Today we’d like to introduce you to Maureen Brown.
Hi Maureen, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
After struggling to conceive my first child, me and my husband Marc received a diagnosis of unexplained infertility. Desperate to avoid invasive and costly procedures at the doctor’s office, we looked for an at-home way to inseminate. When we couldn’t find it, we decided to make it. And that’s how Mosie was born (pun fully intended)! Mosie is the first syringe designed to help you get pregnant at home. Simple, safe, private, affordable, and proven to be as effective as Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Mosie has helped thousands of people inseminate at home, including me. After getting pregnant with our prototype, we had our son Frank, the world’s first Mosie Baby, in 2016.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Smooth would not be a word I’d use to describe our Mosie Baby journey! If I had to choose a few words, I’d say exhilarating, stressful, exciting, rewarding, and overall the most challenging thing we’ve ever taken on so far in life!
Creating a business is never easy, and creating one with your husband is well…quite the adventure! The flip side of this is that it’s really gratifying to know that you’re doing something with someone who inherently has your back. One struggle we had to overcome early on was where and when we could talk about the business. In bed at 10pm it turns out, is not the right time for us to talk about our P&L statement. Once we set physical and hourly “zones” to discuss Mosie Baby, our life and business improved greatly.
Money is another challenge – as it is for most business owners. There is never enough unless you’re willing to give up some of your vision and interest in what you’re building. We had this idea for a home insemination syringe but didn’t have dollars to make it a reality without it being risky. At the end of the day, we decided it was worth taking an equity loan out on our home, which gave us some working capital to get started. It also gave us some major anxiety, as we knew we did not want to lose our house. The only way to alleviate that anxiety was to push through and make sure our syringe was the best one, of highest quality and performance. Once we validated proof of concept, that allowed us to raise more money to build on that proof. We’re always evaluating raising additional money and there are pros and cons each time.
This list could take all day…suffice it to say that we’ve made just about every mistake we could in our first few years. And we’re fine with that as each one has resulted in a lesson that’s ultimately made Mosie Baby what it is today.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We help people make babies at home on their own terms. Our flagship product is The Mosie Kit for Home Insemination and it’s clinically proven to be as effective as intercourse and IUI for conception. This is an empowering change in the fertility market as it gives people the ability to create their families at home and own their own terms.
What sets us apart: ease of use, privacy, price, and effectiveness. Taken together, this flips the story from “costly and invasive with no guarantees” to “affordable, easy, and private…with odds just as good as…”. Making Mosie an intimate, low-risk, low-intervention option with dramatically less perceived risk and being the first to bring a product like this to the market is something that sets us apart.
What really sets us apart and what we’re most proud of… Giving a voice to the voiceless in a space that for so long has been hidden in the shadows. We love talking about tough subjects and talking openly about TTC (trying to conceive). Breaking down stigma around the challenges and struggles that people face has been extremely gratifying in a way that we didn’t necessarily foresee when we started this journey.
Further, hearing success stories and celebrating what it means to be a “Mosie” family is such a joyful experience. Our community is very inclusive and we have loved celebrating the many definitions of what it means to be a family. Hearing from the Mosie community, the struggles, the heartbreak, and the realization that they’re absolutely NOT alone has been incredible! We’re proud of our community and the work we’ve done to cultivate and nurture an open, honest, non-judgmental place people can look to for inspiration, hope, support, and camaraderie.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I never thought of myself as a risk taker, but I can say that my husband and I have never been afraid to take the road less traveled. When we first got married rather than take a honeymoon, we decided to pay off all of our debt immediately. This was a dramatic life shift for us. We sold both cars and bought a $1000 beater. My husband cut my hair. We stopped going out and traveling and only had friends over because it was free. We paid off $60K in 18 months. We eventually paid cash for a 17 day honeymoon in France, two years after our wedding. That experience was liberating in ways we never anticipated and I believe it set us on an unconventional path together.
So as daunting as starting a fertility company and designing and manufacturing the first syringe for home insemination was to us, we knew we had to try. And inherently in the eyes of others, I guess this makes me a risk-taker! Because looking back, I had to be a bit of a risk-taker to try, lol!
Pricing:
- $89 for a Mosie Kit
- $119 for Mosie Baby Bundle: This Bundle includes 2 Mosie syringes, a collection cup, 2 pregnancy test sticks, and 7 ovulation test sticks, as well as detailed and supportive instructions for each. The bundle will be delivered in discreet packaging straight to your doorstep!
- $104 Subscription price Mosie Baby Bundle
- $12 Mosie Baby Pregnancy Tests
- $18 Mosie Baby Ovulation Tests
Contact Info:
- Email: mosie@mosiebaby.com
- Website: www.mosiebaby.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mosiebaby/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mosiebaby
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/mosiebaby
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/mosiebaby
Image Credits:
Image credits: Mosie Baby
