna start. I don't have a title of a book.

You can give us that too if you want to share, but those can also be—

Yeah, it's, it's Vagine Ventures.

Oh, I love that. I love it. Good.

My husband designed our logo and it's parentheses with the upside down exclamation mark.

Yes. Good. I'm here for it. I will write you a check. So you just call me when that's ready.

I'm, I'm so doing that after Hera. It's gonna be great. Yeah. I love that.

So last, last question. What can everyone do to help you and your company?

Oh, this is my favorite question because obviously you can introduce us to investors and you can write checks and you can do all that. But what I ask everybody to do is say our name in a room that we're not in. We can't be in every room. We can't talk to every person, but if you'll just say our name in a room that we're not in, it's so helpful. You just have no idea how impactful that is.

That's perfect. I love it. We can all do that very easily. Well, thank you, Summer, for being here. This has been incredible. I always love talking to you and the stories were just perfect. So hopefully everyone learned a lot.

I'm so glad. I can't wait till I could say people's names, like when I have FU Money and I can be like, ha ha ha, you thought you were safe.

We will, we will, we will get to that. That season will come. It's a few cycles out, but we'll get there.

I'm, I'm on it. I'm, I'm gonna hold you to it. You're gonna have anonymous founders who say all the names all time. You're my favorite. Your quote is my favorite. You have to say all the things all the time. I literally, right before I walked in here, my 10-year-old was here. She was reading another founder's card that I had set down on the buffet, and she goes, mom, what's vaginitis? And I was like, it's vaginitis.

Oh, I love it. I love it.

But let's talk about it. Yeah.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, and I'm excited for everyone to learn so much from this episode. This was tremendous.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to The Capital Flex. If today's episode hit home, share it with a founder you love and follow me on LinkedIn for more.