ZOE MILGROM - EUGENE LABS
ON TAKING ALMOST 2 YEARS TO CREATE HER MVP
Zoe Milgrom is the co-founder of Eugene, a health tech start-up whose ambition is to make genetic testing available to everyone.
Zoe began her career as a genetic counsellor; she decoded complex information for patients about their genetic conditions, and provided emotional and psychosocial support for a genetic diagnosis.
In 2017 while on mat leave, she started thinking about how there had to be a simpler and more affordable way to offer genetic tests to the broader community. It was at this exact moment the stars aligned and she met her co-founder Kunal, and after 6 months of co-founder dating, they set out to change the genetic testing landscape, providing an end-to-end online experience for patients.
You’ll learn:
Why it took Zoe and her co-founders almost two years to build their MVP
The challenges around scaling a health tech company where the margin of error is zero
How Eugene secured millions of dollars in venture funding to scale the business, and how they’re deploying that capital
How the current economic climate has forced them to rethink their fundraising strategy
How overcoming fear has been a central theme of Zoe’s start-up story
How Zoe approaches the never-ending juggle of founder-life and parenthood
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THE BITS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS
“He presented me with this wireframe of what a Eugene experience could be. What I didn’t know at the time is that he’d spent the week mocking up this wireframe with a designer friend of his, so that he could basically win me over. So, I left that meeting. [I thought] I’ve got the clinical know how, but I know nothing about business. I know peripherally, what a start-up is and what it might take to be a founder of a company. But I know nothing...I was so excited that there was someone who had this shared vision of what the future of genetics could be. And then I woke up the next morning and went hang on, I’ve got this six week old, what am I doing? ”
“We would learn in order to scale a clinical function, you really need to learn what’s going to be safe and acceptable to automate. And I can tell you, as a genetic counselor coming into a start-up where the whole idea is to scale that clinical function, and essentially take away a lot of what you’re used to doing, that’s really scary, but it’s also incredibly exciting. ”
“When we think about smart growth, we think about LTV, so the lifetime value of a patient. Right now genetic testings is kind of a one hit wonder...people come to us for a specific reason, whether it be reproductive planning cancer or cardiac risk, because they want that answer. But how can we extend that lifetime value of a patient? Can we support them as a lifelong journey? Are there points in their life where other things are going to become relevant? So, we’re looking at other products in different laterals, as well as where we’re at currently. ”
“No one expects you to have all the answers, and everyone is happy to help if you just ask, I think that’s probably the standout lesson for me. No one expects you to be brilliant at everything all the time. You really need to find the people who support you when the times are tough, as well as help you take the time to celebrate those wins. ”
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