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'We've Adjusted Pregnancy': Women Raise $5 Million for Virtual Cancer Treatment Project – While Starting a Family

Only 18% of UK businesses are led by women, and while there are statistics showing that the number of female entrepreneurs is on the rise, men receive more funding and take out higher average loan amounts to start a business.

Every Tuesday, Money blog reporter Jess Sharp will be doing an eight-part series where she talks to women who are successful in their respective fields, sharing their stories, their struggles, and advice for those who want to follow in their footsteps and start a business.

This week she speaks to Kelly McCabe, co-founder of Perci Health, the UK's first virtual cancer care clinic.

When Kelly and her co-founder, Morgan Fitzsimmons, were starting their business, they made an unusual decision: They sat down and planned out when they would both have children.

Many men would never feel the need to discuss this topic with their business partners, but as two women, it was something we had to think about realistically.

“After a long conversation, we decided to have our children at different times so that one person could continue with the business while the other could have the time they needed,” Kelly said.

“Of course, you can't plan this perfectly, but fortunately, that's how it turned out.”

Morgan was the first to have her baby and return to work after a few months off, while Kelly had her baby six months later.

Kelly returned to work just a month after giving birth to her now two-year-old son, and Perci Health has grown steadily since then.

'Whether it's the NHS or private health – I see the same problems'

Although Perci Health is a virtual clinic, Kelly’s background has nothing to do with app development. She started her career in the NHS.

One of her roles was to help cancer patients eat and drink while they were undergoing treatment.

She primarily worked with patients with head and neck cancer, assisting them with tube feedings and recovery from solid food intake.

After working in similar fields in private medicine, she realized that all cancer patients had the same problems.

“Everyone has that experience where, at the end of treatment, you have a final review with your cancer nurse or oncologist, and they say, ‘We’ll see you again in six months or 12 months,’” Kelly said.

“Patients would come back to the follow-up clinic with all sorts of problems they had been having for six or 12 months, but there was no one to really manage them.

“After they got cancer, they just laughed and endured it, thinking it was a natural thing.”

She came up with the idea of ​​connecting cancer patients with professionals who can provide long-term support and optimize their well-being.

Male Investors in a Male-Dominated Industry

After formulating a plan in her head, she reached out to her friend Morgan, who worked in digital marketing, and the two worked together on weekends and evenings to grow the business.

When COVID-19 hit, they decided to “just give it a go,” quit their jobs, and focus solely on their business.

Their first round of funding came from family and friends, raising $500,000, which gave them enough money to hire a small team on a reduced salary.

But they needed more money, so they started approaching investors.

Through Kelly's clinical experience, the problem she was trying to solve in healthcare seemed “obvious,” but the first hurdle she faced was convincing others that the problem was “important enough to solve.”

“The challenge seemed very clear to us, but it might not necessarily be clear to investors, especially if it’s solving an issue that affects women,” she said.

“Most investors are still male… and when you try to describe yourself as a technology company, unfortunately there’s still a male bias in that sector.”

“What's really sad is that these are the old-fashioned products that you think of. They're sold on the golf course, at lunchtime, at the shooting range, and we're not invited to go golfing or shooting.

“There aren’t a lot of female-owned tech companies, so that was a barrier.”

Pregnancy, pitching and warning signs detection

Kelly was pregnant when she met with potential investors and was “nervous” about explaining her situation, fearing it would discourage investors.

“When I first spoke to my current major investor, I was 38 weeks pregnant, so we did the whole conversation over Zoom,” she said.

“She called and said, 'I'd like to invite you to meet the team and give a formal pitch. Can you do it next week?' And of course I had to tell her I was pregnant.

“She knew I was nervous about talking to her, but… she said she was sorry I had to explain, and that we could just slow down the pitch.

“We pushed it back about six weeks, but we were so nervous about explaining it because not all investors understood that.”

Unfortunately, Kelly said she was “definitely” asked during the initial fundraising process whether she planned to have children.

“The feedback from the Men’s Investment Club was that women were feeling out of touch, that they might not return to work after having a child, or that their motivation to run a business might change,” she said.

“In the beginning, we just wanted to invest and would have accepted any partner. But now we look for red flags like:

“There definitely has to be progress.”

Kelly has raised a total of $5 million and still owns 40% of Perci Health.

All the challenges

In addition to the challenges of financing, Kelly also had to deal with life as a new mom, which also brought challenges to her life as a business owner.

She explained that having a child in the early days of the company meant that the company was still “relatively precarious”, with no opportunity to take maternity leave knowing that her job would be safe when she returned.

“It was a bit difficult because I had to go back to work very quickly after the baby was born and I had to take care of the baby as well,” she said.

“You don't want to take too much money out of the business, and you can be compensated with stock rather than a salary. Of course, stock can't pay for child support.”

Kelly also found that male investors “underestimate” her abilities, which is reflected in the language they use to describe themselves.

“I think women business owners are undervalued, which is evidenced by the fact that we are underinvested in. But there is also research that shows that women-owned businesses are more profitable,” she said.

“The language they use is interesting. For example, I am often described as a conservative CEO within the portfolio, because I focus on financial conservation… but would my male colleagues be seen that way? Or would they be seen as having optimal control?”

Kelly's advice

Kelly's best advice is to find a business partner to help you grow your business, preferably two.

“It would be a lot more difficult to run a business alone,” she said.

“Find a good business partner, as a co-founder can help ease the burden when one of you needs a break.”

She also recommended spending “a lot of time” building a “strong network,” which she said will “help protect you as your business grows.”

“There are a lot of great women entrepreneurs and women’s business networks. Morgan and I are part of a lot of them,” she added.

“It's amazing how much advice and support other women give for free, simply because they want to help.”

She said it's important to “have a really thick skin and be very persistent.”

“No matter how good a business is, it takes 100 ‘nos’ before you get a ‘yes,’” she added.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://news.sky.com/story/money-blog-personal-finance-consumer-sky-news-latest-13040934 The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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