Maven Clinic CEO: "Women dominate healthcare"

A female CEO who started a health app targeted at women has revealed the secrets of her success in a new interview.

Katherine Ryder launched Maven Clinic in 2015 in response to several issues she saw in women’s healthcare.

“I started talking to a lot of women, and it was really clear that ... the problems really revolved around access to care and just getting better information in a sea of misinformation online,” she says, speaking to Forbes.com, adding that Maven in “very nuanced ways, tries to help better [the lives of] working mothers and new mothers” through access to specialised information and on-demand care.

Maven gives remote access to healthcare specialists such as doctors, mental health providers, nurse practitioners, lactation consultants, physical therapists and nutritionists, who are available around the clock. The platform makes it affordable and easy to get advice, diagnoses, and prescriptions via video appointments, private messaging, and community-based forums.

“The transaction is between [women] ourselves and the doctor, not layers of insurance companies and hospitals and clinics,” says Ryder. “We launched with a provider network, and that’s always been our model, a really holistic model with a lot of different types of providers like doctors and nurses and nutritionists and physical therapists, all working in a care team.”

More than 40 percent of American women who give birth leave the workforce  – some by choice, but some by necessity due to the lack of adequate support from employers, health plans and healthcare providers  – and even though women represent nearly half of the labour force in the US and gender diverse companies outperform competition by 15 percent, less than a quarter of senior leadership is female and women make 80.5 percent of what their male counterparts are paid. This is an issue pharma is also starting to pay more attention too. Ryder hopes that by providing more flexible health solutions Maven can help keep mothers in the workforce.

“We're at a really exciting moment right now where a lot of companies are highly focused on the issue of the leadership gap in corporate America and creating more gender-diverse workforces,” Ryder says.“Ultimately, there's a lot of focus and attention right now on, particularly, the period after having a child.”

As such the company also has a family benefits platform, Maven Maternity, which offers clinical services around fertility, prenatal, postpartum, and return-to-work and has been deployed at top companies across the US, including Snap Inc. and Protective Life Corporation.

Since launching in 2015 Maven has secured $42 million in venture funding and has served almost 200,000 patients. But Ryder says that she initially struggled to get much traction with investors, many of whom didn’t see the value in women’s health.

“A lot of people didn't think this was a big market and that women's health was this niche, side thing. That's totally not the case anymore. I think everyone has ... come around to the fact that women dominate healthcare.”

In response, Ryder started to reach out to female entrepreneurs and pitch more to women investors, who she found were more open to the idea.

“As I've raised money for this company, I've found women investors who really understand the value proposition and are passionate about the business,” Ryder says.

“It's all about do we have enough capital to fund our growth,” she adds. “Excitingly, the answer is yes.”