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It’s An Honor To Be Building PCOS.com With Ellen Brown
This is difficult to write because it’s like, “exactly where do I start in describing how much of an amazing human Ellen is”. I got introduced to Ellen through LinkedIn. Or more specifically I was really intrigued by the shockingly transparent and purposefully direct posts she had been creating about #FoodIsHealth and the broken sickcare system that exists in the United States. I remember thinking, “this is how someone perfectly calls out the problematic parts of the ecosystem without insulting people”.
It’s a skill I didn’t have a couple years ago, and truthfully still don’t and likely might never achieve.
One of Ellen’s many gifts, is being able to create heady, factual content that calls out the bad actors, the rent seekers, and the broken structures that are supposedly serving the best interests of patients – and it’s encapsulated in an entertaining and often funny wrapper. She in reality savages the worst of the worst in these posts in a professional and factual manner. Almost always though Ellen closes things out with either her glass half-full positivity – or the occasional “hey I’m shaking you while explaining this – is it getting through” break the glass – this is a crisis – do something, it’s all hands on deck, STYLE.
The TLDR, is Ellen leaves you inspired to do something positive and real about it.
I’ve got a certain set of skills, but I’m more of a “on the spectrum hockey player riding a bull through the china shop, to Ellen’s Food Is Health Stealthy Zen Ninja”. Our hearts I believe are both coming at this from identical places. Both of us have experienced the hard truths about what bad metabolic / mitochondrial health means for friends, family and ourselves. Both of us also worked deeply within the healthcare system at the highest levels and know too well how the sausage gets made. It’s gross. It’s not sustainable and most critically it doesn’t align with human biology.
It’s designed for profit, not for people.
A project to collaborate on was evading us for a couple years until the universe placed us on a path to do something about how badly the HC system has been treating women seeking help with PCOS. If you’re reading this, you likely know just how bad it is.
One of the reasons the system has been failing women is because there’s not enough female driven businesses receiving the necessary investment and support. I’m not trying to make this political, but the data speaks for itself. Middle aged men historically are calling the shots even in healthcare that’s only applicable to women. In recent years it’s overfunded startups founded by men that are very obviously not actually concerned about building something to actually help women, but instead a lucrative rent-seeking business model disguised as one.
So yeah, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room. I’m a man. A man that’s hoping to build a better PCOS solution for women. Glass house much, I know.
Entrepreneurs like artists, they build first from within their imaginations. Too often from over-idealistic scenarios. From the outset I realized that if I’m being true to what I believe in, and sincerely trying to serve women authentically, then in the most idea scenario I need someone just like Ellen to be a Co-Founder to lead this.
Or maybe the stars can really align and Ellen of the perfectly named Healthcare Actually, might actually want to build this together.
I think it’s an incredible partnership and one in which the founders strengths and weaknesses don’t overlap much. Sure we both worked in HC at very high levels, but Ellen’s career has been dealing more with HC / health insurance systems operations and byzantine management structures. My experiences have been focused more on consumer product and insurance market development and patient acquisition and retention. I don’t consider myself as being “Pro-Pharma”, meaning comfortable conceptually with the idea that taking a medication for life, is okay. I’m not. I’m actually very distrustful of big pharma. Ellen is very open about, “if you can do this naturally – do it. RX shouldn’t be the only solution.”
That might seem surprising as I’m such a vocal advocate for GLP-1’s, particularly customized dosages / titration. Behind that though is pragmatism. For me, the data and improved health outcomes do all the talking I need. If GLP-1’s had been commercially released 15 years ago, hundreds of thousands of lives, if not millions, are likely saved from preventable chronic disease.
That said, just like Ellen, I believe that #foodishealth is real and when food is rebooted and 80% of available foods are real nutritionally dense foods, it ends up resolving a massive amount of the chronic illness that’s plaguing our population.
Our shared hope is that 10 or 20 years from now, GLP-1’s are not necessary and have exited the zeitgeist – a distant memory of a time when despite knowing there’s a better path – most chose not to take it because doing so was incredibly difficult or simply unaffordable.
I think Ellen and I are pragmatic builders that are incredibly focused on doing whatever it takes to actually improve healthcare.
In closing, if you’re reading this unaware of just how awesome Ellen is or how she’s been fighting for women and food is health, I really encourage you to learn more about her. In doing so you’ll have no choice to believe what I do. Ellen is someone women can trust and someone that has been, and always will be – fighting for a better future not only for women – but everyone.
