S2EP6: Desperation Made Me the Grant Queen with Corinne Vargas

You have the product,  the paying users, and the proof. But the men with the money keep saying no. What then?

In this episode of The Capital Flex, I sit down with Corinne Vargas, founder and CEO of SmartCHARTS, a healthtech company turning rehabilitation data into clear, decision-ready insights for patients and care teams.

A former actuary turned speech-language pathologist, Corinne built SmartCHARTS from a basement on Northwestern’s campus, and had 1,200 therapists onboarded in less than 48 hours. 

Of the three founders in her accelerator cohort, Corinne was the only one to walk away without a check. The other two founders? A male founder with a napkin-based concept, and the other, also a male founder with only an MVP. 

So she found another way. Today, SmartCHARTS is over 72% non-dilutive funded. Corinne maintains majority equity, and the company is advancing toward NSF SBIR Phase 2 review while securing enterprise pilots with major health systems.

We discuss what it felt like to field the “where’s your male co-founder” question on repeat. We get into the language women use to disqualify themselves before anyone in the room can do it for them. And, most importantly, we talk about what it takes to find capital on your own terms when the system keeps shutting you out.

Key Takeaways:

• Comparable traction, credentials, and metrics do not guarantee comparable outcomes. The data lives in the pattern, and Corinne could point to it directly.
• The “where’s your male co-founder” question is structural bias showing up in real time. Prepare for it and know how to redirect it.
• Drop the self-disqualifying language. “Non-technical founder” and “early stage” are not always necessary to say, and male founders simply don’t say them.
• Pitch competitions are a real, underused pathway to non-dilutive capital. LinkedIn is one of the most effective places to find them.
• Federal grant applications reward factual rigor and honest risk assessment, which is the opposite of the investor-optimism playbook. Knowing the difference can unlock new capital options.
• The investors who find you when you aren’t looking, and who believe before you ask, often end up being the most valuable people on your cap table.

My Reflection & Challenge:

There’s a moment in this conversation I keep coming back to: Corinne sitting at drinks with the two male founders who got the checks, and they tell her, “You did it right.” Not as pity, but as a genuine reckoning with what the system had just shown them. What Corinne built wasn’t a workaround. It was a masterclass in staying in the game when the game wasn’t designed for you. She didn’t lose equity chasing the wrong capital. She built a company surrounded by people who truly believed in the opportunity.

This Week's Challenge:

Before your next round, take stock:

1. Map where your current capital is coming from and ask yourself honestly if any of it came with strings that cost more than the check was worth.
2. Look up one federal grant program that applies to your sector. Open the application. 
3. Remove “non-technical founder” and “early stage” from your pitch vocabulary, unless you’re in a room where those phrases serve you and you can say exactly why.

Capital is not just money. It’s a long-term relationship. Choose wisely.

Links and Resources: 

https://www.mysmartcharts.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/corinnevargas/  

If you enjoyed this conversation, follow The Capital Flex, leave a rating, and share this episode with a founder who needs it.

And if you’re looking for a more candid space to talk fundraising, power, and building inside systems not designed for you, stay close. The conversation continues.

Production and Administration work completed by Smart Podcast Solutions and Elevate Business Solutions. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

This is the Capital Flex. I'm Naseem Saini. This joke codifies the Capital Playbook because no founder should have to learn the hard way. We talk about what really happens behind closed doors. The bias, the breakthroughs, and the things no one says out loud. If you've ever walked into a room and felt the system wasn't built for you, you're in the right place. Hello and welcome to the Capital Flex. My guest today is Corinne Vargas. She is the founder and CEO of Smart Charts, a health technology company transforming rehabilitation data into clear, decision-ready insights for patients and care teams. A former actuary turned speech language pathologist, Corinne brings a rare blend of quantitative rigor and clinical expertise to healthcare innovation. Her work focuses on improving discharge decisions, patient engagement, and outcomes by making complex therapy data accessible and usable across hospitals and health systems. Smart Charts is currently advancing enterprise pilots and federally funded research, including NSF SBIR phase two review, while collaborating with leading academic and clinical partners to responsibly unlock the power of rehabilitation data. Corinne and I met a few years ago via Alex Batdorf's Get Shit Done program. Shout out to Alex and became fast friends. We've shared notes about everything from building smart technology and healthcare, smart storytelling for investors, and the insane bias that lives deep within the fabric of fundraising. I am so excited to have you with me here today, Corinne, because we've talked so much about so many things, and I'm so excited to have you on the pod. I'm excited to be here. So for everyone listening, tell us a little bit more about you and about smart charts.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah. Well, smart charts is it's it, you know, it's one of those cheesy lines, but I honestly think it was something I was truly meant to do. My life experience to this stage has really informed what I'm doing now and why I'm doing this. So smart charts, whether I knew it or not, was kind of in my blood. My mom actually had a stroke when I was three years old and had to learn how to walk, talk, read, and write. That day is forever ingrained in our family's life, but it also kicked off the beginning of an incredible recovery. She's doing really, really great. It was a grind and it continues to be a grind with her turning almost 80 later this year. But rehab has been so important in terms of getting her back to life, getting our lives back to normal and for us to actually participate and live. But I realized when I was switching careers from that numbers-only life to the healthcare each therapy life that there's so much value in this data, but this actual process is so important to patients and families, regardless of where you come from. Heart attack, you know, multiple sclerosis, cancer, you know, knee surgeries, hip surgeries, and major accidents. It happens to all of us at some point or someone we love. And that's why it's important for me and really been what my career has been focused on over the last three to five years, really.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yeah, it's incredible. It's it's incredible what our our career experience and then our lived experience when they converge in a way where we can build something that has impact in a way that's tangible. Like it's a really incredible space to be in when we can do that in a in a way that it fills our life's work, right? It's it's it's a great space to be in. So congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

But the energizing piece of this, right? Like I think as I've as my career has evolved since college, I think one of the things I really was focused on is what do I want to do with my life? We're gonna be spending so much time at work and really evaluating what brings me energy and it's really seeing others succeed. So this is one of those weirdly kind of tangential ways of helping other people, you know, get better and succeed, host the crazy stuff. And so that has been a theme from being an actuary and a mentor in that space to executive coaching to a speech pathologist. And this really gives me the opportunity to help a lot more people. So it's it's fun and it's it's it's also a grind.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

It's also a grind, right? It's fun and it's a grind, and that's maybe the combination that that women live for in some way at scale. So, you know, the the basis of the pod and the reason for it to exist was to talk uh and get into the the fundraising adventures that so many women go through as we're building companies and and bringing things to life the way that you are. Uh, and sometimes the conversations and the experiences are great, and we get the check, and in some cases, maybe a vast majority of them, it's it's actually quite hard. And I wanted to elevate a lot of those stories and because I get the you know 10 p.m. on Sunday phone calls, or the 7 a.m. on Saturday, or the text, or the email, or the, you know, the my god, Nasim, I need help. And so that that happens a lot. And and I wanted to to bring all that up, you know, 10 levels and and share it out loud and leave a toolkit behind for other founders. So when they walk into rooms, they have a sense of what's going on and a and a way to be prepared for it. So as we jump in, first question is if you could describe your fundraising experience in three words, what three words would you use?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Hell unsuccessful. Um and it's been enlightening, actually, as well. So those are the juxtaposition of all of those words is kind of crazy when we hump about it. But but maybe, maybe that's where we're going, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Right. So, so hell, unsuccessful, and enlightening is those are the three. So, so tell us a little bit, tell us a little bit more, connect the dots.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, this idea of smart charts actually came about in the basement of Northwestern University when I was switching to become a speech language pathologist and I was in grad school. I was taking numerous notes, and all of these notes were extremely useful to me as a therapist, but also needed to be translated to the insurance company so that they could be processed and paid for. But most importantly, the you know, the patients to understand what they're doing, why they're doing it, what they're working on. All of that to say, I realized that the patterns within these notes, there was so much information and also a lot of stuff that we could do with it. No one is really doing much with it still. And there's a whole theory behind that, but we'll we'll get to that another day. All that to say, I've figured out a way to automate this process and turn it into pictures. And this really, really worked at its early stages with 80-year-olds post-stroke to four-year-olds with autism. The preceptors and hospitals that I were working with said, hey, this is really cool. We'll let you stay with these patients. I knew I had something, but I didn't know exactly where to go with it until another therapist saw me at a conference and looked at over my shoulder and said, Hey, that's really cool. So I got the idea of like, I could bring this somewhere. This is actually going to help a lot of people in terms of where we are and what we're doing now. All that to say, how do you explain this to VCs when it's like, I know what I'm talking about and I know how to make this work? And I think that so many founders think that. But I think I had a not an uncommon story in terms of describing what it is and what it was doing, but the gravity and the impact of what it could have. Getting those potential VCs or those early investors that say they're interested in companies like mine interested was a really, really difficult task. So diving into that was how do I even understand how do I raise money and talking to people early stage? So I have this product now that's you know migrated and I raised a little bit of friends and family money. Okay, cool. We got you know a lot of therapists, 1200 therapists on it in under 48 hours. Okay, we have some traction. I can go somewhere, right? You'd think. So I started networking here in Chicago and learning more what that means to raise money. And to be quite honest, it made it seem like it was not gonna be so hard, right? Like you got a good idea, you have users. Many of those users are are paying for your product. Okay, well, now go find some money. That is not how that went.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

So take us that takes us into one of the stories that you you told me about your early fundraising. So you you have a product, you have users, and you have revenue. So what happens next?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, so I think naturally one of the one of the things that I would pass on to other founders, especially early in your your startup career, is to do some of these accelerators that are like low lift accelerators or local accelerators, get to know your local communities. So there is a community accelerator here in Chicago out of a healthcare-based group that's basically it's called Matter, actually. It's here in Chico, everyone knows it. They selected 10 companies to be a part of this, which was sponsored by the YWCA as well as Matter and some other groups here.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

I got to know a lot of founders in the healthcare space um really well. And that is actually four out of the 10. We are still very close, and we text on a daily basis about, you know, the highs and lows of being a healthcare founder. All that to say, we were all kind of going for a similar raising experience at similar times. All of us were in different types of stages. So one of these companies had actually already been through um tech stars and had really figured out how to like commercialize and kind of get some early traction with larger like healthcare organizations, not larger, but healthcare groups, right? And then the other uh the other companies had either just been can, you know, concept-based or early stage user-based. Well, the two that were really raising at the same time were both male-led and also Hispanic founders. And we, you know, as I said, our group of now four, the other founder was female as well. But our group of four, we were the only three companies that were really raising out of, you know, my close group. And we were actually going after a lot of the same VCs and a lot of the same pre-speed stage funders. And so we were passing notes to each other and giving each other lots of information. As I said, one was conceptual-based, the other one was a little, it was further along and had been through a major accelerator. So there's kind of the gamut. Well, both of these companies actually were funded by multiple organizations within the Midwest area, as well as some that are kind of a little bit further out, not the same level of traction with not being users or traction that was defined in a different standard that maybe wasn't based on revenues or number of users.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Interesting. So the other two companies, not the same revenue as what you had, not the same number of users, but were able to secure capital. One was entirely conceptual, but had but both able to secure capital. You weren't able to, and I'm just saying all this out loud so we're clear. Uh and both of those teams had male founders. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Both were male founders. And what was interesting is our experiences were just extremely different. I think I just in comparing notes, I as I said, we're all pretty good friends now. And so in comparing notes in retrospect, and some of the laughs that we have over drinks these days is the questions that were asked and the timeline from initial introduction to actual check, or for me a definitive no, were very, very disparant, right? So some of these checks were coming in within, you know, 90 days or 60 days. Again, these are pre-seed and earlier stage funds. And then some of the larger funds obviously took a little bit longer, but they were getting capital. We eventually got no's anywhere between three and a year and a half later. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Oh, did that drastic difference in timing? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

And when you all sit together and share notes, were there what were the major comparison points that you were able to surface amongst you? Were there things about your products that you could point to or or no?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Not necessarily, because I said one of them didn't have a product. That was actually one of our like biggest, you know, laughing points this December when we all met for drinks. I told them I was going to come on this podcast and if I could share, you know, I asked them, you know, respectfully if I could share these stories, and they're like, oh yeah. We continue to laugh about those stories because one, I was rejected from everybody they got accepted by, but two, in terms of where our capital journeys have ended up, we're also in very different spaces as we look backwards. But I think to your point, the requirements, I don't think we're necessarily different. They were communicated the same way. Well, you have revenue, but like are you growing? The biggest piece for us was hey, we're switching into different markets. And again, when you're comparing, these are not apples to apples situations, but when you're comparing those standard markers for, hey, are you a fundable company? Do you have users? Do you have revenue? Do you have a product roadmap? Do you have an idea of where you're going, right? The answer was yes. The answer is yes, right.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

And so the the only thing you can point to then is gender, which is wild that it boils down to that, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, unfortunately. And then it's funny because I did we did talk about this in depth when I saw them, you know, at our end of year celebration that, you know, for the surviving companies. I said, Can I tell this story? Are you guys going to be uncomfortable? And they're like, Oh, no. They're like, This is so accurate, and you had such an issue. So the funniest thing is they are a big support system to me, and that our experiences were so different, and now that we can laugh about them is also really still cool.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

It is really great to have that, right? Like the that type of inner circle amongst founders and the awareness from them of what happened and their ability to acknowledge what happened is also really great because we don't that that kind of social capital that moves back and forth is a really great network to have, right? And we don't often acknowledge the value of having male allies like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

I also think, too, the objectiveness, right? Like, so they were objectively like, and this was not just in the moment. So this is years later now, right? We're looking backwards. They're they weren't like feeding me lip service at that point. Again, I know, I know we're gonna get to where we are and how funding it now for us, but it just continues to be one of the funniest stories, and we will always go back to those moments of like, remember when you couldn't get any money? Like and then also the fact that, like I'm saying, it's it felt objective. They definitely feel like they were not, they felt like it's not, I wouldn't ever say that they felt bad for me, but they almost felt like angry for me. They were almost like allies where like, I don't get it because they were prepping me for many of these interviews, or this company is gonna ask you these questions, or sorry, this BC is gonna ask you these funds gonna ask these questions, be ready with this and this, and know your numbers here or there, or they seem to be really focused on this. The same experiences would happen, and yet we end up in the in very different spots.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

It's incredible, it's incredible. Getting prepped, getting the same questions, being ready for the same questions, and yet the outcome on the other side would be different when you did have traction, you did have revenue, you did have users, there was a product, it was not conceptual, and yet the difference can be so different. And so that the bar is different, right? It's not the standards are not the same. And and you can and you can point to it.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

I think too, it helped me answer the question. And I know this is definitely not the right way to phrase it, but this is absolutely how I thought in the moment was am I crazy? Am I bad at this? And you know what? I've gotten so much better at pitching and so much better at storytelling. So I'm not gonna lie, I was definitely a newbie to that side. But when we look again at what those metrics are for those funding requirements, we weren't far off or we were ahead.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

It's wild because these when we can actually point to a standard difference or a criteria that isn't obvious but becomes so obvious, it's kind of it floors you that and now you can laugh about it, but it's not fun in the moment by any means.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

The great thing too is that we've all been so close and we continue to be so close. So for those not fun moments, that support system, and like you said, it it's primarily males that sit in this space with me as boot since at that time and and moving forward as we've all evolved. It was just really, really nice because we they will call me also on the flip side with, oh, I like, you know, this is really tough for me, this is really hard, or I don't know how we're gonna come up with a capital at this point, or what are you doing here? Can you make this introduction? So that level of respect and that idea that, you know, it is hard being a female founder, but you can also find space on in a world that maybe wasn't as easy and continues to be difficult to thrive in.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

So yeah, yeah. No, that's great. It's great that it works really well that way because that those relationships are they're going to pay off, right? As you continue to grow your companies, you're all going to be able to work together going forward, which is which is great. And that's something we all need to keep an eye on because we can over-rotate into our echo chambers and just live in our rooms of women if we want to, which I'm certainly guilty of a little bit. But continuing to make friends kind of across the gender line is important and powerful because we want to be able to reach into those relationships and those rooms as much as possible because it's helpful and and those and you know, we should all be friends ultimately.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

So yeah, no, and it's it's nice too because they are advocates for me as well. And we really know each other's products really well. So now, especially as we've all grown, we evolved really nicely into forwarding the right emails to the right people. Hey, this is a good opportunity for you, this is a good space for you. And for me, who has now become what they what they call the the grant queen. It is very it's been fun to be able to say, hey, this is the right one for you, and this is the right one for your your you know your next product plan or whatnot. And they're like, oh, I didn't even, you know, know these things were possible. And they continue to be supportive of me as we consider whether we'll be taking on uh traditional funding going forward. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

No, that's great, that's great. And so you you've navigated your fundraising differently then as well, because you, if they call you the grant queen, you've not necessarily taken on that much VC funding, right? No.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

I think during this podcast at this moment, we are over, I believe, 72% funded by grants at this current moment. And that number will change. Actually, it's a little bit less than that, but our that number is expected, as you mentioned at the the top of the the introduction, that number is expected to significantly shift within the next couple months. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

That's great, that's great. So that means that you've held on to a pretty decent percentage of your company.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yes. Uh yes, that I'm able to maintain a a good percentage of the company. And that's I feel like I'm gonna continue to circle back to the circle of friends that are my male co-founders. And not to say that there aren't female co-founder friends that I have picked up since then, but this was just that from that, you know, the original days. We continue to to laugh when they say you did it right when we were backwards and we're kind of looking back on these experiences and where we've been. That was the overriding theme of this last like holiday celebration that we had was you did it right. And I would never say that I did it right. I think it was just not a choice. It was definitely a necessity. And that grant money came from a number of different sources, right? So I had to get super creative. And as we talked about before, I was a really bad pitcher when I first started, like a very bad storyteller. And I think it seems you've seen the evolution of this as well throughout our relationship. But I really took it to heart in terms of like, I know what I'm doing and I know this market, and I know this market's overlooked, and I know there's opportunity, and I know there's a space to go here. But all of that said, without telling the story appropriately, you know, with the metrics not working for me in the traditional VC space, I had to figure out different ways to do this. And it was about telling the story appropriately. So I really found pitch competitions everywhere across the United States and also here in Chicago, and really learned how to pitch and hone in on what does storytelling mean and how to do this. And that is where the initial grant money came from, was winning these competitions and being able to storytell in a way that made sense. And just another like tidbit I think I wish I knew earlier, as founders are thinking about doing these pitch competitions or even just the regular pitch that you go through with VCs, the storytelling aspect is so important. We all know that. But it doesn't find a find a pitch that you really like that resonated with you. So it doesn't even have to be in your industry. Actually, our pitch came from a restaurant that I really liked. Oh, interesting. Like a restaurant support system thing that I really, really liked that I had seen them pitch in something else. And I was like, the way they told that story and the the different characters in that story are kind of similar to the characters I need to describe in my healthcare space. So I figured out a way that this this was what I wanted, and then I figured out a way to use that framework to tell my story.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Oh, it's it's that's that's such great, it's such great insight, right? That you find finding a story that resonates with you and then lifting it and repurposing it to the company that you're building, because then you're it's easier for you to take on that story and retell it because you know it worked for you. And so you can you can own it in a way that's that's quite genuine, right? And quite authentic, which yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

If it makes you feel rational or it brings out something in you that makes you think of the world or that solution in a different way, or a way to place that solution in your life, yeah, then that is probably a pitch you want to hold on to in your in your head or remember or pull later, and then use that same storytelling method, even if it's non-traditional, jump outside the traditional ways of explaining or to storytelling to tell your story, just make sure that it is emotional for you. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Yeah, no, that's great. It's a it's a great tip. The the grants that you found, how did how did you find them if we're giving if we're giving tips for founders? How did because founders are always right? How do where do I find the non-dilutive funding? How did you navigate that? Where did you find them?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

That's a great question. So, like I said, the vast majority of our early, early money was pitch competitions, and it was lots and lots of hitch competitions. Like I said, once I found that story, we were lucky enough to place or win multiple times. The way I found those was a couple different ways. It was definitely getting involved in different mailing lists and all of those, you know, grant summary lists that you might get from VCs or from local organizations. But more than anything, it's actually been LinkedIn for me. I've been asked this numerous times. And when I looked backwards trying to explain how to how to do this, I was like, I don't really know what I did, other than I was on LinkedIn and I would just click through when people were talking about a story or a competition or something. And I think that started to To really like, you know, work the algorithm. So I started seeing pitch competitions everywhere. So and then once we would get some traction in one pitch competition, we other people would hear about us. And I think we'd get additional spaces.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Yeah, no, it's great. Just lean, just keep leaning into those opportunities, right? And once you pull the thread on one, you're going to see a whole bunch of others.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Exactly. And then and then I think the second piece of that is we got so desperate and so close to, you know, needing to shut down that I just needed to start thinking really open more like about my horizon of what are my actual opportunities. And I don't exactly remember how I started learning about the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation, but I think it had been through word of mouth or people talking within circles. And so one day I just decided to open these applications and start just filling them out. There's different collectives and things and different groups that will offer support in every single industry. So getting aligned with those industries for us, it's obviously different healthcare initiatives that are nationwide. But all that to say, I just opened them and started filling them out. And so I for our national science or sorry, national um institute of health, I think I filled out one or two and we got rejected and I really didn't understand it. Going backwards, I did our National Science Foundation application for our phase one funding, which is where we got a significant portion of funding, more funding than we might have gotten before in a single check. And that was just because I decided to open the application and I hadn't my back was against the wall. So I opened it. It took a long time, but answer the question that they're asking you. Don't answer it like you would to a VC.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Okay. Yeah, that's the good, that's really good insight, also, right? It's just answer the question.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

And be fact-based in those applications. There's no fluff, there's no emotional pulls. It's what can you do? Why is this novel indifferent, which is similar to VCs? Who can you help on a stage? And why could this fail? Which is a very weird thing to think about because you are so used to thinking about, hey, VCs, I'm not gonna fail. And the scene, I would be a check. This is why I'm gonna be opposed to when you're flipping this for um these grants that could help so many people that are federally funded. You need to talk about why this is risky and why kind of no one else will fund you.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Right, right. Yeah. No, that's fascinating. It's really, really good perspective and it's really good insight for for other founders to think about. Cause when you are reaching a point where you might have you're you're up against the wall and you go, like, I gotta find money somewhere. Necessity drives creativity in an entirely different way. So if we go back to the hard stuff on the fundraising side, were there what kind of insane questions did you get over and over again? What did what did you hear from people that drove you crazy?

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Well, my favorite, where's your co-founder? Where's your male co-founder, your male CTO co-founder? And that was where where are you gonna find him?

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Did they specifically ask you with gender involved in the question? 100% of the time. It was already that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

I didn't know what I didn't know. I always use that terrible Ozark quote, which I won't quote here because there's a lot of swear words in it. But I didn't know anything about anything, right? When I started fundraising at the beginning, and I was getting those questions often. Who's your CTO? Where are you, where's your co-founder gonna come from? Where is he, you know, where are you gonna find him? Or you could look for him here, here, and here. And, you know, who's behind this? Who is it? Who's your actual CTO that's building this? Fair questions because I was building a SaaS product that's B2B, right? I needed to find a CTO of some sort. But I initially was not offended. I was just like, oh, that's a weird question. And then, you know, six, nine, twelve months in, I was like, what do you mean him? And what do you mean I'm like, I need a co-founder? Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

And why why the gender, right? Like co-founder is one thing, but to always assume it has to be male is entirely another. Yeah, would the implication of that is that I one, there has to be a man to justify or validate the thing I'm building, and that technology can only be built by a man. I can't possibly do that.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

It was just a weird, like I said, initially I was just like, I don't it was like confusing to me. Like, you know, when you're blissfully unaware, and by the end, I was like, I'm an actuary, and all the models behind this are XYZ, and this is where this is coming from, and I see these things, and I can direct a team to make this happen. I will never and I won't have a co-founder. So, you know, that evolution of like, what do you mean? So like, no, no, which probably didn't help my chances of getting funded anymore. And then the male undertone, to be honest with you, I just I think that's still a stigma that exists, but I think that's also probably representative of the market too. Even in a lot of companies that I come across now, I would say less than 10% of the companies are are female CTOs. And I've only had the opportunity to interview, you know, two or three to, you know, the tens of, you know, hundreds that I met at different conferences that are male.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yeah. Yeah. It's a really unfortunate set of bias that sits so deep in the system because we also, I also have so many female founders that will introduce themselves as non-technical. I'm a non-technical founder, and I will every single time will say, Don't say that. I've never heard a male founder introduce themselves as non-technical. Just not, it's not in their vocabulary, but women will say this stuff all the time. And I'm like, stop doing that. Don't say that.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

That's interesting that you say that because it's funny. In a room, I will definitely follow the leader if somebody says that. I'll definitely say I'm a non-technical founder in a room. But it's also interesting because those rooms, when I hear those things, tend to be women groups. Uh, now that you're saying it, like what when because I don't actually think only women qualify themselves that way. Yeah, I know what you're saying. It's like a disqualifier qualifier situation.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Right. Yeah. We don't have to do that. We don't need to qualify ourselves that way. But I hear women do it all the time. Like, why? Don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Yeah. I won't, I don't think I ever say that like in a room, unless it's been an example that I've had before, but that's gonna be something that I'm gonna point out.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Don't say it. And if other women say it, tell them not to say it.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Don't say it. Yeah. You stirred up something else when it's like I'm a non-technical founder, you know, of this pro and it's just interesting to think about because I would I often have to point out that I'm like a solo entrepreneur. And in this world that we live in currently, also, I don't even genderize myself, right? Right. Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, I'm just a founder who happens to be female. But that's been an evolution too. I think that's something I've had to learn along the way.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Yeah, no, and we all of us, right? But it's it's such a conditioning thing because we're we're qualifying female CEO versus CEO or female fund manager versus fund manager. Because I also like, I just I don't qualify gender anymore. I'm just a fund manager. Also, even right, we did we've given part of the fund manager ecosystem emerging managers. And look, that's just not why do we why are we doing that? I don't want to say emerging manager, we're just managers because we put ourselves into this different work stream by saying we're emerging. No, you're managing you're I'm a manager, not emerging. Like just let's not, let's not like put ourselves into a different category on our own. That doesn't let's not do that to ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah, no, that's that's really funny that you say that because yeah, that those qualifiers don't necessarily need to be there. And as you say, as you explained it, I'm like, actually, when male founders are in the room, they are never qualifying themselves with no any qualifiers. Not one bit. Because one thing that I was saying, and one thing I was actually just recently talking to the team about is like, when do you drop like early stage, you know, or like when you like, and why do you even qualify that in a room? That was something I was actually just talking to with my CTO, who's great, who happens to be male. But we were just talking about that the other day. And it's funny because you know, we have you contracts with the third largest houses. We are, you know, moving into multiple large-scale contracts across multiple states now. And I'm like, oh, I still you it's funny because that fundraising thing that we were talking about, too, when you talk about what that money is, is it dilutive versus non-dilutive? When I'm answering questions or I'm maybe looking at new grants and I'm I'm doing less and less of the competitions at this stage because I think you know we're we're into a different space now. And but all that said, it's like, what is early stage anymore? And what is so it's something that's kind of meta as you get to as you look back at.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Well, so you don't have to say early stage unless you're talking to an early stage fund.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

No, exactly. Oh, 100%. Okay, to me, these qualifiers don't always need to be in there. It kind of you're like take a step out of it. You're like, why are we saying it's a lot of these words, we don't have to say them. So, with all that said, well, you've you have fundraised with a variety of funds, early stage, mid-stage, keep some of the language for a minute, um, and with fund managers of all of all kinds. Have you seen, has your experience been different depending on the type of fund, the gender of the leadership, or like have you experienced different things depending on the profile of the fund in good ways or in in harder ways?

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah, yeah. So there's been, you know, there's a lot of different, there's a lot of different segments when we when we're talking about traditional fundraising groups. You know, there's uh female-led funds, there's female focused funds, there's, you know, minority funds, there's early stage. If we were to think about those in segmentations, um, I've had the opportunity to actually interview with a lot of female-led funds, or a decent amount, actually. I wouldn't say a lot, a decent amount of female-led funds, and a decent amount, and obviously a vast majority of male male funds. The some of the larger qualifiers, just in my experience, again, I'm just a one-off, is that the one thing the the female funds didn't didn't write us a check necessarily either. The gender really hasn't played a role in our experience whatsoever. And maybe that's uh maybe that's just to speak of maybe it's the business, you know. Now that we're sitting here talking, I'm like, well, nobody cares about rehab. And that is one of my favorite things to say is nobody cares about rehab until you have to care about rehab. You know, I it felt like a safer space when I was pitching, and it felt like a space where I had quit rapport a lot quicker, weirdly enough. But the success rate was the exact same as it was for male ed funds. So very low to non-existent. And, you know, I don't know, I don't know what that means exactly.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

Yeah, well, I mean, it it it's probably fine, right? So like I wouldn't I wouldn't expect the hit rate to be necessarily higher, right? If the rigor is the same, the rigor is the same. I think the the part of it that I would want to understand and it not that that has an implication, but you know, sometimes the treatment I I would want there to be, I would implicitly expect there to be fairer treatment with a fund that is just because of what we know to be biased sitting in some spaces, I would expect there to be fairer treatment from a fund that's led by women. I don't know if that's always true. I've definitely heard many instances of that not being true. And then in some cases, especially with rehab, because so many of us are sitting in caregiving roles so often with elderly parents, some level of lived experience understanding of the use case that you're in, there'd be more, more relevant understanding of what you're building in might might be there versus what other funds might understand.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Yeah, no, I it's been largely the exact same as the male funds. The biggest thing I will say, at least in my experience, and again, just a single individual, is they're at least a lot more, they're a lot faster and more definitive. And they're no the flip side of that with other funds, particularly earlier in my fundraising journey, you know, I was strung along for a very long time in terms of, oh, just hit this next metric, or let's see what happens, you know, in the next quarter or so. And, you know, as the success has really started to compile over the last year to 18 months, it's funny that a lot of these funds are coming back. And my perception has or my actual attitude has come back to don't, we're not meeting. You didn't want to fund me before. You're not gonna want to fund me now. I actually love to tell my angel investors, I like to tell them that like we still remain unfundable. And they're like, don't ever say that. And I was like, well, I was like, I'm getting annoyed that they ask us for the same metrics every single time. And the metrics are sitting there very clearly. So now I've taken the position of I will let you know when there's an opportunity because we're positioned now. And we also still don't meet those qualifications, just so you know, to be very frank with all the listeners, like that this will help them. I know we have something that's working, it is getting great reviews. Where's we're rolling into revenues? It's taken us a very long time. Healthcare, a lot of industries have a lot of red tape, right? But for us to be moving in and getting all of this traction, getting this, you know, just even the physician support, like it's just crazy the results that we're starting to get now. The stuff that I'm starting to share is really awesome. Is that translating directly to revenues at this moment? Not necessarily. Is it in within the next, you know, 12, 18, 24 months? Yes. Are we still unfundable? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

But if you continue to get grant funding, it's going to be fine. And ultimately, when there's an exit, your angel investors are going to do great because if there aren't larger funds filling up your cap table, your angel investors are going to make out like bandits because that right, you don't have a huge cap table that needs to be paid back. It's going to be your angels. It's the best possible situation for them to be in.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

100%. Well, and that's actually funny that you bring that up as well. So as we talk about male support groups, all of my investors, all my angel investors, and actually, you know, the other funds, Black Ambition, Farrell Williams, and TechS are all male run. All of my angel investors are male. So I mean, I don't know that that's probably that um special, but my angel investors are literally like my, they they are like my unofficial board. I can go to them with any question, any any sort of like issue that I have. And that's what's really cool about this stage that I fit in, especially when we're talking about those that support circle of male friends, where they say, hey, I need to be meeting these targets and I need to be meeting these things. We need to be meeting those targets and doing those exact same things. But I feel like my level of transparency and my ability to go ask questions and lean on support from the investors that I do have is significant. I can be good and be as honest and as open and as depleted as I am with who I am coming to the table with them. So, you know, I know the premise of the podcast is, you know, figuring out kind of this conundrum of that sits in our current state and where can we go with this? So I just would encourage others to really think about those those male supporters are there, they do exist. And in a world where it continues to be difficult, keep your eyes open because it's valuable.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Well, and building really strong relationships with those angel investors, right? And finding because that transparency and that ability to show up kind of full transparency with those investors is really important because there are so many stories of founders who can't show up transparently with the investors on their cap table, or it ends up being adversarial, or there are, you know, you can't talk about the hard stuff along with the good stuff. And those are really hard investor relationships to have. And you don't, you don't want to have those relationships because you you need the open communication to build a good company, right? The investors are meant to be your sounding board, they're meant to be this the smart people that have experience that you can learn from. That's the reason they're writing you checks, is because they're also meant to be bringing expertise. And if you're not in a space where you can lean into that, that's it's a hard place to be when you can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Yeah, and I love what you're saying because actually you're making me think about this. Like this experience is, you know, not being able to raise has been a blessing in disguise, right? So as we look backwards and we're having this conversation, I can be my true authentic self with every single investor that's sitting on my table.

SPEAKER_02 38:11

That's a huge win. It's a huge win.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

That yeah, that is not something that keeps me up at night. Now, is there a lot of other stuff that keeps you up at night and a lot of other mistakes and situations I mean? Yes. But can I use my bring those mistakes to them? Yes. There's no surprises, there's no secrets. And that is something that, you know, I am extremely thankful for as I sit in my current position. But all that to say is, well, you know, it is allowing me to build this company. And I've been vote fully transparent in all of my grant applications and all of the pitches that I've done. It allows me to be the leader that I know that I am without the purpose of having to meet. And not that we aren't meeting revenue and commercialization target. It's just a different world and a different space. So I've figured out a way to make this work in a place that seemed really impossible. So I just hope that founders that make are sitting in situations that are like, what am I gonna do? Where am I gonna go? Being creative and looking at your network and then being creative and and finding those opportunities and grants and getting good at something that you really that is really an Achilles heel or that you suck at could actually be your biggest asset going forward.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Yeah, yeah. I know that's that's great. It's really great advice. It's really good. A couple of questions as we wrap up. So, what was the what's the fastest check that you've secured?

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Oh, that's that's an interesting one. The fastest check that I've secured is one I didn't ask for. So it's just it was unofficial advice, you know, in the in the startup space, you have mentors and unofficial advisors. I had ongoing relationships with different individuals for different reasons and you know, from everything from you know, um, financial modeling to go to market to healthcare, you know, conglomerate stuff. And so by keeping those relationships and being transparent and honest with a lot of a lot of those unofficial mentors, supporters, advisors, helpers within the world, uh, when we were on our last leg and really waiting to figure out whether what was gonna happen with grant stuff going forward, one you just like, I'm just gonna write you a check and you're gonna take it. Oh, that's great. I love that. It's wonderful. I basically called together and now I call them my angels. And they again are all males. So it's the reverse Charlie's angels. And so I was coming to them with the very legitimate problems that I was having as mentors and advisors and helpers within this world. And one of them just said, Oh, that's what I'm doing. And then the other ones that were already on the table were very supportive and saying, Hey, we're just gonna get through this time, like we believe in this. And that's what you that's what you want people to do. That's fantastic. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Not something I knew that could happen.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

Yeah, yeah. It's those moments you just go, Oh, oh shit, great. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah, goodness. And also learning to say thank you and take it.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Well, that's a huge lesson for women, also, is just say thank you and keep going, right? What's the most unlikely check you've had?

SPEAKER_01 40:53

You know what? My family. We don't have any money. That was my first check. It's great. I love that. It was it was explaining to them what I want to do and what this means and where this could go. And to a family that doesn't, we don't we don't know any. I didn't know anything about, right? Oh, that's great. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

So, last question for everyone who's listening, what can everyone do to help you, to help the business? What's your what's your ask?

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Oh, oh, wow, that's the hardest question of of the conversation. I think, wow, what can people do? You know, we're looking for strategic introductions to hospital systems that have acute care in them. So you can think of everything as small as your little rural hospital that's, you know, in the, you know, in the small states to the larger conglomerates. We're really looking to continue to get our solution out there and we're in a position to do that at a mutually beneficial situation given our current funding opportunities. So I think introductions to hospitals and then also just promoting, connecting with me on Lake Dane and promoting what we're working on would be really, really helpful.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

I love it. That's fantastic. There's always an ask. So good. Well done. Thank you for joining me, Corinne. This has been great. I think your advice and your experience is so useful for so many founders that are navigating an experience that's really hard. And especially when it you feel like you're up against a wall, you've you've been great. In moments of desperation, you have found your way. And I think that insight is really helpful. So thank you. Thank you for joining me. Great to see you. Thanks for listening to the Capital Flex. If today's episode hit home, share it with the founder you love and follow me on LinkedIn for more.