A founder’s journey is often fraught with challenges, failures, sweet moments of joy, and tears and too little laughter. For those that fall into the category of under-represented founders; women, BIPOC and others that are marginalized in a society that is built to support and champion white men, it is even harder. The struggle is real, the walls are real, and the lack of support is a reality that too many live.
Ana Jones’ story is one that is familiar to many of us who start a business. Something happens in our lives that forces us to look for a solution. For Ana it was a divorce and a need to make more money as a single mom. But as she endured the struggles of building her dream, something happened that could have forever ended the road. But it didn’t.
Founders need to be resilient. We need to pick ourselves up and find a way to walk forward. Ana Jones’s courage in the face of tragedy is something to behold and to be championed. Here is her story.
I worked in the senior care industry for 20 years and was still running a non-profit program for the elderly. On the one hand I had seen the physical, emotional, and mental toll it took on family caregivers (spouse and adult children) to care and support their loved ones at home; and on the other hand, I saw the struggles homecare workers faced who were trying to make ends meet at a job that was too often temporary and unpredictable.
I was familiar with the hiring process of homecare workers and home care agencies. I was a case manager once and it normally took several office staff to assign caregivers each time there was a job. Here was an industry I knew, one that was ripe for disruption.
First, I needed to know to what extent technology was utilized in homecare, because hiring of caregivers has always involved several office staff. Working off a spreadsheet of names staff members found the available caregiver, tracked the number of hours worked, and paid workers at the end of the week. I wanted to know if the caregiving hiring process had changed and what technology has been used in matching, hiring, tracking, or paying the caregivers.
Was there an easier way to do this with technology?
Research showed that the use of technology varied and was mostly fragmented among homecare agencies who used several platforms to run their businesses. Was there a better way to utilize technology, and how were we preparing to meet the demand for care – especially with the growing “baby boomer” population or those who were turning 65 years and older?
I wanted to create a system that could utilize technology in the caring journey. The first step was to interview a team of engineers to develop what I thought in my mind would be the “easiest way to connect both the families and caregivers”. I reached out to an expert in engineering to interview the team that met the criteria for my budget and timeline and who guided me over the next steps in development of an app that not only connected individuals and families with homecare workers but also would be a labor market platform for homecare workers.
After choosing the name Phlex65, I needed to establish the business entity, but I had zero clue how a business worked. If I had one thing going for me – I was open to learning and following the steps it took to establish and launch a business. The local SCORE organization with business mentors and advisors were helpful and I received referrals for legal, accounting, and insurance brokers who drew up documents that would set me straight legally. I turned to the experts who I learned to trust and hired for every part of the business. No amount of education would make me an expert in law, accounting, or insurance and I am grateful for the connections I made at the start of the business.
Once the app was developed, we needed to test it to find out if this worked in the field. A soft launch of Phlex65 saw hundreds of caregivers and a handful of clients download the app over the next 6 months. Referrals from family and friends and support groups at the local senior programs saw an influx of users. Marketing was done in person to healthcare professionals, to connect families and homecare workers with Phlex65.
Each time a transaction went through I always felt a certain pride in the brilliance of a system like Phlex65. A feeling of gratification that I had hired someone to take my idea and create this first version of the product – the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that was fast, easy, and eliminated unnecessary intermediaries by connecting caregivers directly to work in the home.
I found joy in sharing the app at summits and workshops and I loved meeting the caregivers for long extended interviews and with families or individuals who needed the help. I was looking forward to implementing plans for online marketing and in person meetings to bring in more customers.
But then the darkness came when everything ended, and a way forward didn’t seem possible.
I remember so clearly that summer when my world came crashing down and halted, bringing everything to a standstill. What was a warm bright, hot morning, turned into the darkest day of my life. My 20-year-old college age son who was home for the summer died committed suicide.
How do you pick up the business when you can’t pick up the pieces of your life after experiencing the greatest loss as a mother? I gave up everything I knew and went through the motions of living, mostly crying and couch surfing between my sisters’ and mother’s place.
It was almost a year after the loss, looking out at the light peeking out one early morning, feeling drained and exhausted from crying most nights, I knew something had to change – I had to change. I knew I had to start living life fully again and find my new normal. My son made his choice, and this was my choice, and I made a vow to live. I wanted to enjoy life and experience everything again, the sun, food, travel, fun, laughs, family, friends, new places, new things, and I needed to start caring for my other son.
The challenge was where and how to start again. Over the next year I attended all kinds of business seminars, conferences, and workshops both online and in person, talking to different people and networking in the community. I signed up for different mentors and their programs, I learned how to craft my story, create webinars, courses for caregivers, spoke on podcasts, learned different tools and strategies, and even put together a 21- day summit broadcasting interviews with 21 experts from around the nation on “Easing the Burdens of Care for Caregivers”. I went through the second phase of development with new functionalities for the app and threw myself into learning more about being successful in business.
All through this time I was funding the business and was not paying myself. I was bootstrapping, in other words, paying for everything myself. It was quite expensive and for the most part I didn’t have a clear plan and was exploring all kinds of marketing strategies from click funnels, to email lists, and ad campaigns, and had lost momentum in the business. I needed to hone down on a business plan and what it cost to come up with the new customer. I needed to track the customers and caregivers from the ads online and via mailers, and the referrals from professionals to see which system works.
I had attended many pitch nights in my own backyard in Silicon Valley and knew that in order to take the business to the next level I needed to be in one of the accelerator programs. These programs are designed to teach you all about raising capital at the early stage with Angel investors, and through the next series of rounds with serial investors, private equity firms, and companies. My first two months were a shock because of the fast-paced program which I had immersed myself in and the world of investing that I had only read about. New terms with cap tables, term sheets, KPIs, valuation, crunch, rake, industry standards, exit strategy, and the ever- evolving pitch deck has kept me on my toes. The demo day with my 9-minute presentation alongside 100 other companies was both exhausting and fulfilling.
Raising funds is a whole new world, and I spend long nights studying the actual steps in funding and how to reach out to investors. I believe in what I am building and know that I will succeed. I am enjoying this process despite the ups and downs and the obstacles. I am alive. I am focused and I am making a difference. Is it easy? No. Will I give up? Never.