Revolutionizing the Fertility Industry with Lauren Makler of Cofertility

October 25, 2022

After being diagnosed with a rare disease, Lauren Makler was left uncertain about her chances of having children. This led to a passion for changing the fertility process and making it less “icky.” Thus, Cofertility was born.

In today’s episode we sit down with Lauren Makler, co-founder of Cofertility, a revolutionary fertility company aimed at making egg donation and egg freezing more accessible (and free!) for everyone. Lauren shares what led her to wanting to start Cofertility, how to go about fundraising and marketing, why a soft-launch made sense, and so much more.

“I just had, like, this absolute immediate clarity that I wanted to build a company in the reproductive health space. Which brings me back to egg donation, right? In this whole journey, I had just started to think about, like, what people go through to have a baby. And what stuck out to me was just how antiquated this industry was, and how for lack of a better word, icky it was.” – Lauren Makler

This week on Startups in Stilettos:

Lauren shares about her background and what led her to start Cofertility (2:38)
Lauren talks about how to work with co-founders that live in different areas (8:23)
Lauren answers all the fundraising questions you may have (12:28)
All about the marketing for Cofertility (16:51)
Lauren shares why they did a soft-launch for Cofertility first (19:00)
Lauren explains what Cofertility is (21:16)
Lauren shares what she is most excited about (30:46)

Resources Mentioned:

Our Favorite Quotes:

“There’s this huge need for egg donation. And unfortunately, the status quo just isn’t is not working. And just to like, dig in a little bit more on that piece. I think, actually, the status quo of egg freezing I don’t think is working either.” – Lauren Makler
“We just asked that both sides really think about what’s best for the donor-conceived child at the end.” – Lauren Makler
“We asked a few questions. But when we pose this question of: would you be interested in our slip program? 66% of women said yes or definitely yes. Right? So to me, that was actually what convinced me to start this company. So it gave me even more conviction to, like, completely change my life and go for it.” – Lauren Makler

Connect with Lauren Makler:

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