With minimal funding, Gloria Kolb and her husband Eric Kolb have created a device to treat urinary incontinence that has received a coveted clearance from the FDA. Elidah, their startup, expects to exceed $3 million in DTC sales this year. I really enjoyed this story of a couple bootstrapping a promising business together.
Highlights:
Sal Daher, CFA Introduces Gloria Kolb, Co-Founder of Elidah
Elidah Is Solving Urinary Incontinence in Women – Device Induces Kegel Exercises
Just Got FDA Clearance for Overactive Bladder
“She only needs to wear it for 20 minutes a day, and then it turns off automatically.”
Differentiation from Other Devices: FDA Cleared for Incontinence
Randomized Control Trial Result: 75% of Women Experienced Statistically Significant Improvement
“It drives me crazy that women do wait so long and they don't tell anyone and they just deal with it for a long, long time. I think part of it is they don't think that there's any other good options for them.”
Seeking FDA Clearance for Over-the-counter Sales, Like Gelesis
Medicare Covers the Device
About 8,000 Customers Have Purchased ELITONE, Elidah’s Device
“You have shocked me. I'm not easily shocked. That airline magazines will not talk about urinary incontinence.”
“It's not quite the razor blade model. It is definitely about the treatment kit, which cost the $400.”
Have Built Sales of $3 MM with Just $750K in Angel Funding Plus $1.8 MM in Grants
“A third of women have the issues, over the age of 30, but then you go to over the age of 50 and it's 1 out of 2.”
“It's actually the number one issue of why people entered nursing homes. “
“To women out there, I just encourage them to get treated early.”
How You Can Help Podcasts Like Gloria’s Be Found
Gloria Kolb Studied Engineering at MIT & Stanford, Worked at Johnson & Johnson then Got Her MBA at Babson
Wife-and-Husband Founding Team
“...over the counter doesn't mean it's less of a product. It is a medical device, regulated product that went through all the hoops.”
ANGEL INVEST BOSTON IS SPONSORED BY:
Transcript of, “Elidah”
Guest: Gloria Kolb
Sal Daher: I'm really proud to say that the Angel Invest Boston podcast is sponsored by Purdue University Entrepreneurship and Peter Fasse, patent attorney at Fish & Richardson.
Purdue is exceptional in its support of its faculty, faculty for its top five engineering school, in helping them get their technology from the lab out to the market, out to industry, out to the clinic.
Peter Fasse is also a great support to entrepreneurs. He is a patent attorney specializing in microfluidics and has been tremendously helpful to some of the startups in which I'm involved, including a startup that came out of Purdue, Savran Technologies. I'm proud to have these two sponsors for my podcast.
Sal Daher, CFA Introduces Gloria Kolb, Co-Founder of Elidah
Welcome to Angel Invest Boston, conversations with Boston's most interesting founders and angels. Today, we're very lucky to have with us a really dynamic founder whose startup I wish I had invested and I didn't. Welcome, Gloria Kolb.
Gloria Kolb: Thank you, Sal. It's great to be here.
Sal Daher: Gloria is the founder of Elidah. I'll let Gloria tell us what problem Elidah is solving.
Elidah Is Solving Urinary Incontinence in Women – Device Induces Kegel Exercises
Gloria Kolb: Elidah is solving the problem of bladder leaks for women. It is a very large problem and not a lot of good solutions. We're excited to help women all over the country.
Sal Daher: Wonderful. How is it that you're solving this problem? Is it a mechanical device? Is it telehealth? What is it?
Gloria Kolb: We have a device called ELITONE. It is a wearable device that women wear on her pubic perineal area. Essentially what it does is it stimulates the pelvic floor muscles to contract and relax, tones the pelvic floor muscles for her. Essentially, it is doing those Kegel exercises that can be so hard to do correctly, and then it does it longer and stronger than she does herself. The device is called ELITONE. Then we are excited to announce that just recently we got FDA clearance on our second device which calms overactive bladders.
Sal Daher: Okay. How does the second device calm overactive bladders?
Just Got FDA Clearance for Overactive Bladder
Gloria Kolb: It's used very similarly, but it sends out a calming signal. Instead of muscle contraction, it works through the nerves to just calm the nerves that are attacking the bladder and making the bladder contract. For this problem, women just feel like they have to rush to the bathroom all the time. They feel like they need to be near the bathroom.
Sal Daher: Right, for the problem the overactive bladder.
Gloria Kolb: Yes.
Sal Daher: The first problem is the lack of control and that's where the Kegel exercise is.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. The pelvic floor muscles are weak and they just cannot hold the urethral sphincter closed when there's pressure placed on the bladder. If she sneezes, if she jumps, if she exercises, that urethral sphincter is too weak. We're strengthening the muscles, toning that underlying muscle system.
Sal Daher: Okay. Now, the first device for toning the pelvic floor, is that a device that's worn for 10 minutes a day, or is it something that's worn for a longer period of time?
“She only needs to wear it for 20 minutes a day, and then it turns off automatically.”
Gloria Kolb: She only needs to wear it for 20 minutes a day, and then it turns off automatically.
Sal Daher: Excellent.
Gloria Kolb: The nice thing about this is it really doesn't take up her time because she can put it on, get dressed, walk around the house, do whatever she needs to do. Some women talk about they walk the dog, or they put on their makeup during this time. I'll contrast that with the vaginal devices, and there are a number of vaginal devices, where then they have to lock their selves in the bedroom, be flat on their back to use those type of devices.
Sal Daher: Which is much more involved?
Gloria Kolb: Yes.
Sal Daher: Now, what kind of validation do you have for the success of your device?
Differentiation from Other Devices: FDA Cleared for Incontinence
Gloria Kolb: We have FDA clearance from the FDA on incontinence. I mention that specifically because a lot of these vaginal devices, they just give biofeedback if you're squeezing or not, but they don't have FDA clearance on incontinence. They have FDA clearance, if at all, on wellness, general health, so this FDA clearance on incontinence itself is actually the holy grail because it is such a large market.
Sal Daher: If you don't mind, could we discuss a little bit the approval process? What kind of information you provided to the FDA in order for them to clear the device.
Gloria Kolb: We had to do a number of studies, clinical studies, as well as benchtop electrical and physical studies to make sure that the device is safe. The studies first just started off small, a small test just to see, "Hey, is it eliciting contractions at all?" For a variety of women. Then the second one was single-arm, "How's the efficacy over a six-week period?"
Sal Daher: In the interest of people who are software people and aren't familiar with clinical studies. Single-arm means basically you're just taking one population that is using the device. There is not a control population that is not using the device at the same time so that you can compare them with.
Gloria Kolb: Correct. Yes.
Sal Daher: There's no placebo or anything like that. It's just the interventional arm is what they would call, that's the people who are using the device. However, there's a lot of data on whether or not people recover from incontinence on their own and how persistent it is. That single-arm study does provide quite a bit of information already. Please continue.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. Another study that we did was the randomized controlled trial where we took a bigger population. Half of them got a fake device. It was active. They would use it the same way, but it's not giving the stimulation that would contract the muscles.
Sal Daher: Okay.
Gloria Kolb: Then you compare those results.
Sal Daher: This is a much more high-powered study.
Gloria Kolb: Correct.
Sal Daher: Randomized controlled trial. This is a gold standard. What were the results that you got from your randomized controlled trials?
Randomized Control Trial Result: 75% of Women Experienced Statistically Significant Improvement
Gloria Kolb: On both studies, I should say our single-arm study and the results of the randomized controlled trial, 95% of women improved, 75% was statistically significant improvement.
Sal Daher: Wow.
Gloria Kolb: The interesting thing I think is that the improvement was in a short six-week period. I say that's interesting because these women wait so long. On average, they were incontinent for 11 years before they joined our study.
Sal Daher: Oh, it is such a tough-- Oh.
“It drives me crazy that women do wait so long and they don't tell anyone and they just deal with it for a long, long time. I think part of it is they don't think that there's any other good options for them.”
Gloria Kolb: It drives me crazy that women do wait so long and they don't tell anyone and they just deal with it for a long, long time. I think part of it is they don't think that there's any other good options for them.
Sal Daher: Wow, this is really-- 70% were statistically significant. What that means is that 90% to 95% got better, but you know for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, very, very unlikely that it's just random results. This thing is really having an effect. You have serious science behind this device. Excellent. When did you receive FDA clearance?
Gloria Kolb: For the first device, we did receive FDA clearance in 2019. Of course, you can't even start manufacturing until after that clearance. It was late 2019 before we launched. Of course, that was right before COVID. What we did do was, since all the doctors' offices were shut down, and all the conferences, we launched over the counter, so we're selling direct to consumer. We are very thankful that we did get that over-the-counter indication, which required more clinical studies to make sure that the device is super easy to use. Easy to use and safe at home and that women can do it without the help of a clinician. It actually is more rigorous to get over-the-counter indication.
Seeking FDA Clearance for Over-the-counter Sales, Like Gelesis
Sal Daher: Ah, okay. Yes. I know that because I'm an early investor in Gelesis, Inc, which is a device for controlling weight. I used it in the diet that I went through, to get me on the diet. It's called a device because it's a capsule that contains fibers that expand in the presence of water and give you a feeling of fullness. It acts mechanically in the gut, does not act chemically, it’s inert chemically. It just triggers satiety by pressure on the gut. They have very, very good safety profile, the product's been out in the market, and now they've applied to the FDA for over-the-counter status so that they can sell this as an over-the-counter treatment for obesity.
It is modestly effective, but I tell you, it's a big win. When you're really, really dying to-- I don't know if you've ever had a weight problem, but there's times when you really want to eat something, taking some of these pills, it really helps.
Gloria Kolb: It is so important to have over-the-counter indication, because that just makes it more accessible to a larger population. There is quite a lot of population that won't go to the doctor. Actually, two-thirds of women won't talk to their doctor about incontinence. You want to meet them where they are. They are often searching for solutions by themselves at night, and you want to provide something for them that makes it easy for them.
Sal Daher: Wow. Do you want to talk about the economics? How much does it cost? How much are you selling?
Gloria Kolb: Yes. We sell the device for $400. I should say it's a kit. It's the whole six to eight-week treatment, initial treatment. We did a bunch of surveys and women said that they would pay out of pocket if it was less than $500. That seemed to be some psychological limit.
Sal Daher: Right.
Medicare Covers the Device
Gloria Kolb: Above that, they would expect insurance to cover it. Actually, we do have insurance. We have Medicare coverage.
Sal Daher: Oh, wow.
Gloria Kolb: Medicare coverage actually pays higher than what we sell it for.
Sal Daher: Wow.
Gloria Kolb: Yes, it's true. I do think it's interesting this mentality of paying for the health care themselves, because a lot of people think, "I shouldn't have to pay for my health care at all if I have insurance." Yet there was a study done by NIH that showed that women on average were paying $750 just for the maintenance of incontinence.
Sal Daher: Wow. Okay.
Gloria Kolb: For pads and extra lingerie. Yet, if they're just paying for that weekly or monthly, they don't think it's really an expense.
Sal Daher: It's not an obvious expense, but it is-
Gloria Kolb: Correct.
Sal Daher: -a real expense. Paying for the treatment makes it explicit.
Gloria Kolb: Correct.
About 8,000 Customers Have Purchased the ELITONE, Elidah’s Device
Sal Daher: That is fascinating. How many customers have purchased Elidah?
Gloria Kolb: I would say close to 8,000.
Sal Daher: Wow.
Gloria Kolb: My background is as an engineer. As soon as we launched, we shifted all our gears into marketing. That is a learning curve. I do think this is where healthcare is going, but medical device towards direct to consumer is still kind of new. Pharma has been doing this for a while. It's fairly new for medtech to go direct to consumer. This was a bit of a learning curve. In marketing, we would get stopped by wherever we're trying to place our ads to say, "Hey, we don't really want to advertise incontinence. We don't want to talk-- Do advertise for women's health." We actually just got shut down by a major airline that didn't want our product in their magazine because it has that stigma.
Sal Daher: How did you get around that?
Gloria Kolb: Well, we just have to be very careful. We talk about maybe the side effects. We have to be careful with the pictures that we show on some of these platforms.
Sal Daher: This is 2023 and we still have this kind of--
Gloria Kolb: Yes.
Sal Daher: This is absurd. This is a real problem. It's not a moral defect. This is a physical problem that people have.
Gloria Kolb: Yes, [crosstalk].
“You have shocked me. I'm not easily shocked. That airline magazines will not talk about urinary incontinence.”
Sal Daher: We have to be more open about it. It's insane. You have shocked me. I'm not easily shocked. That airline magazines will not talk about urinary incontinence.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. We've struggled with platforms saying that we can't remarket, even though all companies remarket. What that means is if people come to your website, then you give them an ad somewhere else. Well, platforms are saying, "Hey, it's a medical condition. We don't want to advertise that they may have a medical condition and point that out, so we're not going to let you do stuff like that."
Sal Daher: Under the guise of safety. Okay.
Gloria Kolb: Yes.
Sal Daher: Oh, gosh. That is so-- I don't even know how to describe it.
Gloria Kolb: In any case, it has been a learning curve of what we can do, what we can't do, how to best talk about our device too. In reality, it is sending out electrical stimulation. Well, those words scare people, so we have to be careful not to say that. Even though that is how your brain talks to any of your muscles, it sends electrical current to tell your arm to contract.
Sal Daher: I would say low voltage from a battery. People don't expect to get electrocuted by a battery, although it can happen.
Gloria Kolb: We just have to be careful with the words that we use too.
Sal Daher: Right. That is fascinating. For me, it's crushing me because I just wish I'd written you a check early, early on. It's one of my regrets. I stupidly didn't follow up on LovePop. Every time I go by a LovePop store it bothers me that I didn't write you a check initially. Anyway, you have FDA clearance, you are getting FDA clearance for your new device. Tell me about what the new device does.
Gloria Kolb: We already have FDA clearance for the new device. We call it ELITONE URGE. It looks and feels exactly the same. Let me actually explain it to your audience, because there is a gel pad that is very, very thin, but it has four conductive areas to send the current through the muscles. That is a disposable. They can re-wear it a few times and then dispose of it. Then there is a controller that is battery operated, about the size of a matchbox. Very, very tiny, which is nice because it's discreet. When she puts this on, then she could put on her clothes, and then just tuck that inside and nobody needs to see it. No one needs to know that she's actually getting a treatment.
The ELITONE URGE looks exactly the same. It just sends out a different frequency to calm that overactive bladder.
Sal Daher: Okay. The initial one is incontinence. The second problem that you're addressing with the new device is a problem of overactive bladder, that is the nerves give the wrong signal, and the bladder has capacity, but the person feels an urgent need to relieve herself because of miscoordination of the nerves. Go into that a little bit.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. Actually, both are for incontinence. There's just two main types of incontinence. One is called stress incontinence, which is the muscle weakness of the pelvic floor. The other one, the overactive bladder is called urge incontinence.
Sal Daher: Urge incontinence.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. That just contraction of the bladder itself that she feels like she needs to rush. That affects women more so as they get older and elderly, and it affects men as well. Whereas the stress incontinence often happens due to trauma of childbirth.
Sal Daher: Very good. Very good. The price point is the same?
Gloria Kolb: Yes.
Sal Daher: It's additional to if someone had the first problem and they want to address the second problem, it's paying an additional amount.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. Actually, the first device called ELITONE sends out both signals for stress and urge. There is a group of women that have a little bit of both. It does help both. It's just that it doesn't send out as much urge signals. It sends out mostly for stress incontinence.
Sal Daher: It's optimized around stress incontinence?
Gloria Kolb: Correct.
Sal Daher: The second device is optimized around urge. Now, what is the economic model for you? Are you hoping to make money from selling the device and the pads? How does that work?
“: It's not quite the razor blade model. It is definitely about the treatment kit, which cost the $400.”
Gloria Kolb: It's not quite the razor blade model. It is definitely about the treatment kit, which cost the $400. Then there is some recurring revenue of the disposables, but when the device does its job, she really won't need those gel pads for recurring.
Sal Daher: 75% of the time you're not going to have recurring revenue. [laughs]
Gloria Kolb: Oh, I wouldn't quite say it like that. It actually depends quite a lot on how long she's been incontinent and how her muscle react and how young she is. Some of the younger women postpartum, a year later, they're fine and they're good. They say, "I don't really need the device anymore." Sometimes it can actually teach them how to do those Kegel exercises. Then they know how to do them correctly. Whereas a lot of the older women, they've waited so long and they don't want to lose what they've gained. They said, "Hey, I'm just going to do this on a regular basis." A couple of times a month or--
Sal Daher: Oh, okay. The different segments of the market.
Gloria Kolb: Yes.
Sal Daher: Some are conducive to recurring income, and some are just one time use. Very interesting.
Gloria Kolb: I think it's interesting to talk a little bit about what the alternatives are. For the stress incontinence, you either do Kegels on your own, but as I mentioned, a quarter of women can't do them correctly, the rest can't do it sufficiently. Then there's a big gap between that and, on the severe side, pelvic mesh surgery, which has 100,000 lawsuits. On the urge incontinence side, they also often start with Kegel exercises, but the second line treatment is medication.
Well, medication has a lot of side effects. This anticholinergic medication can cause dementia within months, so most people are not on them for longer than four months. Then they have implants. Both stress incontinence and urge incontinence have implants. The options are not great for early conservative treatments.
Sal Daher: Interesting. When I last saw you, you were pitching at MIT Angels. What's been your funding history since then? Did you get money from MIT Angels?
Gloria Kolb: I think I got money from one MIT Angel. I count that as a success.
Sal Daher: Yes.
Gloria Kolb: To go back, we were funded, and we're so thankful that we had federal funding. We got SBIR National Science Foundation grants. Once you have one grant, actually, it does build on itself and it's easier to get that second and third grant. Then we were able to get Phase 2 grants. We are able to get a little bit of NIH money, and we were able to get another SBIR Phase 1 grant from the Department of Defense. You may ask, why would Department of Defense be interested in this?
Sal Daher: Yes, I do. [laughs]
Gloria Kolb: They were very interested in the male device.
Sal Daher: Ah, there's a male device.
Gloria Kolb: Yes.
Sal Daher: Oh yes, I can imagine pilots.
[laughter]
Gloria Kolb: I'm not even thinking of that. They were really thinking about the trauma and injury for their servicemen on their back. They were actually looking for help for these spinal cord injury patients. Really, incontinence is a problem for men too. It's the number one issue after prostatectomy.
Sal Daher: Prostatectomy is a surgery to remove something in the prostate or the entire prostate.
Gloria Kolb: Correct.
Sal Daher: Which is a gland that surrounds the duct through which urine flows in a male.
Gloria Kolb: In any case, we did design the male device, which is really just that disposable electrode portion, the controller can be the same, but we shelved it because we are focused on the women. It's a bigger market and we just don't have enough resources. Interestingly, and I'm digressing for [laughs] funding. Interestingly, the NIH came back to us late last year, and they're like, "Do you have a male device?"
Sal Daher: Oh, wow.
Gloria Kolb: We said, "Well, actually we do, but we just need a clinical study and we just don't have the time to do the clinical study." They hopped in, and they said, "We'll do it. We'll do it for you." We don't have to pay for it. We just need to supply the electrodes for the gel pads.
Sal Daher: Wow. This is bigger than I thought. I missed out on more than I thought, oh my goodness. [laughs]
Have Built Sales of $3 MM with Just $750K in Angel Funding Plus $1.8 MM in Grants
Gloria Kolb: The nice thing is, one of the reasons why we've been able to be so lean is because we've been able to do things like that. I will go back to say that back in 2018, we raised a small SAFE agreement round of angel investors. Then last year, we raised another small angel round. To date, we've only raised $750,000 of angel or of equity funding, which is really pretty staggering when you think of everything we've accomplished, all the clinical studies, two FDA approvals, CE marks, nine patents, and we are probably going to hit $3 to $4 million of revenue this year.
Sal Daher: Oh, crying. Oh.
[laughter]
This is incredible. Little dilution, $3 million of revenue. Oh my goodness.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. People ask, "Well, how can you do all that on such little funding?" Sal Daher: Such little dilutive funding. How much did you have of non-dilutive funding?
Gloria Kolb: $1.8 million.
Sal Daher: That's still very modest. You've done a lot. My instincts about you being a super-duper founder were [chuckles] correct.
Gloria Kolb: Thank you.
Sal Daher: My organization was lacking.
Gloria Kolb: A lot of the things we did, I would not say we cut corners at all, because our training is from Johnson & Johnson. We knew how to do medical devices. It has a lot to do with our experience. For example, our clinical studies, we sent our devices out to women at their homes. We didn't use an academic institution to do our clinical study, and that saved a lot of money. Little things like that.
Sal Daher: This is so fascinating. Gloria, I was a fan of yours before, I'm an even bigger fan. [laughs] This is-
Gloria Kolb: Thank you.
Sal Daher: -phenomenal. Gosh. This is so important. I've invested in a startup that is helping detect ovarian cancer early on. That's going to save lives, but your startup could really save a lot of misery for a lot of women. It's so beautiful what you're doing.
Gloria Kolb: Oh, thank you.
Sal Daher: Anyway I can help?
Gloria Kolb: We are so excited. The things that get us going the most are we get reviews and testimonials back and just emails that talk about their transformation. It really is a life-transforming condition and solution when we hear women were not leaving their house-
Sal Daher: Oh.
Gloria Kolb: -because they had to be so close to the bathroom. Now they're going out. We've had women say that they didn't date. Now they're going out. They're dating. They're enjoying their lives.
Sal Daher: Wonderful.
Gloria Kolb: They're being active. Incontinence, most people don't realize, is it does affect quality of life in terms of even when they're young. I stopped running around with my boys when I realized I had an issue. I stopped playing with them. It's so important to be healthy and active.
Sal Daher: Oh, when you have young children, it is just the most difficult time. What is the percentage of women who have the problem?
“A third of women have the issues, over the age of 30, but then you go to over the age of 50 and it's 1 out of 2.”
Gloria Kolb: A third of women have the issues, over the age of 30, but then you go to over the age of 50 and it's 1 out of 2.
Sal Daher: One out of two. Wow.
Gloria Kolb: More than 50%.
Sal Daher: This is an enormous market.
Gloria Kolb: It's staggering. I think that is partly why we got funded, is because the government knows how much is being spent.
Sal Daher: Oh, yes.
“It's actually the number one issue of why people entered nursing homes. “
Gloria Kolb: It's actually the number one issue of why people entered nursing homes.
Sal Daher: I didn't know that. It's the number one issue that people entering nursing homes is because they're incontinent.
Gloria Kolb: Yes.
Sal Daher: Wow. Because there's such a loss of feeling of independence, of autonomy, when someone goes into a nursing home. If that can be delayed a year or two or three, that's a lot of living that can happen in a time like that. I had no idea that something so mundane--
Gloria Kolb: [chuckles]
Sal Daher: It's a terrible thing, but it's something that has a solution is getting people to nursing homes. Oh, wow.
Gloria Kolb: One of my big drivers is I really want women to be aware that it's a common issue, but not just be aware of it. Actually, get treated early because if you can get treated early, then you can reverse a lot of the symptoms and the outcomes. If you wait too long, it just gets so much harder to-
Sal Daher: Wow.
Gloria Kolb: -be pad-free and continent.
Sal Daher: How can you reach these women to make them aware of this fact that if they reach early, they can do something about it, and it's very low burden? It's not a painful, difficult thing.
Gloria Kolb: It's a lot of education. We do need to spend our marketing dollars, but that's where even our competitors, we're all working together to raise the education awareness. Then we do have to educate the doctors as well. One of the doctor groups that we're reaching out towards is the gynecologists because they see women early, but often gynecologists don't think incontinence is their problem. They refer them out towards urogyns or the urologist, but that often means referring them directly to surgery without a more conservative treatment.
Sal Daher: The perverse incentives there.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. We're trying to educate the gynecologists to have conservative treatment options that they can recommend directly from their office and not lose that patient out to a specialist.
Sal Daher: It's tremendous. I can't believe it. $1.8 million non-dilutive, $700,000 dilutive, $2.5 million of funding, and you've done all this. You've gotten several studies done. This is unbelievable. Hats off to you.
Gloria Kolb: Thank you. It was not all easy though. It took us about three times of going back and forth with the FDA, because there was no predicate, and so we did have to go through this whole de novo pathway, which was more difficult.
Sal Daher: Predicate means there was no precedent, they didn't have standards that they could have recourse to to figure out how to analyze this problem. You had to reinvent the whole thing. This is really impressive. Gloria, at this point I'd like to do a little promo for the podcast and then go into your founding journey, your entrepreneur's journey. Is there anything else that you wanted to say about this remarkable company that you've created that you want to communicate to this audience of angel investors and founders and people who are interested in startups?
“To women out there, I just encourage them to get treated early.”
Gloria Kolb: To women out there, I just encourage them to get treated early. You may not think it's a big issue, pads are easy, but I just encourage them to get treated. Then to investors, I would just encourage them to invest in women's health and invest in even some of these simple things that don't look as sexy as a cardiac treatment or spinal cord injury or whatever, but it is so important and it does affect a lot of people out there, so the market is large.
Sal Daher: Oh, and this is not just women.
Gloria Kolb: True. [laughs]
Sal Daher: In your pipeline, you're going to have men as well. The whole population. I've got news for you. Guys, this is a problem that's coming your way, all right?
Gloria Kolb: [laughs]
How You Can Help Podcasts Like Gloria’s Be Found
Sal Daher: Sooner or later we're all there. Anyway, let's do this. Let me just invite listeners who are enjoying this really fascinating conversation with a remarkable founder to follow the podcast in whatever app you're using to listen to the podcast so that conversations like this will pop up in your stream every week. Another way you can help someone like Gloria, this is a kind of humanitarian we need more of, she really is helping humanity by what she's doing, give her an upvote by giving a rating and a written review of this podcast with Gloria Kolb.
What that will do is, we're all dancing to the tune of the algorithm, the algorithm will show this episode to many, many more people than would normally hear it, than just the people who are subscribed. A lot more people would get the message. In this particular case, imagine some young woman who's given birth and is having a problem with incontinence and doesn't know that there is a very low-burden solution out there that she can try. You are doing a service of humanity by promoting what Elidah is doing. Rating, review, please. I'm very grateful that you listen.
Let me tell you, the audience we have, Gloria, is amazing. Every time I talk to a listener, I'm like, "Oh God, someone like that is listening to me. I can't fool around and say stupid things because I'm just wasting their time." It is a very impressive audience. Anyway, you mentioned J&J. Sean Eldridge is another tremendous founder of Gain Life. He's also a J&J graduate. Anyway. Tell me how you went from being a star at J&J to this incredibly scary thing of starting a company.
Gloria Kolb Studied Engineering at MIT & Stanford, Worked at Johnson & Johnson then Got Her MBA at Babson
Gloria Kolb: I loved working at Johnson & Johnson, but I saw an opportunity at the end of that where a friend of mine whose husband was a urologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital saw that the ureter, which is the tube that connects the kidney to the bladder, dilates, so he wanted to create a line of ureteral stents to open up this passageway so that kidney stones could fall out. I thought I was going to be the engineer of this new startup. Gosh, this is more than 20 years ago. He said, "I wanted you to run it," so I went to Babson to get my MBA in entrepreneurship and start-
Sal Daher: Oh, Babson.
Gloria Kolb: -this company at the same time. That is actually where I first saw the big need of incontinence and the big issues. That first company ran for a while and then we sold the assets off. Then it wasn't until I had kids of my own. I had a nine-and-a-half-pound baby girl, and then 13 pounds of twins.
Sal Daher: Oh, wonderful.
Gloria Kolb: [laughs] That's roughly 22 pounds in two pregnancies.
Sal Daher: Wonderful blessing, but with complications.
[laughter]
Gloria Kolb: No one tells you before you give birth that this incontinence may be an issue, or these bladder leaks. I was surprised by it. I was looking for solutions for myself and I was really horrified at everything I saw that was on the market. Everything that I saw was vaginal. Not only did the vaginal devices require your time, flat on your back and your privacy, which, by the way, no mom has an extra-
Sal Daher: What time?
Gloria Kolb: -20 minutes a day. [laughs]
Sal Daher: Impossible.
Gloria Kolb: It was also just icky. It has a high infection rate and it was just an icky feeling. I was looking for solutions. My husband, who's my co-founder and also engineer, we saw some research done out of Brazil that showed surface electrodes work just as well as vaginal devices.
Sal Daher: Brazil, interesting. Where was this done?
Gloria Kolb: This was done down in Brazil, but it did require the clinician to place these electrodes precisely. Had four patches, eight wires.
Sal Daher: I'm Brazilian by birth.
Gloria Kolb: Oh, okay.
Sal Daher: It's interesting.
Gloria Kolb: I don't know exactly where.
Sal Daher: University of São Paulo. It's probably University of São Paulo.
Gloria Kolb: Probably. From that, we knew that it would work. Then it was just a matter of putting it in a form factor that would be super simple for women to apply herself and not require a clinician. Also, be super comfortable. That is probably why surface electrodes for incontinence hasn't been done before. Is actually what we use is a very high frequency coming out of the controller to get past that skin and fat barrier, straight, deeper into the muscle, and then we modulate the waveform so that then on a macro level, the body can see the hertz necessary for the contractions or the calming of the overactive bladder.
Sal Daher: Hertz is a measure of vibration.
Wife-and-Husband Founding Team
Gloria Kolb: Right. That's basically what we did. Eric and I worked together at Johnson & Johnson and then we went our separate ways for a while. Now we're back together working in this startup Elidah. It's been a lot of fun. Like all entrepreneurs, you work late hours and you talk about this all the time. For those out there that are not entrepreneurs, I highly recommend it because, even with kids, we can plan our own hours. We can stop work at 4:00, do all the after-school activities, and then when they are in bed or they're doing their homework, then we start up again at 8:00 PM.
Sal Daher: Especially when your co-founder is your husband. I have had one other guest on the podcast, Dave Ciccarelli of Voices.com, and his co-founder is his wife, who was a singer and he was a sound engineer. They together got into this business. It's a husband-and-wife business. Would you mind getting a little bit into the husband and wife founding dynamic here?
Gloria Kolb: Yes, sure. I would say at the beginning it opened my eyes because I've never seen him in certain business situations. If anything, it gave me more an appreciation of that side of him and his skills in that area that I never knew before. Funding, it hurt us. There are so many VCs that just have that mentality.
Sal Daher: Oh, husband and wife teams, they're bolting, forget about it.
Gloria Kolb: I don't understand, because I'm like, "Well, we're able to have business meetings at 11:00 PM, so it actually makes us more effective."
Sal Daher: I can tell you from angels the conversations I have heard, husband and wife founding teams disclose it immediately and say, "We've been together for so many years. We had this company for so many years. We've worked out all our problems. We're not going to have a divorce and destroy the company." This is the fear. The fear is exactly that.
Gloria Kolb: I do think for husband and wife co-founder relationship, it does help to have separate roles. We have very distinct roles. We overlap a little bit on some engineering and some marketing. He is the CTO. He handles the operations, the regulatory, the manufacturing. I work with the clinicians, some of the fundraising and the finance. Very different roles.
Sal Daher: Tremendous. What an interview. This is a heck of an interview. Not just a successful startup, but this remarkable thing, which I think is extremely powerful when it can work. It's a little bit like having your children live with you in the same house, as I do upstairs. When it works, it is just amazing. I hope perhaps something like that works for you in the future. Anyway, would you just say your husband's name?
Gloria Kolb: Eric Kolb.
Sal Daher: Eric Kolb and Gloria Kolb. What an excellent story. He was an engineer at J&J. What was your role at J&J?
Gloria Kolb: We were both project engineers.
Sal Daher: Project engineers at J&J.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. We designed hip implants.
Sal Daher: Oh my gosh, hip implants. One of these days, I'm probably going to end up there. What's your engineering background?
Gloria Kolb: I studied mechanical engineering at MIT, and then I went to Stanford for my master's and got mechanical engineering, but focused on electrical as well.
Sal Daher: Electrical. Okay.
Gloria Kolb: Then as I mentioned previously, went to Babson for my MBA.
Sal Daher: Eric?
Gloria Kolb: He went to RPI for his-- He actually got a biomedical engineering degree, and then he went to Case Western for his master's.
Sal Daher: Wow. You've got engineering and then you've got the Babson connection. What a powerhouse of entrepreneurship. I want to write you a check. [laughs]
Gloria Kolb: It's fun because our kids, now we have a freshman in college and 14-year-old twins, but they see the engineering side and how engineering can be a lot of fun because Eric is often working on side projects and he just brings these toys home. In our basement, we have CNC machines and two different 3D printers, and lots of fun tools. Our daughter is studying to be a biomedical engineer as well. [chuckles]
Sal Daher: Biomedical engineers are so powerful. There is an earlier age in America, in the beginning of the industrial age, there were a lot of these home businesses, home industries. The enterprise was very much in the home before scale was required, massive manufacturing and so forth. Now, I guess, we're coming back where you can have this. This is so amazing. Well, Gloria, we've had this wonderful founding story, amazing entrepreneurial story. The point that you made about-- Would you say that again? That you advise people to consider entrepreneurship in the context of marriage because you have the flexibility.
At four o'clock you say you're going to stop, do the stuff with the kids, and then when the kids are put to bed or whatever, you can go back and work some more.
Gloria Kolb: Yes. I love that as an entrepreneur, you do not have to be stuck in a very rigid setting. Now, granted, I know with COVID, a lot of people's settings have been a little bit more flexible. For us, it's worked very well in that we are still able to participate in after-school activities. We don't miss that. It makes a very seamless transition of school/work-life lifestyle, really.
Sal Daher: Your kids will learn so much from seeing two extremely high-functioning adults working together at home. Gosh, they're learning.
[laughter]
Gloria Kolb: I would say that our kids probably knew way more about incontinence than any kid should need to know.
[laughter]
Sal Daher: Listen, I'm for incontinence awareness. I want to shout incontinence from the rooftops. This is not something to be ashamed of, okay? This is something, a problem that can be solved, can be addressed. Be ashamed of moral failings. Be ashamed of being a jerk. Be ashamed of being a lousy person. Don't be ashamed of having a bodily problem, please, or shame others for it. Gloria Kolb, as we wrap up our podcast, are there any thoughts that you would like to leave us with, your parting thoughts?
“...over the counter doesn't mean it's less of a product. It is a medical device, regulated product that went through all the hoops.”
Gloria Kolb: I just want to thank everyone for listening and raise the awareness of not only incontinence but of early easy treatments that are available. I want people to realize that just because we sell something over the counter doesn't mean it's less of a product. It is a medical device, regulated product that went through all the hoops.
Sal Daher: Backed by serious science.
Gloria Kolb: Backed by serious science, yes.
Sal Daher: [laughs] By a randomized controlled trial, nonetheless.
Gloria Kolb: Then I just also want to encourage investors to invest in products such as these, which may not be as sexy as some other products, and to understand that medical devices are going to be D2C, direct-to-consumer. I think part of our why we didn't get some venture capital funding is because we didn't fit the bucket of pure life science going direct to doctors, and we didn't fit a pure consumer products company. Because we straddle a couple of different buckets, that could be a little difficult, but it worked for us, and I encourage others to invest in this area.
[music]
Sal Daher: Well, Gloria Kolb, founder of Elidah. An impressive founder who's doing a tremendous amount to improve a lot of humanity. I thank you very much for being on the Angel Invest Boston podcast.
Gloria Kolb: Thank you, Sal. That was so much fun.
Sal Daher: This is Angel Invest Boston. I'm Sal Daher. Thanks for listening.
[music]
I'm glad you were able to join us. Our engineer is Raul Rosa. Our theme was composed by John McKusick. Our graphic design is by Katharine Woodman-Maynard. Our host is coached by Grace Daher.