BEE 526 Prenatal & Postnatal Fitness with Expect's Founder Dara Cook

Summary

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Black Entrepreneur Experience – Episode 526

Prenatal & Postnatal Fitness with Expect's Founder Dara Cook
Host: Dr. Frances Richards
Guest: Dara Cook, Founder of Expect
Date: November 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Dr. Frances Richards sits down with Dara Cook, founder of the OB GYN-approved prenatal and postnatal fitness app, Expect. The conversation centers on maternal health disparities—especially for Black women in the United States—and the preventive power of fitness during and after pregnancy. Dara shares her entrepreneurial journey, the evidence-based mission behind Expect, and actionable advice for both expectant moms and aspiring Black entrepreneurs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mission: Improving Maternal Health Through Fitness

• Dara outlines Expect’s core goal: "Our mission is to help women have healthier pregnancies and babies through something that has been supported and recommended by all the world's leading health organizations and OB GYNs...which is maternal fitness." (Dara Cook, 01:53)

2. Why Maternal Health, and Why Now?

• The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries, a statistic that’s worsening—and disproportionately affects Black women.
• “Women in America today are more likely to die from pregnancy complications than our grandmothers were.” (Dara Cook, 02:37)
• “Black women are three times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women.” (Dara Cook, 06:54)

3. Physical Fitness as Prevention

• Dara reveals data supporting the importance of exercise for pregnant women:
  • Pregnancy physically taxes the body like running a marathon; the heart pumps up to 50% more blood.
  • Fitness helps prevent complications like high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, and even deaths.
  • “What happens when you’re pregnant is that your heart is working pretty much harder than ever…prime grounds for high blood pressure, strokes, death even. But one great way to counterbalance that is through exercise.” (Dara Cook, 09:09)

4. Advice for Expectant Moms (First, Second, Third Trimesters)

• Dara references The American College of OB GYN’s recommendations:
  • “Exercise at least 150 minutes a week…Even if you haven’t exercised before, now is a good time to start.” (Dara Cook, 12:50)
  • Start slowly, especially if new to exercise; second trimester is often considered the “Goldilocks” period for activity.

5. Personal Stories & Real-World Impact

• Dara credits a positive family experience for igniting her commitment: her sister exercised during a high-risk pregnancy (on doctor’s orders) and saw a fast, complication-free labor. (Dara Cook, 14:31)
• City of Boston contracts Expect to train doulas/community health workers; tangible stories of transformed births as a result. (Dara Cook, 17:41)

6. Vision for Expect and Broader Change

• Dara hopes fitness becomes as foundational in pregnancy care as healthy eating and avoiding alcohol.
  • “Physical activity joins the pantheon of eating well, getting a good night’s sleep, avoiding alcohol and drugs as a hallmark of a healthy pregnancy.” (Dara Cook, 18:51)

7. Actionable Takeaways for Listeners

• Health: “Physical activity is one of the highest returns on investment you can make…Exercise is actually like fishing, but you don’t just get that 20 minutes back, you make it back 21 minutes [in lifespan]” (Dara Cook, 20:19)
• Entrepreneurship: Solve problems you know. “If you have an idea for a solution, pursue it. Believe in your solutions.” Cites Toni Morrison’s advice: “If there’s a book you want to read, write it.” (Dara Cook, 22:19)

8. Entrepreneurial Journey – From MTV to Maternal Health

• Dara shares her background as a senior MTV executive and traces how content creation and high-level execution in live TV directly shaped Expect’s product and operational focus. (Dara Cook, 23:19)

9. Early Entrepreneurship Spark

• Dara’s first business: selling stopwatches as a child, which taught her product-market fit before she knew the term. “I love the idea of creating something that was legitimately obsessive to customers.” (Dara Cook, 25:54)

10. "Aha" Moment—Validating Expect

• Won grant funding from Wharton and Harvard Business School competitions: “If it can pass muster here, I think might have something…that was the aha moment.” (Dara Cook, 29:19)

11. Hard Lessons and Advice to Founders

• Prioritize selling over building: “You want to prioritize selling over building…maybe you build from A to B…then you take it to your customer and be like, what do you think?” (Dara Cook, 31:29)

12. Capital-Raising Journey

• Raised capital through grants (Wharton, Tiger Global, MedTech Color), angels, and a venture fund focused on healthcare impact.
• “When you’re raising money, investors are investing in you and your whole life. Everything you do is a prerequisite for that.” (Dara Cook, 33:37)

13. Resilience in Entrepreneurship, Especially for Black Founders

• On being a Black woman founder: “Whenever you see anyone talk about the traits of a successful entrepreneur…they always talk about resilience. And when you think about who is the most resilient demographic, it’s us…So go for it.” (Dara Cook, 36:55)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The United States is by far the most dangerous country to have a child in. We have the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation.” — Dara Cook (02:37)
• “Pregnancy has a similar impact on the body as running a marathon.” — Dara Cook (07:48)
• “Pregnancy, labor, and delivery—it’s a marathon…It’s something you need to physically train for.” — Dara Cook (15:31)
• “Exercise is one of the few things you can do that’s free. You can run in place, you can walk around the block.” — Dara Cook (21:54)
• “Believe in your solutions…Some of the best businesses and solutions come out of people who are trying to solve a problem they’ve had personally.” — Dara Cook (22:24)
• “If you haven’t exercised before, now is a good time to start.” — Dara Cook (12:54)
• “I love the idea of creating something that was legitimately obsessive to customers.” — Dara Cook (25:54)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:53] – Dara shares Expect's mission and intent
• [02:37] – Deep dive into U.S. maternal health crisis
• [06:54] – Health disparities, impact on Black women, and cardiovascular disease
• [09:09] – Pregnancy as a marathon; physical demands on the heart
• [12:50] – Fitness recommendations for pregnant women
• [14:31] – Personal story: Exercise and smooth labor
• [17:41] – Impact story from City of Boston collaboration
• [20:19] – Major takeaways: Benefits of exercise and entrepreneurial advice
• [22:19] – Toni Morrison’s inspiration: solving problems you know
• [23:19] – Dara's journey from MTV to Expect
• [25:54] – Early entrepreneurship: The stopwatch venture
• [29:19] – The moment Expect “passed muster”
• [31:29] – Lessons learned: sell, then build
• [33:37] – Detailed funding journey and advice on raising capital
• [36:55] – Resilience in Black entrepreneurship

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Rapid Round Fun – Getting to Know Dara ([38:30])

• Comfort Food: “Fried shrimp from City Island, Johnny’s on the end.”
• Relaxation: “Yoga.”
• Favorite Singer/Rapper: “Michael Jackson.”
• Favorite Dance Song: “Rock with You” by Michael Jackson.
• Food Always Eats: “Skipjack tuna.”
• Workout or Couch: “Oh, definitely work out.”

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Connect with Dara & Expect

• Email: [e-mail]
• Website: www.expect.fit
• Instagram: @expectfit
• App available via website and social

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Closing

This episode highlights the urgent need for better maternal care in the U.S., and how Black women are both disproportionately affected and uniquely equipped—with exceptional resilience—to lead innovative solutions. Expect is at the forefront, using evidence-based fitness as prevention and empowerment. For both prospective mothers and entrepreneurs, Dara’s journey is a source of practical wisdom, inspiration, and community.

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Transcript

[Dara Cook]

Foreign.

[Podcast Announcer]

Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Experience podcast Inside the business buzz and brilliance of Black Entrepreneurs. Here is your host, Dr. Francis Arlene.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Before we dive into today's conversation about building a resilient and successful business, let's talk about the foundation. Every high growth venture require a plan for the unexpected. Is your family's structure as protected as your business plan? The best contingency plan for your home life is our DIY Legacy planning toolkit. Grab this simple roadmap right now at the link in the show notes and let's secure your legacy. Now on to the show. What happens in Vegas goes all over the world on Black Entrepreneur experience, episode number 526. Thank you for joining us as we elevate the Black Entrepreneur experience by interviewing CEOs, thought leaders, innovative thinkers and black entrepreneurs across the globe. I'm your host, Dr. Frances Arlene Ince, the visionary behind Expect the groundbreaking OB GYN approved prenatal and postnatal fitness app, a Penn and Harvard alum, former NTV executive and founder of one of the fastest growing maternal health startup.

[Dara Cook]

Welcome Dara Cooks Hi, how are you?

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

I am perfect, thank you for asking. I've given our audience such a brief bio. Why don't you fill in the gaps, Share with our audience what you'd like them to know about you and expect.

[Dara Cook]

Well, thank you so much, Dr. Enns, for having me here. What I'd really want people to know about me and Expect, first and foremost is our mission. And and our mission is to help women have healthier pregnancies and babies through something that has been supported and recommended by all the world's leading health organizations and OB GYNs broadly, which is maternal fitness. And that means exercising and pregnancy and postnatal. And that is the most important thing, whether they do it with us or they do it another way. That's the most important thing that I want to get across.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Tell us the backstory. Why maternal health?

[Dara Cook]

Yes, why maternal health? Well, the big story is, so there was a few things why we decided to focus on this. So in the United States, unfortunately, the United States is by far the most dangerous country to have a child in. Okay. So we have the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation. So what that means is that whether you're looking at any of the Western European countries, right, the United States, you have a higher risk of dying of pregnancy related complications. And unfortunately, that has been getting worse over the past decade. When you take a step back, you would think because of technology and medical advances that you should be safer today than we were decades ago. But the reality is, unfortunately, that women in America today are more likely to die from pregnancy complications than our grandmothers were. And when this statistic came out and was really the top of 2023, I mean, this, it was so jarring, it made the COVID of the Wall Street Journal above the fold. So when you get the print, I know some people don't even, don't even know about print anymore. When you get the print, the print copy of the Wall Street Journal had this above the fold, right? And so this is not just a niche women's health issue. This is a public health emergency that even impacts the economy. Right? So why would this be on the COVID of the Wall Street Journal? It landed on the COVID of the New York Times. This is shocking news because the reality is we're all born, right? So that's the one thing that we all have in common, is that 100% of people are born. And the extent to which it becomes dangerous for a woman to give birth is something that needs to be addressed. And that's why I decided to dedicate my career at this point to reducing the rate of maternal death. And not just maternal death, but complications. So some people might say, look, I don't exactly know of anyone personally who's died of pregnancy related complications. I might have heard something, I read something, I saw a story about it somewhere on YouTube. But we pretty much all know, or maybe we have experienced pregnancy, pregnancy related complications. And that could be anything from a C section that was preventable to gestational diabetes to high blood pressure. And it can be very disillusioning and it can be scary for someone at a time when they should really be expecting, pun intended, the best and really anticipating something very positive, which is bringing a new life into this world.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

And.

[Dara Cook]

But they also have this dread and fear of experiencing complications or even losing their life and not being there for their, for their baby. But there is some good news in that there is something that women can do to improve their outcomes and have healthier pregnancies, healthier deliveries, healthier babies, and that's exercise. And that's why we started expect to help women reap the benefits of that.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

You know, it's interesting that you would bring this up is because on the west coast where I'm located, I've connected with some younger women who are, they're involved in exactly what you're doing. And they're coming from the perspective of individuals that have had hysterectomies or have not had the proper Medical was expecting to have more children and ended up having a hysterectomy. Premature. Maturely, as being a seasoned woman, I have not realized how exactly the statistics that you're talking about, like I was saying, in my generation, we took for granted that we would have healthy babies. And I'm seeing even more so younger women having very huge complications with their pregnancy. Talk about how you are making impact each and every day.

[Dara Cook]

Yes. Okay, so what you brought up, Dr. Enz, is so, is so key. What you're seeing is actually the truth. So it's showing up in the data that younger women are having complications. And this is a statistic that I learned. I recently spoke at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine about how to reduce cardiovascular disease amongst women of childbearing age. And I learned also when I spoke, I'm also watching other presentations. And one of the alarming statistics that I learned and is that 59% of black women in America over the age of 20 have cardiovascular disease. So when we think about cardiovascular disease, we typically think of an older woman or an older man, right. When we think about who needs to go to a cardiologist, right. You're not, you're thinking, mom, Grandma, Auntie. You're not thinking if you're someone who, who's planning a family or if you're in that age group where you're below 45, you're not thinking about that. So what's happening, unfortunately, is that so many of us, and this is, and given the focus black entrepreneurs and why I'm doing this work in particular pregnancy, right now, the complications are way too high for every demographic, right? So white women, Asian women, but they are alarmingly high for black women. And there are tremendous disparities. The nationwide average is that black women are three times more likely to die of pregnancy related complications than white women. And even if you just look at white women alone, a white woman in the US is still far worse off than many other countries around the world. One of the reasons that people are faring so poorly in pregnancy is this existence of cardiovascular disease. And one of the things that struck me, and I think this is something a lot of people can understand, is that there was a study that came out of University of Michigan and another study that researcher from Duke contributed on that said that pregnancy has a similar impact on the body as running a marathon. When you think about how do you prepare for a marathon, under no circumstances would you say to your physician, hey, you know what, I'm going to run a marathon in nine months. And I'm going to prepare for it by being almost being on bed rest. You can imagine how challenging it would be to run that marathon. So what happens when you're pregnant is that your heart is working pretty much harder than ever. We talked to cardiologists about that. Again, people, a lot of people don't even think about a cardiologist until they hit a certain age. But we spoke to a cardiac surgeon actually, who I went to college with, and he shared how he's had to come in on during labor to perform emergency surgery because women have gone under severe cardiac distress while giving birth. In pregnancy, the heart is pumping up to 50% more blood. Right. So that is, it's prime grounds for high blood pressure, strokes, death even. But one great way to counterbalance that is through exercise. Right. So it's a physical endeavor. Pregnancy, labor and delivery. It's a physical endeavor. And to your point also is that what's happening is that we as a society, we're actually just more sedentary. You know, I think about me growing up. I'm showing my age here. Even our sedentary activities were more active than our sedentary activities today. So when I was growing up, there was a TV in the living room, but you had to get up and change the channel. And you had to me, we fiddled with the antenna. At least there was some sort of movement. And you know, and I think about, I'm reading this great book, I'm like a voracious reader. I read on the subway in New York, that's the joy of public transportation in New York is that this great book called Career and Family by Claudia golden, who won the Nobel in economics. And she talks about just through the decades how, I mean, she's talking about a lot of things, but one of the things that she talks about is just the technology in the home and how that changed the amount of physical labor that women would have to do. Right. The toilets that flush and electric refrigerators, all that. Thankfully, we're not doing as much work as we used to. But we're also, we're much more sedentary and we are coming into our pregnancies with greater levels of cardiovascular disease. And then you throw on top of that the physical rigors of pregnancy and unfortunately you have a powder keg. Pregnancy related complications and unfortunately death in some cases. Wow.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

And you know, I think back and also dating myself 37 years ago when I had my first and only son and I worked out the entire time. So I literally have worked out since the age of 13 and have never not been in or a member of a gym and currently have three memberships today in different ones depending on the location. So I actually love working out. But I say that to say I was teaching aerobics back then and taught up until I delivered. And I remember them saying, oh, you're going to hurt the baby or whatever. And fast forward 2025 to hear you say the things that I was doing was actually very beneficial for me. So someone is listening, Dara, to this and they're saying, okay, I'm expecting no matter where they're at. And I want you to speak to. If it's the first trimester, second trimester, they haven't worked out, give them some advice. Where should they start?

[Dara Cook]

Wow, this is fantastic. And Dr. Hines, that's trailblazing. That's fantastic that you are exercising throughout your pregnancy and teaching aerobics classes. So that is fabulous. And what you were doing. The sciences has now codified that. So in terms of what the advice would be, we look to the American College of OB GYNs. And the American College of OB GYN sets the national standard for OB GYN. So they set policy. So everything from how often you should have your Pap smears, et cetera, and their recommendations on science and research. So this is publicly available. You could just Google American College of Obstetricians and gynecologists and look at their committee opinion on physical activity in pregnancy and postnatal. And what they say is that if you're cleared by your physician, that it is strongly recommended that you exercise at least 150 minutes a week. And so aerobic strength training. And even if you haven't exercised before, now is a good time to start. And of course, you have to be cleared by your physician. And you know you want to start off just like in any endeavor. Right. You just don't want to go, okay, I want to start doing CrossFit, something like that. Right. Or Barry's Boot Camp have never really worked out before. You want to start gradually. And depending on where your trimester is, some people think of they call the second trimester sort of like the Goldilocks trimester, because it's just right. In the first trimester, the body is adjusting to this new reality of being pregnant. In the third trimester, you have these real physical changes that can make movement a little bit more challenging. But the second trimester is golden, period. So in the first and the third, you might be at lower levels of activity, but in the second piece, people sometimes have really great strides through it. And, you know, what I would also share is some of the personal stories. And the personal story of why I got involved in this work in the first place is that my sister had her first child at an advanced maternal age, and as a result, she was at higher risk for all complications, including death. And her doctor said to her, you've got to exercise to reduce your risk factors. And her doctor, Rachel Villanueva, is. Is a fellow of the American College of OB GYNs, which means she's. She's abreast of all the latest research and science and recommendations. And my sister listened to her doctor, as many pregnant women do. And I was there the night she gave birth. I didn't want to be, but I got caught in the room. And we were at her house, and her husband was timing the complications. And then we go to. And he was like, all right. The apps were saying, now it's time for us to go to the hospital. We got to the hospital, I thought I had time to go home and go to sleep, because this is what it was. All women in my family, when they go into labor, they're in labor 24 hours, right? @ least I thought I was going to go home, go to sleep, wake up, come back in the morning, he's still going to be pushing. Not the case. My sister's pregnancy was so smooth, and the labor was so smooth. The OB GYN was in the room for 15 minutes, and when she walked out of the room, she looked back at my sister and she said, did you exercise? And she said, yes, Dr. Villanueva told me to. And the doctor said, I've noticed that women who exercise have labors like this. And so that really defied, again, pun intended, my expectations of what a labor could look like. But when you go back to this example of the marathon, that makes sense, right? When you think about the people who can run a marathon the quickest, with the least incident are typically the people who practice for it the most, right? Who you've done a number. You know, you've been very diligent in doing a number of test runs. You're doing it, you're doing it, you're doing it, as opposed to someone who no one gave you the information to say, you know what? Labor, pregnancy, labor, and even postnatal, that's a marathon, and it's something you need to physically train for. So if you find it really hard to run that ultimate marathon where the stakes are the health of you and your baby, it makes sense, right? If you haven't been physically training for the rigors.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

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[Dara Cook]

Happens regarding expect Yes, I would be very pleased. I'll tell you about the specific and I'll tell you about the macro. So the specific is something that already happened. We have a contract with the city of Boston to train doulas and community health workers on integrating physical activity in their practice with their clients, new moms and expectant moms. And why is this? Is because Massachusetts, Massachusetts is actually, according to many metrics, the state of Massachusetts is a leader in health care. And so they're very ahead and they understand the central role of physical activity in driving better outcomes for mothers and babies. And one of the head doula there, Nneka Kristalin, she's the training manager over in Boston, their version of Department of Health. It's Boston Public Health Commission. She said, I want to share with you that I had a mom who was really, it was her first child and she was so worried about having very long labor and, and something called tearing. I don't want to get into details on that, but it's called tearing. And I told you to download the Expect app. She worked out with you on the app. And I was present at her labor at her birth and it was the quickest birth I've ever seen. And she had none of the this tearing that she was concerned about did not happen. She is recovering extremely well. She's still working out with us in her recovery. And that's what I want for everyone, that story. And that is achievable through exercise. And on the macro side, what we want to see happen is that physical activity joins the pantheon of eating well, getting a good night's sleep, avoiding alcohol and drugs as a hallmark of a healthy pregnancy. Right. So we all think about what are the things that we're going to do to be healthy in pregnancy. Okay, we're going to watch what we eat, we're going to, we're not going to drink, we're not going to smoke, and we need to Exercise. And so that's what I want to see, that, that this year is the lowest percentage of women that we see exercising in pregnancy. And it just continues to rise. And that when they think about how to exercise in pregnancy, they think about us first.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Okay, what is the biggest takeaway that you want our audience to have from this conversation? What action do you want them to take?

[Dara Cook]

I think what action I want people to take. And I think there's, there's two parts of it. There's one on the health side and one on the business side of it. Is that, on the health side, is that physical activity? I'm not even just talking about this audience. Physical activity is one of these things that is, it is one of the highest returns on investment that you can make. So I was just looking at something from Stanford Medical School. I'm also, for the past two years, I was a visiting entrepreneur at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. And it was something fascinating that came out of. It's a conversation over at Stanford Medical School that when you exercise a few minutes, you actually add those year, those minutes back, plus some to your lifespan. So my godfather used to, used to joke about fishing. He was obsessive with fishing. And he used to say, oh, when you fish, you know, that's not time out of your life. It's like, it was like fishing is this magical thing where it's like, you know, you fish for 20 minutes, you get that 20 minutes back. Exercise is actually like that. But you don't just get that 20 minutes back, you make it back 21 minutes. Right. In terms of your lifespan. So when you think about time is. Time is our ultimate constraint. Right? You can run out of money a million times and you can come back, but the minute you run out of time, that's it. There's no coming back from that. And when you think about the things that you can do to move time, that exercise is one of the few things. And so that's the big picture. So this has nothing to do with. This is beyond pregnancy and postnatal. So whenever you think about you want to reduce your risk of cancer, exercise, you want to look cute, exercise whatever it is, you want to reduce your risk of a heart attack. Exercise, you've had a heart attack. What are they going to tell you? They're probably going to tell you to exercise with certain constraints. It's one of the few things you want to reduce your risk of depression, you want to feel better, you want to stop being depressed. Exercise, you want to increase your mental Focus, you want to slow down the aging of your brain, exercise all of that. It's one of the few things that you can do and it's free. You can run in place, you can walk around the block. That that's the big message. And then in terms of business, what I want to encourage people to do, especially black entrepreneurs, and we can talk more about this, is to actually, if you have an idea for a solution is to actually pursue it. And I take a cue from Toni Morrison. You know, she said, there's a book you want to write. If there's a book you want to read, write it. And she was the greatest to ever do it. Believe in your solutions. Some of the best businesses and solutions come out of people who are, they're trying to sell either problem they've had personally or people around them have had. And really to encourage people to try it.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Let's talk about your previous career experience. How did that prepare you for where you are today?

[Dara Cook]

Yes, absolutely. Prior to launching Expect, I was an executive and producer and head creative at mtv. So it seems a little interesting going from MTV to maternal health is what I call it and what I learned at mtv, there's so many amazing things. So at mtv, I was a producer on the original TRL with Carson Daly. I was head creative of the MTV Video Music Awards for seven years. I was brand manager of Nick Cannon's Wild N Out. And I was senior vice president in business development. And I learned so much. Many things I've learned is how to execute, how to get something done. So especially when you're working in an environment of live television, you just have the show is going on. It's not even must go on. The show is going on and it's going on on time. And just that constant execution muscle I learned and then executing an extremely high level. Because live television, like the show TRL was 90 minutes every day, the Video Music Awards, live two to three hours at a time. Millions of people, millions of people watching and you can't mess it up. So how do you execute? Excellently and without fail. So learn that. Learn how to produce television. Produce content at a high level. I used to say when I started at mtv, all I knew about TV was how to turn it on. I know how to produce content. And so what expect is expect is pre and postnatal fitness content. So you can stream it, you can watch it in your own home, on your own time. Exercise along with us. Audio based content too as well. But I learned how to produce at mtv and I had the great joy of working directly for Chris McCarthy who became the co CEO of the parent company. So you think about the parent company of MTV is called Paramount and that's Paramount Pictures, Showtime, mtv, bt, Comedy Central. It's truly a global company. Paramount plus is streaming and I learned from him how to be CEO. And he's probably the most, I mean, ambitious person I've ever encountered. Hardworking him and my father to the hardest working people I've ever witnessed. And just to see what it takes, the hours and hours and hours and hours and the relentlessness to make it. You have to work really hard. That's you just. I saw that in action.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Did you ever think you would be an entrepreneur?

[Dara Cook]

Yes, I really always thought I was going to be an entrepreneur, especially because I had a company when I was a child and it was good. So when I was, or maybe when I turned 10, I got some money, you know, I think it was like $20, right? Like it was, you know, like, here's a little bit of money. And it all added up to like $20. And I held the money for months and months and my birthday's in November. So when, when it was time for summer camp, I had this idea. I was like, I'm going to start a business. For some reason I was always in the business. I was reading business books and even as a child and I said to my parents, take me down. We were in Westchester County. I was like, I had noticed we would go to Barnes and Noble in Manhattan, right? Because that was been in the mid-80s. Barnes and Noble wasn't everywhere like it was in the 90s. There was one and it was in the city and we used to go downtown and I would see that there were these places that sold wholesale items and I was just like, I want to buy some wholesale items and sell them. And I was selling them at summer camp and I was making a little bit of money, just enough to get by. And then I experienced what I now know is product market fit. I started selling stopwatches, which was. Did you wear them around your neck? Different colors. And the kids were obsessed with these stopwatches. And I have people working for me, like in the school. It was almost like, it was almost like a. It was like a drug operation, but it was legal. I actually had a. I was registered, I had a vendor's license with the state of New York. So this was all very up and up. I was 11 and kids working for me on commission. And what was happening is that kids were coming to the door at Night. Because then where I live. Because they didn't know how to set the stopwatches. They were wearing them and collecting them in different colors, and it was like a fashion statement. And then they didn't know how to set them. And I was charging them to set them. I was charging them $5. It took me like two seconds to set them. And I remember coming home one day with a bag of money, and I was running down the hallway with a bag of money, and to my mother, and I had 350. I had made $350. This was like 1985, 1984. I mean, that's a lot of money. I think it was 1985. That's a lot of money to make in a day. And I remember marking the time when I. I remember saying, when am I going to make more money than that? After I graduated from college, you know, I had internships, great companies, et cetera. I remember the day I made more than that. And that was after I graduated from WH undergrad. So it was that experience. I had to actually shut it down because the principal was like, stop. The school was like. It was like disruptive to the school, right? Like, it was. The business was disruptive. And I stopped and I went back to studying. But I love that. I love the idea of creating something that was like, legitimately, you know, having a business that was legitimately obsessive to customers. And I was like, oh, that's a product market fit. So, yeah. And I always wanted to get back.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

To that talk about expect. And what was that aha moment when you knew that expect was going to be successful?

[Dara Cook]

The aha moment when I knew expect was going to be successful. It was really. I was. I was at MTV and I was really figuring out truly in my total spare time on the weekends on my own computer, kind of sussing out if this made sense. And I needed to get some input from the top business mind, so to speak, is this a sound business? And I took a class in my free time. It was. I think a lot of times it's just a good idea to try to go back home and whatever. Home. Like, home is a lot of different places, right? Home could be like where you physically are, but home could be even the college you went to. So Wharton had an exec. MBA class that you can. An exec. A business class on entrepreneurship that you could just take in your spare time. And I did that. And at the end of. It was a pitch competition and where you could actually win grant funding for your business. Idea. And I said, look, if it can pass muster here, I think might have something. I just, in my spare time, late nights, weekends, was working on this class, got to the semifinals, and we ended up winning. It was no we then it was me. So he's saying we, but me won one grant funding. And I was like, okay, Wharton thinks there's something here. Let me see. Let me keep going. Harvard Business School has a black new venture competition. And I did the same thing. I said, let me just see. Let me see if this passes muster with these great business minds. And we won funding there too. And I said, okay, all right. This is a business. This is something. And that was really the aha moment. So I think it's good to de risk things in a way and see does how is the market responding? And that was more on the investment market, the investment side of the market, so to speak. But that was the aha moment.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Advice you wish you had followed.

[Dara Cook]

Advice I wish I had followed. That's so good. I think, you know, we've been very capital efficient, and there's a lot of data around that, that women founders return more to their investors than male founders because they're more capital efficient. Right. But I would have been even more capital efficient. This is not even advice. This is something that you see a lot, and this is something that I share with my students at Stanford, is that you want to prioritize selling over building. So what can tend to happen is when you're creating a new venture, especially when you're thinking about tech, I think sometimes there's a tendency to maybe overbuild and undersell, if that makes sense. And there's a lot of writing about this. The Lean Startup is a great rubric of this. This idea of getting out of the building where you're talking, you're constantly talking to customers, you're constantly talking to partners, and you build based on what they say. And so the more of that, the better. Right. So how I would turn that into advice for anyone is that you've got this great idea of your product or your service. And as opposed to going full steam ahead, let me just build this whole thing from A to Z is maybe you build from A to B, you go to A to B and not even maybe like, you actually need to do this, A to B, maybe go A to B. And then you take it to your customer and be like, what do you think? You know, you take it to a potential customer. What do you think about this? All right. And they'll tell you, oh, Maybe we don't need maybe do skip C, go to E. That's how to do it. So that's what I would have done more of, is more of that. I mean we did that, but I would have done it even more aggressively.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

You talked about being capital efficient. Talk about raising capital. How did you raise capital to start expat?

[Dara Cook]

Yes. So raise capital. We got the grant. We got grant funding as I mentioned. We also got grant funding from the hedge fund Tiger Global. And that was fantastic. And another fantastic resource, MedTech Color, which I was so pleased that we got that grant funding because that's really almost more of like technical devices when you think about medical devices. And the fact that expect would be considered on that level was really important. And that was in part funded by NIH Seed and Johnson & Johnson MedTech. We also had tremendous angels and so they deserve that name through and through angels. And so these angels were people who, a lot of them I went to school with in some sort of way. So either from Harvard Business School or Wharton undergrad. And we have a venture capitalist on our cap table. Cap table. And that's Laird O Million Lives Fund. So they are, they're European based and their mission is to invest in companies that are saving lives. One of the things that I tell people is when you think about when you're raising money, you're basically, you're raising money for yourself. Really ultimately what investors are. And everyone says this is like sort of clean shade. This point is that investors are investing in you and your whole life. Everything you do is a prerequisite for that. So always be excellent. And everything you do, you never know who was watching. I was surprised in terms of some of the people who came in as investors were not necessarily the people who I was in classes with at hbs. And I was really very focused in school. Like I've always been like very focus as a student. I was like, I'm going to study, I'm going to participate. This is like always like, like nerdy school. And it pays off because at the end of the day people want, people want to make sure if you're not taking school seriously, they think maybe you're not going to take this venture seriously. Right. They could see the diligence and I think that was helpful. Right. So I think in terms of getting investors, I do also think in terms of, you know, this, this, in terms of this podcast, in terms of the audience is that your will likely be racially diverse. And that's something to understand that you're going to have all different types of people that you want to talk to in terms of investment. Because ultimately, I remember we have a clinical study at University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the director of the program, Sarah Gould, there, she was saying, this issue of maternal mortality is so bad, we need all hands on deck, especially down in Alabama, you know, so you talk about the worst of the worst in terms of maternal outcomes. The United States is the worst. And then you're talking about Alabama, you're talking about the, you know, you're getting into the worst of the worst. You're going to need a broad coalition of people to invest and to support what you're doing.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

If you conducted this interview, what is the one question you would have asked yourself? I want you to ask the question and answer it.

[Dara Cook]

I would ask myself about the joys of being a black entrepreneur and why I think black entrepreneurs and black women are also well suited to start their own companies. Whenever you see anyone talk about the traits of a successful entrepreneur, could be anyone. Could be Jeff Bezos. I mean, you think about the richest people in the world, they always talk about resilience. And when you think about who is the most resilient demographic, it's us. So, so much of the rhetoric around starting businesses when it comes to black entrepreneurs and women. Oh, what if you're both? It's very. It could be very dismaying and disillusioning. Right. The conversations are around, well, you know, black black entrepreneurs, they get such a small fraction of all VC funding, and women entrepreneurs of any race get such a small fraction of funding, and you're going to have an uphill battle, et cetera. But we never talk about the positive side. And the upside is that you are likely to have the trait, the undeniable trait that you need to be a successful entrepreneur, which is resilient. So I say go for it.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Love that We've come to the part of our interview. It's called the rapid round of fun. I'm going to ask you a series of questions, and I'd like you to give me very quick answers. If there's something you desire not to answer, feel free to say pass. Are you ready for them?

[Dara Cook]

I'm ready.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Fun. Thank you. What is your favorite comfort food?

[Dara Cook]

Fried shrimp from City Island. Johnny's on the end.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

You relax. Doing what?

[Dara Cook]

Yoga.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Your favorite singer or rapper?

[Dara Cook]

Michael Jackson.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Your favorite dance song?

[Dara Cook]

Rock with you by Michael Jackson.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

What food you eat every week, no matter what, Skip jack, tuna, workout or hit the couch.

[Dara Cook]

Oh, definitely work out.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

That's right, Dara. Cook. Thank you so much for joining us on Black Entrepreneur Experience podcast. Before we let you go share with our audience the best way for them to connect with you to do business with you. Feel free to leave all your social media handles and let them know how they can download and share the app.

[Dara Cook]

Absolutely. Thank you so much Dr. N. So anyone can email me at D A r axpect Fit. So instead of dot com we're fit. So that's D A R A at Expect. Our website is www.expect.fit and so you can download the app there. And our social, our Instagram is what we like to push the most. It's at Expect Fit. You can find us there And I think you know you can see me on there too. So I have some videos on there explaining different things about about the app and we have our trainers and doctors and so there's a lot of, there's a lot on there.

[Dr. Frances Arlene Ince]

Thank you so much. That's a wrap. Thanks again to our incredible guests for sharing their insight on building a resilient business. And remember what we discussed. Resilience. Start at home. If you're ready to protect the legacy you're building, not just the income, make sure to check out the DIY Legacy Planning toolkit. You can find the direct link in the show notes. Go get your peace of mind now.

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