Launch HN: Legacy (YC S19) – we help men test and freeze their sperm

Hey - I hear you, but I don't think that's entirely fair. We are obviously building a company that we believe will go far, and will be around for decades, but we recognize there's no guarantee that will happen.

In a worst case scenario, folks could keep their sample frozen where it is and pay retail rates at those facilities instead of the wholesale rates we offer.

We are real people who care a lot about the people who are using their service, and their ability to have kids in the future. We would genuinely do everything we could to support.

When we did IVF, I had two choices for providing my sample. Collect it at home and then drive it to the clinic, where I had a max of 15 minutes and had to keep the cup between my legs for the entire trip, or provide the sample at the clinic.

How do you keep the sample fresh for transport if it's collected at home?

ps. In case anyone was wondering I went with collecting at the clinic, and boy do I have some fun stories from that experience!

If one's sperm quality is poor, what does Legacy recommend be done about it? Is there anything specific or is it just general health/lifestyle improvements?

Haha! You and me both! The worst part, to me, was it being referred to as "the specimen". I don't know why that always weirded me out.

Sperm can actually survive fine for 1-2 hours hours when kept near body temperature, so a 1-hour courier service is sufficient (and it usually takes less than 60 minutes). If there were any issues, we'd know when it arrived at the clinic.

For anyone outside of major cities, we do overnight shipping with Fedex's biohazardous materials division. We use a transport medium that keeps sperm alive for up to 48 hours during transit. You add it to the sperm, it protects it during that period, and it gets washed out (via centrifuge) when it arrives at our clinic. It's not perfect - you can expect to lose approx. 10-15% motility during that time, but is particularly useful for folks in rural areas or far from fertility clinics.

PS Always love hearing other folks' clinic stories... my favourite is hearing how clinics have their pornography stolen ALL the time and have to frequently re-stock.

Alright. So I go to the clinic and check in with my wife. They take her off to get ready to "receive the sample". A few minutes later they call me up to the desk. The nurse looks at me, pulls something out of the desk, hands it to me with a cup, at tells me to go to room two.

To clarify, since it's relevant, I'm a white guy, my wife is Asian, and the nurse that checked me in is Black. What she handed me was a porn DVD of hardcore Asian porn. I guess she just assumed since my wife was Asian, that's what I was into. I saw in the drawer and there was a variety of choices, but I was never asked.

So I get into the room. To the left is a sink for hand washing with a small counter next to it. In front of me is a very standard office chair, but with a fresh absorbent pad on it (like what you put down when you're house training a puppy). In front of the chair is a 20 inch old-school CRT (this was in 2014, so it was old even then) with a built in DVD player. To the left of the chair is a huge rack with porn magazines.

I evaluate my situation, and decide I'm not going to use the chair, or touch it, or touch anything in the room that I don't have to, because I don't know why it just didn't seem right. Luckily I was smart and brought my laptop with me, so I pop that open and set it on the counter. Attach to the wifi and... all the porn sites are blocked. Apparently they use the same filter as all the other medical offices.

Luckily, being the enterprising engineering that I am, I bounce an SSH session through my home server.

So I start doing my business. I'm standing there with hand occupied, facing the door, when it opens! Apparently the nurse forgot to flip the sign to say "occupied" and also forgot to warn me to lock the door (protip: Always lock the door!). She turned back around and ran out, but I had to start over so to speak.

I finished up, sealed up the sample, washed up, rang the little bell, and the nurse collected my specimen. She was the consummate professional and didn't say anything about the walk-in.

I then went and sat in the waiting room while the doctor impregnated my wife.

ps. This story is a lot better when told in person after a few drinks.