He never imagined he'd end up in the fertility business. His career had nothing to do with healthcare or women's health. But sometimes, life has a funny way of redirecting our paths.

Join Bora Celik as he chats with Jake Kent, the co-founder of Dandi Fertility.

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During the pandemic, Jake found himself living with family, including a relative struggling with fertility issues. This unexpected living situation gave him a front-row seat to an experience most people never witness up close.

"It was a highly personal, very intimate and vulnerable journey," Jake recalls. "I got to bear witness to something that most of the population never will if you're not personally going through it."

What Jake saw was eye-opening. The physical toll of fertility treatments was evident, but it was the emotional and mental struggle that really struck him. He watched as his family member grappled with the uncertainty of whether they'd be able to have a child, all while navigating the complex world of fertility treatments.

But it wasn't just the struggle itself that bothered Jake. It was how isolated and under-resourced people going through fertility treatments seemed to be.

"You're kind of looking at this experience, right? Trying to become pregnant, dealing with the reality that you are facing material hurdles to get there, which is hard enough to begin with," Jake explains. "I think you layer on top of that, asking women and men and couples and individuals, whoever that person may be, to go through this experience so isolated, so under-resourced, so under-supported, it creates kind of a whole nother layer of problem for the person going through that."

This realization was the spark that would eventually lead to the creation of Dandi Fertility. But Jake didn't rush into anything. Instead, he spent a full year doing nothing but listening and learning.

"We formally went into research and development with about 100 women across the country," Jake says. "We spent about a year doing nothing other than listening and learning and really wanting to validate where those key pain points across the journey were."

This research phase wasn't easy. Jake admits that the discipline required to not immediately start building solutions was one of the hardest parts. "You're dealing with people that need help now and they need it in a very material way," he explains. But he knew it was crucial to truly understand the problem before trying to solve it.

What emerged from this research was a vision for Dandi: the first consumer brand that would not only develop solutions to make the fertility journey more comfortable and supported but also build a brand that people going through such deep struggles could feel seen and heard in.

To bring this vision to life, Jake needed the right partner. Enter Layla, a fertility nurse with a decade of experience at a leading New York fertility clinic. Layla had not only worked in the clinical side of fertility but had also been a fertility patient herself.

"She kind of lived the patient experience and kind of saw it from both sides," Jake says. This unique perspective made Layla the perfect complement to Jake's business acumen.

Together, they've built Dandi into a company that straddles the line between physical products and digital health services. Their flagship product? An IVF care kit designed to bring comfort, accuracy, and mental and emotional peace of mind to the difficult injection process that is part of IVF.

But Dandi is more than just products. They've also built a virtual care platform, staffed by nurses licensed to provide care in all 50 states. This combination of physical products and personalized care is what sets Dandi apart.

As Jake puts it, "We think it allows us to show up so much more comprehensively for a woman along her fertility journey. If at each step of the way, there's physical products that can cater to that portion of the journey, but there's also virtual care from medical experts that can support you in the ways that you're looking for."

The journey hasn't been easy. Building a company that spans both physical products and digital services comes with its own set of challenges. "The biggest one is really figuring out priorities and how to spread your bandwidth," Jake admits.

But for Jake and the Dandi team, it's all worth it when they hear from the women they're helping. Whether it's through their direct-to-consumer channels or their partnerships with fertility clinics and pharmacies, Dandi is making a real difference in people's lives.

As fertility issues continue to make headlines and impact millions of people worldwide, companies like Dandi are stepping up to provide the support and resources that have been missing for far too long. For Jake Kent, what started as a personal insight has grown into a mission to transform the fertility experience for countless individuals and couples.

In a world where fertility struggles can feel isolating and overwhelming, Dandi is working to ensure that no one has to face this journey alone or unsupported. And that's a mission worth pursuing, one injection at a time.

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