creating a – In 2014, Maureen Brown and her husband started with a “crazy idea” for an at-home insemination kit—despite having no industry experience, no connections, and limited money. Two years later, they launched after designing the kit, navigating regulations, and fin
In 2014, Maureen Brown’s husband came home from a run with a “crazy idea.” He believed they should make an at-home insemination kit.
It wasn’t a pitch-deck dream built on connections or capital. Brown says they had “zero experience in the fertility industry. ” no MBA. no connections. and “not much money.” What they did have. she adds. was something venture capitalists rarely accept as proof: first-hand experience. They had looked for a product like this and couldn’t find one.
Over the next two years. the idea moved from talk to work—designing the kit. researching regulations. and finding a manufacturer. Brown also describes what the effort demanded personally: in the beginning. she was working full-time elsewhere while raising two kids under two. The process was “nerve-racking,” “exciting,” and, she says, “maybe a bit manic.”.
The launch came with a simple goal—give people “a dignified, purpose-built option” to build families on their own terms. After enough sales allowed both of them to work full-time on the business, Brown set out to raise capital.
That’s when the market debate began.
When Brown started pitching venture capitalists, she says she was met with blank stares and baffling questions. She recalls being asked variations of the same point, rudely summed up as: “Why would anyone buy this if they have a penis?”
Other investors explained how IVF works because, as she describes it, their wife had gone through it—and then told her, “IVF exists. No one will do this.”
Her experience also included a rejection from a female VC, Brown says, who passed on funding because the market wasn’t there. In the same email, Brown says the investor casually mentioned she was going to use the product herself as she was currently trying to conceive.
Ten years later—last fall—Brown says the company was formally acquired. By then, she had a moment to process what she calls the wild ride of building a consumer medical company with her husband and creating a whole new product category.
Looking back, she frames the experience around three lessons that cut against how traditional gatekeepers evaluate new ideas.
First, she learned that creating a category means creating a new lexicon. When they started. Brown says there was no common language for at-home insemination beyond “the turkey baster method. ” and most people didn’t even know about that. She says the term “at-home insemination” didn’t exist, and using that concept confused people. Speaking about insemination “on any level” she describes as taboo. and “barely anyone” was sharing fertility journeys online at the time.
She also links language choices to the practical reality of marketing rules. Brown says that to advertise. the company had to create language that wouldn’t get them blocked by biased Google algorithms. She describes the decision to name their syringe “Mosie” as intentional—choosing something welcoming enough to help destigmatize the process. “Trying to conceive?. Try Mosie,” she says, made it easier to talk about insemination without shame.
Brown points to the role of early users in validating the story. She says being the first customer helped too: their son was the first “Mosie Baby.” She describes how they became part of a movement of people sharing fertility stories on social media. starting with their own. As they normalized the conversation. Brown says it unlocked a floodgate—leading to “multiple viral videos” and a backlog of “thousands of baby photos” waiting to be shared.
Second, she argues that validation comes from users, not pitch decks. Brown says the venture capitalists doubted them because it’s difficult to measure an unmet. overlooked need when there isn’t data to measure it. She says that when they launched. there was no at-home insemination market—and that even the term “femtech” didn’t exist until a few years into their endeavor.
During her leadership at Mosie Baby, she says the company sold over 120,000 kits. She adds that even after random knockoffs entered the market, investors still doubted the need. Eventually, she says, a big brand name company created a knock-off. Her conclusion is direct: if a company keeps meeting customer needs and generating value. investors’ belief about whether there’s a market doesn’t matter as much as the evidence of demand.
Third, Brown believes that building something real helps it outlast skeptics. She describes leaving day-to-day leadership as bittersweet, but she says her proudest accomplishment isn’t just the exit—it’s that at-home insemination is now “officially here to stay as a product category.”
Her dream, she says, was to democratize access to family building. She also acknowledges the unfinished work: “there’s still a long way to go” in giving all families the tools they need to build their family on their terms. Even so. she says she’s proud the company became “a voice for so many” who needed a private way to inseminate safely and efficiently at home.
For founders facing an undeveloped market, Brown’s advice is shaped by what she lived through: if you’re laying down a path that others will eventually walk, you may not be the one who finishes it. She also warns against ideas judged only by whether they satisfy investors’ expectations.
“Sometimes the best startup ideas,” she says, “are the ones that don’t serve capitalists looking to eke out more margin on their investments.” Sometimes, she argues, they are ideas you can’t avoid—because they need to exist even if “the market” isn’t ready to acknowledge them.
Mosie Baby was formally acquired last fall, Brown says.
Maureen Brown is cofounder and former CEO of Mosie Baby.
Mosie Baby at-home insemination kit fertility technology femtech consumer medical venture capital startup funding regulations acquisition women’s health