Collaboration and Communication in Co-Founder Relationships

It’s not every day that a patient-doctor relationship turns into a Techstars-Funded medical innovation startup. In this episode I sit down with Dr. Onyinye Balogun and Eve McDavid, the co-founders of Mission-Driven Tech, a women's health venture in collaboration with Weill Cornell Medicine dedicated to the transformation of cervical cancer care with modern technology.

Onyi, as her friends call her, is the CMO of Mission Driven Tech and also an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine specializing in the treatment of breast and gynecologic malignancies and does research into improving cancer care in low and middle income countries.

Eve, the CEO, is a former Google executive who is also a Stage IIB Cervical Cancer survivor. Eve and Onyi met during the pandemic, when Eve was undergoing cancer treatment under Onyi’s care.

I heard Eve and Onyi’s presentation at the 2023 Techstars Demo day in New York and was stunned by the fundamental disparities in historical improvement in gynecological cancer outcomes - as they point out in this conversation, in recent years, Prostate cancer treatment has achieved a nearly 100% five year survival rate. In the same period, cervical and uterine cancer mortality has gotten worse, while cancer treatment for all other cancers has improved exponentially. Their company exists to change that story.

Co-Founder Communication Insights

This conversation is one of a series on co-founder communication. Check out my interviews with the co-founders of online gaming start-up Artie on Pivoting while staying sane (the secret - have a coach and a therapist!), a conversation with Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Barry Kaufman, the co-authors of the 2015 bestseller, Wired to Create, on navigating Paired Creativity, and this interview with the co-founders of collaboration tool Range, Jennifer Dennard and Dan Pupius, on the keys to healthy conflict. One key that Beth Bayouth and Mario Fedelin, the COO and CEO (respectively) of Changeist, a non-profit organization dedicated to youth empowerment, discussed was the importance of co-founders sharing how they are really doing so that they can be sure to not fall apart at the same time, a sentiment that Eve and Onyi echoed.

I also discussed the idea of “prototyping partnerships” with Jane Portman and Benedikt Deicke, co-founders of Userlist - and they helped me see that the healthiest companies have partners that have worked together in some capacity - and indeed, in this interview, Onyi and Eve called Eve’s cancer treatment their “first collaboration”.

Know yourself and each other

The start of a startup journey can be optimistic, so we explore what they have learned about each other that has helped them to better communicate and collaborate together since they started the project.

Accelerators can’t do it all for you

Eve and Onyi share how the accelerators can help with structure, mentorship, capital and community, but that ultimately you need to have something worth accelerating - a key customer insight or a core technology - both of which Mission-Driven Tech has!

Have multiple modes and frequencies of communication

Eve and Onyi have a weekly meeting just focused on their flagship product, the Blossom device, and another meeting weekly for other issues, and to simply connect. Meanwhile, they have a Whatsapp thread that enables them to constantly stay connected and in touch with each other. Balancing always-on connectivity and scheduled connectivity is key.

A partnership is a marriage and reflective listening is key!

Onyi shared their perspective that being in a co-founder relationship is like marriage, and that communication is key for any marriage to work. As she says, “The future of this company rests partly in how well we're able to communicate. So we tell each other the good, the bad and the ugly.” She shared their simple and effective approach to communication - making specific time for it, and using active listening intentionally:

“I hear what you're saying, I reflect it back to you. You hear what I'm saying and you reflect it back to me.”

Know who your real audience is

We discuss user-driven product development, which Eve and Onyi, as a former patient and doctor, are a unique example of…but we also discuss how in their current stage, investors are their actual “buyers”. Onyi discussed how she’s developed a keen sense of “push vs pull” when they are making their investment pitch - some investors just get the commitment required to make a startup like this successful, and those people are their real audience. It’s not about convincing the wrong people, it’s about finding the right people.

Balance Now and Next

Every startup needs to balance managing their current challenges and opportunities with putting energy into strategic vision and planning. Eve points out that this is a particular challenge for medical and device companies - the rate of change can be slow, due to fundamentals of the problem space. So, there needs to be more patience and intention put into planning and hypothesis testing. As Eve pointed out, There is immense pressure to achieve immediate results, but real impact takes time.

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Links

https://missiondriventech.com/

LinkedIn:

Onyi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/onyinye-balogun-md-ms-22b57283/

Eve: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evemcdavid/