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Modern Fertility (YC S17) is a proactive way to test fertility at home

modernfertility.com

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Re: Modern Fertility (YC S17) is a proactive way to test fertility at home

#21

Post by shouldifakeit »

aaffttoonn wrote: post #10
jontas wrote: post #8

Any plans for a male version?

Male factor is 50% of the equation and it is really important for both women and men to understand that from an education perspective. We are customers ourselves for our female fertility test and understand the female market well, but are interested in learning more about if males would proactively test / store their sperm.

Happy to chat with you about this. I've been through 4 IVFs and have severe male factor infertility, so sadly I know this space all too well. Mens market is trickier - the existing method for home testing for men is too clunky. You need to produce a sperm sample into.. a test tube. Then put it in warm water. Then wait. This is too dirty and too much work.

There is a roundabout way to do this without a sperm sample. Pen prick, blood in a container, ship it out to a lab and then do a karyotype test on it. That'll pick up around 50% of infertility cases. To cover the rest, you'll need to do a sperm test. Also, the 'hook' that gets men in has to be more than just 'check your sperm count'. Men mostly couldn't care less about their sperm count. Something like 'check if you're at risk of passing on a rare blood disease' is a much better hook.

Re: Modern Fertility (YC S17) is a proactive way to test fertility at home

#22

Post by shouldifakeit »

Alex3917 wrote: post #15
robbiemitchell wrote: post #6

How are you thinking about the increased growth of egg freezing? Is this something that is going to tell more women to freeze their eggs? From what I'm told by doctor family members, it's expensive and not necessarily a guarantee.

> How are you thinking about the increased growth of egg freezing The actual number of babies that have been born worldwide from frozen eggs is only around 2,000, and most of those were done either to prove out the concept or else due to some specific medical condition (e.g. about to get chemo). Despite the fact that you read about it in the news all the time and it feels like everyone is doing it, the number of babi…

Nonsense. Where are you getting your stats from?

Re: Modern Fertility (YC S17) is a proactive way to test fertility at home

#23

Post by shouldifakeit »

aaffttoonn wrote: post #16
replicatorblog wrote: post #13

An excellent, important product — and stellar branding! While this product is a massive technical improvement, its biggest value might be getting couples to think about fertility earlier. I admit as a career-minded professional, I underestimated how quickly the reproductive window closes biologically and how much higher the risks are for Mom and baby as the years pass. My wife and I went through IVF and learned quite…

Wow- really appreciate you sharing your story (and thanks for the kind words). The main reason we started Modern Fertility was to give women the tools to start the conversation about our reproductive futures. I think it is so important for stories like this to be shared and to start a transparent dialogue. We see celebrity pregnancies on the cover of magazines but typically no backstory about what went into them. Tha…

I love what you're doing, but a piece of advice - please don't oversell and mislead women by suggesting you can tell them 'how many eggs they have' (text taken from your home page).

You know well that this is not possible at all. 'High/medium/low' is about the best you can say. Please don't mislead people in this way and diminish what is otherwise a really good product.

Re: Modern Fertility (YC S17) is a proactive way to test fertility at home

#25

Post by nontechcomments »

aaffttoonn wrote: post #16
replicatorblog wrote: post #13

An excellent, important product — and stellar branding! While this product is a massive technical improvement, its biggest value might be getting couples to think about fertility earlier. I admit as a career-minded professional, I underestimated how quickly the reproductive window closes biologically and how much higher the risks are for Mom and baby as the years pass. My wife and I went through IVF and learned quite…

Wow- really appreciate you sharing your story (and thanks for the kind words). The main reason we started Modern Fertility was to give women the tools to start the conversation about our reproductive futures. I think it is so important for stories like this to be shared and to start a transparent dialogue. We see celebrity pregnancies on the cover of magazines but typically no backstory about what went into them. Tha…

Do you have any plans to offer male fertility testing as well? As the OP noted, male fertility is also a factor in pregnancy and in our patriarchal society we often place the burden and blame on women for issues with conceiving. I’m sure there is a great feminist marketing campaign waiting to be done for a product for males.

I’d certainly use it.

Re: Modern Fertility (YC S17) is a proactive way to test fertility at home

#27

Post by aaffttoonn »

shouldifakeit wrote: post #23
aaffttoonn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow- really appreciate you sharing your story (and thanks for the kind words). The main reason we started Modern Fertility was to give women the tools to start the conversation about our reproductive futures. I think it is so important for stories like this to be shared and to start a transparent dialogue. We see celebrity pregnancies on the cover of magazines but typically no backstory about what went into them. Tha…

I love what you're doing, but a piece of advice - please don't oversell and mislead women by suggesting you can tell them 'how many eggs they have' (text taken from your home page). You know well that this is not possible at all. 'High/medium/low' is about the best you can say. Please don't mislead people in this way and diminish what is otherwise a really good product.

Thanks for digging in! We share exactly where the science is and what these tests can and cannot tell you. We can't count the exact number of eggs, and we do report in buckets which are impactful and have clinical utility. One of the hormones we measure is AMH which is a well validated proxy of ovarian reserve. There is a lot of literature on AMH but Hansen et.al.2011 is one of my favorites- they counted the number of eggs (primordial follicles to be specific) in the ovaries of women who were already having their ovaries removed for other medical reasons and found the their AMH levels strongly correlated with follicle count.

Re: Modern Fertility (YC S17) is a proactive way to test fertility at home

#29

Post by aaffttoonn »

shouldifakeit wrote: post #20

Its a good idea, but I wonder how accurate your results will be. HCG tests (done via blood samples) are notoriously bad as a predictor for how many eggs are actually in the ovaries. Its a very broad indicator yes, but nothing more than that. This is really quite different from say testing a mens sperm where you can accurately count the exact number to the nearest million. Have you compared your accuracy with an HCG t…

Hi! Are you referring to human chorionic gonadotropin (hcg)? If so, HCG is used in pregnancy tests not an ovarian reserve test. We do not test for HCG.

Re: Modern Fertility (YC S17) is a proactive way to test fertility at home

#30

Post by aaffttoonn »

narenst wrote: post #26

Great product! Are you talking to companies who might want to offer this as a benefit to their employees?

Yes! We are already working with a few companies who are offering Modern Fertility as a wellness benefit. If you are interested you can email info@modernfertility.com and we will schedule a quick demo and get you setup in <20 minutes. Thanks so much for asking.
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