Brilliantly: Innovating tech to solve women’s health issues - Kristen Carbone : 20

Everybody likes to feel warm and cozy, but we all know someone that can’t keep themselves warm. This is a particular problem for women who have undergone preventive or therapeutic mastectomies. The implants used in reconstructive surgery often feel cold, literally chilling women to the core.
Kristen Carbone designed Brilliantly Warm, a wearable technology to solve a problem that she had herself: keeping warm following a preventive double mastectomy and implant reconstruction.A former museum curator, Kristen had no background in engineering or business, but she had a powerful idea. She started with a prototype that was connected to a drill battery, and now has a low profile, wearable technology that delivers safe, natural-feeling warmth to the body. The device slips easily into any bra and is controlled by an app, making it an almost invisible solution for women who want to feel warmer and more comfortable. Brilliantly Warm was initially designed for mastectomy patients, but since its launch, Kristen discovered it’s also being used by nursing moms, for menstrual cramps, and people with chronic conditions who constantly feel cold.Here in Episode 20, Key Tech’s Andy Rogers talks with Brilliantly Founder and CEO Kristen Carbone about the hows and whys of Brilliantly Warm and how data – or sometimes the lack of it – shaped the journey from idea to marketplace. 
Need to know:

Feel the need. Kristen understood the need for the product from her personal experience. Get a lawyer and accountant you love. Find people who focus on start-ups, who can help you make deals, and help you stay compliant with regulations. Take the fastest track to the market. Brilliantly Warm is sold directly to consumers. For them, it was a quicker way to ROI. And because it’s a consumer product, Brilliantly Warm is not subject to FDA med-tech regulations.  Work the web. Brilliantly has a robust website that sells the product and also offers content to help address some of the issues cancer survivors face: sexual dysfunction, medical bills, talking to kids about hereditary cancer, and living well after treatment. Start small.  Brilliantly began with small product runs, so the company was not sitting on large inventory. That gave them the flexibility to make improvements along the way based on customer feedback about product size, shape, and even color.  The nitty-gritty

Breast cancer affects about 1 in 8 women in the U.S., and those women who have had a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery often feel cold because implants will actually act as a heat sink and pull heat away from the body’s core.   Until now, women have had to create D-I-Y warming solutions, such as using chemical hand warmers or electric heating pads; these can result in discomfort, burns, and even melted implants, necessitating additional surgery. Therefore, safe temperature control was a critical product requirement for Brilliantly Warm. Once a setting is selected in the app, the wearable warms up, with three temperature settings and a built-in thermometer that ensures it never exceeds 111 degrees F. In the earliest stages of development, Kristen found herself in a data desert. There was virtually no market research about breast cancer survivors, no research to support the product for investors or even much research on women-founded businesses. * So she did what any enterprising entrepreneur would do: she built a database herself. Through what she terms “shameless networking,” Kristen talked to hundreds of women who had similar experiences and assembled enough anecdotal information to convince investors and customers and get the product off the ground. Turn anecdotes into science - by assembling a large body of anecdotal information and see