S2EP3: Next Time I'll Leave the Room with Dr. Somi Javaid

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 and welcome to The Capital Flex. My guest today is Dr. Somi Javed. Dr. Somi is a board-certified OB-GYN and surgeon and founder of HERMD, a clinic and virtual-based solution advancing evidence-based care in menopause, sexual health, and gynecology. She has raised significant capital to scale HERMD totaling nearly $30 million, which is huge and amazing and significant for a female founder and a female founder of color no less, because it's— we have to celebrate all of these great stories. And has been recognized on Inc.'s Female Founders 50 in 2024, Worth's Groundbreaking Women in 2025, and by Fortune at the Most Powerful Women International Summit in 2025 as well. Dr. Somi is also a frequent commentator for news outlets including Forbes, Vogue, and TEDx, and she hosts the Disrupt Her podcast. Somi and I have been friends for some time, sharing notes on business the venture ecosystem, all things women's health, and of course all the things that we would change and fix and redo in this ecosystem. And the list is long. She's one of my favorite people and I'm so happy to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me.

Oh, thank you so much for having me and thank you for that intro. I appreciate it so much.

Oh, I, I have to share all the accolades 'cause I have to make sure we say all the things out loud. So for everyone listening, would you please introduce yourself a little bit more and tell us a little bit more about HERMD and what and what you built?

I would say I'm a mother, a daughter, a human. I mean, I think we have to say that in this day and age, right? Someone who nearly lost her mother at the age of 45, made a very naive but very mission-driven promise to her mother who nearly died at the age of 45 to cardiovascular disease, which still remains over 2 decades later, the number 1 killer of women, that I wouldn't stand for it and other women wouldn't have to suffer. Thought becoming a doctor would be the solution. It wasn't. Thought opening my own practice would be the solution. We, we treated hundreds of thousands of patients. It was a great solution. We scaled, raised capital, pivoted, exited, and now I'm really doubling down on the education and the advocacy. So podcaster, soon to be author, menopause and sexual healthcare expert. I mean, I just love teaching so much and I love advocating so much. And I just don't want— if I can leave any type of legacy, it's that healthcare is a little bit better than the mess that I found it in. That's my goal.

I love it. It's an important takeaway, right? To leave something better than how you found it. And I do believe that you have done that. I will say, I will add, I saw the documentary, The M Factor, and I remember feeling so proud and happy that I knew so many of the people in the film. I was like, I'm friends with her and I'm friends with her and I'm friends with her. And I was thrilled that I knew so many of you. So I was like, the film is great and everyone should see it. And everyone I know has seen it. And I felt extra special that I knew you and I knew so many others. I was like, all my friends, all my friends did this. I love this. It's fantastic.

It was a really, you know, cool experience. But at the time we had no idea that it would be shown, I think in 60 countries globally. And I don't know how many cities. My portion was people laugh They found out— that tells you how talented the producers were— was shot on an iPhone with absolutely no budget whatsoever. Yeah, I was in, um, Joe Matheson's home, um, because I was one of the first they asked because it was, I think, after our first raise. It was extraordinary to be alongside those colleagues, to work with women once again who are so mission-driven to get the project done. So yeah, I forgot I've been part of a documentary and actually gonna be a part of another one. And, uh, I've been featured in two New York Times bestsellers and people have been telling me, you need to write a book. But when you're practicing medicine, you know, two decades, you don't have the time or you prioritize and family or, you know, travel or resting from everything else that you're doing so that you can heal. That's what I talk about. Healers need to heal themselves so that we can make space. And I frankly think anyone who takes care of others, of whether it's, pets, kids, a company, whatever it is, you have to take that time out for yourself. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. Oh, so, uh, as we get into a conversation that requires healing coming out the other side, fundraising when female is not an adventure anyone should take lightly. Uh, and, and part of the mission and the, the necessity of this podcast was to bring all those stories to light because I, I get a lot of phone calls. I get a lot of inbound from founders as they They walk into rooms that weren't built for them. They come upon just crazy, horrendous things that happen as they're out raising capital. And so I, I needed a place to talk about it out loud and to really leave the ecosystem with some learnings and insights and ultimately a toolkit where they can have a way to be prepped and ready before they walk into rooms that aren't built for them and try to raise capital for their companies. So that's the mission and that's what we're here to do is talk about the hard stuff and then leave behind some insights for everyone else. So if we dive into it, as you were raising money for HormD, if, if you could characterize your fundraising experience in 3 words, what 3 words come to mind?

Lucky. I'll explain that cuz people will be shocked by that. Tough. So tough. And, uh, eye-opening.

Yeah. Yeah. No, those are good. Those are, tell us, tell us more.

I think lucky in that Yes. Not that we, so we were profitable. We had already scaled our company to 2 locations and I had been practicing medicine a long time and the company had existed for 7 years, just no one knew it. And the plan was never to scale until women started coming from 35 country or 35 states and 3 countries. So I got an offer from my first pitch. So that's why I say lucky. Wow.

Yeah. Not because that's unheard of, right? Doesn't happen, right?

And so, you know, we had product market fit, all the things they tell you you have to have. We had the numbers. But, you know, back in 2021, menopause, you know, I was told I couldn't say it on TV. Um, no one was talking about menopause, let alone sexual health. And for women in a tier 2— and I was tier 2 market, and as you mentioned, a minority woman with two other minority founders with absolutely zero VC ties.

Right.

So 0.37% chance was what they gave me. Yeah. So I'm a girl. My mother said the most dangerous thing to do is tell somebody she can't do something, cuz then she's just gonna do it.

She's gonna go do it.

So I did it, my first pitch. And one of the people on the call called me afterwards and I thought it was a joke. He was like, um, my firm would be super interested. And I was like, haha, very funny. And he's like, No, I'm serious. Like, we would want to invest. It ended up being one of our term sheets. It wasn't the one that we took, but in 5 weeks I had raised the entire round. Oh my goodness. That's incredible. With a singular investor. I know, I know.

It is lucky.

They call this a blue ocean opportunity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because HERMD existed before Mitty, before Alloy, before, you know, all the big, big ones that we know of now. So that's the only reason I say lucky. It's not that we didn't do the hard work. It's, you know, 9 out of every 10 startups go under and the founders take it so personally, but you need a little dose of luck. So our timing was, was right and we met the right people. Tough because I was at the top of my game as far as being a doctor for a while. I knew a lot about menopause and sexual healthcare, and I was considered an expert and had sit on a lot, sat on a lot of advisory boards. So it was very humbling. Um, I had to learn a whole new vernacular vocabulary. Suddenly I wasn't the expert in the room anymore. So tough. But I have humility. When I went on labor and delivery, I wanted to learn from the nurses. So I always joke that I love to teach, but I'm a forever student. But it was very, very tough and eye-opening because as a doctor, I was used to a certain level of respect and being treated that way. And experienced a lot of disrespect while fundraising and in the VC community. I always, I tell people I was almost living this dichotomous world where on social media they're like, she's winning, she's on all these headlines. And behind the scenes, people would say and do whatever they wanted. And so that's why it was so eye-opening.

It's like an out-of-body experience, right? You just, you feel like you're not yourself in some VC rooms because it's just, it's so deflating.

It's deflating and behavior that I would never allow to happen. And I'm not saying it didn't happen in my early training, but at this point I was a seasoned, you know, expert doctor, had research under my belt, all of the, all of the things. And then all of a sudden you're getting treated a very, very different way again. Like you're basically being told you don't know what you're doing. You need to step aside and let other people take over for you. And I believed it because I didn't—

That's the worst part.

It's the worst part because I didn't I mean, if you think about it, I carried the company with the founders through COVID and kept us profitable. And despite that, because I didn't have an MBA, I was like, oh, I only have MD behind my name. I assumed people knew more than I did and I believed, but they didn't understand what drives providers and what drives patients. They understood profitability, but I assumed that they knew more than I did just because I didn't speak the same language.

Right.

And that was incorrect.

Right, right. Which is unfortunate. It's too bad that, that the, the ecosystem treats people that way.

But I feel like by you and I having this conversation, because if young founders were coming to me and say, oh, I just wouldn't have 2%, you know, patients say, if I had known more about menopause, I wouldn't have been hit like a Mack truck. So by you doing this and us talking about this, you're like, we're not scaring. I, I, we, we want more women, right? Female founders. We want more money. We just want them to go in eyes wide open.

Eyes wide open and, and ready for that, that perspective to be there and to be ready to not feel deflated and not get debilitated by it. Right. And then they know that it's there.

Correct. And to not give up.

And to not give up.

Yes.

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I, I like to title this story cuz you know, I'm a storyteller.

Yes.

Um, which also helped during fundraising. Data and story, right? You get people in. Sex, sushi, and sake. It is the only pitch that I have ever cried in, ever. I'm a surgeon, so pretty tough. But my sister and I, who were co-founders, walked into a room. We were waiting on an investor, and this gentleman had inherited most of his wealth, and he was a legal expert. We'll just leave it at that. And, uh, we were left in his office for 45 minutes waiting. and when he walked in, he was on a phone call, still pretty heated, had made like hand motions to us, like, you know, give us a second. Sat down, started berating the people he was on the phone with. So I was like, okay, this is gonna be a tough one. Right away looked at me and my co-founder and then is basically like, um, where's your boss? Well, that's us. Well, where's your founder? That would be the both of us. Well, where's the money behind you guys? Well, that would be us. Um, we built this profitable company. So he, he used every word, but where is the dude in the room kind of thing?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and we finally assured him that it was it. We had a third found co-founder. It was a female, and this was the team. And then we started telling him about her MD and menopause and sexual healthcare. And he basically said that hormones are unnecessary, that menopause does not need to be treated. It's not a medical condition that female sexual healthcare is, that low libido is not a real thing. I laughed. And the reason I call it sushi, sake, and sex is because my sister ended up taking me to Sugarfish right afterwards, and I drowned my sorrows in sushi and sake.

Oh God.

And cried.

Oh God.

But I cried not because of the things that he said to me, but I was so mad that I allowed myself to be disrespected. And now I would have gotten up right away and said, okay, what is—

what's the response now? Like, what was your But what was the insight as you were drowning yourself in sake and sushi? And then what was the reflection? And then what would you do now in that same room?

The reflection was, as women, as eldest daughters, as founders, as doctors, I was trained, I can fix it, I can fix it, I can fix it. So in the moment, the harder he pushed, the harder I pushed back with data, the harder I pushed back, not with disrespect, but with data, with answers, with experience, you know, what I knew how to do. The Salmi now would not try to fix it. It's the same advice I give my patients. Don't try to talk your doctor into treating your menopause or understanding your sexual health. They're not going to, you're wasting your time. Get up and leave. And that's what I would've done. Said, obviously this is not gonna work. You're not for us, we're not for you. And I would've left. Right away, as soon as the disrespect started, I would've not— I don't tolerate it now. But at that point, I didn't know. It was my first round. I was— it was in that 5 weeks, like, is this normal? Is this not normal? Like, and I think it's like a car accident. My— you're just in shock. I remember looking over at my co-founder and her mouth was just open because she couldn't even process what was going on. And she felt equally as bad. For not like standing up and saying, all right, let's go. Let's just get out of here. This is not worth it. No amount of money is, is worth this.

Right. It feels like slow motion in the moment and even looking back. Right. And so extracting from the slow motion is hard.

Extracting from the slow motion is hard. And then it was almost, and then he wrote to us afterwards asking us for more information. And you're, you're then thinking, am I crazy? Did you not just experience what we did in the room? Were we not in the same room?

That doesn't feel right.

Which just reinforces their bad behavior, right? Like, oh, I didn't do anything wrong. You know, like, I want more information about you guys. And so we were, luckily we declined and we said, no, thank you. You know, we have a lot of other interested parties because could you imagine having that person as an investor and on your board and as a partner? Oh goodness. Someone who wasn't an advocate for the patients or believed in the very mission of the company. So that was, I would say, the worst pitch and my worst experience ever.

Oh, gosh. It's, it is, it is heartbreaking cuz every one of us has had something like that happen. And, and it is that follow-up email where it serves to normalize that behavior because it, you go, oh, that's why you feel like, doesn't this always happen? Because they followed up and there, there is no, there's no shame on their part on how they behaved. It was just a normal day for them. And so you start, to your point, you start to question yourself and go, wait a minute, maybe, maybe I remember it wrong. But you don't, you know exactly what that felt like. And you, and so you, you did the right thing. You go, no, we're good. Thank you. We, we have money coming from elsewhere.

Yeah. And my never again is to never let an investor make me cry. Right. Or to disrespect me in that manner. Never again.

Never again. No.

But I did not cry. I am very proud. The tears did not come out in the room.

I know, that's a big deal, right?

Just like a breakup. I was like, I am not going to give him the validation of my tears. They will come out over sushi and sake, but they will not be spilled in this room.

Oh no.

So, yes.

Oh God, I would've, yeah, no, I, I would've cried over sushi and sake as well. And then, and now, yes, as a, as a grownup with some seasoned wisdom, thanks but no thanks.

Thanks, but no thanks. Yes. Never again. Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Deep breath. Got it. Uh, do you have another one?

Oh God. Yes, I do. I, I have another one. So I've had subsequent rounds, you know, that's how we raised. And I had someone that actually forbade me from Thai, and he used that vocabulary. He forbade me from talking to other investors even though it was an open round. And actually reached out to the other investor who would've presented a much more favorable situation and blocked him and basically said, why are you talking to her? You need to be talking to me.

Oh my God. Did you have a term sheet? Mm-hmm.

There was, there were a couple of term sheets, but then scared this other investor away, and he actually called me and said, I, I want to do this, but now I won't because of this other individual. And then this other person then used the leverage from the loss of that term sheet to present a more favorable term sheet for themselves. And so in that moment, I learned a lot that investors can't forbid you.

No.

From talking to other investors.

Right. Especially if you haven't signed anything yet. And actually they can't do it at all, but let alone blocking other investors.

No, because everyone's job for the company is to make sure that the company is the most, you know, profitable and, and does the best and the outcome for the patients and the providers. And, you know, you have to look for the, the good of the company, right? That's what everyone agrees to do. But this was done personally to me. Not an official call. And so this is the little, you know, behaviors and these like side aggressions that sometimes happen in the VC world. And not excusing it, I'm not saying it should happen, but that's how it happened because it wasn't officially a part of anything. It wasn't witnessed. It just was a side conversation. And I actually didn't listen and tried to fix things. And, but it didn't work out in my favor, actually. I just felt like I was in the hot seat all the time after that, because then I was known as the troublemaker who I just, because I wouldn't be a good girl.

Oh no, I was gonna say that, that's the label we get, right? Is that as soon as we haven't listened to the patriarchy and done what they told us, now, now we're the troublemaker and we haven't been a good girl.

No. Instead of being known as being confident or assertive or inquisitive or asking questions. You all of a sudden are the troublemaker, right? You're the troublemaker. And then that's the label you've gotten. So that is my other one. And that one was also a very, very, you know, painful lesson. But these are like stretched out over, you know, a couple of years as we were raising, you know, each round. And so you, you gain insight from every single one and it's like, wow, okay, that's a new behavior I've never seen before. And you gotta remember, Naseem Sayani, like I am I was a 40-some-year-old woman at the time, a doctor. I had already raised millions. I was in national publications, sitting on boards all across the country, speaking globally. I don't think my parents have forbidden me to do anything since I was a teenager.

Right.

Um, yeah.

The narcissism in that is just, it's so severe and it's just, it's such insane way to behave and to think that you can— it's like locker room behavior, that you can just like bully your way through and tell, and tell this young woman that she can't do something because you're gonna go win this raise and get the best terms possible, push out the other people and, and take over ultimately, right? Attempt to take over her company the way that you want to, right?

Attempt. Yes. And so for me, I knew though in this situation, whereas the first gentleman had done it publicly in front of other people, yeah, this person did it very privately. So I knew that right away that it was wrong. It smelled off, it felt off. I knew it was wrong because I was like, well, if this was official, this should happen on a witnessed with more people. And, and so I knew the behavior was wrong and I knew the behavior had only been directed at me because I was the one gaining the most traction and talking to the most people and, and touching base with people. So I knew that behavior was wrong. And, and obviously that individual knew that behavior was wrong, cuz otherwise they would've done it in a different, like, right? Like you can disagree on team, that happens all the time, even in medicine. Like, the lead surgeon may not agree with the assistant surgeon, but you talk about it. You can have disagreements, but when it happens like this, the, these individuals know exactly what they're doing.

Right.

You know?

Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, it's also such a moment where trusting your gut and your intuition comes in really handy. And it's another one of those things that in a fundraising capacity, women don't do. We, we, we push it down and we go, oh no, I'm overthinking it when actually our spidey senses are quite reliable and we should be listening to our guts. And it's, it's come up in a few conversations that if, if I had just listened to my gut, that thing wouldn't have happened. And you knew, you knew this was off and that something was wrong and you listened, right? And it, it made a huge difference.

Yeah. But I, I think about someone else who would've not, because you're almost brainwashed into thinking you are so lucky to be in these rooms. You are so lucky to be like, do you know how scarce this money is? Yeah.

And the scarcity problem is real. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Yes. But it should never be used as, um, think about it from, you know, I mean, I'm married to a medical oncologist and when they're, they're very, very data-driven. They're not gonna talk to you about the 5% chance of dying, right? They're gonna talk to you about the 95% chance of success and living. And so I think it's almost the opposite in the venture world, in the financial world where it's like doomsday and we're gonna give you the worst case scenario. And for me, I am the eternal optimist. I'm the eternal dreamer. Isn't that what an entrepreneur is?

Yeah.

Like someone who builds.

Yes. You have to be. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You have to be. They build, build the impossible.

Right.

And so for me, I think that's why these conversations were even harder because I was always the girl looking at how can we fix this? How can we do it? How can the numbers work? How can we make it favorable? How can we work on profitability? How can we incentivize people? How can we have the best outcomes? So to me, the numbers game wasn't scary unless it was like manipulated against me. And then I was scared. And then I was Tried to be forced to be scared of the numbers when I wasn't scared of the numbers.

Right.

So, right. Yeah. Right.

Oh God, the system. It's, there's so many things, so many things to fix. There are, you've told me some stories also about things that happen just in the normal course of business, kind of outside of the fundraising experience that were also quite gendered.

Yes. That was also very, very, very shocking because I went through a residency program where it was like 24 women and 4 men. And yeah, we had sexist things happen to us, you know, way back when. Male surgeons yelling at us and things like that. And it's gotten a lot better in medicine. So I'm not going to say it never happens, but generally medical teams work together for the outcome or the betterment of the patient. And so I was very used to a team approach and working together and not undermining each other or blaming things on gender, right? And so when there were disagreements on a team, normal, everyone has ideas and You know, the best idea should win, but anytime there was a disagreement, uh, on a particular team for us, comments would be made that this was challenges amongst women or just disagreements amongst women. And when I corrected said individual who made that comment, as I was presenting data and numbers and appointment times and templates, and it's like hardcore financial and, you know, medical data. And I was still being told the narrative that, oh, this is just a disagreement against, you know, of women. When I corrected that individual, they still wouldn't back down and said, okay, it's, well, this is just a disagreement amongst individuals. And so rather than investigating the underlying issues, problems, concerns, coaching was offered so that we could have better communication. I'm not against coaching. I'm not against therapy. I mean, I think they're both great. And I think a lot of founders need them both because You know, I always complain that there's not enough sensitivity training in medicine, and coaching was great for me because I was learning how to be an executive, right? I was growing as I was building. I had never been a CEO before. I had never been a C-suite executive. So I was, it wasn't that I was offended by the suggestion of coaching. I think every team should have coaching. What I am pissed about, frankly, is the underlying issues getting dismissed, being mislabeled as, you know, team chemistry issues.

Like cattiness, right? Characterized as cattiness. Yeah.

Characterized as cattiness undermining, you know, real concerns that are going on.

Right.

And therefore ignoring issues and behaviors that should have been dealt with. And then because it then it just gets delayed and dismissed. But I learned my biggest lesson there. Was drama is a great distractor of issues that are going on. So the person who likes to create drama doesn't belong in that seat anymore because they're just trying to circumnavigate the real issues at hand. And usually the person bringing up the drama is the one who gets blamed.

Right, right. Well, it's similar to, and this is embedded in your stories, but like It's okay for someone to offend, but if I call out the offense, I get in trouble, right? I'm, I'm now in trouble for offending. And this happens to women all the time, right? We have to absorb the offense and get treated badly, and someone gets to tell us we're no good at running a company or whatever the case may be. But if I bring it up and say, hey, that's actually not true, or why did you say that? Or I'm actually really good at running my company. And that was rude. Now I'm the bad person for calling them rude. And it, it just— we turn into the bad person all the time. Uh, and you go, that's just— it's just the system. It's just wired for it to, again, make us the troublemaker all the time.

Make us the troublemaker and like navigate the story in a very different way. And so for me, I was lucky I was able to reclaim the reins at HERMD. We were able to pivot from an integrated model of brick and mortar and tele to virtual only. And then we were able to kind of tease out the business into two separate business units and have had a successful exit on the telehealth side. Congrats.

That's amazing.

Thank you. And so that's the other lesson learned is, you know, my goal once we started fundraising was to get to a national platform and to make sure our care was available in all 50 states. Now, did it happen in the way I initially intended? No, I would've had to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, but we did get there and we got our patients there to a national platform and to a very like-minded synchronous platform. So that to me was the second best outcome there could be.

That's great.

And so that's great. Yes. Yes. And has kind of, you know, I think that's the other thing I wanna tell founders is that it's okay to pivot. Like you will pivot multiple times because you're building something that hasn't been done before. And so, and I also learned a lot more from my failures. I, I don't even see them as failures. I, you know, pivots. But I've learned a lot more from failing or not obtaining a goal than I have from all of the successes. And so that's what I would also tell people, like, you may be just one pivot away from getting to that successful exit or outcome that you wanted. It just, the journey looks a little bit different than what you thought it would be.

I don't know how much you can share, but what can you tell everyone about your process to reclaim the reins and, and how you thought about it and, and what you did to do that after kind of getting through a Series A?

Yeah. Well, yeah, we all got lucky through kind of a Series A and then an extension round. Yeah. So I, I would love to say that that was controversial, but that was actually a very calm process and wasn't as difficult as, as people think. 'Cause people are like, how in the world? So the things I can say, it was mutual and everyone felt that the company and its original vision were best in the hands of the founders. And so that's where I talk about that triangle of patients, providers, and profitability. And so it was a very mutual decision. So we were able to take control of the company again. But you know, it's very, very ca— people are like, I still believe an integrated model is the way to go. Like telehealth is great because we have an access problem. You know this and I know this, but there are just some things, even with at-home paps, I mean, I love the Femtech that you need a biopsy, you need an ultrasound, you need surgery. And we were doing it all. We were drawing blood, we were doing surgery, we were doing images, we were doing procedures. Women need in-person care even in midlife, even after they're done having babies. And we were taking care of women 13 to end of life. And so integrated care is, is the way to go. But it was too— people are like, well, why didn't you buy back all the clinics? And, uh, it's super capital intensive.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Um, and so I did not have enough capital. Um, so had to really think about how can I still take care of patients? How can I still educate providers? Cuz we have that educational arm, right? And right now we have one provider for every 32,000 patients. So there's that gap too. And so we were filling the care and educational gap in the best capital efficient way that we could. And so that's how we solved for that problem. But unfortunately we had to let go of the centers, which— and that was like a death for me.

Yeah, that's heartbreaking cuz they were doing really well and, and I never got to visit one. I really wanted to, but I had always heard that they were beautiful and amazing.

They were gorgeous. And we were doing things that people like ACOG now says, well, have a mirror, you know, for an exam. We like were casting anatomy if people wanted to and they could be a part of their examination. We were doing, instead of sending people for HSGs, you know, to see if their fallopian tubes were open, we were using saline and bubbles. We called it the champagne test.

Yes.

We were doing in-office ablations. We were doing in-office Sonata. We were like, ablating fibroids in an hour instead of an hysterectomy. So we were doing groundbreaking medicine in a tier 2, in tier 2 markets. And we were just, you know, looking back to, I just think that healthcare wasn't ready for us yet. That it, it just, it wasn't.

I remember when I first met you and I first heard the, the model and the mission of HerMD and because you were in in the middle of the country doing it. Right. And, and the, the thing I think we said this, and I remember I kept thinking about it. I said, God, if it, if it works there, you know, it's gonna work on the coast. Right. Mm-hmm. And if you prove it there, it's gonna work everywhere else. And I was just like, God, I, I hope it gets funded and can expand because my goodness, if it works there, it's gonna work everywhere. You just, you just know that it will, but it's capital intensive and that's the hard part.

And that is the one other, you know, thing I don't even think, you know, I had a giant term sheet for my first round. And if you wanna talk about, you know, looking back in hindsight, I had a term sheet for $65 million for a very, very, very large chunk of the company at that point. And if I knew what I knew now, right, these companies that were telehealth only have raised $100 million. and that's what it took to grow. I was trying to grow an integrated model with the first round was $10 million. I, and had I known what was gonna happen with the economy, uh, looking back now, I would've taken that.

Taken it. Yeah.

Yes. And actually given us enough fuel to, to grow and to grow integrated, uh, in the way that we are a lot more quickly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

No, the things you learn, it's incredible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The things you learn.

Yeah. So if you could, as we wrap up, 2 or 3 big must-knows for female founders, things that you, you wish you had known early on, or you really want women to keep in mind as they prep for their fundraise or even start to build their businesses.

If you can delay taking on capital as long as you can.

That, that is the paramount lesson to keep in mind. Yes, absolutely.

So stay scrappy. But number two, uh, the same care and thought that goes into your mission, that goes into your company, that goes into your device, whatever you're building, should go into your evaluation of whoever's offering you a term sheet because it truly is like a marriage and a long-term relationship. Through the good, bad, and the ugly, and you want someone who's going to problem solve with you, who's going to help you, and who has expertise and experience in that area. And I think at that point, you know, people told me it was just so hard to raise that I took capital, but I really would encourage people to evaluate that with the same intensity. And the third thing I would say is nobody knows your, your business better than you do. Titles don't entitle you. If that's my take-home message, titles don't entitle you. Nobody has lived your business, built your business. And I, I'm not saying that, you know, you should stay on as, as the CEO if you don't want to, but I'm, I'm saying nobody knows your business better than you. And don't assume people know more because of fancy titles behind their, their name.

That's a great one. That is such an important one to keep in mind. Where can people find you? How can they follow you? What's most helpful for you right now, if anything? Yeah.

So Somi Javed on Instagram, Dr. Somi on TikTok, and take a listen to the Disruptor Podcast.

Perfect. Amazing. Thank you so much, friend, for joining me and sharing so much wisdom. I'm such a fan of you always, and this has been fantastic. There's just so much to learn, and I, I know everyone will appreciate everything. Thanks for listening to The Capital Flex. If today's episode hit home, share it with the founder you love and follow me on LinkedIn for more.