In this week's episode of the CNBC Changemakers and Power Players podcast, CNBC Senior Media and Tech Reporter Julia Boorstin sits down with Rachel Blank, founder and CEO of Allara.
Blank shares how her own experience as a patient led her to build a new model for women's healthcare and scale it nationwide. She also talks about how to raise capital in a skeptical market, why data matters more than storytelling, and how she's evolved as a leader.
Listen to the full episode here. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
All references must be sourced to CNBC Changemakers and Power Players podcast.
BLANK ON STARTING OUT AS A FRUSTRATED PATIENT THEN BECOMING A COMPANY FOUNDER
JULIA BOORSTIN: Why, instead of just solving your own medical problems, did you decide to make it a business?
RACHEL BLANK: Yeah, I always like to say, in a lot of ways, me, founding Allara was just a very frustrated patient who decided that I wanted something better, and it kind of snowballed from there a little bit. So for context, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS, in my early 20s. So it's about 15 years ago now. So at the time, it wasn't something a lot of people talked about. It felt very isolating. I kind of had no idea what it was. And I really found that, you know, for many years, the concept of somebody to go to for this condition almost didn't seem to exist. And, you know, I think I actually was able to understand not just from a patient perspective, but from a provider perspective, because my dad is an OB, and I can see how, in the traditional model, you know, you're expected to play a lot of roles. You're oftentimes a primary care provider. You're back to back, seeing six patients an hour, and it's just not enough time to help manage, you know, more complex or chronic conditions. And so for a long time, I just kind of thought, like, okay, I guess this is just how it is. Like the traditional medical system just doesn't work for conditions like mine, for more chronic care needs like PCOS or endometriosis. And then I ended up joining a telehealth startup back in 2018—
BOORSTIN: Ro.
BLANK: Ro, yes, which was the most incredible experience, and I think in a lot of ways, really changed what it meant to deliver healthcare and so, you know, really, the vision with Allara was actually to build a different place for doctors to practice, a different kind of care model that they could practice in where using telehealth, we're able to connect patients and providers with more time to do visits, more focus on these chronic hormonal care needs, and again, really just kind of empower providers to operate the way that makes the most sense for these patients with more complex.
BLANK ON WOMEN'S HEALTH NOT BEING A NICHE MARKETÂ
BLANK: At pretty much every round, you know, at the beginning, I would hear things like, isn't this niche? Even though women's health is not a niche market.
BOORSTIN: How do you respond to that?
BLANK: I really think, I think, you know, I do think one of the things that has made me successful fundraising, I've raised over $50 million to date, has been being able to really use numbers. And this is a little counterintuitive, actually, to some of the fundraising advice you get early on.
BOORSTIN: So if someone says, Isn't this niche, you don't say, this is half the population. You respond more calmly than that.
BLANK: Yes, that. And also, you know, I think sometimes people say, well, the early stage is just about the story. It's just about the vision. It's just about the story. And I think that works for some more stereotypically, like typical founders. I do not think it works for a female founder in the same way. I think you need to show up with numbers and with data in a way that is just a different bar. And I think that is actually where I was able to be successful over the years, is even from the very beginning stages, I had data to show investors, so I ran, I ran Facebook campaigns to a fake landing page with a different brand, saw how many people signed up for it, saw what the conversion rate was, saw what the implied CAC was, and I was able to go in with data around this. I paid people on Craigslist to do surveys with me and to do interviews to kind of, again, build the case of this is a real problem. There is a real need for this, and frankly, there's a willingness to pay for it as well. And so I think that's actually one piece of advice I have for any female founder, is you really have to know your numbers and lean on your numbers to tell your story in a way that you don't get to just kind of paint this vision.
BLANK ON WHAT TO SAY TO THE SKEPTICS
BOORSTIN: What would it take to convince someone who is maybe skeptical of the market size?
BLANK: Again, I think that's where you know, really leaning on numbers. So, for example, did you know that half of women with PCOS will develop type two diabetes by the time they're 40. Half of women with PCOS are obese. This is the amount of dollars that it's costing the US population. Women, for example, spend a trillion dollars a year on health care expenditure. Women 18 to 64 are spending a trillion dollars a year. That is not a small niche market, right? But you have to, I think, really lean into that. And I even had points where I would tell them, okay, you don't think, why don't you go poll around your office and see how many women feel like their healthcare needs are met. And I actually had an investor come back to me and say, you know, it was really interesting. Every single woman I talked to said that this was a problem. So part of it is, also, I think, encouraging them to really hear personal stories.
BOORSTIN: Yeah. And did you find that there was more reception, or sort of warmer reception, from female investors? I mean, obviously a tiny percent of VC investors are women.
BLANK: I think women were able to personally understand it a bit better, but realistically, a lot of the investors who I met with were men. And a lot of my cap table actually is men as well. So I don't want to diminish that there were many men along the way who invested in the business, believed in the business, and again, I think saw it as, you know, a really strong business opportunity, because the math is there, right? Women make 80% of all healthcare decisions. As we mentioned, they spend a trillion dollars a year. They are more expensive to themselves and to their health insurers and this is a massive underserved market that I will say, more and more, the community is now aware of that women's health is an important thing and it's not niche.
BLANK ON HER LEADERSHIP SUPERPOWER
BOORSTIN: What do you think your leadership superpower is though? It's not just being ambitious.
BLANK: I think it's a couple, you know, I got a piece of feedback once that really stuck with me from an old boss. He said, you're really good at being right, but not being righteous. And I actually think that is a really important thing to have as a CEO and as a founder is again, you might know the right answer, and you might know where the business needs to go, but it's all about how you communicate it to different stakeholders at the end of the day, right? It's how do you bring your employees along on the journey with you? How do you bring investors along on the journey with you? How do you bring these other stakeholders, like payers, along on the journey with you? And so both having the conviction of being right, like I know where I'm going, but also having a low enough ego to be like, I'm going to communicate it in a way that really brings people along with me, I think is actually something I really strive to do really well. And I think has has served me well over the years.