Blindspot Capital

The Menopause Information Crisis

Some markets follow a familiar script: a need emerges, founders respond, capital flows, and eventually, the sector matures. But women’s health doesn’t work like that. In a recent episode of Blindspot Capital, I sat down with Hotflash inc menopause + midlife by Ann Marie McQueen [https://open.substack.com/pub/hotflashinc] to explore what happens when a market begins not with products or funding but with missing information. When Ann-Marie launched her newsletter in 2020, she wasn’t trying to build a company. She was trying to make sense of her own body. What she found instead was something far bigger: a fragmented, contradictory, and often commercialized information landscape where women were left to navigate perimenopause largely on their own. So she started writing. What began as a weekly research letter has since grown into a global community spanning more than 20,000 women across 40 countries—an ecosystem built not on products, but on trust, nuance, and lived experience. But this conversation is not about content creation. It’s about what has to exist before markets can function at all. We talk about: * Information as infrastructure: why women’s health markets are being built on community-led knowledge systems and what happens when reliable information doesn’t exist * Trust vs. scale: why credibility in women’s health is earned through lived experience and nuance not reach, virality, or clinical authority alone * The danger of certainty: how overly simplified narratives (especially around hormone therapy) can signal bias rather than truth * The education burden on women: why midlife women are forced to become their own researchers, clinicians, and decision-makers in the absence of clear guidance * Fear as a business model: who benefits when women are confused, overwhelmed, or anxious and how that shapes the entire category 🎧 Watch the full episode on YouTube 📄 Learn more about Hot Flash Inc. and share this episode Join 19,000+ readers of The Billion Dollar Blindspot [https://femmehealthventures.substack.com/] newsletter on Substack. 📌 Watch the full episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/6vOCijPVtuM] Get full access to The Billion Dollar Blindspot at blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe [https://blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Building FemTech Infrastructure in Asia

Some markets follow this script: A need appears. Entrepreneurs respond. Capital flows in. Eventually, the sector matures and innovation accelerates. But some markets don’t follow that script. In a recent episode of Blindspot Capital, I sat down with Lindsay Davis [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaydavis99/], founder of FemTech Association Asia [https://www.femtechassociation.com/], to talk about what it actually takes to build women’s health markets in Southeast Asia. When Lindsay moved to Singapore in 2020, she wasn’t planning to work in women’s health. But what she noticed was difficult to ignore: founders, policymakers, and investors were all present, but disconnected. There was no shared infrastructure, no unified ecosystem, and no clear pathway for innovation to scale. So she started building. What began as a simple act of connecting people has evolved into one of the largest specialist networks for women’s health innovation across Asia spanning research, partnerships, founder support, and ecosystem development. But this conversation is not about startup growth. It’s about what has to exist before growth is even possible. We talk about: * Ecosystem building before capital: why markets don’t emerge fully formed and why infrastructure matters long before funding arrives * The education burden on founders: how stigma and low awareness shape how companies are built in Asia * Regional complexity: why Southeast Asia is not a single market, but a matrix of cultures, systems, and behaviors * The visibility gap: how lack of data and precedent keeps women’s health overlooked by investors * Capital flows in Asia: where femtech funding is actually coming from and how that is beginning to shift What emerges from this conversation is a different understanding of women’s health. 🎧 Watch the full episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/Sluw9srcUaA] 📄 Learn more about FemTech Association Asia [https://www.femtechassociation.com/] and share this episode. Join 19,000+ readers of The Billion Dollar Blindspot [https://femmehealthventures.substack.com/] newsletter on Substack. 📌 Watch the full episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/6vOCijPVtuM] Get full access to The Billion Dollar Blindspot at blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe [https://blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Before Venture Shows Up | How Catalytic Capital Creates Women’s Health Markets

In this episode of Blindspot Capital, Maryann sits down with Cristina Ljungberg [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristinaljungberg/] and Wendy Anderson [https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-anderson-tcfh/], co-founders of The Case for Her [https://thecaseforher.com/], to unpack what happens before venture capital shows up. For 15 years, The Case for Her has deployed catalytic capital across menstruation, sexual wellness, and reproductive health to make markets legible enough for venture to follow. What started with two women putting $5,000 each on a credit card to distribute menstrual cups evolved into one of the most catalytic platforms in global women’s health spanning grants, debt, equity, SAFE notes, research funding, product standards, and systems-level advocacy. This conversation is not about philanthropy versus venture. It’s about how markets form, what it takes to fund the stigmatized. and it’s about why women’s health wasn’t “uninvestable” — it was structurally invisible. This episode is a must-listen for investors looking upstream, founders building in taboo categories, and anyone trying to understand how capital shapes what becomes visible. We talk about: * Catalytic capital: why philanthropy, impact capital, and early-stage risk capital are often required before venture capital can enter a market * The hidden infrastructure problem: how missing standards, regulations, and research can quietly block entire industries from forming * Taboo as a market barrier: why menstruation, sexual health, and reproductive care have historically struggled to attract capital * The pattern recognition gap: why investors often avoid women’s health simply because they have never invested in it before This conversation offers a rare look at the earliest stage of market creation; the phase that happens long before venture capital arrives and long before headlines start calling a sector “the next big opportunity.” If you want to understand where the next wave of women’s health innovation will come from, this episode is a powerful reminder: Markets don’t appear fully formed. They are built. 🎧 Watch the full episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/Sluw9srcUaA] Learn more about The Case for Her [https://thecaseforher.com/reports/] and catalytic capital in women’s health 🔎 Explore the SHIO study [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GGeOb0lnoyZStoxowqx8NN-5GtXCeL-r/view] on menstrual product choice and market insights And share this episode with founders, operators, and investors building in women’s health — because commercialization blind spots don’t fix themselves. Join 19,000+ readers of The Billion Dollar Blindspot [https://femmehealthventures.substack.com/] newsletter on Substack. 📌 Watch the full episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/oVOyJQ-PwA4] Get full access to The Billion Dollar Blindspot at blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe [https://blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Why It Takes Years to Build in Women’s Health

Most innovation stories are told as clean upward lines. A founder has an idea. Investors come in. The product launches. Growth follows. Eventually there is an acquisition or an IPO, and the story looks inevitable in hindsight. But in women’s health, progress rarely looks like that. More often, there is a long stretch where the science works and yet nothing seems to move. Inside that stretch, entrepreneurs are judged, investors grow impatient, and real progress is often mistaken for failure. In a recent episode of Blindspot Capital, I sat down with Skip Baldino [https://www.linkedin.com/in/skip-baldino-b065186/], former CEO of Gynesonics, to talk about what it actually takes to move a women’s health medical technology through a system that was never designed to adopt change quickly. Much of what looks like an “exit” from the outside is, in reality, the end of a very long middle. Gynesonics, which developed a minimally invasive treatment for uterine fibroids as an alternative to hysterectomy, was acquired by Hologic for $350 million last year. Headlines called it a success story. But the journey was not a straight line. It included multiple leadership transitions, product iterations, clinical trials, reimbursement battles, investor fatigue, and even the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank during one of the most fragile moments in the company’s history. At several points, the company could easily have disappeared. Instead, a small group of investors stayed in when others could not or would not. Importantly, the employees stayed in and the company continued building toward a future that was still invisible to the outside world. We talk about: * The hysterectomy default: why 600,000 procedures still happen annually and what it takes to shift the standard * The real work of medtech commercialization: clinical outcomes, economic proof, reimbursement, and payer dynamics * The do-or-die year at Gynesonics and why key opinion leaders matter * The Blackstone signal: what major capital moving into women’s health could mean for founders and exits This conversation offers a grounded view of how innovation actually moves through healthcare and why patience, conviction, and sustained capital matter more than headlines suggest. If you care about women’s health innovation, this episode offers a rare look inside the part of the journey most people never see. 🎧 Watch the full episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/oVOyJQ-PwA4] 📄 Learn more about the Learn more about uterine-sparing fibroid treatment and minimally invasive options [https://cerene.com/]. 🔎 Explore Channel Medsystems [https://www.linkedin.com/company/channel-medsystems/] and innovation in heavy menstrual bleeding And share this episode with founders, operators, and investors building in women’s health — because commercialization blind spots don’t fix themselves. Join 19,000+ readers of The Billion Dollar Blindspot newsletter on Substack. 📌 Watch the full episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/oVOyJQ-PwA4] Get full access to The Billion Dollar Blindspot at blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe [https://blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Why Women’s Heart Disease Is Still Misdiagnosed

In this episode of Blindspot Capital, Maryann sits down with Professor Angela Maas (cardiologist and pioneer of sex- and gender-specific cardiology) to unpack why women’s heart disease is still misunderstood and what medicine, policy, and innovation must change to close the gap. Angela has built her career at the frontier of women’s cardiovascular science and clinical practice. Her work helped shift the field from “atypical symptoms” and one-size-fits-all assumptions toward a life-course view of women’s heart health spanning pregnancy, midlife, menopause, and the long tail of cancer treatment. This conversation exposes how medical blind spots persist, how cultural resistance slows change, and where cross-disciplinary innovation can unlock better outcomes. This episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating midlife health, clinicians working to close the gender gap in outcomes, and investors seeking the next frontier in precision medicine. We Cover: The moment a female patient confronted Angela and why it became a 35-year wake-up call for her career Why women’s ischemic heart disease often isn’t “obstructive” and how spasm and microvascular dysfunction show up differently (especially ages 40–70) The overlooked risk signals hiding in plain sight: migraines, hypertensive pregnancy, miscarriages, early menopause, and severe menopausal symptoms Menopause and “myocardial stiffness” explained in plain language and why prevention must start at the beginning of the transition The hidden cardio-oncology gap: how breast cancer treatment can drive heart damage years later, and why early detection matters What sex-specific medical education should include and why policy starts with who holds leadership and decision power Links Learn more in Angela’s book, A Woman’s Heart: Why Female Heart Health Really Matters [https://www.amazon.com/Womans-Heart-female-health-matters/dp/1783254157] — a definitive guide to understanding women’s cardiovascular risk across the life course. Follow Professor Angela Maas on LinkedIn And share this episode with a woman navigating midlife health, clinicians and investors because this blind spot doesn’t fix itself. Join 10,000+ readers of The Billion Dollar Blindspot newsletter on Substack. 📌 Watch the full episode on YouTube [https://youtu.be/MJNLFVfVjTw] Get full access to The Billion Dollar Blindspot at blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe [https://blog.billiondollarblindspot.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]