Innovating for who you are not

Women's Health and Learnings from Building Maia Care

We had just pitched Maia Care to a major healthcare group. We had discussed over thirty symptoms linked to the hormonal shifts of the climacteric and how they can affect women's physical, psychological, emotional, and social well-being. The initial reaction from the decision-maker was: "Yes, but we have andropause."

The conversation began shifting toward men and their experience. I was struck by how easily, after talking about a reality that affects so many women, we went right back to centering our own.

What that scene made me realize was how hard it is for us to keep our focus on a problem we don't live through ourselves. And what the consequences of that difficulty are when we have to decide what to research, what to build, or where to invest.

In healthcare, deciding whom we study carries consequences that last for decades. In 1977, the FDA recommended excluding women of childbearing potential from Phase I and early Phase II trials. The measure was a response to concerns about risks during pregnancy, but its scope even included women who were using contraception. This exclusion contributed to a lack of data on how medications affected them. In 1993, the inclusion of women in NIH-funded clinical research became a legal mandate. [1]

The hormonal cycle was also used as an argument to limit women's participation in clinical research. In 1993, the Institute of Medicine identified hormonal fluctuations and their influence on outcomes among the barriers to inclusion. The report itself pointed out the paradox: those very differences made it especially important to research how women responded to treatments across different phases of the menstrual cycle and before and after menopause. The very thing we needed to understand had become a reason to keep women out of parts of research. [2]

Gender bias can seep into research when deciding what experiences we gather and what questions we ask. Including women is necessary. So is analyzing whether outcomes differ between them and men. Otherwise, we risk building solutions on an incomplete view of the people who will actually use them.

Something similar can happen when evaluating investment opportunities. According to the 2025 report by BVCA and Level 20, women represented 16% of the investment committee members analyzed in the UK private equity and venture capital sector. It is a figure from one specific market, but it highlights the imbalance in a space where decisions are made about which projects receive resources to move forward. [3]

A committee's composition does not explain its decisions on its own. Even so, it concerns me that when decision-makers share similar experiences, it becomes harder to recognize the significance of problems that lie outside them. Unfamiliarity can be mistaken for a lack of demand. For a project, that can mean having to prove first that the problem is worth addressing before being able to explain how it intends to solve it.

There is evidence that representation is also linked to what we invent. A 2021 study published in Science analyzed US biomedical patents filed between 1976 and 2010. It found that those by all-female inventor teams were 35% more likely to focus on women's health than those by all-male teams. Who participates in innovation helps explain which needs receive attention. [4]

All of this is also a wake-up call for those of us who build new companies. If we only know how to identify opportunities through our own lived experience, our ability to innovate remains bounded by it. Research allows us to broaden that perspective, provided we are willing to let what we learn change our decisions.

That is how Maia took shape. At Byld, we started by exploring opportunities in health and wellness. Delving deeper into the climacteric, we combined market research with interviews with women, professionals, and other sector stakeholders.

One of the women interviewed, an executive at a major multinational company, shared that she preferred to send someone else to meetings with men out of fear of having a hot flash, turning red, and sweating. What might look on paper like a physical symptom was actively limiting her professional participation. The fear of having to explain it, in an environment where the topic was hardly spoken about, added yet another layer of difficulty. [5]

We also heard accounts of estrangement in relationships and difficulties understanding and articulating what was happening. In those conversations, pain, uncertainty, and silence surfaced around changes that affected intimacy. Talking about well-being demanded understanding the relationships and the context in which each woman experienced this stage of life. [5]

Some physicians we spoke with admitted feeling underprepared and pointed to gaps in the training they had received. The WHO also warns that menopause receives limited attention in the training curricula of many healthcare professionals. [6]

That research helped us connect needs that, viewed in isolation, might have seemed like separate issues. Relieving symptoms mattered. So did regaining the confidence to participate in a meeting, finding accessible information, and having a space to speak without embarrassment. The Discovery itself captured the need for discreet solutions alongside the value of normalizing the conversation. [5]

Those insights helped shape Maia Care, a support offering for perimenopause and menopause that brings together personalized plans, access to professionals, and community. Building it required us to understand how physical needs intersected with emotional and social ones, and to translate that understanding into a proposition that would be truly helpful in daily life.

For me, that process holds one of the most valuable lessons in venture building: we can build for people whose experience is very different from our own. Doing so requires acknowledging what we do not know and giving those who live the problem a genuine role in defining the solution.

Empathy becomes useful when it changes how we work. When it allows us to listen without steering the answer toward the idea we already held. When we seek out diverse experiences and accept that an interview can challenge a hypothesis that seemed convincing. For that learning to reach the product, we need to validate it against evidence and with professionals, and keep learning from the people who use it.

In corporate venture building, that responsibility also extends to those who allocate budgets and make decisions within companies. We can bring them closer to needs they do not yet fully understand, validate their scale, and design tests that allow an opportunity to be evaluated. An underserved need deserves rigorous investigation, and turning it into a sustainable business requires validating both the solution and the model.

Listening to other lives also changes us personally. It allows us to understand why something that might look from the outside like an annoyance can affect the way someone works, relates to others, or sees herself. That understanding can make us more empathetic and help us spot opportunities that previously went unnoticed.

When I look back at that Maia pitch, I think about the conversation we could have had if we had stayed a little longer with those women's experience. Before steering it onto our own ground, we could have asked what they needed to keep participating in a meeting without fear, or to be able to talk about what they were going through.

Building Maia has taught me to pause right there. To listen long enough for someone else's reality to reshape how I understand a problem and how I work to solve it.

Sources:

1. NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health. History of Women’s Participation in Clinical Research (2024). Early-phase exclusions and the 1993 legislation.

2. Institute of Medicine. Inclusion of Women in Clinical Trials: Policies for Population Subgroups (1993). Barriers to women's participation and the need to study differences related to the menstrual cycle and menopause.

3. BVCA and Level 20. Diversity in UK Private Equity and Venture Capital 2025. Female representation on UK investment committees.

4. Koning, Samila, and Ferguson. Who do we invent for? Patents by women focus more on women’s health, but few women get to invent (2021). Science, 372(6548), 1345–1348.

5. Byld. Genesis Problem Discovery. Health & Wellness > FemTech Menopause (August 2024). Internal research. Slides 10, 20, 32–35, and 44–46. Paraphrased and anonymized testimonies.

6. World Health Organization. Menopause (October 16, 2024). Impact on well-being and limitations in healthcare training.