Podcast Summary: DTC Podcast - Ep 539

Title: How Proov Turned Hormone Testing into a Scalable DTC Platform
Date: September 1, 2025
Host: Eric Dick (B), DTC Newsletter and Podcast
Guest: Amy, Founder of Proov (A)

Overview

This episode centers on Amy’s journey creating Proov, a direct-to-consumer (DTC) hormone and fertility testing company that aims to empower women with personalized hormonal insights. Moving beyond the status quo of reactive fertility treatments and inaccessible hormone health, Amy discusses the founding story, the technology, barriers in the healthcare system, marketing tactics, platform growth, and Proov’s vision for women’s health.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Broken Healthcare System and Founding Story

• Amy describes her personal experience with infertility, miscarriages, and a lack of proactive medical support as the catalyst for founding Proov.
• She emphasizes the gap in hormone health education and advocacy within conventional healthcare:
  • “We push people to the brink of draining their life savings on IVF when there’s so many other things we can do to be proactive.” (00:00, A)
• Amy’s background combines a PhD in pharmacology and later an MBA, equipping her with both scientific and business perspectives.
• The first Proov product was launched with a scrappy MVP approach: “Launched a shady product... in a plastic bag with a little Amazon barcode on it. No branding, no box.” (01:19, A)

2. The Technology: What Proov Tests and Why It’s Different

• Proov tests for pregnanediol glucuronide, a urine metabolite of progesterone—critical for sustaining pregnancy, which is typically ignored by mainstream fertility products focused on ovulation timing.
• The platform offers:
  • Urine-based tests for multiple hormones (estrogen metabolites, progesterone metabolites, LH, FSH).
  • An app that schedules tests, crunches numbers, and generates detailed reports to facilitate more effective doctor conversations.
• The solution has recently expanded into perimenopause, aiming to provide actionable hormone health information across a woman’s lifespan:
  • “My goal is really to create this hormonal wellness platform that all women can have.” (05:28, A)

3. Disempowerment in the Medical System

• Amy and Eric discuss how the typical medical response to women’s fertility struggles is dismissive—often requiring prolonged suffering before intervention:
  • Eric: “They want you going through the square peg, square hole. And if you don’t, they don’t really have time for you.” (06:22, B)
• Proov has integrated telemedicine, allowing qualified users immediate access to doctors willing to prescribe necessary medications, bypassing traditional red tape.

4. The Reality of Fertility and Societal Shifts

• Infertility affects 1 in 5 couples in the US, influenced by delayed childbearing, declining egg/sperm quality, financial insecurities, and the high cost of IVF ($58,000 per live birth).
• Amy highlights a growing trend of “childfree couples” and the massive treatment gap between self-help apps and expensive reproductive technologies:
  • “People are up against this like, no help, no help... okay, hand over your life savings.” (09:28, A)

5. Early Traction: MVP Launch & Finding Unexpected Early Adopters

• Proov began with an Indiegogo campaign, initially floundering until Amy targeted Facebook groups dedicated to natural family planning.
• Early adopters came from the Catholic fertility awareness community, who had an unmet need for non-hormonal methods:
  • “I invented this to help people get pregnant. The first people that bought it were trying to not get pregnant.” (12:25, A)
• Key lesson: “When you create a product, you don’t know who the early adopter necessarily is going to be... you might be surprised.” (12:57, A)

6. Birth Control and Long-Term Health Uncertainties

• The episode explores concerns about prescribing hormonal birth control for symptoms like acne or menstrual issues, potentially masking underlying hormone imbalances.
• Amy cautions: “If you put on birth control for anything other than pure birth control, you’re probably going to be at an increased risk for infertility.” (15:50, A)
• She urges listeners to seek hormonal testing when discontinuing birth control.

7. Navigating Healthcare Provider Resistance

• Even with increased awareness, most traditional healthcare providers lack time and training for comprehensive hormone evaluation.
• Functional medicine offers deeper, patient-first diagnostics but remains costly and rarely covered by insurance.
• Amy: “Healthcare is not healthcare. It’s disease care... If you think about it the other way, as like true healthcare, you wanna be proactive and healthy and maintain healthy.” (18:14, A)

8. Scaling and DTC Growth Journey

• Transitioned from Amazon to venture funding, enabling improved branding, packaging, and team building.
• Key to fundraising was demonstrating sales traction and real customer demand.
• Growth powered by MVP launches, listening to early customer feedback, and iterating continuously:
  • “I see a lot of people that really fail because they’re like, it’s not there. It’s not 100%. I can’t launch something that’s not 100%... You have to launch it when it’s not 100%.” (21:21, A)
• Challenge: Communicating product differentiation in a market where many customers “don’t know what they don’t know.”

9. Marketing Tactics and Education

• Successful marketing hinged on clever visuals (e.g., side-by-side comparisons of tests, cartoons illustrating ovulation complexity) and community engagement.
• Proov’s approach: combining educational graphics with storytelling to bridge the “knowledge gap” among consumers.

10. Navigating Platform Challenges (Amazon, Meta, App)

• Meta’s changes to retargeting privacy have limited Proov's ability to track ROI on social ads.
• Proov now focuses ad spend on Amazon and Google, and innovated by using their companion app to recapture and nurture customer relationships that begin on Amazon:
  • “We actually found a way to steal back our consumer from Amazon because we have an app...” (27:36, A)
• App development journey included early outsourcing failures and ultimately hiring internal tech talent for scalable growth.

11. Expansion and Vision for Women’s Hormone Health

• 2025 roadmap includes integrating more medications and supplements into the platform—tailored based on personalized hormone information.
• Broader messaging shifts from infertility treatment to promoting hormone health as a woman’s “superpower”:
  • “Hormones are women’s superpower. They shouldn’t be something that we want to shut down because they’re inhibiting our life.” (33:37, A)
• Amy’s mission: “Women are innately powerful. Given the right information, they’re unstoppable.” (33:53, A)

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• “It was broken. Health care was really broken. We push people to the brink of draining their life savings on IVF when there's so many other things we can do to be proactive.” – Amy (00:00)
• “Launched a shady product... in a plastic bag with a little Amazon barcode on it. No branding, no box.” – Amy (01:19)
• “Opinions are like buttholes, right? Everyone has one.” – Amy, on medical providers (07:22)
• “People are up against this, like, no help, no help, no help. Okay, hand over your life savings.” – Amy (09:28)
• “I invented this to help people get pregnant. And the first people that bought it were trying to not get pregnant.” – Amy (12:25)
• “Healthcare is not healthcare. It’s disease care... You have a disease, let me fix it.” – Amy (18:14)
• “You have to launch it when it’s not 100% because you’re going to get the feedback, whether it’s good or bad.” – Amy (21:21)
• “We actually found a way to steal back our consumer from Amazon because we have an app…” – Amy (27:36)
• “Hormones are women’s superpower. They shouldn’t be something that we want to shut down because they’re inhibiting our life.” – Amy (33:37)
• “Women are innately powerful. Given the right information, they’re unstoppable.” – Amy (33:53)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Personal founding journey and healthcare critique: 00:00–03:32
• Technology & platform explanation: 03:32–06:22
• Patient disempowerment & medical barriers: 06:22–08:38
• Societal fertility trends & costs: 08:38–10:48
• Early adopters & traction strategies: 10:48–13:25
• Birth control, health unknowns, and testing advocacy: 13:25–16:34
• Doctors’ openness to hormone health: 16:34–18:37
• Growth from Indiegogo & Amazon to VC: 18:37–21:21
• Iterative launch & product development philosophy: 21:21–22:35
• Educational marketing tactics: 23:07–25:50
• Recapturing Amazon customers with the app: 25:50–29:24
• Building and scaling the app: 29:24–31:21
• 2025 vision, mission, and broader messaging: 31:26–33:53

Conclusion

Amy’s appearance on the DTC Podcast provides a multi-layered look at the intersection of women’s health, entrepreneurship, and innovative DTC strategies. Proov’s story demonstrates the power of listening to real consumer needs, leveraging technology to overcome systemic barriers, and building a mission-driven brand that empowers women to better understand and advocate for their hormone health.