Future of Fertility_Claire Tomkins: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Future of Fertility_Claire Tomkins: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Abby Mercado:
Hi, I'm Abby Mercado, an IVF mom, former VC investor, and CEO of Rescripted. Welcome to the Future of Fertility, a podcast dedicated to shining a light on the entrepreneurs and innovators who are changing the face of family building. With billions in funding over the past few years, we'll introduce you to the people, the ideas, and the businesses that are changing the fertility industry and in turn, millions of people's lives. The future of fertility is bright. Now let's get into it!

Abby Mercado:
Claire Tompkins is the CEO of Future Family. Inspired by Claire's own struggle to start a family, Future Family helps women and couples navigate their fertility journey as the first company to bring together financing technology and concierge care in an easy to use online platform. Rescripted has worked with Claire's amazing team for a few years now. Driven in large part by our community seeking financial solutions for expensive fertility treatments. As someone who has personally taken out a second mortgage to build my family through IVF, I am thrilled to host Claire on the podcast today. Welcome, Claire!

Claire Tomkins:
Hi, Abby! It's so great to be here. Thanks for hosting me.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, thanks so much for joining us. I'm super excited to dig into your background and some of the drivers as to, you know, you starting Future Family and also really dig into the company and all of the things that you're doing to help fertility patients ... just afford this amazing treatment that helps them build their family. So first, for starters, I would love to just hear about Claire. So tell us all about yourself .... grow up, like what were you interested in? What did you do for a living? All the things.

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, well, Abby, you and I were just kind of talking a little bit off the record and saying that, you know, one of the things that is so special about working in fertility and working on family building is that so many of us who are working in this space have a personal story and connection, which is how we ended up here. And so I think that that's something unique, having worked across different fields. So, yeah, I grew up in the Midwest. I feel like some of my close friends and best memories are still in the Midwest, but I started moving westward for undergrad and grad school and ended up in California, and I'm still here. So we're, I'm based in San Francisco, California, which just had a very temperate Thanksgiving where we're actually able to eat outdoors, so that was one of the benefits of being in California.

Abby Mercado:
Love it!

Claire Tomkins:
So nice and so forth. And one of the highlights of the Thanksgiving feast was actually it was Thanksgiving is the birthday of my two twins. So Audrey and Lucas were born five years ago on the 24th of November. And I actually went into labor right as the turkey was being served. So it's kind of a big thing story of, and they, of course twins, are our IVF twins. And that gets us into how I'm here today and why I'm so passionate about working around fertility and all things related to starting and building a family. And I was one of those lucky cases where obviously I have been able to start a family using IVF. I have three kiddos. My oldest, who was kind of the original inspo for Future Family, is now unbelievably seven and one half. And then of course, the twins just turned five and I had two very different experiences of the journey. So I can, I think I can carry a lot of empathy for patients who are going through this. I had both with Natalie, it was a very long journey of like six plus rounds of IVF, and with the twins it was like one and done, or in this case two and done. One round of IVF and I was, of course, pregnant with twins, and I was like shocked by the whole thing. So there's lots there, and yeah, before getting into fertility, I worked for many years in the clean energy space, so in many ways it couldn't have been more different. But my passion for all things fertility move me over to this space, and it's been we have a great team over at Future Family, and we're excited about all the partnerships we formed and coming ahead.

Abby Mercado:
Yay! Well, I have a million follow up questions, so I don't know if, I'm a twin mom too. So I have three and a half year old twins .... So my IVF is amazing. The science is absolutely amazing. So, so you're an engineer by education, you have a PhD. So tell us a little bit about like that. Tell us a little bit about that side of your brain and how, kind of like a little bit more in detail as to what you were doing before Future Family.

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, for sure. So that's right. I don't know. I get asked a lot if I would recommend a PhD and I guess the verdict, the jury's still out on that one a little bit where I'm clearly not working as an academic now. But of course, it was a great experience spending that time at Stanford. And at the time, I was deep in renewable energy, I worked in applied finance and economics and was looking at kind of pricing models. And I think that there is a question of like, how does that directly come to bear on my job today or what I do? And I don't know that it comes like so directly, but I think indirectly, there's obviously a lot of benefits of getting that academic training. And I will say that probably my, if you get to know me, like the thing that I really like to do is to kind of geek out more on the product side. So what Future Family is known for is innovating the kind of easy monthly plans that we also sometimes referred to in the fintech space as like a "buy now, pay later" approach for consumers. I had a lot of fun, I guess, intellectually designing a product that I thought I would have used as a patient, and we still talk about that at ... is like we want to design and build products that we would use or would have used when we were going through this. And so this kind of financial product, which is a little different than a normal financial product, we can talk about that. And then I think we're working on some new product innovation that hopefully maybe I'll have a chance to come back and share with you once it's done. But the constant ability to sort of innovate and work on new products is something I had a passion for even going back to doing my PhD.

Abby Mercado:
Amazing. So you were no stranger to finance and how the world of finance worked kind of for Future Family?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, I went for my PhD program doing, sort of applied economic and finance model into like actually applying it in the private sector. And I spent many years in the renewable energy solar space and before founding Future Family I was actually financing solar assets. So a little bit different, although unbelievably, when I first started the company, a lot of my friends joked that I should, I was working at the time on the products we did Solar City, and a lot of my friends joked that I should call the new company Fertility City. ...

Abby Mercado:
I was, that was actually a question that I had prepared for you, like knowing that you had been in the energy space, like are there, can you draw any similarities between the two, the two industries? And I was, I actually came from the energy space as well.

Claire Tomkins:
Oh, wow.

Abby Mercado:
And I don't, I don't know if I can actually, like, I have that question for you just because I'm interested to hear somebody else's viewpoint and standpoint. But can you draw any celebrity in, any similarities between the two, the two industries having worked in both of them?

Claire Tomkins:
Well, sure. I mean, I think there, I think, I love that we have all these things in common, our energy backgrounds, that our twins, and so forth, so the.

Abby Mercado:
Your energy background is like a little bit more noble than mine, mine is, maybe like I was, I was in oil and gas for a long time. And I, I looked at the industry. I kind of, I was like, I just love energy. Like, I just want to do something. And I just like, I love all things macro. And at the end of my, my career in the energy space, like, how can we make this industry better? And that's why I'm a VC. But anyway, that was my energy background. Let's see, let's hear about yours.

Claire Tomkins:
No, I mean, well, it's all important right now. Obviously, we're all using all these energy sources and yes, hopefully making the transition eventually to clean energy. So the, yeah, okay, when we think about like, what are some of the similarities? Well, certainly like being in the clean energy sector in sort of 2008, 2009, 2010, that was kind of the frontier time. So I certainly think there's a parallel around having been part of one industry that was in its nascent phase and kind of the pioneering phase. And what did that feel like? People still weren't sure when solar energy going to become mainstream and how was it going to scale. And I definitely see parallels to where we are in fertility of like it feels like fertility is a hotbed of innovation right now. I mean, you obviously and on your show and through your work are getting to meet also a lot of the new companies and new founders. And I'm getting to meet them too, and love it. There's so many new companies out there being formed working on different aspects, whether it's, you know, testing and better understanding your body and planning ahead and technologies in the lab that can help us get to higher success rates and efficacy. And so there's so much innovation happening, and that's like the parallel I see between like the early days of solar and clean tech as opposed to like the early days of like fertility tech and, and kind of what we're seeing in healthcare. So definitely that. And then on the very specific, I guess what I was working on, I really believe that with the adoption of new products and new services for consumers, the thinking is like, also has to be, well, what's the right payment model, what's the right way to way to afford this, and how does that all fit together? Because that really dictates adoption. And we saw that in the solar space was that people weren't putting solar on their house when it was 25,000 in difficult to install. But then when SolarCity came along and it was like, oh, you know what, we'll just make it a monthly payment cheaper than your energy bill and we'll install it for you. That value really resonated with consumers. Well, fast-forward fertility is much more essential in some ways and much more emotional and necessary. At the same time, like the financial piece is really important to how IVF gets adopted and how successful we are.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, amazing. It's so important. I saw the stat the other day that 90% of people who need fertility treatments just don't have access to it, whether it's probably mostly financial, but there's also probably other different access issues and we'll definitely dive more into that. So it sounds like Natalie was maybe a part of your aha moment. So who, can you tell me a little bit more about that aha moment? Like how did you formulate the idea and like, tell me about like the early days, how did it all come to fruition?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, that's right. So I, this is a story that's well known in my family and I was thinking about starting a company. I was actually thinking about doing it in the kind of energy, DGT ... Space. Not surprising, given my background. And so I had plans kind of to, to found and start something and then was kind of having dinner with my husband and talking about now that we were the lucky parents of Natalie, how I saw these parallels between the solar experience and the fertility experience and just how gosh, really needs to be some innovation and like, isn't it crazy that we're innovating in this space that's again, really meaningful for clean energy and the future of our planet. And at the same time, I was so surprised by the lack of innovation around this in the healthcare space and the fertility space. So just really came out of a conversation of like, wow, how could it look and how would it need to change? And that conversation kind of sparked, I think, that inner kind of brainstorm and process of wanting, getting closer and closer to wanting to make that leap and do something. It was not necessarily an easy decision, for those who are listening or thinking about doing something entrepreneurial or just even making a change in your life and your career, that was probably the thing that held me up the most. I already felt that I wanted to go and start something, I just was a bit concerned about moving from like clean energy where I have a network and where I built things into the unknown or really what is healthcare and fertility. I guess fast forward five years later, at least that's a move I would endorse. I really enjoyed learning this whole new space and of course building a network and so forth. So I think that was a good move, but it came out of a lot of passion when I realized that if I did found something, I would be doing it for many years and getting to work with and build an amazing team. It really came down to like where where was my passion? And I was most passionate at that moment as a new mom around helping others.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, Amazing, Amazing. I remember, you know, I became a fertility entrepreneur in especially in 2020, but I was kind of scoping out the industry in, you know, 2019, give or take. And I remember seeing you and your story as, and then that to me was, I was like, okay, this is this really incredible company. It was like, you are kind of, from my vantage point, like among the first wave. In terms of starting Future Family, like what was, what was early investor feedback? Was that hard? Was that challenging? Did they get it? Was it a thing then?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah. I mean, well, I think some credit definitely goes to who's fairly well known in this space, goes to Gina Bartowski and who founded Progeny. And I think the fact that there was already a company working in the employer space and that was on a pathway at that time, they had an exit but was not a pathway to an exit. I think the fact that there were some really early forerunners here obviously helped. So we were by no means the first venture-backed company. But I do think that we were at right at that moment where the space was starting to heat up. And so that's right, I think the biggest questions at the time and so to some degree those are questions that still exist a little bit have been around what investors refer to as TAM addressable market. And is this a big enough category? And I think for those of us who are on the inside, maybe almost find that a little hard, ... feels like cognitive dissonance maybe to those of us on the inside because we're on the front lines of dealing with so many cases of fertility and fertility challenges, and it's sort of all around us. But it's interesting to then get the outside perspective of like, oh, who really needs this and so forth. I mean, we are to some degree in the business of educating those investors and, and the market generally. And I think that our how we talk about it is that we really believe based on the data, not just anecdotal, but really the data that it's about one in five in the US that are impacted today. And how that breaks down, right, is that we already know that one in roughly ten, it's like one in 12, but approximately one in ten of us have some sort of underlying infertility that's maybe more structural. It could be physiological, hormonal, could be uterine problems. But anyway, there's, of course, infertility in our population or challenges, shall we say. And then on top of that, we now have age-related infertility that's affecting more and more couples because many of us are, myself included, deciding to have kids a little bit later in life. And that's a great choice for so many reasons, right? There's even studies that show that that's even fantastic for children themselves, potentially to have slightly older parents. However, if biology is not on our side. So we've got the sort of population like 10% of the population impacted by underlying conditions of infertility, we've got age-related infertility, as our friend Khaled at Legacy will tell us, we've got, this is in male infertility. And then of course, we have all these amazing couples that we're helping dads start families, we're helping moms start families through reciprocal IVF. All of these same sex couples who are pursuing their own family goals. And really today, that's also another 10% of our population in the US. So we think about one in five or 20% of our population need some sort of fertility support. And very sadly, not as many are getting it. And so that's I think our challenge as a community and as an industry is to really help more and more get access to, to fertility care.

Abby Mercado:
Amazing. Thank you for breaking those stats down for me because I feel like we're seeing this statistic one in five so much more now. And it's wonderful because it's true. And at Rescripted, we think it's so much so much about how much are we talking about? How loudly are we talking about this? All things, all things relating to reproductive, hormonal and sexual health and wellness. And it's such a fundamental piece of why we do what we do is to get the word out there. That is one in five. That is a really, really important thing. So what was that, Claire? Tell me, what is Future Family? Like, tell me all about Future Family, like, what is it?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, great. Well, I, of course, love getting to talk about not just the Future Family, but really, like the amazing team here at Future Family. So there's a few different teams that we'll talk about. But high level, I think that I always tell our team we're tackling probably two of the most stressful topics. We're tackling fertility, but the other stressful, like sort of taboo topic is finances and, financials. It turns out fertility is becoming more mainstream, but people are still hesitant to talk about finance or finances. And so I think those are two very stressful things that kind of hit you at the same time. One, you're stressed because you presumably want to start a family or expand your family, and then it's stressful to find out that you're going to be facing large medical bills. And let's face it, most people are in that position because while there's a positive trend of employers starting to cover fertility, and I think we're going to see more and more and more of that. And if you are an employee and an employer who's considering it, you should lobby hard for it. But we're going to see more employer coverage, it's just today that's not the majority today. Most people are going to face a very large bill. So at Future Family, are we want to be your financial partner for family building. That's kind of what we view. We have an unofficial motto or slogan that's sort of like parenthood for all. And we want to try to take the financial stress out of the the process of starting a family. And it's, it's for all of us, right? I remember those bills so vividly. I just remember having to pay going into the appointments and feeling like, well, if it doesn't succeed, am I going to pay for another round? And how? And it's a really significant part of this. So what we do is we work with patients to put together like hopefully a really fantastic financial plan. Usually we take it and change it from paying upfront to being able to pay for your IVF experience monthly on a plan that should really fit your budget. And at the very least, even if you have savings, it should hopefully take the stress out of it. It's just an easy way to pay. And then I think what makes our financial product a little different is that we're integrated into the clinic experience. So we'll be paying your clinic directly, helping manage your medical bills so you won't be showing up having to like you have build it, you have to do this. We're paying your bills for you and we offer you dedicated coaching digital support on the platform because again, many of us here have been patients. So when you sign up as a financial member at Future Family, you also get a fertility coach who's a registered nurse and who's available to you for text, video, phone consults, Q&A and discussion as you go through the process. So we really view it as like a modern financial platform for those starting families.

Abby Mercado:
So was the coaching component, was that something you added after the fact as a learning, or was that something that Future Family has always had?

Claire Tomkins:
It's like we've always had and we talk about this a lot when we talk about the company and we again, we talk with amazing team here at Future Family, our care and coaching team is headed by an amazing fertility X fertility nurse. Actually, I say current fertility nurse, she's still a current nurse, but she works at Future Family. Laura ... she's incredible. She's been with us for many years and the, that coaching platform existed from the initial launch. The idea was we're going to be a financial services company, financial platform, and we want to have, just support our members, to support our patients and customers on platform. So those of us who've been through it knew that it was just impossible to go through fertility treatment and not have those ... moments where you're like, I just want to talk to someone. And generally that would be it 8 p.m. at night or 10 p.m. at night, and generally that would be when you were most likely to get the voicemail at the office. We would say it's no longer our business hours but still important and talk to the Doctor X, Y, Z messaging service and you're just going, Oh my God, I don't know how much ... am I need to use? Or I'm really concerned that I'm having a little breakthrough bleeding or whatever is going on for you, at that moment it feels really important to talk to someone. So our nursing staff is reachable pretty much. I mean, any time and we have nurses who are on four trigger, trigger injections at 10 p.m. at night, we have nurses who are up first thing in the morning. We are very busy during the holidays because a lot of clinics close and a lot of patients come to us to get answers and questions. And while we're not doing medical advice that resides with your doctor, we are able to, through our extensive expertise, all of our coaches are registered nurses. We're able to help you understand what's going on and also just be there to talk and coach you, talk to you and coach you. So that's, they are a part of the product since we launched.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's, I guess I always kind of looked at your platform and didn't actually know that. And I said, oh gosh, what? That is a super cool learning, but actually not a learning. Was excellent for our site, so that's awesome. So obviously there are other companies that are in this industry that are providing loans for IVF patients and folks who are doing other fertility treatments that are not limited to IVF. What are, when you took a look at this, this industry kind of out of the gate like even now, what are those companies doing wrong? Like, how is how is Future Family differentiated kind of from a, you know, obviously you have the care component, etc., etc.. But what, like from a financial perspective, what is wrong with how the industry exists without Future Family?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, well, how, how I frame it is because I don't know that, I would necessarily say there's anything wrong other than what I would say is like I think that that's exciting part of all innovation, is innovation improves upon what already exists. And so where I got very excited about the potential of innovation here is seeing that what really existed, and having been a patient myself, didn't really map well into the patient experience. So what has historically kind of existed in a lot of health care is the ability to get what we might think of as like a personal loan, but it's not connected in any way to your patient experience. So I always refer to it when I talk to our team of Future Family is like it's a brown paper bag of money. And a brown paper bag of money is helpful because you can pay things for things out of your brown paper bag of money. But it didn't connect at all to my experience as a patient. And I'll, I'll walk through how that works and why we're different. So first, the first thing that I found as a patient was it's very confusing to understand how much is this all going to cost. But that is actually a legitimate question and it feels like a very fair question.

Abby Mercado:
So fair. ... In every other aspect of our lives, we know that.

Claire Tomkins:
Yes. So it's a fair question to say, like how much is this going to cost me? And yet it is Byzantine layers of confusion. How do you actually figure this out? So the first thing I noticed was, yeah, I could go get a brown paper bag of money, potentially. But what I'm trying to first understand is how much money I need in that bag and there's nowhere to turn to. And then, so that's the first part. And at Future Family, we have financial specialists who are on the phone with every single patient. So it's a very easy process to kind of get started at FutureFamily.com, but then after you go through sort of what is less than 2 minutes, like a 90 second application, you'll be able to talk to a financial specialist. They will help you size your plan. And we have a lot of data on how much does IVF cost, how much does medication cost, will there be any ancillary services? Do you need surgical anesthesia? Do you need, whatever you need? So we're going to help you put together a get a financial plan that makes sense so that you have some peace of mind going into this. And we all know I can't give you an exact exact exact dollar amount, like $23,200.22. But what we can give you is a very clear understanding of the ranges and the upper bound, and we can give you coverage for the full amount. So that's the first piece, is like, you need a financial partner in this and that's how we pave ... the platform. Then the second piece is that the payment of medical bills is confusing and difficult for a lot of folks, and I even found it difficult to show up at the clinic, even a little emotional to have to put down my credit card. So we also help you pay your medical bills or integrate into your provider. So we'll not only help you figure out how much you're going to, how much your plan is going to cost, but then payment will flow seamlessly to your provider and to your pharmacy and so forth. And so again, all about taking the stress off the patient because what we're already going through is pretty stressful. So that component exists as well. And then, of course, as you know, you're going to get access to the coaching and digital support, which again, for something as complicated as fertility, is nice to have a layer of support from your financial partner. So those are all the things that we thought about innovating on and making it a really different experience, not to mention we support a lot of second cycles on platform and we're really there for you if you need additional care. And then I would just say like, look, I mean, the biggest takeaway, if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, well, I don't know, I mean, maybe there's other ways to pay or I'm not sure about Future Family, either the biggest thing that we're trying to get consumers to avoid is using their credit card. We offer extremely low interest rates where we're a patient-built company so we have interest rates that start as low as 599. We even have a 0% product now that interest rates got very high in the US.

Abby Mercado:
Ohhh tell us more about that. How does that work?

Claire Tomkins:
... Which is really cool. So again, credit to our product team into that ... and to sign everybody else on the product team and the engineering team for building this cool product. But the idea is basically get off your credit card because that's like, that's a death spiral. Like you're going to be paying high interest rates, you're going to be carrying that debt, it's going to impact your credit score and it's going to make it almost impossible, unfortunately, to get a second cycle. Future Family will just give you a very easy financial plan, low interest rate, and you can pay it back over time. So that's the big messages, like credit cards. Just cut up that credit card when it comes to medical treatments. On the 0% product, I mean, we are in a very high interest rate environment right now, right? It's been crazy in 2022, how quickly rates have gone up on everything from personal loans to mortgages. Now, our team came up with the idea that we wanted to also offer a 0% product for those, for whom that's a good fit. And so there is now an option at Future Family to do a 12 month kind of layaway plan where you pay back your IVF cycle over 12 months and you pay $0 of interest. So there's something for everyone. Again, it's really speaks to the team. The team at Future Family came up with this, I had almost nothing to do with it and it was like wanting to come up with something that really spoke to what patients need, like options, and options that are in my interest rate environment. So super proud of that. And.

Abby Mercado:
No kidding.

Claire Tomkins:
... All the ways that we help people go through this process.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, I feel like I'm like having these like crazy flashbacks to like, there's like side by side credit card comparisons you can find online. Like, I remember doing that during my like, in trying to pay for IVF myself. Like I literally was that person. Like I worked in VC and I was like, oh yeah, I'm just going to pay for this on a credit card. And then I remember going to a, guess it was a community bank where we took out a loan and it was during my lunch break and I remember just signing away this second mortgage to pay for IVF, and that was so emotional. And it was like at that point I didn't care because my emotions were, were, kind of taken over. But wouldn't, wouldn't it be great if you actually didn't have to worry as much like you actually had this, this partner that was with you in the journey and you.

Claire Tomkins:
You really want to remove that stress for patients and really be that partner because, exactly, like even if you're, you know and I know we're going to find any way possible to pay for this, but it's often a stressful experience.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah. So kind of like more more along the lines of kind of business building and company building, you're a series B company, fantastic, congrats on all the money that you raised. Along with that, a different degree of team building, you referenced how amazing your team is and the folks on your team would love to hear a little bit more about just how you formed this team and how it's different from kind of the early stages. And now that you're a Series B company, what that looks like and how you prioritize hiring the right people.

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, Yeah. Great question. I mean, obviously like building a company is, is a very long term project and encourage people to think of it that way when you get into it. So I think it really matters who's on this journey with you and who you get to build with. And obviously that changes over time, but I think some of the contributors in the early days were just, have been amazing. We have some awesome alumni of, you know, one of the things about growing up is you have a lot of alumni folks who contribute at different parts of the journey but maybe are now on to other things. And we have some amazing alums at Future Family. People have contributed over the years. The, I think that what happens is a company grows up, obviously we add a lot more people and so that's fantastic. And we're still very much in growth mode and very much hiring, and so hoping to continue to add more great people at Future Family. And then the other piece is you do hopefully start to bring in some really great executive talent. And I was, we have a great executive team here. We have Mike McNutt who leads our sales and marketing efforts, our revenue team, Amanda Devlin joined us this year from Cypher Health, where she was their SVP of Growth and she leads all of Enterprise. We have a long, long term partner of mine that leads product and came to us from the credit card business at Mission Lane. And then I was very excited when James Giuliani joined us this summer from Sofi as our chief financial officer. So it's like a great group of folks and that is probably, the joy of building the company is building the team and seeing that so many people who come, well, I would say so many, I'd say everybody who comes to Future Family, in part because the mission is something that speaks to the team here. Not everybody's been through IVF and thank goodness because it's a lot for a lot of people. But but I think everybody connects to the idea that we want to make, having and building a family so much easier so.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah. Well, it also has to be, I think we've, we've found this to be true at Rescripted, but like an insider at fertility industry insider is awesome, but a fertility industry outsider is awesome ... To be able to kind of take a fresh, a fresh perspective, and I may couple that with, was there anything that that kind of surprised you about this, this industry coming in as a then and we are bouncing around a ton but it's because I have a million questions for you. Was there anything that surprised you about the fertility industry coming in?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, I mean, I think a few things coming from the outside. So I think that the pace of kind of healthcare innovation within the fertility industry continues to impress me and excite me. We're not obviously on the medical side of things, right? We're, we are a fintech player, we're a partner across the industry, but I just get so excited to see how, again, this industry is only 40 plus years old. The first IVF baby woman is now 42 or 43. It's a very young industry and the innovation is still so, so cool, right? Better technologies for freezing eggs, better technologies for creating embryos, genetic testing of embryos to make sure we're implanting genetically normal embryos, maybe more technology coming to the embryology lab, new substrates for implantation, like everything on the medical technology side makes me extremely optimistic for the future of this technology and this field. So I think that like getting even closer for you, going from patient to someone in the industry is like, continues, like I just love every journal article that comes out, kind of reading what the advances are, seeing how this industry is changing, I love that. And then I think, I myself, as we were talking about offline, have been so amazed. I have worked in engineering, I have worked in finance, I've never worked in an industry that's got so much innovation being led by amazing female founders and not just I mean, the legacy is amazing. There's lots of great, great men working on this problem, including many on my own team. However, it's so cool after those experiences to be in an industry where there's so much innovation that's kind of female led, And I just love that.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah, yeah. Thanks. I'm glad you, I'm glad you made note of that. I have a note to talk to you about as well. And yeah, it's amazing and it really is the reason that, that we started this podcast at Rescripted. It's to really highlight the founder stories of all of these amazing founders in this industry. A lot of them are women, and that's just absolutely fantastic. So thank you, all women here in this industry, we love you. Also, I notice in a press release or on your website or something, maybe Mike called me, I noticed that you have launched an employer solution, so I would love to hear more about that, the strategy behind that, how can patients advocate for it, etc.?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, of course, with pleasure, because it's been exciting launch for us at Future Family. So as I mentioned, Amanda Devlin came in to join us on the executive team from Cypher Health and is leading all of Enterprise, which includes employer for us. And we have obviously seen a lot of innovation in the employer space. And I mentioned at the top of the, the interview talking about progeny and some of their early work. They're now as a publicly traded company that works with a lot of the top brands. And I think, I think where we saw the opportunity for employer was much like where we saw the opportunity for patients, which is there's still that financial gap even with some of the existing options for employers. So you could have, you could offer a benefit, but you might in some cases only be offering your employees like $5000 of contribution toward that benefit. And again, taking the lens of I've been through this, if I get a benefit, it offers me $5000, but my procedure is going to cost me 25 to 50, it doesn't feel like meaningful coverage. So where Future Family can really play is that we can be a partner to both employers and employees. And so what we've done is open up our platform to make it so that employee-ers can sponsor that monthly payment for their employees. So you as an employee can get a full benefit for fertility, a full 25, 35, up to $50,000. You can get a full benefit, but your employer will just sponsor you monthly. The employer therefore doesn't have to pay a large amount upfront, but they can make their contribution go very far by using our monthly payments. So to break it down even further, it's like you go in, you choose a plan. Let's say your plan is $300 a month. Maybe that gives you a full cycle of IVF, med, everything, it's your full plan, maybe it's $300 a month. Your employer could now pay that $300 a month for you. You, as an employee have gotten full fertility benefits, but it just works better on both sides. So we're really opening up our platform and we're hoping to get a lot more employers involved in helping support family building.

Abby Mercado:
Yeah. So right now, and as somebody who is not as, as well educated in the employer space, like obviously we follow it and I see all the data and all the companies doing things in their space. And fertility IQ puts out amazing reports as to which employers, how many employers are picking up coverage, which is so educational for everybody. But, so is the state of play right now, kind of a per member per month model. And so, like, why is, why, like if I'm, if I'm in employer shoes, like why would this be more beneficial than a PMPM model.

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, well again, because this is the only way you could offer your patient, your employees full financial coverage.

Abby Mercado:
Right.

Claire Tomkins:
So if you're doing a PMPM model, you're probably just paying a platform to administer the benefit for you, you know? Make sure that that your employee can find a clinic and maybe talk to someone and then making sure that they can use whatever you're contributing. But, you know, again, there are some employers and it's fantastic to see this, but there are some employers like Google, Salesforce, Meta, those are the ones that come to mind and they offer these very large benefits like maybe say, $50000 hours of coverage, lifetime coverage. But the majority of employers, especially startups and tech companies, but also SMBs and the majority of employers don't offer $50,000, maybe they offer five. And so now this is a big delta between what the employer is willing to offer you versus what you as an employee need. And so we're bridging that gap. We're saying.

Abby Mercado:
...

Claire Tomkins:
What is your budget? If the employer says it's $5000, we go, great, why don't you pay $400 per month for your employee and then we can lend them that money and you're just covering the repayment. So to the employee, they still, they take out the personal loan, but they don't have to make the repayments. The employer does it for them. So it's kind of a win-win because the employer employee can get up to $50000 of coverage very fast. But the employer is not having to pay a big out of pocket for that employee. They're just having to pay a monthly component. And so it's a really.

Abby Mercado:
That's awesome.

Claire Tomkins:
Nice model, right? Employers can offer benefits, full benefits, but it's not that expensive to them. It's very budget friendly. And employees are like, oh my gosh, yes, I don't have to get that second mortgage. I can get a loan that my employer will help pay back.

Abby Mercado:
Right. And it's it's really is an answer for the SMBs, which I did not realize. That's huge.

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah. Most really large tech companies right might offer just that cash at 50, like the Googles will always do that. But we think the market is so much bigger than that. So that's ....

Abby Mercado:
Right. Yeah. Cool. Amazing. Well, congrats on that. So we're talking about big lunches and the future. What can we expect in the future from Future Family?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, well, I mean, I obviously hope, Abby, to come back and talk with you more as we roll out some more new, exciting things. But what I will just say is, like, we think that there is still a real opportunity to get better financial coverage around outcomes. And so we're really on that. And I'd love to come back at some point and talk about what that what that looks like and what that means. But you could definitely expect more announcements in the year ahead and hopefully more good things from the team of future family.

Abby Mercado:
Amazing, that's so exciting. And so tell us, I always ask this question, what is one thing you could rescript about the fertility industry or the fertility experience? What would that one thing be that you would restrict?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah, I mean, I think that you are helping to rescript that experience and everything that you are doing on the Rescripted platform, because I would say that it's mainly about getting the education and the awareness out there into the mainstream. I think that by the time this really is one in five Americans getting support for fertility, that this will hopefully be something that is not taboo, not hard to talk about and way better understood than it is today. And I certainly think your work at Rescripted is very foundational in getting us there.

Abby Mercado:
Thank you, Claire. ... Well, lastly, where can people find you? Where can they learn more about Future Family?

Claire Tomkins:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, we, we want to talk to so many more of you, and we're just easy to find that FutureFamily.com. And there's ways on the website to get in touch directly with our team. But there's also a very easy way. As I mentioned, if you go through our very easy kind of 90 second application, you can talk directly to our financing, finance specialist team.

Abby Mercado:
Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Claire. It was an absolute pleasure. I feel so much more educated and I just, I'm really excited that people have access to the solution to pay for this amazing finance that has personally brought me and my family and you and your family. So kudos to Future Family and excited to see more from you guys.

Claire Tomkins:
Awesome. Well, Abby, thanks so much for having me on today. It's been such a pleasure and so much fun to talk to you.

Abby Mercado:
Thank you for tuning in to the Future of Fertility. We hope you'll leave here feeling empowered about all of the exciting innovations taking place in the fertility space. If you like today's episode and want to stay up to date on our podcast, don't forget to click Subscribe, to find this episode, show notes, resources, and more, head to Rescripted.com and be sure to join our Free Fertility Support Community while you're there.

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