Vanessa Jupe Podcast Transcript
Vanessa Jupe joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Vanessa Jupe. Vanessa Jupe is the CEO and founder of Leva. Leva marries a robust technology platform with human care to attract support and retain top talent as a benefit for employers.
Leva is focused on creating positive change in how women experience the transition to motherhood and the difficult first year postpartum. Vanessa marries her product management and design background with business acumen and innovative thinking to challenge the status quo effectively. Previously, Vanessa served in senior leadership roles at an insure tech startup company, H&R Block, and USAA.
Her leadership was instrumental in leveraging AI and process improvements to automate experiences and deliver substantial revenue growth.
Well, good afternoon, Vanessa. Welcome to the show!
Vanessa Jupe: Thanks for having me.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. This is so fun. And what’s really cool, Vanessa, we talked a little bit about it, but I traversed the globe doing this podcast.
But again, today I’m back in my hometown of Kansas City virtually with a great guest like yourself here in Kansas City. So, I appreciate you making the time. It’s just awesome that we get to do this. And we’ll definitely have to get together for coffee or something since I’m close. So, Vanessa, I’m going to jump right into your first question here.
Could you share the story behind the founding of Leva? What was the moment or insight that led you to focus on transforming the experience of motherhood and postpartum care through technology and human care?
Vanessa Jupe: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ve always been a very driven person and try to learn things to help me advance my career. I’ve always been a great student and had a really, really successful career in corporate America. And I approached motherhood much the same way. I sought out information. I read books. I met with wonderful experts. All to get prepared for being a mother. But you know, I didn’t realize that things could be difficult or go wrong.
Of course, when you’re a new mom, everyone jokes, you know, you’re going to be tired. You’re not able to sleep. It’s okay. Sleep while you’re pregnant. That sort of thing. And I was prepared for that. But I had this plan that my kid was going to sleep in his own room from the 1st night. I thought that I would breastfeed just fine and if anything went wrong, I’d be okay with switching him to formula and that things would I never even thought I would have any sort of career impact from becoming a mom.
But you can probably imagine where this is going. None of what I thought was going to happen actually went the way that I thought it would. So. At my baby, you wanted to be with me 24 7, so he didn’t end up sleeping in his own room until he was 4 months old and nursing him did not go well at all. It was actually one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in my life as far as the stress of it.
And the pain, quite frankly, was one of the most painful things ever. And he just was not gaining weight. So, I went to so many specialists, I read so many articles and nothing that we did, even though we tried lots of different interventions, lots of different lactation consultants, nothing ended up working.
So, I ended up having to pump for a year to give him breast milk for a year. And I was just shocked at how hard that was. And also, not prepared for how much guilt and shame would come from that experience, or how much opinion there was on the Internet around breastfeeding versus formula feeding. You know, I think you and I are in the same generation, and I grew up formula fed and didn’t think anything of it.
But nowadays, there’s a lot of different opinions that make it really challenging to kind of navigate. So that was really shocking to me. And then when I went back to work, I was a junior executive at the time at a really great company and I had been up for promotion right before I left to a really fabulous role.
And when I got back from maternity leave, they had filled it with somebody outside the company and I didn’t have a chance to. Even interview for that, so a lot of different things kind of hit at once that were really, really challenging and hard and I hated that. That was my experience as a new mom. And I really didn’t want other moms to have to go through that other women to go through that.
And so, you know, again, it was a passion of mine, but I kind of set it to the side because I was again focused on my career focused on working my way up the ladder. I moved to Kansas City when my kid was a year old and shortly thereafter, I moved here, like, late 2018 and as, you know, in 2020, a coven hit and so many people went home and started having babies and so it was really that time where a bunch of my friends.
And coworkers started getting pregnant that I felt like I have to do something and now is the time.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I love the story and, you know, something always comes out of some sort of experience and a lot of times it’s not always positive, but I love the fact that you took something, and you struggled with it.
Obviously, you talked about your child and your child care and going through that whole process was not what you thought. And then, of course. Then it touches your career, right? And you lost out on an opportunity potentially because of, you know, what you have to go through with motherhood. So, I love the story.
I think this will absolutely resonate with a lot of our female entrepreneurs in our audience. So, thank you. And Vanessa, the next question here, you have a strong background in product management and design, as well as in leveraging AI. For process improvement, how have you integrated this expertise into love is platform to enhance the support system for mothers?
Vanessa Jupe: Yeah, product management is. I always say it’s the best job you can have, and I really feel that way. I’m very passionate about it because if you do it, right, if you have the. And what to do it, right? You’re really building something that people need and that they want. So, product management and design really focus on.
Understanding your user deeply doing research with them in a best-case scenario, co designing with them. So, you’re actually solving the problem together and I’ve applied a lot of that at level. So, everything that we’ve built has been from a place of understanding our users. Through surveys through usability testing, they’re actually interacting with different concepts before you code anything and we’re constantly iterating based on feedback that we’re getting.
So, when we started, we had a website and then we were hearing from moms. They wanted solutions on the go. So, we built an app. And we wanted to make sure that it was something they could use and enter information and find information with 1 hand because that was also something we heard and usability because they’re carrying their baby.
They’re doing something else. So, we really focus a lot on the discipline of product management and user experience design and what we build. And we’re actually in the process right now of building a bunch of new features based on feedback that we’ve gotten. So we’re building support for non-birthing parents and fathers.
And we’re building a community, and all of this will happen this year. So, we’ve gone back to that kind of process of understanding empathy and code design to bring this to life, which is really fun on the side. We have very kind of the most basic right now, which is reactive in our product. So, you can think of that as being similar to Amazon or Netflix recommendations.
Where you provide an input and then there’s a predictable output based on what the user tells you or what they do. So, we have a lot of that built into the app based on how old the baby is, how far along in the pregnancy the mother is, the mother will receive different types of information depending on what she tells us is happening with her baby’s diapers.
Or her baby’s milestones, how they’re doing, then we’ll give her different information or different prompts based on that. And we have quite a bit of things in the works right now. That’ll even take that further and make it more fun and engaging. So, I’m really excited about it. And then down the road, we have a lot of ideas of what we’ll be able to do more on the machine learning side around how to optimize pumping schedules, breastfeeding schedules, nutrition all around the data that we’re collecting.
So. And all in the, all in the service of really helping new parents. So I’m really excited about the, the future of where we’re going with it as well.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. And a couple of items I would just touch on is the fact that, you know, you’re focused on the customer experience and how we can provide a better experience with.
Obviously, childcare, regardless, if you’re 1 of the 2 parents typically that raise children these days. So, I appreciate the feedback. It gives more time. Hopefully back to the parents. You know, you and I growing up sometimes it was difficult when both parents had to work. So, I know you’re trying to make that a lot easier for everybody.
And the fact that you’re leveraging a. To enhance that experience is awesome. So, thank you. We love to dive into tech here on the podcast about that. So, Vanessa, before founding level, you played in senior leadership roles in the insurance tech startup, H & R Block and USAA. How have your experiences in these roles influenced your approach to leading level and shaping its mission?
Vanessa Jupe: Yeah. Great question. I’ll say the direct work has been truly my knowledge about product management and how to work with users and how to do research has been what I’ve taken with me very heavily. I think that’s shaping its mission. You know, it’s been really I think USA is 1 of the best as far as mission driven companies and seeing.
You know what they stand for. You never have to question it because it’s literally in front of you all the time. If you walk into headquarters, you see the mission. You see the values plastered all over the building. And then it’s also on your desktop background. Every single meeting starts with the mission.
It’s a beautiful thing. So, you’re always aware of how the work you’re doing ties back to that. And when I started, the very 1st thing I did was write out a paragraph of what we stand for and where we want to go. And then just a couple of months ago, we did an exercise. Me and my partner and 1 of our senior team members.
Did an exercise where we defined our values because we hadn’t done that. And it was very heartwarming, but also interesting to do because it allowed us to make sure the work we’re doing aligns with the values that we say we have and understand where some of the things that we’re doing are maybe off track, or maybe we’re working with partners that don’t align with those values.
So, we’ve been able to use that as a great guidepost to get centered again.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I think that’s so important that we all understand, you know, when we work together with people, we work with for most of our lives, right in the work. Space is to understand each other’s values and how they operate and some of those behavioral, you know, differences we have.
So, we can embrace each other’s different perspective as we work together through the day. So, thank you. And lastly, Vanessa for individuals looking to make a positive impact through entrepreneurship, especially in areas requiring. Innovative thinking and a challenge to the status quo. What advice would you offer and how can they prepare for the challenges ahead?
Vanessa Jupe: Yeah, there’s so many so much advice and so many challenges. I think I would if I can do this all over again, I would probably take a step back and really, I mean, I thought I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. And I put together a 10-year roadmap before I started it. But maybe even just spend a bit more time researching other people’s perspectives, experts in the space – there was so much I didn’t know. And I think there’s no way around that. Like when you start a company, there’s so much that you don’t know, and you’re going to learn it along the way. And it’s very, very challenging. I think 1 thing that I’ve learned is that their success can come in a lot of different ways and revenue can come in a lot of different ways.
And there are aspects to our business that are generating revenue direct to consumer. There are aspects that are generating revenue from businesses. And I think Down the line, you know, there are opportunities for grants and things like that. So really kind of keeping a wide enough perspective that when opportunity comes, you’re open to it and you don’t shut it out.
But also, to your point earlier about the mission being so focused on the mission that you don’t get derailed because I’ve had many, many conversations with folks that have suggested that we take our company in a different direction or that we add different things onto it. Like fertility treatments and menopause treatments.
A lot of folks have, have expressed interest in those things. And I think they’re fantastic options and there are companies out there that are doing them great right now. That’s not our focus, maybe years down the road. It will add that. But I think if you try to do too much at once, it just becomes impossible to be successful.
So that’s one thing. And then the challenges before you start a company, I would say, make sure that you have a really solid support system in place. And that they’re open to hearing you talk about your company all the time. And I say that because it is. You can have the best days and you can have the worst days and those days can be the same day.
And I have I have them all the time. And so having a support system, I have a sister, a husband, you know, friends that I can call up that I can sit down with that. I can talk to you about the feelings I have being an entrepreneur. And that really helped me get through those difficult, challenging moments, and enjoy the good times together.
Brian Thomas: Thank you so much. Appreciate you sharing that. Some great advice. I love extracting the gems out of these podcasts and you absolutely had some great ones today, Vanessa. Vanessa, I just want to let you know it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Vanessa Jupe: Thank you.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Vanessa Jupe Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
