When Clair Williams-Vavra went to Techstars Startup Weekend, she had a seven-year-old idea to help moms going through hard times after giving birth.
Once known as postpartum depression, it’s now referred to as perinatal mood and anxiety disorder, or as Williams-Vavra, 37, refers to it: being in “a hole.”
She experienced it with both of her children and it was the impetus that got her to Startup Weekend, to assemble a team, interview more than a dozen people and survey many more, develop an idea of a clinical and community app for new mothers and go on to win the three-day competition.
“We are very fortunate to win, and I’d like to think a lot of the win came from how we built – on what we heard, not what we were theorizing,” said Williams-Vavra, of Grimes. “So we listened and we came up with this concept called held.”
The hackathon attracted 40 people March 28-30 at Maple Studios and 11 teams competed, said Colleen Kinsey, one of the co-organizers of the event.
Kinsey gets choked up when she talks about Williams-Vavra’s team’s app.
“Their pitch was just so moving, and it moved me personally to tears,” she said. “Yeah I want to be a mom. And the quotes that I was reading in the presentation just – it struck me. One of the quotes was, ‘I can’t wait for this app to come out. I need help right now.’”
Kinsey said what makes a successful idea is talking to customers.
“A lot of people have the vision, but they aren’t doing the validation by talking to customers and going through the iterations and being able to get feedback,” she said. “Iterative feedback is the most scalable and cost-effective way to build technology.”
Techstars is holding its next event in the fall. Local organizers are looking for more co-organizers to help with the effort, Kinsey said.
When it came to the time after she gave birth to her two children, Williams-Vavra said she felt “really lost and hopeless. … And there was this big, thick layer of shame, because it can be really difficult to share with even your spouse or your family and your friends.”
Instead, she learned some hard lessons and decided to share it in front of a full room at Techstars in efforts to help other women and families.
She asked everyone to close their eyes and think back to a time when they felt anxious, confused and isolated.
“And you could feel it in your body, and you could feel it in your hands, and in your sweat,” she
said. “And I said, ‘This is what the postpartum experience feels like for many women. Now, extend that to months, not really knowing when it’s going to end or where to turn or who to talk to.’”
The idea for the app called held was developed during startup weekend by Williams-Vavra, Danny Fast and Subbu Balla.
The app, which is a mock-up at this point, would offer two kinds of care: community support and clinical support.
For the community side, the team envisions hyper-focused support groups, journaling and prompting, daily tips and encouragement, meal and cleaning support and tools to guide partner empathy.
On the clinical side, the app would offer 24/7 telehealth, daily wellness captures, early mood and trend alerts, personalized visuals of progress and shareable provider reports.
Over the weekend, the team did between 15 and 18 interviews. They have also collected up to 60 survey responses, and among the insights they gathered was the realization that women don’t get seen by their obstetrician until six weeks after giving birth, Williams-Vavra said.
“Six weeks is too late, so what we want to offer with held is a routine check-in for that mom through the app,” she said.
The app would have a series of touch points, including prompts, journal entries, maybe a word cloud.
“All these touch points … get you to that first six weeks, and then we use AI to summarize your experience, so that when you go in to that six-week appointment, you can hand your OB a summary of what has been happening, the highs and the lows,” she said.
The app would cost $12 a month or a $49 one-time payment for lifetime access.
Williams-Vavra said she and the team plan to continue to conduct interviews to inform what they build. And then in July, they plan to seek a Proof of Commercial Relevance loan through the state of Iowa’s Economic Development and Finance Authority.
“So we’re going to seek that this summer, and hopefully by the end of the year, if not earlier, have held built out,” she said.
