Building a life-changing startup, making your own marketing, and rejection + conviction: Kathryn Cross (Anja Health, YC W22)

11/06/23 • 24 min

Today’s guest is Kathryn Cross from Anja Health (YC W22), which reimagines cord blood banking.

Kathryn previously founded Bridge Strategy, a management consultancy helping early-stage businesses grow their Gen Z consumer base and worked at MIT Research Lab and Goldman Sachs.

Anja Health is helping pregnant parents save the most personal source of stem cells - from their umbilical cord and placenta - to unlock future disease treatments. Offering cord blood banking, cord tissue banking, and placenta stem cell banking.

Listen on to learn more about Kathryn’s YC application and journey!

Prefer to curl up and read the transcript? Read our newsletter at https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/

Episode Timestamps:

00:42: What is your startup idea?
00:53: How did you come up with the idea?
01:36: When did you get into YC?
01:45: What are the key elements to focus on when applying to YC?
02:14: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
02:38: How did YC help you go from 0 to 1 to N?
03:12: Share a “do things that don’t scale” story in your startup journey.
03:34: How did you get your first 1000 users?
03:44: Share 3 tips for founders who are trying to get into YC.
04:56: How was Demo Day?
05:36: Talk to me about how much of a struggle is for you to educate parents.
07:35: What are the biggest gaps you’re seeing in educating parents and how does Anja Health fill that gap?
09:25: How do you show parents the importance of Anja Health?
11:14: What does the biggest chunk of your audience look like?
12:12: Talk to me about Anja’s business model.
13:20: How did you convince YC to invest in you during the interview?
14:34: When you got rejections, what were the things that they didn't believe in that you had a strong conviction towards?
15:30: How is the experience working with Alexis Ohanian from Seven Seven Six, since he is an investor in Anja Health?
17:03: How did you prove that your product was successful and how did you go to market and scale that up?
19:19: How do you keep up with the competition when you create content as well as your own competition in healthcare?
21:36: What is an ambitious goal you're chasing?
22:56: Any closing thoughts before we wrap up?

👉🏼 About the Host:

Sharath is a founder, creator, and community builder. He is also a serial maker who built and shipped 15+ projects using no-code tools. His SaaS product Shoutout generated $30k ARR, which was sold to a UK-based product studio. Prev, Sharath worked for world-changing startups like Product Hunt and On Deck, where he helped build and nurture communities. He also grew his audience on Twitter from 200 to 22,000 using give-first principles and creating high-value content. Currently, he is the Head of Community + Brand at Threado, building a side project called GuestLab, and runs a podcast called Undefeated Underdogs alongside hosting this podcast.

👉🏼 Where to find Kathryn:

Anja Health: https://www.anjahealth.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kathrynjc7
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-cross/

👉🏼 Where to find Sharath:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/5harath
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@5harath
Website: https://5harath.com/
Newsletter: https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/
The Undefeated Underdogs Podcast: https://undefeatedunderdogs.com/

Today’s guest is Kathryn Cross from Anja Health (YC W22), which reimagines cord blood banking.

Kathryn previously founded Bridge Strategy, a management consultancy helping early-stage businesses grow their Gen Z consumer base and worked at MIT Research Lab and Goldman Sachs.

Listen on to learn more about Kathryn’s YC application and journey!

Prefer to curl up and read the transcript? Read our newsletter at https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/

Episode Timestamps:

00:42: What is your startup idea?
00:53: How did you come up with the idea?
01:36: When did you get into YC?
01:45: What are the key elements to focus on when applying to YC?
02:14: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
02:38: How did YC help you go from 0 to 1 to N?
03:12: Share a “do things that don’t scale” story in your startup journey.
03:34: How did you get your first 1000 users?
03:44: Share 3 tips for founders who are trying to get into YC.
04:56: How was Demo Day?
05:36: Talk to me about how much of a struggle is for you to educate parents.
07:35: What are the biggest gaps you’re seeing in educating parents and how does Anja Health fill that gap?
09:25: How do you show parents the importance of Anja Health?
11:14: What does the biggest chunk of your audience look like?
12:12: Talk to me about Anja’s business model.
13:20: How did you convince YC to invest in you during the interview?
14:34: When you got rejections, what were the things that they didn't believe in that you had a strong conviction towards?
15:30: How is the experience working with Alexis Ohanian from Seven Seven Six, since he is an investor in Anja Health?
17:03: How did you prove that your product was successful and how did you go to market and scale that up?
19:19: How do you keep up with the competition when you create content as well as your own competition in healthcare?
21:36: What is an ambitious goal you're chasing?
22:56: Any closing thoughts before we wrap up?

👉🏼 Where to find Kathryn:

Anja Health: https://www.anjahealth.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kathrynjc7
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-cross/

👉🏼 Where to find Sharath:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/5harath
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@5harath
Website: https://5harath.com/
Newsletter: https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/
The Undefeated Underdogs Podcast: https://undefeatedunderdogs.com/

Previous Episode

Arjun Mahadevan(doola, YC S20) - Building in a high-competition space, building in public, and educating customers!

Today’s guest is Arjun Mahadevan from doola (YC S20), a “Business-in-a-Box” for creators. Mahadevan previously worked at Dropbox as a Product Manager and started doola in 2020.

doola (formerly StartPack) is a “Business-in-a-Box” for creators. We take care of everything creators need to form an LLC, set up their bank account, accept payments, and manage ongoing compliance and tax filings. We realized how difficult it was to set up the full stack of software and accounts you need to get a business off the ground. This is the same problem faced by online businesses, who begin their business as a side hustle, and just want to focus on growing their business, not annoying administrative work. That’s why we built doola: to take care of it all. Today, people on every continent have launched companies with doola.

Listen on to learn more about Arjun’s YC application and journey!

Prefer to curl up and read the transcript? Read our newsletter at https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/

Episode Timestamps:

1:22: What is your startup idea?
3:45: How did you come up with the idea?
5:18: When did you get into YC?
5:30: What are the key elements to focus on when applying to YC?
7:32: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
9:58: Did you pivot your idea during or after YC?
10:10: How did YC help you go from 0 to 1 to N?
12:17: Share a “do things that don’t scale” story in your startup journey.
15:52: How did you get your first 1000 users?
17:50: How was Demo Day?
18:55: Share 3 tips for founders who are trying to get into YC.
21:42: How was your experience pivoting doola?
26:43: How do you educate founders on the company-making process?
31:10: How did building in public help accelerate doola’s growth?
34:30: How did you convince YC and investors that doola is a differentiator, given existing products like Stripe Atlas?
37:25: What advice would you give founders who are building in spaces with heavy competition?
39:55: Any last few thoughts that you want to share before we wrap up?

👉🏼 About the Host:

Sharath is a founder, creator, and community builder. He is also a serial maker who built and shipped 15+ projects using no-code tools. His SaaS product Shoutout generates $30k ARR, which was sold to a UK-based product studio. Prev, Sharath worked for world-changing startups like Product Hunt and On Deck, where he helped build and nurture communities. He also grew his audience on Twitter from 200 to 21,000 using give-first principles and creating high-value content. Currently, he is the Head of Community at Threado and hosts another podcast called The Undefeated Underdogs.

👉🏼 Where to find Arjun:

Doola: https://www.doola.com/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/arjunmahadevan
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahadevanarjun/

👉🏼 Where to find Sharath:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/5harath
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@5harath
Website: https://5harath.com/
Newsletter: https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/
The Undefeated Underdogs Podcast: https://undefeatedunderdogs.com/

Next Episode

Building a startup during COVID, selling a business, and marketing yourself: Ish Baid (Virtually, YC S20)

Today’s guest is Ish Baid from Virtually (YC S20), which was the first ever "Student Relationship Manager" for online schools to bridge the gap between educators and students.

Ish previously worked at Facebook as a software engineer and is currently building Reflow AI, creating AI agents that build and run your HR tasks and workflows.

Virtually was the first ever "Student Relationship Manager" for online schools to bridge the gap between educators and students. With Virtually, you could track attendance on Zoom, send reminders, and more

Listen on to learn more about Baid’s YC application and journey!

Episode Timestamps:

00:28: What was your startup idea when you entered YC?
02:42: How did you come up with the idea?
03:56: What are the key elements to focus on when applying to YC?
06:10: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
7:19: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
08:10: Did you pivot your idea before or during YC?
09:12: How did YC help you go from 0 to 1 to N?
10:17: Share a “do things that don’t scale” story in your startup journey.
12:17: How did you get your first 1000 users?
13:41: Share 3 tips for founders who are trying to get into YC.
16:00: What are some things that you learned from building and selling your business and moving on from it?
19:21: What are a few things you want to do differently with your second venture?
22:56: Why should founders consider raising funds?
26:15: How do you communicate your market to VCs?
30:01: Talk to me about your hiring process.
30:55: What are some of the lows that you faced and how did you overcome them?
33:54: Tell me about Reflow AI.
37:01: What is an ambitious goal you are chasing?
37:59: Any closing thoughts before we wrap up?