From bedbound to building Krue: Joining the CIC Early Stage Social Impact Cohort

Seven years ago, I went from being an active college student to bedbound for months. I suddenly developed POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), a condition that affects the body’s automatic functions, like heart rate and blood pressure. In days I went from running a half marathon to being unable to sit up. Luckily, I was diagnosed within about a week of the onset of my severe symptoms, but all I was given was a pamphlet with little information and a medication to try. At the time, I didn’t know if I’d ever get back to traversing the world without a wheelchair.

I could not have imagined I’d one day be building a company to help people like myself have a better experience than I did. I recently joined the CIC Social Impact Cohort 6, a three-month program for early-stage founders, and took the leap to work on my company full time. But first, let me back up to explain the story of how I got here.

The backstory

After getting sick, I started connecting with other patients. At first, I joined support groups looking for guidance from others on what to do and where to go. When I could, I shared my experience living with POTS very openly, and that led me to connect with many other patients. I’ve informally mentored about fifteen people through the earliest days of their diagnosis, sharing what I found useful and things to consider, and being the companion I wish I had.

Once I got back to college, I focused my undergraduate design thesis on the POTS patient experience. I spent my senior year collaborating with patients to map the POTS patient journey and developed a product concept to get support with daily life. By the end of my project, the relationships I established and the demand for what I built made this something I couldn’t walk away from.

After graduating, my nights and weekends became my time to tinker on this challenge. I partnered with a small cohort of patients to figure out how I could make what I started real, and something anyone with chronic illness would want to use.

The gap

In a healthcare system built for acute illness or injury, there is a gaping hole in the support that exists for people with long-term, complex symptoms and conditions. The diagnose, prescribe, and recover pathway doesn’t apply here. These conditions lack one quick and easy fix. A diagnosis is just the start of years of management, potentially a lifetime.

Since getting sick, I’ve come to know the need from multiple angles: firsthand experience, my undergraduate thesis, and mentoring patients. The urgency only continues to grow with increasing prevalence, with estimates now as high as six million people in the US. The limited and hard-to-access resources that exist are not enough.

Chronic illness impacts someone’s entire life. With conditions that make you bedbound, simple things like showering, cooking, and cleaning can be difficult, and bigger things like going to school or work can feel outright unfeasible. Yet the system isn’t designed to address any of this. Clinicians often don’t have the time and resources to help someone navigate everything that comes along with an illness. As a patient, you’re left on your own to figure it out.

What I’ve learned so far

I’ve tested a few prototypes and learned a bunch of things along the way:

• Information and knowledge are out there, but they’re general and non-specific. It’s hard to know what’s applicable and where to start.
• There’s so much information that discovering and making sense of it all becomes a full-time job.
• People want a trusted guide who understands what they’re going through and helps them find resources they didn’t know existed.

I’ve also had over 100 conversations with patients, providers, care workers, and other experts. The more I dug into this problem and the more I talked with people, the more I knew there was a huge need here, and that it’s incredibly overlooked by most solutions that exist.

What Krue is

Medical care helps you treat your condition. Krue helps you live your life with it. There is a lot that comes after a diagnosis, like figuring out routines, finding resources, and getting connected to the right providers, and Krue is here to guide you through it. I’m starting with POTS and related conditions, but the gap exists across many. 

What I’m working on in the program

I joined the CIC Early Stage Social Impact Program to figure out how I can build a company that tackles a piece of this systemic challenge. My goals are to leave the program with:

• An initial product that’s been validated with use.
• A design partner, an organization with access to target users that I can build alongside.
• A clear picture of who pays for Krue.

I’m now at the start of week three, with the first pilot kicking off next week with six participants. It’s exciting to make headway on my goals and I’m looking forward to how much I’ll learn.

A month ago, when I left my job, it was scary to take this on with so many unanswered questions. But luckily, I wasn’t starting from zero, I had years of knowledge from patient conversations. Now, just a few weeks in, I have significantly more direction. There is still so much to figure out, but now, I can see a path to a scalable solution that meaningfully improves the experience of living with chronic illness.

If you want to get early access, are looking to get involved, or just want to learn more, you can join the waitlist or reach out to me at ++community@krue.io++ and I’ll be in touch.