Jenny Saft, Apryl: Revolutionizing Social Freezing as an Employee Benefit

About this episode

Jenny Saft has founded Apryl (formerly OVIAVO), a startup tackling a highly sensitive topic: family planning for young professionals. The company offers egg freezing as an employee benefit – an innovation designed to reconcile career ambitions with the desire to have children.

The Problem: Biological Clock vs. Career Aspirations

The so-called social freezing process enables young people to freeze healthy eggs for potential future use in fulfilling their desire to have children. The medical facts are clear: after age 30, both the quality and quantity of a person's eggs decline dramatically.

This is exactly where Apryl comes in. The offering particularly targets individuals who want to keep all family planning options open during their young adult years despite ambitious career plans. Instead of having to choose between professional success and the optimal time for having children, social freezing offers a third option.

From Problem Recognition to Founding

How Jenny Saft came to solve this specific problem and her path to founding the company demonstrates the complexity of the topic. Social freezing is not only medically demanding but also socially not yet well-established. As an employee benefit, it's genuinely revolutionary.

The challenge lay in transforming a complex medical procedure into a scalable business model. This required clarifying not only the medical aspects but also integration into existing HR structures within companies.

Current Status and Team Building

Apryl has already made significant progress. The startup is working to establish social freezing as a standardized employee benefit. This involves not just the medical procedure itself, but comprehensive care – from education to the eventual use of frozen eggs.

Team building at Apryl reflects the complexity of the business model. It requires both medical expertise and business know-how to convince companies of this novel benefit. Assembling the right team was therefore crucial for the success achieved so far.

Lessons for Other Founders

Jenny Saft's experiences with Apryl offer valuable insights for other founders. Particularly interesting are her realizations about what she wishes she had known about founding earlier. With such a sensitive and complex topic as social freezing, typical startup rules often don't apply directly.

The challenges range from regulatory hurdles and educational work to convincing companies to invest in their employees' family planning. At the same time, it's precisely this complexity that gives Apryl a strong competitive advantage.

Vision: Rethinking Family Planning

With Apryl, Jenny Saft pursues a vision that goes beyond the pure business model. It's about questioning societal norms and creating new possibilities. Social freezing as an employee benefit could fundamentally change how we think about career and family.

The startup demonstrates how innovative founders can develop disruptive solutions even in highly regulated and socially sensitive areas. Jenny Saft's journey with Apryl exemplifies how personal mission and entrepreneurial success can come together.