Anja Health CEO and founder, Kathryn Cross, knows all too well that banking cord blood stem cells can be life. Anja Health’s mission is to make storing stem cells accessible to everyone– regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or income and she’s getting her message out in an unlikely space. The 23-year-old Tik Tok influencer turned founder is a staunch believer in the power of marketing on social media. In this episode, she walks Darrell and Jordan through how the different social channels can be helpful to founders in different industries and why she thinks every company will have to be its own influencer. Don't miss Found Live with Matt Mullenweg of WordPress on Thursday 6/32 at 10:30 PT/ 1:30 ET. RSVP at techcrunch.com/events.
Anja Health CEO and founder, Kathryn Cross, knows all too well that banking cord blood stem cells can be life. Anja Health’s mission is to make storing stem cells accessible to everyone– regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or income and she’s getting her message out in an unlikely space. The 23-year-old TikTok influencer turned founder is a staunch believer in the power of marketing on social media. In this episode, she walks Darrell and Jordan through how the different social channels can be helpful to founders in different industries and why she thinks every company will have to be its own influencer.
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Darrell Etherington 0:01
Hello, and welcome to found I'm your host, Darrell Etherington, and I'm here with the stem cells to my cord blood. Wow. Jordan crook. We shouldn't shy away from the topic. No, no, we shouldn't shy away. But like, I just thought, as they relate, like some AI inside you, Oh, okay. I was thinking like, I might be the stem cells to your regular cells, like, I don't know skin cells, and you can fix them. Because maybe like, the better comparison is like your brain cells, because like you're not just skin cells, right? I think you're more. Yeah, you're a special type of cell. I'm a specialist. So I am more special. Because you can become any cell I can be anything. You have lots of potential. I know I can do what I want to be.
Kathryn Cross 9:28
Yeah, yeah. So I talk about other things generally related to pregnancy and then I also talked about my product but yeah, I mean, I think the future of content marketing is that every brand basically becomes their own influencer. And so in my case, yeah, I think it was lucky for me because I had previously done quite a bit of content creation. I grew up in LA and you know, I feel good you grew up in LA there's some sort of exposure you have to entertainment so like, I used to like Twitch stream I manage my own discord related to like my gaming. I played chat.
Darrell Etherington 0:51
The key here is that we really think about our metaphors here on found the TechCrunch podcast, where every week we talk to different founder about the stories behind the startups, which means basically, how they started their business, why they started their business and how they became the leaders they are today. So just one thing I want to say up front, please be sure to subscribe to found wherever you're listening right now, maybe you just came across this because a friend recommended it. But we'd love it if you subscribe and become a regular listener. And also we'd love it if you rate and review us positively, of course, in your podcast platform of choice. So today, Jordan, we're talking to Catherine cross from Angela health. Andela offers personalized Doctor backed stem cells saving so essentially banking those stem cells so you can use them later. Thank God. Are you excited about stem
cell? Yeah, no. I mean, I think I'm equally excited and nervous. Maybe that's my Christian upbringing that makes me nervous about stem cells. But yeah, mostly excited. I'd say I'd like a 9010 breakdown there on stem cells.
What's good, and I'm glad you were willing to share the other side of it. What we want is up for honesty here on found total. I think that's what we got from Katherine to who shared a lot about her experience with tick tock, which is maybe one of her unique superpowers as a founder, but Katherine is much better at explaining it than I am. So let's hear from Katherine. Hey, Catherine, how's it going?
Kathryn Cross 2:19
It's good. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Darrell Etherington 2:21
Yeah. Thanks for joining us. So we like to start these off with just a quick explanation of the companies we cover. So do you want to give us a high level overview of what Andrew health is all about? Yeah, definitely.
Kathryn Cross 2:33
So into health is the first stem cell safe. And so with that we help pregnant parents unlock treatments in the future for their family by providing the most personal source of stem cells, which is from the umbilical cord, and placenta. So not a lot of people know this, but the umbilical cord and placenta is one of the most rich resources for stem cells and stem cells are essentially blank cells that can be used to replace and repair damaged cells. And so if you are able to basically save your own, or in our case, cryo preserve it, then you'll be able to use them in the future for different treatments. People have used it for things like even acne treatments, sports injuries, more commonly things like cancers, more dire consequences, like multiple sclerosis, and things like that.
Darrell Etherington 3:19
Great. So what are some of the options? I guess right now, like if you just don't have anything preserved? Are you just kind of out of luck? Like there's not really a stem cell option available to use
and borrow someone else's stuff? Yes,
Kathryn Cross 3:30
yeah. So you can search for a donor. But typically, it's pretty difficult to find a donor match if you're a person of color mixed race, because the donor pools are normally solicited in high income areas. So the donor pool is skewed white, and due to the nature of HLA matching and the way tissues are inherited, it's really difficult to find one, especially if you're mixed race. And so that's a pain point that my family knew personally, we tried to search for a match for my brother, and we're half Chinese and half white, which I don't think is like that crazy of a mix. But even so we weren't able to find a match. And even if you can find one, then you have to be on immunosuppressants. So I think in a perfect world, everyone would have their own cord blood stem cells so that they wouldn't have to be on immunosuppressants. And they wouldn't have to go through the toil of finding a match and the financial cost of potentially buying one if your insurance doesn't cover it.
Darrell Etherington 4:19
Right, because I guess if it's like not your own, it's the same as an organ donor. Right? It's like, what do they call it? Host donor?
Kathryn Cross 4:26
Yeah, so yeah, exactly.
Darrell Etherington 4:29
I mean, not particularly creepy. But once you start saying host I started thinking about parasites.
I'm just being clinical medical, medical.
I love it. Yeah, I have a question though. So like, this feels very like futuristic, right? Like it probably weren't talking about this when I was younger. But then what do you saw? I like saved my placenta. I CryoFreeze it we're good to go I get like an injury like what do you just like, oh, I have my own stem cells like to the doctor like what can be done right now, from that standpoint, because it feels like that's all even further in the future, like stem cell treatments.
Kathryn Cross 5:07
Yeah. So I mean, we have some parents who are pregnant and very immediately reached out to us, even before giving birth asking about that protocol because they have, like a parent or something like that, that is developing some sort of disease. Or I remember one mom called me her stepson had leukemia, and the baby was going to be her son's half brother. So yeah, it's a question that that comes up. But essentially, we tell parents that they can be in touch with their physician or whatever physician is overseeing the disease that they're looking to treat, and then get their recommendation for a stem cell clinic or a physician that's more familiar with stem cell treatments, or if they themselves are familiar with stem cell treatments, and then wherever they choose to have the treatment and they're able to do it, then we will send it out to them. So very similar to the process of freezing eggs or an embryo or what have you, and then having it go meet the mom in whatever state they want to do the implantation.
Darrell Etherington 6:06
Okay, so my question along the same lines was like, Is it as easy as like, oh, yeah, it's like, let me just throw them into shock. It's not quite that, but it's kind of like, like it is your right, I guess, as a patient to be like, well, we'd like to use this for the efficient they understand it? Well,
Kathryn Cross 6:21
well, yeah, sure. I mean, it could be that simple. I recently spoke with a candidate that received a stem cell treatment, because he had leukemia, and he had acute leukemia. And so it comes on very quickly when it's acute. But you can also, they typically treat it also very aggressively in a short amount of time. So he was only in the hospital for 28 days. And then was pretty much on the mend at that point. And it took him a few years to recover totally. But yeah, like he received a stem cell treatment in that time. So in that, like 28, day turnaround he received like chemo and a stem cell transplant. So yeah, like, for instance, in his case, he found a donor, but he's white. And so he found one in Germany. And he even told me there were only like two or three people in the world that he was eligible to max width. So even for him, it was sort of like scarce resources. So in his case, if his parents had been to his cord blood, then he would have been immediately able to reach out to us, for instance, and then we could just send it to the hospital in northwestern that was conducting the stem cell treatment. And then yeah, it would have been able to receive it pretty immediately. So it's either injected locally into the site that needs it, or via an IV transfusion type thing.
Darrell Etherington 7:33
Wild. Yeah. How do you mark it and like, communicate this type of stuff, right? Like, I think that like the communication around it would be because for me, like, I hear this, and I'm like, Okay, well, that makes a lot of sense. Like, especially considering that stem cells are probably going to cure something that I get when I'm older, that like, doesn't have a cure right now. Like it just it only grows, but like it feels like it might be hard as a company to kind of like communicate this, because it's not. It takes like planning and like what could happen, right? It's like an insurance company. But obviously insurance companies are off.
Kathryn Cross 8:09
Yeah, yeah. So my tick tock has been a real friend to me when it comes to messaging and education. So yeah, I have a tick tock with round. I think I had 117,000 this morning, followers and casual. Yeah, so I think that's been really interesting, because it's allowed me to test a lot of different messaging as well. But and sort of see what kinds of questions come up. What's interesting is that because I think once I hit like, 100k, then there's like, a huge amount of credibility. And so people will come back and when they're in labor, or if they gave birth, then they're able to come back to my page and comment that they're giving birth or what have you. And so yeah, I get like a lot of reviews that way and things like that. So it's a real clear pipeline to my users. And I think it's for sure the future of content marketing.
Darrell Etherington 9:00
Yeah, it's looking at your page they could because it's not like you were like, also, it's like you're focused on this one very specific topic, right, but there's clear appetite for it. And
Kathryn Cross 9:10
yeah, yeah, I do talk about pregnancy in general. So then, like occasionally I'll put in some like celebrity pregnancy information. So things like Amber Heard surrogacy, it's
Darrell Etherington 9:22
just she makes it
tick tock smart.
Kathryn Cross 10:00
So, but I wasn't like me. And like blank constantly,
Darrell Etherington 10:06
just on a roller coaster of emotions.
Kathryn Cross 10:09
Yeah, I just tested streaming for a month. I basically tested like every channel as a form of content creation, just to see like, what it was like to grow on it, and Twitch was definitely pretty out there.
Darrell Etherington 10:20
But yeah, so did you pay to grow your tic tock in any way? Or like, are you just out there hustling?
Kathryn Cross 10:25
Yeah, yeah, I post about like, eight to 10 times a day.
Darrell Etherington 10:28
Wow. Yeah. Oh, that's like a full time job.
Kathryn Cross 10:31
I mean, faster at it. It's more than yeah, I've gotten faster at it. So it only takes me about like an hour to make that many videos. Or a little bit over that one hour
Darrell Etherington 10:43
to make eight to 10. Yeah, hour per video. That's good, efficient
Kathryn Cross 10:49
shot. Yeah. So yeah, I think typically, it's not like that normal to me that many videos. But yeah, that's that's what I do. I found the
Darrell Etherington 10:58
so do you plan it? I'm like, fascinated by this. Do you like wake up on Monday morning, and you're like, here's a week's worth of ideas for videos. And then you just like, bang them out?
Kathryn Cross 11:08
I don't like batch. Great. I think that's too exhausting. Yeah, I typically just I have a list of ideas that are going viral, or that I've seen people talk about and comments and things like that. And then I'll sort of go from there. But typically, I just like do things off the cuff or respond to comments. And also I think if you batch create, then you don't have the chance to hop on trends when they happen. So yeah, things like Amber Heard surrogacy I talked about in the past week, or I use like an audio from the trial, and things like that, that are more timely. And so you just have to be able to keep up with trends. So yeah, I don't batch create, I'll just set aside like an hour every day, and try to make videos.
Darrell Etherington 11:49
That's cool. Cool. When you were like doing this, because you mentioned you been doing this for a long time. Were you always thinking about it as like, these are future Tools that I will use professionally? Or are you just kind of did you get into it for other reasons, like for fun or for hobby or whatever? And then later it became that or did you always kind of think like, this is what I'll use to kind of like power my
Kathryn Cross 12:09
Yeah, no, it was always for fun. Yeah, like the Twitch thing it was because one of my friends is a twitch manager. And he like he manages Twitch streamers. And he told me that he thinks I'd be able to grow really fast if I like do certain things on my page or whatever. So yeah, so I did the discord and like, created all the like special iconography for my page and all the recommendations that he had. And then yeah, I Twitch stream chats for a month every day for about an hour and then tested it. I started getting paid after two weeks. So I think it was an interesting experience. Yeah, but that was more like a COVID project especially during COVID I was taking on all these like extra content creation ideas just out of interest.
Darrell Etherington 12:47
So for founders that are listening right now, right that maybe don't have your like history in the content creation space, but also believe what you're saying about like brands becoming they're all even those chances. Yeah, yeah, like what would you what were what are the basics, right? Like if we're doing like content marketing one on one, what would you say like the top three things that they need to focus on? Or do
Kathryn Cross 13:09
I think number one would be deciding what your channel is. So like, for me, like I used to do Model UN and I think that prime to like my love for public speaking and speaking off the cuff. And so Tik Tok was my channel, whereas like with Twitter, I feel like it involves a lot of like careful crafting of your diction. So if writing is your thing, and especially like in an active voice, then I think Twitter could be good. Instagram is good, I think if you are good with like graphics, and also, if you like to make bold statements in like a visual way. Yeah, I think it just depends. And YouTube could be like, long form, but I think YouTube is quite intensive. So I would just start with like, tick tock or, yeah, even a podcast, or Oh, yeah, as I mentioned, I used to have a podcast as well. So that was also like one of my COVID projects. I did. We did like business and fashion podcast, with one of my best friends. And so yeah, I found that podcast was really difficult to grow unless you have like a pretty big platform like TechCrunch even then, yeah. Talking about it, yeah, so I would say Nick's like a podcast and YouTube unless you have like, very immediate platform. So I would say number one, find your channel. Number two, try to find your voice. And if you don't think that your voice or like your general niche is easy to find, then consult with someone like an influencer in that space. And then number three would be to just make sure to stay engaged and close with the audience that you want to reach. So constantly getting their feedback and interacting with them and making sure that you're hitting the people that you want to reach
Darrell Etherington 14:50
nice yeah, that I mean when you're talking about it, because it's cool. I never thought about the breakdown that's really like eye opening to me about what happens on each and the fact that on tick targets like extemporaneous speech basically, is what you're going for. Right? Which is really cool. And then yeah, YouTube has become essentially like Hollywood Jr. In terms of like the emphasis on like, production quality and stuff like that, right? Yeah. But, and the listeners
gamer friends say YouTube is Oh,
really? While they're on Twitch right, or is that not? I don't know.
Yeah. But like YouTube gaming was doing really well. And I think they're just talking about it in general as like a channel like, I don't think they're saying like, gaming shouldn't be on YouTube. They're just like, we're over YouTube.
All right, well, you heard it here first.
Anecdotally. That's, that's how the cookie crumbs. Yeah.
But listening to comments, too. Like, that was also really eye opening for me. Because I guess, me and Jordan are maybe come from a generation where it's like, the map mantra was like, don't read the comments. Don't read the comment. We Yes, we have comments and TechCrunch. I know that I know that.
We don't even know anymore, because we've literally like do not look that long. Yeah. And then
we don't like we obviously, well, we don't listen to your listeners, like if you're making if you're writing something under the article, none of us have ever seen it. We've never written an article based on what you said, there. Right. I feel like that's true. But it's like,
Kathryn Cross 16:18
is it to protect yourself from
Darrell Etherington 16:20
maybe I think it was of the time it was different, a lot of ego defense early on. And
but it also becomes this thing where like, for what, like, it's, there's a lot of like, arguments that are about like, the spelling of a word. And it's like, Thank you, you're a copy editor, like good for you. But like, you know, it just it's like Twitter. It's like trying to have any meaningful conversation on Twitter also ends up becoming
like people ignore the points and go after instead of typo or something. So
yeah, I think it starts as like ego defense, because you get like someone really hateful in there. But then you also some, most of the time, I think I've read like one or two really thoughtful, useful comments and 11 years of being a reporter. The rest, it's like, well, for what, like we all just wasted, like you wasted your time. I wasted my time, like, but there's no resolution. What's
interesting about that is like we do Twitter spaces a lot now, right? And like, we'll open those up and say like, does anybody have a question? And there's no screening or anything on that, like, people just go like, yeah, and then we go, okay, and then put them up. And usually, it's good. Usually, it's like an intelligent, thoughtful, nice comment, like actually something worthwhile to contribute. So maybe it's the format and the TIC TOCs, kind of more similar to that format? Because it's like,
Kathryn Cross 17:37
yeah, audio response
Darrell Etherington 17:39
will also the content, right, like So Twitter spaces works, because you have to use your actual voice, right, like, and so there's some sort of identifying quality of like, actually saying the words out loud rather than typing them. Yeah, I think for you and Tik Tok is like, such a niche category that has, there's not a lot to argue with there. It doesn't feel like Right, like, maybe it's right. Really? That's interesting. Well, actually, now that I think about it, I could see, see where some bad stuff would come in. But like, you know, people are just trying to find answers, I don't know. Maybe feels like less debatable.
Kathryn Cross 18:15
Yeah, well, it's, it's not like typically like hate comments. Yeah, I do get a lot of comments, just like trying to understand I think the most negative comments I get are around delayed cord clamping, actually, which is like the practice after birth of waiting to cut the cord. And you can like typically OBGYN that I've worked with or spoken to about this, only do it for around 45 seconds. So the idea is that if you can let some of the cord blood back into the baby, it demonstrates boosted iron levels and about the first six months of life. But even like Cleveland Clinic and things like that, I've made statements about how doing any longer than 60 seconds doesn't have any more benefits than just doing it for 60 seconds. So you may as well bank the rest. And so with us, you can delay cord clamping for max two minutes, and then we can still get a sufficient cord blood volume, especially because of the way we process our stem cells, we manually process them by hand instead of running through a machine which allows us to get up to 25% more stem cells because it's an individualized approach. So if there is a really low cord blood volume, we're able to get a sufficient amount. So there's a lot of like, I don't know, in the birth space, I've realized there's just in general a lot of controversy like whether or not you should have a home birth and things like that. And so this is one of those things where like should you delayed cord clamping and some people like really push for just leaving the umbilical cord on until it dries off basically, which can actually put the baby at risk for infection and the mom and so they're it's one of
Darrell Etherington 19:44
those things that has very strong adherence to an opinionated opinion.
Kathryn Cross 19:47
Yeah, yeah, like, like pretty loud. I think it definitely is a minority. But yeah, it is like a pretty loud minority. So sometimes people will comment things related to that or like oh, like If your baby does delayed cord clamping, then there'll be so healthy that you don't even have to bank like, you'll never have a use case for cord blood. But I don't know if so in those cases, I'm I just tried to be like, seems hard to prove. Yeah. Yeah. So in those cases, I just tried to be like pretty pragmatic about it. And if I do get, like really negatively charged comments, then I'll usually make an effort to reply because of like NPS experience, but also, because it incentivizes them to come back and comment again. So that'll boost to my engagement.
Darrell Etherington 20:32
So yeah, I have a question about like, the whole content marketing things still. Sorry, that's just where I'm living. There are a few kind of like, health tech biotech company that especially one is like, I think, medically focused as yours that are so brandy. I like the one that comes to mind is, is it kind of body? Yeah. Yeah. And like, it feels like a lot of the reason for that is like, you build a lot of credibility by being like this kind of like stodgy. Like, that's what we expect, right? From from things like that. Like you don't want a surgeon to come in, like authentic like, nobody can Syria's Right. Like, I don't want you know, and I've actually heard some things about kind body or people who have gone have been like, it feels very marketing forward to where you like, don't quite get what you expect out of them. Because you're like, oh, cool, authentic, awesome. But then they're a little disheveled. So I'm just curious if that's something that you think about, right? Like, because you're talking about really serious things like high stakes business, and it is like a serious business, right? Like it's buttoned up in a lot of ways. And then you're authentic and on tick tock and kind of doing things off the cuff. How do you balance that and think about that in terms of what the brand should be and how people might perceive that?
Kathryn Cross 21:50
Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about that, especially because my account is a personal account. It's not my business account. And like, sometimes I've gone live, and then I ask people for feedback. And typically, people will be like, oh, you should show more of like, your personal life. Like they want to know more about me. Yeah. So I always think like, how much should I like, talk about my personal life? And like, typically, when I have it's like, pretty well, engagement? Yeah, I think it's interesting. But I think there's like a good balance between being informative and having credibility, I always position it as sort of like an like a cool aunt type position. Because I think in that way, like you see a trusted resource, but it's not necessarily like your physician, like, especially because I talk a lot about just general pregnancy stuff. Like sometimes people will ask me very serious medical questions. So I just let them know. Like, this is not medical advice. Like I'm not a physician, but like for any, like cord blood related questions, and I can definitely answer those. So yeah, so I just tried to position myself as like the cool Auntie type vibe, and not so much like medical omnipotent resource. Yeah,
Darrell Etherington 22:59
but I think myself.
Yeah, that's useful, because like Jordan was bringing up I think there's a lot of people who are like, Oh, well, I want the professional lead professional. But I think there's also the reverse trend is true, too, right? Where people are like, I don't want to talk to someone who may who I don't understand anything they're saying, right? Like, because it's so advanced, it's hard to remove from me. Right. So
Kathryn Cross 23:21
yeah, I mean, a lot of the customer feedback we get is I think they like that I'm on tick tock, because I feel so accessible, I interact with comments, and I can just like, there's a lot of information, like a lot of moms have told me that they'll literally go back and watch my videos from like months ago, just to like, understand more. And I think especially if they are pregnant, and healthcare feels inaccessible to them, then it's just something to give them general awareness. Because I'll just talk about things like oh, like in your, like, blank week, like you can expect, like this type of thing. I think it can be informative, especially for those that just don't feel like they can trust their doctor. And I think my Tiktok has taught me that that's the case for a lot of people. So yeah, I've had people like, call our customer service line and be like, Oh, I don't know how to like talk to my doctor about this. Like, I just don't feel like you, like gets me and stuff like that. So yeah, I'm also trying to think about, like helping them Garner confidence when it comes to speaking with their physician.
Darrell Etherington 24:19
Yeah, because people should advocate for themselves and feel like they should be able to advocate for themselves. Right. And a lot of times they do,
Kathryn Cross 24:24
yeah, yeah. And I think that's not the case for for a lot of people, especially women.
Darrell Etherington 24:29
Yeah. So just to switch gears a bit. Like, I know, you talked about the motivation for founding the company and your brother, I know that you tragically passed away and had cerebral palsy. But like, can you talk a bit more about that transition that you made from being a content creator to like, No, I want to found a company and I'm going to build this specific thing. So what was that process like for you? And like, how did you decide like, this is what I'm going to focus on?
Kathryn Cross 24:56
Yeah, yeah. So I was in launch house and And I basically joined from Twitter. And that was my first foray into the startup world. And this was in 2021. January. And so yeah, I joined launch house. And I was then working on my consultancy related to Gen Z marketing. And like, I thought it was like the next big thing. But then when I got into startups, I realized that every other person has a Gen Z, like marketing agency. And so then I think it just really exposed me to it's basically like, you can live with a bunch of other founders and expose me to like, even things down to like, what Chrome extensions, they used to optimize their day. And that like really taught me so much about just like, yeah, Silicon Valley. And I was so surprised at how so many people just didn't see any boundaries to what they were doing. Like, I always thought that when it came to starting a business, there were like, a trillion boundaries that you had to stay within the realm of, and there were all these glass ceilings and things you had to think about. But people were just like, going for it. And so So then my in my, like, third week of launch house is when my brother passed away. So I came home, but then I decided to go back to launch house after his funeral and such and I was really grateful for that because I'm such an extrovert. So I think being around others, people comforted me. But also, I was like thinking like, what kind of action can I take out of this? And yeah, so when it came to thinking about cord blood that could have helped him and accompany that I can create in his memory, I think being around other founders was really key in that moment. So people were like, really encouraging, of quitting my job and stuff like that. Whereas I feel like in like my college circles, everyone was used to like finance and corporate structures. So when it came to quitting your job, it's sort of like, ooh, like, maybe you shouldn't do that. But when I was in launch house, everyone was like, congrats, like, finally. Yeah, I think that supportive community really helped me understand what next steps I should take.
Darrell Etherington 26:58
So yeah, you were in like, when in academia, it's still very much it's like kind of a risk averse place to be with the exception of like a few labs here. And they're like special programs or whatever. But like, it sounds like launch house is very much more like a, like an accelerator vibe, basically, where everybody's together being like, No, this is the thing to do. It's all about entrepreneurship, but then it has to decide thing of being a creator house. So you bring those two things together, like that's
Kathryn Cross 27:22
Yeah, yeah. So that was another thing was I was the only one of my friends on Tik Tok for the longest time because all of my friends were like, oh, like only young people use that like freshman. And yeah, but then when I got into Tik Tok, there are people who were like 27 and 30, who were like on
Darrell Etherington 27:40
stabbing us in the heart right now. Just like they were oldies like the 27 year old. Cool. Thank you
Kathryn Cross 27:51
know, you guys don't feel relevant.
Darrell Etherington 27:56
It's just, this is literally just because I'm the only reason I look young if you look closely.
Kathryn Cross 28:05
Yeah, but anyways, so yeah, well, that also those age demographic, I think there was someone who's 39 He was on Tiktok. But yeah, that was the general age demographic of launch house. And so they were like posting and like really on it. And they saw it more as like a tool rather than like, like social media experience. Whereas like, my friends in college and such, like they saw it as Yeah, like, Oh, like that social media that like only freshman year, right. Whereas my launch house friends, we're seeing it as a tool to go to market and a brand new algorithm and different way to consume content and like a way to build in public that that's new, I think that was also really inspiring was to just see people like going after making tic TOCs even though all of my friends like shamed me for even being on it. Right. And now like they're all on it, but in like the beginning of 2020 It was only like my freshman friends that were on it, basically. And I had just graduated so I think that was also really keyed in launch house.
Darrell Etherington 29:04
Cool. Yeah, yeah. And is that how you connect it like you got a really impressive investor list? Like how did you get connected with Dow? I know you've got Alexis on here and then z also from row but like, Yeah, how did you get this list of people that they know about launch house or did you connect them other ways? Or
Kathryn Cross 29:20
Yeah, mostly it was through cold messaging. Oh, nice. And I think being in YC really helped with that. But I'm also just pretty persistent like with with people with such a like mass following I think they just have like their inboxes inundated so it's just a matter of like timing and you being at the top of their inbox when they open it. Yeah, I was pretty incessant with some people. That's that's how I got there. Pretty much like every big name was just like a cold email.
Darrell Etherington 29:48
That's impressive. Well, how what did you put in your email? I know our founders want to know this because they're like, how do you successfully write a cold email to especially
Kathryn Cross 29:57
why would you just like update people constantly. I would I had updates if I saw that they tweeted something or posted something related to women's health or pregnancy or parenting, or like cord blood even or right before I raised, the third person ever was cured of HIV using cord blood. So there was like quite a bit of buzz and people were posting content about that. Yeah, I think honestly, like being in YC really helped with open rates. Yeah, for sure. I would definitely put that in like the subject and a lot of them are YC alarm, or like, Alexis used to be a partner and things like that.
Darrell Etherington 30:28
Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're not getting blocked, you know, like, you have some kind of signal, right? You're like, well, he's not blocking me. So that's a good sign.
Kathryn Cross 30:37
Yeah, so the I'm just incessant. But yeah, like one of my friends recently told me I forget what the exact term was. But he was basically like, if you tell 20 people that you're just cold messaging, then everyone's gonna do it, and then it won't be effective. So like, you're defeating the, like, efficacy of it for other people. Yeah.
Darrell Etherington 30:56
I think plenty of people are gonna be cold messaging, regardless. Yeah. I don't think having a statistical statistically significant impact on the number of people cold messaging, right. But we, our inboxes speak to that. I mean, we have that too. And we didn't even have any, we don't have any money. We can't give you any more. I
Kathryn Cross 31:14
can't do anything for you. That's interesting. Yeah. So I guess like, what makes you open certain cold messages?
Darrell Etherington 31:20
Ah, I mean, I guess it is. I mean, a lot of it is subject because I don't really get past.
Right. I'm not clicking. I'm not even remotely close to Inbox Zero like I am. Yeah, I probably see. Just see in the inbox like four to 5%. Yeah. And it's like once a day, and if you don't catch me in the window,
I use like, compact. You too. I think that's what it's called, like, whatever is like each line, each email gets one line, right? So I'm not reading past the subject, because there's nothing there past the subject who said for like, Oh, hi, Darryl. And it's like, well, that part. I know. You got me. You got my name right. Most of the time, but a lot of people don't. Which is also? Yeah, it's shocking. Because like, it is in my email, to type my email or something. You're looking at
Kathryn Cross 32:07
it? Yeah. Yeah. For me also, like, I think the nature of the business helped with my open rates. Yeah. Because yeah, like I had a couple investors tell me that they typically never respond to cold messages. But they did. Because this is just like such a unique business. Yeah. So yeah, like one of my investors was like, yeah, we're just tired of investing in b2b SaaS. And like, I totally wish I did this with my kids. So Oh, like, let's put in a check. Like that kind of thing. Yeah, so I think it's my like business itself, just kind of as a wow factor. Yeah. So I think that that also helped.
Darrell Etherington 32:42
I think it's definitely like a key feature of tech thing that people are kind of like, generally aware of, but don't know maybe don't know, much specific about but like, know that it's like, an up and coming area of interest and investment and study. And like you said, with that one example, most people have some kind of personal experience of it or like know that it could have some experience or like have young kids or like there's somewhere where it touches their life, but they're not sure exactly how they just know, it's something people talk about and has a lot of potential, right, as you said to like, there's tons of things that come up, because it's interesting, you bring up like, I guess what you would call in the old school, like PR media business, like news jacking, but like news jacking for like cold pitches or just like engaging people in conversation. Right? Right, which is like, Oh, this came up in the media. So I want to talk to people about it, whether that's your audience that's Tik Tok, or cold emailing Alexa sanea or whatever, right? So that's really cool. That's great. I mean, we're almost out of time here. But did you have what were kind of like your biggest challenges? I guess, when you're doing all this? Is there anything that you look back on? And you're like, Well, you know, from the perspective of here, like I maybe would have gone about this a little bit differently, or anything like
Kathryn Cross 33:54
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I like as a first time founder, and like, I went to school that wasn't exposed to startup culture. And like, I went to Wellesley and that's like a historically Women's College and today, like still, there's no sis men on campus. And on top of that, like it just funnels into finance, because it's on the East Coast. I didn't even know adventure was or like YC, like a couple of months before I applied, right? So I think there were many many mistakes that I made as a result. So I've just tried to read a lot like the typical like startup canonical literature like the great CEO within or like I know Ryan Breslow has recently become a controversial figure but I think his books are really good. Yeah, trying to read has honestly prompted a lot of decisions but I think even things like hiring sooner for a really long time. I was like no like, I just need to lay the groundwork basically until I can figure out like what the true hire should be. But instead I Yeah, so that so that's what I did was like just me for like a really long time. One of my investors recently told me, you basically just have to like hold on to the electric fence like as possible. Yeah, so there's things like that I think I would have done differently. Nice. Yeah.
Darrell Etherington 35:04
I mean, that's, it's wild. How many more people there are than us that like, are like, I didn't know anything about VTC or YC. And I just like signed up and like went out and build a successful business. And you and I are sitting here like, oh, we anugerah Yeah, I mean, well, oh, yeah, man you like I mean, it's just like, Look at you go. Our fate
is sealed. Jeremy. Yeah, we're that's done. We have nothing about mistakes and learning. Alright, well, thanks so much, Catherine. It was great talking to you. And yeah, super illuminating. I mean, it's crazy. Your founders story is so much different than a lot of people are. Well, they're all different. But I mean, it's super interesting, very unique. And it was it was like unexpected. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. If you just share that with that, like, thanks so much.
Kathryn Cross 35:48
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Have you or anyone you know, is pregnant, then definitely hit us up? Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Darrell Etherington 36:02
All right, Jordan. That was our chat with Katherine. Did you become a tick tock star since we spoke with her?
I did. I actually did download Tiktok as we were talking to her. I have resisted doing since Tiktok. Started existing.
I have it but I am a purely a consumer and then only a very occasional one. So you create you've created some no consumer, purely a consumer Oh, and occasional consumers what you meant.
I thought you were a purely a consumer and an occasional creative. Yeah, no, I will never it will be hard pressed to find me making tape to I'm going to start doing them. Should we make want to climate our first one?
That was you heard the claps from my Yeah, he was he missed? I think that's also like Tiktok circa like, three years ago. I don't even think that's current.
Yeah. Now they're like, there's I found one lady who does readings of bizarre court transcripts. She's a lawyer. And she goes and finds like, funny, insane moments from court and reads the transcripts and like a valley girl boys. So that would be my reco. But that's
related, though. Because this is this is kind of what Catherine has done. Like, it's not like she did it goofy style, but it's this professional Tiktok movement. We're using it related
to their car, and they're all like shows, it's what quiver you want it to be, I mean, not entirely what we want it to be like, it's not just let's do a dance over music anymore. There's a lot going on on tick tock, and you can really find like your niche and get answers to your questions and learn more about things. And she's definitely done that. And I was so pleased that the content of our conversation, I mean, we talked about stem cells, and we talked about like the math and the science and stuff. But like, it was such a curveball that we spent most of our time talking about, like tick tock and content marketing, particularly for such a serious business. Yeah, yeah. That was cool. I liked that.
Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. And yeah, it's a thing where you like go into it thinking like, these are maybe unlikely bedfellows I suppose, but like she's so genuine about it, she's so I guess I'm pretentious about it. Like she's quite successful on the platform, right. But she's very practical about her approach to it. And I appreciate her sharing very transparently like, this is what I do, and why I do it this way, and how it benefits the business. And you know, and she's also very part of the thing that I think was maybe surprising to me, and that I think a lot of maybe founders from different generations, like honestly, founders who aren't as young as Katherine would be more indirect about saying stuff like, oh, like, the Amber Heard trial came up, or whatever they ever heard Johnny Depp trial came up, and like, I use that as a lever. And it's like, wow, okay. Like, that's just very direct that like, you realize this is an opportunity to speak to your customers, and you're not kind of like, dancing around it or anything. You're just saying, like, no, like, this is what makes sense,
right? And that's like, a big difference maker. When you think about like, credibility, like you can tap into something in an authentic way that still serves people. And when you do, you can be pretty honest and straightforward about it, as opposed to it being like nefarious. Or,
you know what I mean? Like, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but Yeah, cuz like, I think that self serving maybe, right, I was gonna say, opportunistic, but that's not right, either. Because that actually gets at the heart of it, because a word like opportunistic now has negative connotations
for Triller. This is opportunistic and a fine way. Yeah,
exactly. Yeah. It's like knowing where your audience is and meeting them there. And in the smartest way possible, right. And yeah, I think it's cool, too, that she covers the stem cell area, but she's expanded it to pregnancy in general, right, which is like, the right exact time to be talking to customers who might not even be aware that your product category exists in the space that she's operating in, right? Because I mean, that is the only time really like, you can't if you're Oh, I have a five year old. It's like well, sorry. You this product isn't for you. It's much too late. It's five years too late actually.
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I thought that she was really interesting. And I thought that she had pretty great advice for how to go about something like this. Because I think a lot of founders are interested in taking advantage of some of these social channels, particularly before they can hire like the the Gen Z or to come on and try to do it for them, but are probably not they've been spending their time doing science and building businesses and maybe don't have this like innate natural skill set or experience. And so I thought that was pretty useful kind of advice that she had to go.
Yeah, I think the main message I took away from that like is if you come and you're authentic with your audience, and your message, like, you will find a community there. Like it didn't really seem like he was an issue, although that's right, as we've seen, and that was a pretty funny part of this episode too. Because it definitely made both of us I think, feel like we were about 700 million years old. So that was nice. She was like
there was a tick tock or once who was 20 Cool,
which I think to be fair to Catherine not at all reflection on
it wasn't no she didn't mean to break our spirits that was the result.
Yeah, cool. Well, you know, I think that's about does it for my thoughts on this one because I have to very urgently go out and get my I think my MySpace I need to clean it up and get that out there because I feel like at that goal, it's coming back around and then I'll be think so yeah, I'll be primed there to attract my audience and you know, they'll buy my I haven't decided what I'm going to sell yet but I'm going to do it on MySpace I think
I'm just having like a flashback of my own MySpace has happened in there.
I had a lot of a lot of emotions we all had a lot of emotions and they had to go on somewhere so
give me more by Britney Spears was my like playing song
Why oh wow. I wish I hope tensor archive somewhere if listeners if you can
pray to God that they're not no call to action. NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW Thank you don't want to know.
Okay, bye bye bye. Founders hosted by myself TechCrunch news editor Darrell Etherington and TechCrunch Managing Editor Jordan crook you shot Kulkarni is our executive producer. We are produced by Maggie Stamets and edited by Cal Keller TechCrunch is audio products are managed by Henry pic of it. You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and on twitter@twitter.com slash ban. You can also email us at found@techcrunch.com and you can call us and leave a voicemail at 510-936-1618. Also we'd love if you could spare a few minutes to fill out our listener survey at BIT dot L y slash pound listener survey. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week
Kathryn Cross 42:53
no you guys don't lug barely
Transcribed by https://otter.ai