There are countless fitness programs catered towards shedding weight gained from pregnancy. But very few focus on the myriad of physiological conditions (incontinence, back pain, abdominal separation, etc) that arise from the changes the body undergoes during and after pregnancy. Every Mother is a streaming fitness platform rooted in research-backed, proven, and clinical solutions to these conditions. Launched in 2018, the company provides fitness programs that are based on stages (pregnancy, newly postpartum, diastasis recti resolution, new challenges, etc) to help users achieve whatever their present goal may be and switching back and forth between goals is simple. The offering is available on a subscription basis with annual and quarterly commitments. The programs are designed to provide accountability and motivation for the users to ensure they are able to meet their fitness goals and not suffer from lingering pain that can be alleviated.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO Allison Rapaport to learn more about the business, the key scientific benefits of pre and post-natal fitness programs, and the company’s recent funding round.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Every Mother has closed a $1.5M seed round led by Courtside Ventures with participation from Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures, Techstars Ventures, The Fund, and prominent angels Robin Berzin (Parsley Health), Ilia Papas (Blue Apron), and Jenny Fielding (Techstars and The Fund).
Tell us about the product or service that Every Mother offers.
Every Mother is a clinically proven, streaming-based fitness program for pre and postnatal women.
Our program is clinically proven to resolve and repair physical issues in women that are often viewed as collateral damage of motherhood and made worse by traditional exercise. These issues include resolving diastasis recti, relief from back pain and urinary incontinence, as well as additional symptoms that come along with the condition.
Our streaming video content is highly curated to ensure busy moms don’t have to think about how to exercise, but instead know exactly what to do and how long it will take them each day so that our approach seamlessly fits directly into their lives. The program is equipped with scheduled reminders, a diastasis recti tracker, and other built-in tools for accountability.
At the core of the program is Every Mother’s supportive community that creates a bond between members and a sense that everyone is in it together to help mothers achieve their goals. In connection with rethinking the way they move, mothers find the community aspect so helpful, they usually come in for one pain point but end up staying and progressing throughout Every Mother’s entire program, addressing different and important stages of fitness throughout their journey.
What inspired the start of Every Mother?
When I was newly pregnant with my first baby in 2013 (I am now 37 weeks with #3), I was an active exerciser and I knew I had to make some modifications to my routine but was unclear where to begin.
My OB suggested some modifications based on general hormonal changes during pregnancy and DVD and class searches provided a lot of workouts that either conflicted with her advice or were nearly sedentary. I found myself thrust into a conflicting place where it seemed I either had to trust that I didn’t have to change a thing, OR I had to slow down so much I would be barely moving.
That’s when a friend introduced me to Leah Keller, and, upon our first meeting, I was completely blown away. Leah made me feel confident. She discussed abdominal separation with me (diastasis recti, a condition affecting a vast majority of childbearing women that causes back pain, urinary stress incontinence and the “mommy pooch”) and what caused it as well as ways to prevent it and heal it in a way that made everything seem so straightforward.
She reiterated what my OB had shared as advisable limitations, yet really challenged me, making me more conscious of how I moved than ever before.
After following Leah’s program, postpartum, I was stronger than ever in my core and, as an unexpected but welcome side effect, I was back in my old clothes a mere few weeks after delivery.
My experience was night and day from friends, and I felt like it was almost criminal that I had this information and method that wasn’t accessible to a vast majority of women – women who just accepted things like back pain, urinary incontinence and a protruding waistline as byproducts of motherhood.
Around this time, an OB from Weill Cornell had witnessed first-hand how her patients that worked with Leah had also experienced successful outcomes and this OB sought out Leah to study her method.
Of the 63 participants, the study showed that 100% resolved their abdominal separation – in less than 12 weeks.
At the time, I had just graduated business school, had launched the Columbia Business Lab and was working on a venture in EdTech, but I knew that creating a way for women everywhere to access Leah’s method was what I wanted and needed to do; and a few years later our lives aligned to go for it.
How is Every Mother different?
Unlike other, more expensive pre and postnatal fitness programs that focus solely on helping mothers lose their baby weight or bounce back post-pregnancy, Every Mother is the only clinically proven method in the pre and postnatal fitness space to address a number of physical issues that mothers face, including resolving and repairing diastasis recti or ab separation, while helping alleviate back pain and urinary incontinence, so women who are suffering can feel whole again.
The company has validated and published research showing the safety and efficacy of its method. It has conducted studies with leading research hospitals including Weill Cornell that show Every Mother’s method not only does no harm for diastasis recti, but that it actually resolves it, and helps alleviate the accompanying symptoms of a protruding waistline, urinary incontinence, and back pain.
This summer, Every Mother will release the results of a prospective non-randomized trial with Hospital for Special Surgery, with support from Harvard Medical School, designed to demonstrate the statistical significance of diastasis recti improvement and build awareness and acceptance in the medical community, to help more mothers avoid surgery and lifelong discomfort from a condition that is resolvable with exercise.
Every Mother also has a unique approach to guiding users through their programs to help users feel motivated and accountable. We take the thinking out of what to do and provide our users with daily curated prescriptions for exercise.
These prescriptions range from 10-30 minutes and provide a validating checkmark and words of encouragement for the smallest achievements.
It isn’t just about being accessible, both from a medium and cost standpoint. It is about giving women something that is safe, that works, and that they can actually follow and stick to.
What market does Every Mother target and how big is it?
Our target market is massive – we help mothers at all different points in their lives – from pregnant women to women with toddlers and those with grandchildren. These are women who have questions about how to workout during pregnancy, women who have failed with other programs, or have tried other traditional exercise methods that don’t work. And, women who have hit a frustration point where they can’t seem to shake their perpetual discomfort around their core.
What’s your business model?
We have a subscription-based model where we offer quarterly and annual access to our programming that addresses different stages of mother’s lives. Women can switch between stages (pregnancy, newly postpartum, diastasis recti resolution, new challenges, etc.) at any time, and we’ve found that while users may come in for one pain point, they usually remain and move throughout our entire program because the value they get and results they experience from it are so astounding.
Who do you consider to be your primary competitors?
As a proprietary research-backed program in the pre and postnatal fitness space, we do not have any direct competitors, but if pushed, we’d say we most directly compete for consumer mindshare with other pre and post-natal fitness programs that hone in on a certain window of time in a woman’s life.
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What was the funding process like?
The fundraising process was interesting for us because we did not necessarily “need” money right away as a profitable company. There were no runway issues, and we had definitely achieved product/market fit. It was solely to align ourselves with strategic partners and grow our organization in an expedient yet mindful way to hold onto the culture that got us where we are today while continuing to further our mission with mothers worldwide.
I will say that being part of Techstars NYC helped tremendously with fundraising. I had raised our F&F round very pregnant and on my own and it was a very different process. Everything from the mentorship to the pitch practice to the introductions and advice from Jenny Fielding (Techstars NYC MD) was enormously beneficial.
Courtside, our lead investor, immediately saw the vast opportunity to help mothers develop a research-backed wellness lifestyle where they could exercise safely and mindfully to achieve their goals, trusting our method and content and connecting with each other. Together, we moved quickly to get to terms.
Our other investors also saw our traction and the immense potential of what we could provide for women – an offering that is so steeped in research from leading institutions coupled with our unique, highly guided customer experience and our very active virtual community.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
We are tackling a pretty nascent market. Investors have not focused on fitness and wellness for mothers in the past, seeing it as a niche market for a limited time in one’s life. There are 90M mothers in the US alone and once a mother, always a mother. Our investors really identified the potential of being a wellness partner for mothers throughout their lives. However, we had a decent amount of resistance from people who just didn’t see the potential and weren’t comfortable with a market that hadn’t been proven out and was starting to see new entrants with no clear winners yet. Our investors are the ones that identified the market opportunity and that we were poised to be the winners.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We have been steadily growing since our launch in May of 2018, and plan to continue that trajectory – expanding upon our already popular, clinically proven, streaming fitness program and introducing it to even more pre and postnatal women around the globe. We plan to enhance our content offering both ahead of and behind the paywall while further developing our virtual community.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
This was us very recently. And, our focus was on constantly finding ways to give our customer what they really wanted. This plus an extreme focus on how to reach them/ message them will get you on your way to uncovering if you have product/market fit. You can’t just expect to buy growth – you have to really understand what your users need and want and how to express to them that you fulfill that need and want in a concise, relatable way.
You can’t just expect to buy growth – you have to really understand what your users need and want and how to express to them that you fulfill that need and want in a concise, relatable way.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Hopefully back to the office someday! In all honesty, though, having to go fully remote overnight while in growth/hiring mode with a team composed of a majority moms kicked us into high gear in terms of setting up effective communication and processes and these lessons and practices will definitely follow us back to the office.
In the near term, we want to continue to establish ourselves as a trusted resource for information and a safe place to learn and connect. We also strive to build a world-class organization for our employees. My first post-raise hire was a Chief of Staff. It may have seemed early, but I was very proud of the culture we built and the strength of our team of 4, and I wanted to make sure we had everything in place to grow the team without losing this. Early on we established key values, PTO, and benefit policies and processes to help people understand their value at EM every day. We strive hard to continue to maintain and uphold these things as we have doubled in size in recent months and will continue to do so in the near future.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Wow – remembering restaurants! Shalom Japan in Williamsburg.
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