Ep.58 The Adaptable Entrepreneur

The goal of the podcast is multi-faceted.  I want to share health and wellness information with our listeners but also provide a platform for women entrepreneurs to speak about their journey and the great things that they are doing.  I love it when I get to interview a female founder who is working in the femcare space and providing innovative solutions to help moms and all women make well-informed and timely decisions when it comes to their health and that of their families.  Bonus!

Enter Checkable, Patty Post's ingenious idea to combine at-home testing with online, real medical solutions.  Women make 80% of the healthcare decisions for their families, and with comes the burden of time spent and stress when we are already spread very thin.  Is is strep or just a regular old sore throat?  Are my girly bits itchy because I used a different body wash, or do I have a full-on yeast infection?  Checkable not only gives you reliable results but also provides access to medical professionals and treatment options that are quick and effective.  Way to go, Patty!

In this episode Patty Post and I discuss:
- Patty's personal experiences as the driver to develop the Checkable technology
- The challenges of securing funding for women-focused innovation
- Getting creative, scrappy, and resourceful to make her idea a reality
- The future of at-home testing and online medicine
- What is on the horizon for Checkable and Patty Post

Checkable's at-home testing options:
Breastmilk nutrient and alcohol testing
Strep test
Vaginal pH
Urinary tract infection

You can find Patty Post at:
https://www.instagram.com/checkablehealth/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patty-post/
https://www.facebook.com/CheckableHealth

Podcasts
https://www.instagram.com/checkablehealthpodcast/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/u-persevere-podcast/id1575967352

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*Transcripts are done with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.

**This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

Transcript

Asking for a Friend Podcast
Michele Folan
The Adaptable Entrepreneur
with Patty Post

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

checkable, moms, test, women, technology, north dakota, podcast, home, years, people, antibiotic, funding, symptoms, michelle, fem, pediatrician, products, love, headwinds, working, femcare, femtech

Speaker 1  0:00  
It is really important to me to not only share health and wellness experts and information with our listeners, but also provide a platform for women entrepreneurs, to speak about their journey and the great things that they're doing. It's always a bonus when I get to interview an entrepreneur and founder who is working in the feminine care space, and providing innovative solutions to help moms and other women make well informed and quicker decisions. When it comes to our health and that of our families. Women make 80% of the health care decisions for our loved ones. And with that comes the burden of time and stress. When we are sometimes already spread very thin. In the rapidly changing healthcare landscape, we should all be grateful that there are women carrying the torch to address our needs.

Speaker 1  1:06  
Health, Wellness, career, relationships, and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, Michele Folan. And this is asking for a friend. Welcome to the show everyone. Our guest today calls herself the adaptable entrepreneur. Patti post is a co founder and a podcaster, who wants to empower individuals to make evidence based decisions by bringing innovative at home testing and wellness essentials into hands. And Holmes, welcome to asking for a friend Patti post. Thank you so much, Michele, appreciate you having me on. It's really nice to have you. Like we do every show, I would love for you first to tell the audience a little bit about you, your background, where you're from education and family and all that good stuff.

Speaker 2  2:08  
Sure. So Patti, post, I'm an entrepreneur, my background is always business development, I'm that gal, that's always we call it in medical devices. That's where I spent most of my career we carried a bag. So that means you have a bag full of products. And mine happened to be products that are used in the hospital, from nurses to surgical to surgeons, that I went into clinical research and was in business development again. But that's where I learned about how to take a medical device, through that process to get it approved by the FDA takes a lot of money takes a lot of time. But I'm a mom of three. And that's really how I started checkable I knew enough from medical devices that there was so much waste in the system. But then it was as a mom that I just felt the pains of the system and just saw really a lot of opportunities that we could improve time, just the speed of which everything is done, and then take out a lot of the things from the system by doing them at home. That's why we say we're empowering consumers to make evidence based decisions because we have rapid diagnostics, technology, supplements, and information. That's where the podcasts and media really comes in. But my education is University of Minnesota graduate broadcast journalism with a minor in marketing, I don't even have a degree in biology or biochem. That's what a lot of doctors or engineers have. I don't have that.

Speaker 1  3:43  
Well, you know what, I don't have that either. But I spent 26 years in the pharmaceutical and med device world as well. I get it. But sometimes it's really about your ability to connect with people and understand the wants and needs of folk. Cheers to you. It's good. Agreed, busy working mom, you were frustrated. And you really saw like we said there was a void out there in the market. You're dabbling. I won't say dabbling, you're doing it full on. There's femtech involved in this. And then also the rapid strep. The company's called checkable. Can you give me an idea of the process, how it started and how you got to where you are today?

Speaker 2  4:31  
Well, I think every parent and really just every US consumer knows that our health care system isn't just fragmented, but it really is broken in so many ways. I experienced this as a mom of three kids that were continually getting strep throat is mainly my daughter Lily because if anyone in the classroom would get strep she would get it and then she would bring it home and share it with her brothers. I probably gone to the doctor a couple of dozen times over the course of my parenting You have 19 years for strep or the pharyngitis symptoms, I know that I'm not the only one because it's about 24 million visits a year in the US alone result in having to go to the doctor because you wake up with a sore throat or you have a persistent sore throat. After doing time analyses of looking at how long it takes from like the time that you know that you have the symptoms, to the time that you get your treatment plan, or they say, go back home and rest for a couple of days is four hours, four hours out of a day, and I was fortunate enough to be on a salary. But if you're an hourly worker, or if you don't have health care to cover this, it can get extremely expensive very quickly. What we did was I decided why not take that strep test. I literally was sitting in the CVS MinuteClinic. And I had already been sitting there for an hour waiting. Our CVS in Minnesota are within target. My daughter is in the fetal position in the cart, and I'm walking around trying to shop while she's agonizing in the fetal position in the cart. And the crazy thing is I had already been there twice that week, or I'm sorry, once that week, and then earlier that week, I was with my pediatrician. But my pediatrician wouldn't just write me a prescription. Of course not. Right? Because they want that confirmation, right? They want you to come in, but they don't have availability. We're a shortage of pediatricians and just really clinicians in general, when the nurse practitioner pulled out the test, and I'd seen it so many times, it was like a light bulb went off. I'm like, Okay, this is the same technology is a pregnancy test. Why is this not available at Target? So I can just pick it up in screen at home, right? And then use telemedicine if it's positive. I spent nine months really researching that. I pitched it to my company that I was working for I was working for a consulting firm, they were like moms will never change their behavior. Oh, never. This was 2008. That was what it was. Patti, it's not a big enough market size. And moms won't change their behavior. They would rather just go to the doctor and do it a throat swab is too invasive. I felt in my heart of hearts. No way. There's so many different things that we can do at home. This is just like the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 1  7:34  
Sorry to interrupt. You know, I have two things to say. Yeah, with COVID. And how many times we had to stick that thing up our noses. I think we're fine. Yes, we can do just about anything at home. Number two, what I love about your technology is we're trying to use fewer antibiotics. This takes the ambiguity out of it. It's like well, we'll just put an antibiotic onboard, just in case well, no, you don't have to do that now because you have the test. So I just love that.

Speaker 2  8:07  
I completely agree. Michelle, I think that pediatricians are pressured and clinicians are pressured to give a treatment plan as a form of customer service. Yeah, because they want to keep their customer who is the parent happy. But that's not necessarily the best treatment, it could just be rest at home for a couple of days. But parents don't want to hear that. But an antibiotic, I think we know now, putting that cycling that through our body takes months. So if we can avoid that, and we want to use those antibiotics for when we really have the bacterial infection that we want to fight off.

Speaker 1  8:43  
Absolutely. I do want to talk a little bit about the term FEM tech. Because I hear it a lot. Now. What exactly does FEM tech encompass?

Speaker 2  8:57  
To me, I don't love the word femtech to be okay, really transparent about that. Because I don't hear another phrase for male technology. That's just technology. Why is it that we have to go in this special bucket? I think it's putting us in a category that's really challenging because there's not a lot of acquisition happening in this FEM tech space. And therefore we're going to actually have harder time advancing medical technology for women. If we keep classifying it FEM tech, and if an investor can't tie it back to an acquisition femtech is what two of our products are in and that's a UTI test a rapid UTI test to test for nitrites and leukocytes in the urine and then a vaginal pH test. Vaginal pH tests can be used really anytime. A lot of your body is up and down and pH and a self diagnosing just having that at home in a couple of minutes for women, I just thought is really a relief from a standpoint of, okay, I don't have to go in and see my provider or I don't have to go in and log into a telemedicine platform and tell them something that I already know I'm experiencing the symptoms.

Speaker 1  10:18  
I want to talk about checkable what technology is currently available for consumers.

Speaker 2  10:26  
We are launching June 20. These two diagnostics along with our telemedicine. So if you test positive on your UTI test, we will prescribe an antibiotic a treatment plan for you. We also are coming out with a boric acid that complements the vaginal pH test. And we already have a UTI prevent supplement. That's de manos cranberry and hibiscus. And that's been out for a year and our best seller. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1  10:55  
It's really one stop shopping then if I do the test, and then you have the medical professionals there on staff to prescribe if that's necessary. This makes so much sense. Yeah, thank you. I love this. It's like what we see in some of men's health with like Roman and some of those other companies. Exactly. I just think this is fantastic. Thank you. We've gotten accustomed to online health during the pandemic. Did you see this as a real option prior to the pandemic? Or was this something that you thought this was going to be a burgeoning industry that was going to be hot

Speaker 2  11:38  
in 2018, is when I had the idea June 3, we're coming up on the anniversary June 3 of 2018. And then I pitched it to my boss in August of 2018. I started the company in 2019. I've had a lot of headwinds, because of COVID Because research stopped funding stopped. But the silver lining in that is that that lay user running a clinical test at home was just proven that it could be done. And prior to COVID. That's what the agency is most worried about is the lay user using clinical technology without the support of a clinician being around how many billions of tests were moved through the system and performed in home. They're everywhere. That was fortunate for me that COVID happen. Fortunate not for me for the antithesis of this test, and people really comprehending what we're doing.

Speaker 1  12:40  
I do have a question. How did you go about getting funding for this? Because that couldn't have been easy. You had to hit some obstacles along the way.

Speaker 2  12:52  
Oh, yeah. I mean, I just did a podcast about it yesterday and you persevere of you're gonna get no all the time. You get so many noes. But you just need one. Yes. So my angel round was in pre COVID. And that was just over 500,000. So think friends and family think, okay, I know someone else that really wants to invest in health care. That's how I pulled that money together and got through the proof of concept, and then got some additional funding. It's your network. I had the fortunate event of already being in healthcare already having consulted and knowing this network of people. I knew how to prepare, but I still had to do an enormous amount of work. I just had a better understanding than most people. But funding was super tight. And one of my investors, two of my investors are from the state of North Dakota, and said to me, you should look at some of the options in North Dakota, they have a lot of non dilutive funding, which is what you need in medical, you need non dilutive because you're gonna fail. You're running research. And the first time that you run studies, it's not going to succeed. When you're developing something. It's very expensive because you have engineers and physicians and engineers, most importantly, they're very specialized people. It costs a lot of money, project managers, things like that. I actually took advantage of some North Dakota funding that is in the form of a loan, a 0% interest loan from the bank of North Dakota, and September of 2020. I got 600,000. And once I got that, then it really opened up the other opportunities within North Dakota and what North Dakota is doing, in and of itself from different funds that are deploying capital for risky startups. My husband was in on this too. I mean, we both really believed in what we were doing. And December of 2020, we actually picked up and moved from Minneapolis, minutes SOTA to West Fargo, North Dakota. Since then we've gotten over 2 million now of funding, we'll have another opportunity to get another two to 5 million in the next couple of years.

Speaker 1  15:13  
Patty, this is fantastic. Thank you, this is really great to know that these options are out there. You're a female founder. I don't know what kind of obstacles you hit, being female in this industry. But just knowing that you were able to get out and get that funding is really incredible. Thank you very creative on your part.

Speaker 2  15:39  
Well, I think that's the heart of the entrepreneur is that you're gonna go after it, and you know that you're gonna get the headwinds, I think when people are in a very saturated area, such as Minneapolis, with only a certain pool of investors, once you've hit all of those investors, there's really nowhere else to go. Unless you're with a academic institution, which I wasn't with states like North Dakota states, like Montana, I think Texas has a pretty good one, Oklahoma, I recommend this, I recommend going and pursuing your dream. Because I don't believe in the big corporate, just for me, it doesn't work out. I think it's just as risky working for a company for 22 years. And because they want to do layoffs, and make their quarterly earnings, they lay off 20,000 people and you could be that person. It's risky doing anything in life right now, I think. I love

Speaker 1  16:37  
your message about this. Because I think so often, we take the safe route, or what we perceive to be the safe route. It's nice, getting a little older, and being a little more ballsy. And being able to say, I'm going to do the thing. Because, first of all, I don't really care what other people think. Yeah. And number two, I do feel I can take more risks now. And that's a good feeling. It really is. Now I'd love that message. I do want to get back to your technology a little bit. Yeah. Because you talked about vaginal pH. If I'm a female, what symptom would I be having that I would want to test my vaginal pH? It's usually

Speaker 2  17:25  
after you go through your menstrual cycle, you will feel okay, do I have a yeast infection? Is it Candida? Or a lot of times you'll have a reaction if you're swimming in a pool or the saltwater without any information. It's just we're only symptomatic. I can only monitor my symptoms with a vaginal pH, how we look at it is okay, where is your pH? Where is it falling on this level? Is it because you ate pineapple yesterday, you could then start tying your symptoms with your activities. And that's where I find a tremendous amount of value is you can just continually get symptoms. You're like, Oh, I just get this every time a month. But then once you're like, Okay, I see that it actually went down or it went up after this experience, or whatever I did.

Speaker 1  18:15  
All right, I got it. I didn't know if it was specifically for a yeast infection or if you just feel off just things aren't feeling right down there. Okay. Yep. Now that's good to know. I think it's pretty cool. There are a lot of new companies out there in the FEM care space. I think we're finally getting attention. Me too, from the industry, especially in menopause, and also the sexual health space. What do you see on the horizon? For checkable? Are you going to continue on and that FEM care area with technology?

Speaker 2  18:51  
We will I'm interested in a few different areas. I think that there's some really great players doing some space in endometriosis, which I think is something that I mean, we've had symptoms of endometriosis, and PCOS, ovarian cancer, these are all like, if I could get into that space, if there could be something at home that we could do with screening wise, I think it would be extremely beneficial. I've looked at doing an at home pap smear about two years ago. Unfortunately, there's a lot of headwinds in that space because of just the industry and lobbying, even though it might be best for the patient. There still are a lot of things that happen that we don't know about. So I chose not to go after that technology. Maybe at some point when we have unlimited funding or something. We're in the black and we're making a lot of revenue and profit. Most importantly, we're coming out with two breast milk strips that I'm really excited I did about to get closer to mom. And earlier in her mother hood, we have a breast milk strip to measure alcohol and then another to measure nutritional value. Alcohol is obvious, right? Am I able to directly feed or do I have to pump and dump. And then the nutritional value is the first of its kind. So that's measuring for zinc, calcium and protein that will tell her she's lacking those nutrients prior to her being deficient, which I think is really important. And then we'll have a supplement as well. I came out with those products, because when I was nursing me, my oldest is 19. It's changed a lot. I mean, I don't know if you've seen this. Michelle, I haven't been to the baby section for a long time until now. I'm looking at it all the time. But you can buy your breast pump at Walmart and Target and CVS. They didn't have that when you and I were having kids. I think I had to get it from my pediatrician. I don't even remember. But they're everywhere. The technology is so good. I just also remember looking at my mom, when I was breastfeeding and being like, this is so hard. Why didn't you tell me about it? Is it No, it's gonna be like this. Right? I just said if I can bring products to make it easier for mom. And then I also think that moms are older. I had my first when I just turned 23. I didn't know what in the world was going on with life. Moms now are in their 30s. Having kids, they're a lot smarter when they're 30 than in your early 20s. I think that this is going to be a very informative test, because they're very interested in what's happening in their bodies. And how is this affecting baby? Work smarter, not harder. That's how I'm looking at this test.

Speaker 1  21:46  
I think this is great. I mean, are you really putting yourself in the shoes of moms note the strep test and that breast milk test. I mean, I just think these are just really super interesting. I love this.

Unknown Speaker  21:58  
Thank you.

Speaker 1  21:58  
I do want to talk about your podcast. Because, yeah, you have two podcasts. So this let me say one thing. I have one podcast, and I'm overwhelmed. You're doing two podcasts, which I think you're crazy. But I am, they're very different. Can you just tell us a little bit more about your two podcast?

Speaker 2  22:20  
Sure. It's so funny that we're talking about products, and I just have a product guy sending me new products, he's like, I think you need this new product in your portfolio. So it happens when you start rolling out products. Now everyone's like sending me products right and left. I'm doing podcasts, Michelle, because I think that the media side of the business is so important, just as important as having really high quality products. I also want to have control of our narrative. People aren't that interested in what we're doing yet. And that's fine. But what I can do for my audience is I can create really good content. And from the checkable health standpoint, we have clinicians, physicians, thought leaders, for family health and in the audience is moms and moms because we're the ones making our health care decisions, for our kids, for ourselves, for our spouses, for our parents is what like I'm doing now, I just really think that that audio that's coming through while you're taking your dog for a walk or driving to the grocery store, if I can just quick learn a few things, and then give it to an audience. Selfishly, I'm like, Well, I learned something. And then I can give it to my audience as a gift. And then hopefully they'll trust the checkable brand. And continue to utilize our content because we put a lot of effort into that. On the you persevere podcast, which is formally the perservere podcast, change it to you perservere because I have some bigger visions with what I want to do with it. But right now, it's a podcast and I talk about entrepreneurship. I talk about a lot of those things like when he asked me about raising money, and having the door slammed in your face. Well, how do you react? How have I react and I feel like that's something that is a gift of mine is that I have been able to be very adaptable. It looks like I'm fearless. But I'm absolutely not. I have a lot of scary moments, sleepless nights. But there's been some things that I've learned along the way that I share with others. I don't think there's a lot of women out there that are necessarily raw rying people in the personal development space. I think we have a lot of really strong men and their voices are really loud. And I've gotten a lot from them. I think of two that I would stand out or three or Gary Vaynerchuk Andy for Zillow and Craig Groeschel, probably three of the most opposite men that there is, but they've inspired me that like well I want to be that female boy. Ace and represent that I'm a mother to I think about my kids all the time, my husband, my parents, even my siblings. Those are two pieces, like more so passionate projects, but I put a lot of love and energy and into them to make them really good for the audience's.

Speaker 1  25:18  
I like what you're saying in the checkable health podcast really does help build your brand. I get that. But I also think women, because we do make 80% of the health care choices in our families and purchasing in general, right? Women are really curious, but they don't always ask. So if you're just serving up the information, it's great. I moderated a panel discussion here not too long ago, we had three health care professionals. They're all specializing in different areas of women's health, we could have gone till 10 o'clock, with questions and answers. I was amazed. It was a sold out crowd. Awesome. Women were not shy about asking questions in front of other women, which I loved. Yes, we are getting better about being more advocates for ourselves and for our families and asking more questions. The other thing you talked about is being that voice for women, I truly believe that there is room at the table for all of us as women. That's something that I strive to do with this podcast, because I have other podcasters on I have women entrepreneurs, women who have written books, because I think we want to get our voices heard. And I want other people to know what awesome things women are doing. We're not letting anything hold us back. You're a great example of that.

Unknown Speaker  26:54  
Thank you so much as are you.

Speaker 1  26:57  
I'm trying. It's every day. Yeah, that's all we could do. And my real job to where I have a team full of women there too. I try to champion them on that front as well. I do want to ask you what's next for you. Because you seem like you got a lot of irons in the fire. What else you working on?

Speaker 2  27:19  
Well, we're working on commercialization of the company really focused on that driving the revenue. And the next 12 months is our digital launch. And then our retail launch, and creating those relationships with direct to consumer, but also through pharmacists, payers, providers. So we have a lot of touch points that we have to go after. For me personally, I call what I'm doing, Patti, to point out the last couple of years, I've really focused on personal development, I really want to get out there and be speaking from the personal brand standpoint and sharing what an adaptable entrepreneur is to motivate others. But then also that helps promote checkable. I am the brand ambassador of checkup all my employees are to but I don't expect them to have the same level of passion that I have for it. I'm going to continue living my healthiest life striving to live my healthiest life and being that example for the customers and for the brand. And really keep creating products that empower the consumer to make evidence based decisions from home. That's what our mission is.

Speaker 1  28:32  
I love that. I would like you to tell people where they can find you were they'll be able to find checkable products as well.

Speaker 2  28:40  
checkable.com is our website, very easy. One word checkable health is on all of our Instagram, Tiktok, LinkedIn. Then for me personally, if you look on anything, I'm Patti post CEO.

Speaker 1  28:55  
I will put all of that in the show notes Patty, great to share with the listeners. I am so excited to watch what you do. I think it's going to be really neat to see what checkable does and what you come up with next.

Speaker 2  29:13  
Thank you so much, Michelle. We've got a great team. And I've got a big vision to carry through. We're going to be working hard to make it happen. We're going to enjoy a little bit of summer though. Michelle, we're in North Dakota and I've got to say I'm looking at a blue sky and it's Memorial Day weekend. I'm like I'm headed to the lake after this. And everyone else has two half day Fridays on Fridays for us.

Speaker 1  29:33  
Oh, that's so nice. And I have been to North Dakota and it's some of the prettiest country I've ever seen. You're lucky gal.

Unknown Speaker  29:40  
I agree. It's beautiful here.

Unknown Speaker  29:43  
Well thank you so much for being here today.

Unknown Speaker  29:45  
Thank you Michelle. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 1  29:55  
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