Noor: Hello. Hello. I'm so excited to introduce Michelle, the CEO of Anrok to the pod today. Thanks much for joining us.

Michelle: Thanks, Noor. Excited to share my journey with you.

Noor: So could you start by just telling us a little bit about, uh, this amazing company Anrok, that you've built over the last couple of years?

Michelle: Yeah.

Please help to finance leaders and so spend a lot of time, uh, thinking about how we can build better products so that they can sell compliantly across borders.

Noor: Was there like a specific moment where, you know, you were kind of. Thinking about it, you know, should I do it? Is it the right timing? Was there something that kind of pushed you over the edge and you're like, yes, now I have the conviction, I'm gonna go for it.

Um,

Michelle: credits goes to my husband for this one. I think I was thinking about it for a while. Just found the problem fascinating. Um, that the world should be different, right? It should be easier to do XII think that's like a, a common pattern that people have. Um, I think the combination was my husband being like, yes, you can totally do it.

You should do it. Um, and also I used to be on the investing side, so I used to be in venture capital and I think just seeing a lot of companies and patterns around that helped me build conviction that, hey, this is something really special, um, that matches like my interests and the opportunity in the market and some, a place where I think we can win.

Um, so it's a combination of having the right support network as well as, um, have had the experience to see a lot of reps go through and know this was the, the right, right.

Noor: Do you have any advice for other people who are kind of, maybe they're, they're percolating on an idea and they're like, is this good enough to be a company?

Is it worth quitting my job? Um, yeah. Are do you have any advice or thoughts for them? Yeah, number

Michelle: one, talk to a lot of people. Um, and when you do that, I would try to lean on actually the response. You get called from people, so reach out to LinkedIn on LinkedIn or find emails and. See what reception you're getting.

So, um, this won't work for every, every person's case, but let's say you're building a B2B SaaS company and you are fixated on, on a certain pain point. If your ICP is not responding, being like, oh my gosh, this actually really does suck, and I'm. I wanna talk to you about this and go out of my way and spend 30 minutes with a stranger.

Like, if you don't get that overwhelming like response and reaction, I think very carefully about the space you're in, you still could be onto something. Um, but I would say if you get that reaction called from the market, that probably tells you yes, you're, you're onto something pretty exciting.

Noor: One thing that I found like really inspirational, um, about you and your story is that you started your company after you got married.

Um, so I think you, you just mentioned how, uh, you know, your husband was a part of, you know, your support network. Um, what's your advice there? How do you know that you know this, the person who, um, you're with is husband material and that you know, they're gonna help support you in your career? How do you know?

Um, it's so funny

Michelle: you ask that because. We actually did an exercise that first made me realize that, hey, this wasn't just someone that I was like super excited about to be with. We did a life logistics exercise. Um, so, um, we did a life logistics exercise where we wrote down a few areas of our life that, um, were important to us.

So, um, we had a section on, um, Korea. We had a section on. Family. We had a section on children, a section on end of life care, so it gets like really dark and very personal. Um, so we defined the categories and then we went our separate ways, like, you know, um, metaphorically what we each wrote in our doc, um, what we thought.

And then we had a date where we swapped the docs and read through it. Mm-hmm. And I remember like my reaction was like, oh my gosh, we're like. So insanely compatible, like, I'm so ready. Like this is like amazing. I, I never, like, I knew we were good, but like, this is insane. I see it on paper. And, and that, that was really fun to, to see.

Um, I think my husband's reaction at the time was more like, oh wow, this is so amazing. Was so compatible, compatible. Let's, let's find other areas that we can, like, continue brainstorming about. So we had different reactions to that, but um, I think that was like a moment where I went from like. Knowing he was something really special, um, to like, oh wow.

Like, I think I'm like ready to, you know, for a life journey together. Yeah,

Noor: yeah. Yeah. That's super pragmatic. Um, what was the thinking around doing the docs versus having a conversation about it? Was it sort of like, you're worried you're gonna influence each other's answers or like Yeah. What was the thinking there?

Um,

Michelle: I think knowing myself, I think better in a doc. Um, I have like time to reflect or time to walk, I think. If I just start talking, um, I feel like it's the, the quality of the thought might not be as good. You know, just like when you, um, write something the first time you edit it, it's usually better the second time.

Um, so that's like one of the reasons why for me, that was like the right medium. Um, obviously this was not the first time we talked about all of these different things. Weave it together and like we talk about it while walking or at dinner. But, um, I think writing it down to me just like made it much more real.

And when you put something towards, into paper, you're like, okay, I'm standing behind this. You know, I, I'm, I actually do believe this and I, I'm putting this forward to a person I care about and this is my view.

Noor: Did you guys ever talk about like having kids or like a future with kids?

Michelle: A little bit, I would say, um, actually a, when we started to talk about it a lot was actually when we started, uh, the embryo freezing journey.

I think for us, um, it came up in essentially two ways. I think. One was, um, a group of college girlfriends. We have a book club together and, um. We read this book called The Defining Decade, which, um, that claim is your twenties, is the, is like the decade where the rest of your life really gets defined. It's where you really pick the direction of your career.

It's when, where you like pick a partner, it's where you, um, make a lot of like big life decisions where it can reflect the trajectory of the rest of, um mm-hmm. And we read this book, um, most of us were like 29 or even like, you know, like early thirties at that point. And um, I think a lot of us freaked out a little bit 'cause we were like, oh wow, we like kind of missed our like early twenties to do all of these things.

And one of the chapters, what was on egg freezing and why that optionality for women can make a big difference.

Noor: So that

Michelle: was the first place that came up for

Noor: me. What was the reaction there? Was it, uh, like excitement? Was it fear? Was it both? I think all of us

Michelle: were like, oh, yeah, I kind of buy into it. I, I do think it's true that, um, a lot of decisions you make post-college could make a big difference and I, I don't think people put enough weight on, like the decisions you make.

That said, you know, it's not, most things are not permanent, so things can change and things can evolve. So this isn't to freak you out too much, um, for those that feel like they, they've lost their twenties. But, um, I do think the nice insight that people don't iterate enough is like, Hey, actually the decisions you make every day, especially in your twenties, can like make a big difference who you date.

What jobs you take, who you hang out with, right? All, all of those different things like does matter. So I thought, I thought that was like a good encapsulate like encapsulation of that. Um, one thing that it did do is, um, I think I read the book and went away of like, oh, maybe I should like do a online fertility test or like something like that, you know, a, a home kit.

Yeah. And so I did one and obviously there's a referral, co referral code. So like I emailed the book club group of like, Hey, here's my referral code. And I think the number of responses and how quickly they came through was like the longest of any group, like email thread in my life. Like, I think people were definitely freaking out being like, oh my gosh, like.

If I want two kids, um, like probably I need to get started now if I wanna have them before I'm like 36 and, and things like that that people are freaked out about. Yeah. But, um, I think the exciting thing is science has come a long way. So I think, um, we haven't solved the entire problem of time, but I think a lot of it, you know, that there are alternatives and there are, there are things that you can do.

Noor: Yeah. So I, I guess how did you start thinking about egg freezing and like where did Orchid come in with, uh, in, in all of this, in all this process?

Michelle: Yes. So, um, I think the first thing we did was, um, actually look at, um, orchid's, couples report even before we decided to like go through the full cycle. Um, this was at the beginning of, yeah, beginning of Covid.

Um, and Orchid had this couples test kit, which was a simple saliva test kit. You could get it mailed to your home, um, and you get like a pretty fast turnaround times only several weeks where you find out, okay, like here are the broad ranges of like where like your hypothetical child might fall in terms of these, um, pretty like awful diseases and like making sure that how much could.

Embryo testing, help your future child. So, um, that's something that we did and we're like, oh, this actually does tell us a lot of information. Like maybe we should go through this whole process to actually freeze an embryo. It's like egg freezing. For women, it's like very invasive. It's like not a walk in the park.

We ended up doing several cycles, and with each cycle we did, um, embryo testing with orchid. Um, and to me the exciting thing about Orchid is that it equips you with information. Um, and I would prefer to go into things eyes wide open. Um, and so to me it, it really helped, um, make me feel like I was doing the responsible thing for my future child, and there'll be risks and uncertainty.

Uncertainty, like with anything in life and to the extent that you can mitigate those risks, um, I would choose to. So I was excited to go through essentially all of the steps and, um, was like very happy with the information and results that we were able to see and, and talk about.

Noor: Yeah. Um, could you talk, walk us walk through the steps that there were involved with?

Um, using or I, I, for the saliva side, I think that one's pretty straightforward. Maybe for the embryo side, I think that's, could be more confusing for people. Like how did you choose an IVF center? What was the process? When did you get the reports? What was the reaction? Was it, um, were you surprised or.

Maybe not, maybe not because you kind of already got the couple report. What was, what was the play by play?

Michelle: I think one with choosing Ascent, I cared about, um. Success rates, both like anecdotal and like quantitative of different centers. I also cared about having a center close to me. I, I know for some people that wasn't like, that maybe isn't the prior priority, I think with like my job.

And I think even just like the cognitive overload of thinking that, oh, I have to go to this place like almost every day for like two weeks. Like the first week, it's every few days. And then the second is like almost every day I wanna be able to like walk there or take a really quick. Um, um. And so for me those were like the two top criteria.

Um, when picking a center, I think something I didn't realize going into it is you might go in choosing a doctor, but you can't time your cycle. Doctors have their own schedule, so at the end of the day, it's like really hard to actually end up walking with that one doctor that you were excited to work with.

So. For me, I wasn't as, um, specific about choosing a, a doctor, and I'm glad I wasn't totally wedded to it because when the doctors got changed out on the day of surgery, like it was a little bit scary, but it wasn't, um, heartbreaking. And I know some friends like actually felt really like heartbroken when, um, they picked the center for this one doctor and that didn't turn out to be the, the, the sergeant on the day.

So that's like one other thing to flag. So picked a center based on that criteria. Um, the other thing was, um, I had heard of Orchid, um, through, um, my startup network. I think I like really looked like looking at early stage startups. Um, and so for me, I actually knew going to the center that I cared about orchid being available.

Um, and so that's one thing that kind of surprised me is that. The doctors don't always tell you about everything that's available to you. I probably even missed like, other things that I could have done. Um, but I think was one thing where I had to like proactively like ask, okay, like what are my different testing options?

How much information would the testing give me? Like, okay, yes, you can find out the gender, but there are also like more important things like their susceptibility to like Alzheimer's and schizophrenia and all of those things. I think in the tail end of the process, in terms of, um.

The surgery, I would say. Um, I think we ended up getting results pretty quickly and we spoke to a genetic counselor to walk us through the different results.

Noor: Was there anything that was, um, specifically unique or remarkable about working with Orchid?

Michelle: Yes.

Noor: So one thing

Michelle: that I thought was unique and remarkable about Orchid was I learned a lot about my own genes because the fidelity of information was so high.

One of the reasons out of many of why we decided to do orchid is that my grandfather had pretty severe, um, dementia. And one of the things orchid tests for is Alzheimer's or susceptibility to Alzheimer's based on your genes and. I only connected the dots afterwards, but um, I was reading a book called Outlive by Peter Atia, um, and one of the chapters is on Alzheimer's where they talk about, um, the different alleles that you might have of the apo E gene.

Um, for someone who is unlikely to get dementia, you have like two copies of the E two gene, for example. And when I was reading that, I was like, oh, I wonder what genes I have. Like I probably have the other genes like, let me go look back at our orchid report and that will tell me a little bit more about my own genes.

Um, and so that was like really cool to see and unique that I got that information and we can. Um, be more informed going in on like, how can we reduce that, that outcome for our, our child?

Noor: Is there a difference, uh, between how you and your husband reacted to the data? Is one of you guys way more data oriented and the other one's like, Hey, let's make it, let's keep it random, or are you guys really similar in how you, uh, approached it?

Michelle: I would say, um. Yes, we're both pretty much in sync on that front. I think we both are big beliefs, believers in science, um, and investing in, um, information and being equipped with, with that piece. So, um, I think for us we were both really excited to see that, hey, with science we've come a long way. In the year 2000, it cost, I think something like a hundred million dollars to sequence the human genome, which is crazy.

And now it's like. Only several thousand and hopefully in, you know, a short few years, maybe it's even a few hundred or 10 tens of dollars, so that it's accessible to, you know, as many people as possible to have had healthy children and healthy lives.

Noor: What are other people that you think, uh, would, would like using Orchid, or who would you recommend it for?

Michelle: I would recommend Orchid for, um, almost anyone who's excited to, to do it. Quite frankly, I think the, the process is always overwhelming and having with you, um, in some ways actually helped me feel less overwhelmed because I. I felt like I knew more things by the end of it, I, I'd recommend one kid to, to almost anyone who's excited to, to learn more about the future child and, um, you know, just like you would invest in the best schooling possible, um, how you'd invest in kind of the best food and healthy choices possible.

I, I think this is like one of the things where I'd be really excited, where like everyone is able to, to provide this for, for their child.

Noor: Look, looking into the, into the future, now that you have. Your embryos banked in your reports. How are, how are you feeling? I mean, you went to the book club, there's some excitement, there was a little bit of, um, anticipation.

What are you, how does it feel on the other side of it?

Michelle: I'm feeling pretty relieved now that I'm done with the, the process. It's, um, not a walk in the park at all, especially for the women. Um, the hormones, the old injections. Um, it, it definitely messes with you, um, for, for those two weeks, um, and this recovery period as well.

So it's not a total walk in the park, but once you're done, I feel like I have a peace of mind. And with Orchid, I feel like I've done the most responsible thing I could have done. Um, with the tools and the technology that we have today, I.

Noor: Now, um, as you're thinking about kids, like do you have mentors who are older than you, who are equally busy, who actually have kids?

I mean, how do you think, um, yeah, I mean, how do you think we navigate that?

Michelle: I feel very lucky to be surrounded by people on my team that have kids and are also superstars at Walk. I am so impressed by how they show up at Walk. They bring their all to walk and. That's really helped me like gain the confidence of like, Hey, you can, um, you can do both.

I think, um, at times they might not always feel that way, but it, they're doing an amazing job.

Noor: That's awesome. Well, I guess like, switching gears a little bit from, uh, egg freezing and embryo freezing. Um, you know, you have this like really cool, uh, investing background that, that you had before, um, starting nro.

So do you wanna talk a little bit about, um, investing and what you think makes a great investor versus a mediocre investor?

Michelle: Good question. Um, I guess my armchair philosophy about investing, I'd say number one is being really curious. So much of investing is knowing to ask the right questions. Um, I think the other one is at the early stage you have so little data, and even if you have a little bit of data, it's more of an op than a science, uh, of figuring out does this idea have legs?

Is the traction actually real? Um, and so I think the second thing is people who can, um, look, take information, synthesize it in a way that can be both qua qualitative and not just quantitative at the early stages. And I think the third piece is, um, people, I think so much of Ali stage investing is access, um, to the right people.

Um, knowing how to assess what, uh. A talented founder might look like. Um, so I would say those are the three things that I would, I would look for.

Noor: So for someone who is really excited to start investing, um, you know, as an angel, what would be your advice to them so that they don't squander a bunch of money in like, really bad investments and feel bad about it?

Like what's the, what's the right way to approach it? Like, is it, is it actually to jump in or is it to maybe spend a couple of years doing something, you know, preparatory? What would, what would you, what would you advise? Yeah.

Michelle: A good heuristic is would I want to work for this person? Like, would I spend the next five years working with this person?

I think once you have that lens, you become a little bit more careful about where you place your bets. Um, I think the other thing that people don't realize is when you angel invest, like yes, you're not working, you know, every week for this team, but it takes up your time too. And you wanna be investing in people that you wanna chat with and text with and call with.

And, um, just realizing that, hey, like you wanna be. Building your portfolio of investments like you would, um, like how you would spend your time? Um, I think that, I think those are the two ways to, to think about it. Like, would you walk with this person and would you wanna be spending a lot of time with this person, even if it's a fraction of your walking day or, or hours, um, it, it still takes up some of your time.

Noor: Yeah. When you think about some of the best deals that you did, um, was it like immediately obvious that this was gonna be an amazing deal or was it like. Super random, and you're like, oh, I actually thought that was gonna be only okay. But it ended up being amazing.

Michelle: Yeah. Um, one of my first angel investments was in a company called Streamlet.

Mm-hmm. And I met the founder over a, a dinner that I, I had hosted in the AI space. I think this was in like 2017. And. When he was starting a company, he actually thought to ping me. Um, 'cause I had been investing full time and wanted to get my thoughts and I was super excited about him and what they were building.

I think I really loved, um, the community aspect of what they were doing and I remember trying to, um, install his package, you know, type in pip install into the command line and the package didn't even install. And I'm so glad that, um, at the time, like that didn't stop me from wanting to make the investment.

Um, I think. Things are always messier, um, at the early stages. And, um, just because something was buggy like, doesn't mean you shouldn't invest. Um, I think that's, um, there's obviously times where you're like, okay, the product isn't real. I shouldn't invest, but, but I think making sure that you don't discount like one or two data points just because.

That's all the time you had to collect those data points, like making sure you weight the right data points.

Noor: Yeah. When you think back to some of the misses where like this amazing company came across your desk and then you decided not to invest, what do you think happened there? I.

Michelle: On the angel side, you're going to miss a lot of things.

So I, mm-hmm. I think, um, that's to be expected. Um, if you are investing full-time, those misses matter a lot more, uh, because that's one job, and, and missing can be very expensive. Um, but for angel investing, um, unless you're doing it full-time, um, you're going to miss a lot of things. And I think just knowing that that's okay.

Um, if, if it's not your full-time job.

Noor: So for people who want to start investing, like as an angel, is it very, really different advice than people who wanna start investing as a career? Or do you think it's actually pretty similar?

Michelle: Totally different. I think if you are looking into going into it career wise, finding someone who can be your mentor, I think one of the cool things about the venture model is that it is like an apprenticeship model and you can really find that person who can.

Teach you the tricks of the trade. Um, and tricks is maybe like a, a too strong word, but it is like a muscle that you build. Um, and just being able to be coached by someone who one is excited to invest in you and two, has a strong track record. So I'm really grateful to have like, worked with, um, Mike Volpe back in the day.

Um, so he was the person that I really learned from. If you are angel investing for the first time on your own and, and not going through a fund, um, you obviously don't have the luxury of of, of doing that. I would probably think about what your strengths are and kind of what you can bring to the table, let's say.

Um, I work with a lot of finance leaders because, um, we sell to finance leaders at, and they have. An amazing depth of knowledge in like what tools are actually useful, um, and what's not useful and their willingness to pay for like different products. And so what is actually valuable in that space. So I would, if I was a finance leader, I'd start with the types of tools that, you know well, um, and go from there and you can be like your own, um, mentor or, um, yeah, in, in that case.

Noor: Yeah. And then how useful do you feel like your, uh, investor background is for the company building? Because I feel like some people are like. They really wanna start a company, but they're like, the idea of like raising money is like so scary. So they're like, okay, maybe I should either Angel Invest or become an investor for a little while.

Do you think that's a good path or do you think that that's sort of just ended up being, uh, the way it worked out for you?

Michelle: I think it's useful to both see the investing side of the table and also being at a high growth startup. Um, I think both are like quite valuable and you don't need to have both. I was lucky enough to have been both at Index Benches and ad table and um, I bring a lot of both, um, to my every day on the investing side.

I think one is just knowing what metrics to look at, and I think I save a lot of time by like having that experience. I think a lot of the anxiety around fundraising or a lot of like the wheels you might be spinning by talking to too many investors or like looking at like too much. Data, I think you save a lot of time by, um, having done, um, investing.

That said, there are a lot of good blogs. Um, a lot, a lot of good writing on this. That should save you time. And honestly, if you get the right angel on your cap table, they can teach you a lot of that without you having to like gone through that pro process. Um, on the operational side, I think that is a little bit harder to learn through os osmosis, I think.

Um. That is something that I would encourage anyone starting a company to like have worked for, um, especially in B2B SaaS. I, I think like consumer might be different, but in B2B SaaS, I think it's really useful to learn about, okay, this is like what hiring a sales team might look like, and this is how marketing works with sales and, um, this is how you should build an engineering org and how product fits into that.

So those are things that I think. It's hard to learn if you're not in the thick of it and like seeing how the company does and build your own opinion on what you would do differently and what you would borrow.

Noor: Yeah. Can you talk about the anatomy of a successful fundraiser? What do you feel like is like the anatomy of, Hey, our fundraise is going well, or how do you, how do you think other founders or other people starting companies can set up their C or their A for success?

Yeah.

Michelle: I think number one is being really clear about your why now. Like why do you exist now and why is now a good time to build the product and the business you're building in the market. I think, um, a lot follows from that. Um, I think a second ingredient of a successful fundraise is just being really transparent of like who you are and, um, you know, you, you're trying to find someone you vibe with, right?

And I. Spending, um, select pockets of time, um, with the investors you're excited to work with, um, will make your life a lot easier in the long term, right? You're going to be emailing them a lot. They'll be requesting things, uh, from you a lot, um, and just making sure that hey, when tough times hit, um, they have your back and you have a strong relationship that.

Noor: Amazing. Thanks much for your time, Michelle. It's amazing to have you and so cool to hear about everything from, uh, investing to your fertility journey to banking. It was amazing. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks.

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