Entrepreneur in Residence - Gestational Diabetes Screening Startup

Entrepreneur in Residence

One Health Studio · a venture studio of Alloy Partners

Location: Indiana. Remote-friendly, with regular studio time in Indianapolis

Type: Full-time, ~6 months contract with high potential to transition into full time co-founder role

Compensation: $12,500 per month 

The Opportunity

Gestational diabetes affects roughly 1 in 10 pregnancies in the U.S. every year, and the number is rising — up 36% since 2016. The screening process hasn’t meaningfully changed in fifty years: an overnight fast, a sugary drink most women describe as disgusting, and one to three hours in a doctors office for blood draws. It's burdensome, inequitable, and it still misses up to a fifth of true cases.

We think that's a venture-building opportunity.

One Health Studio is recruiting an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) to incubate a new company — working title Sugar Mommas — built around continuous glucose monitors (CGM) and a standardized glucose challenge, delivered as an OB/GYN-ordered kit a woman completes at home. This isn't a research fellowship or an advisory seat. It's the real thing: pressure-test the thesis, validate it fast with real patients and payers, and build a company from the ground up.

The concept isn’t a blank page. We’ve done the early opportunity framing — a clinical evidence review across 20+ peer-reviewed studies, a validated two-track regulatory strategy from outside health-law counsel, an active partnership conversation with the leaders in CGM and Medicaid MCOs. What's missing is a builder to take it from a validated thesis to a launched company.

What You'll Do

In the first 90 days

• Develop a sharp founding thesis on the GDM screening and diagnosis landscape — where the real opportunity is, and why now
• Run rapid, rigorous customer and clinical discovery: patients, OB/GYNs, maternal-fetal medicine specialists, payers, and health systems
• Stress-test the two-track regulatory strategy (wellness positioning now, De Novo SaMD clearance in parallel) alongside Alloy's regulatory counsel
• Map the competitive and startup landscape to confirm where a new company can win
• Reach a go/no-go decision on the core concept, grounded in real evidence rather than the existing business case alone

As the company takes shape

• Define the initial product scope and clinical protocol (CGM + glucose challenge + provider workflow)
• Own and advance the corporate partnership pipeline — Dexcom, Eli Lilly, Abbott, and Medicaid MCOs, Brazilian Ministerio de Saude — from technical conversation to signed terms
• Recruit technical and clinical co-founders with complementary depth
• Build early relationships with design partners and clinical validation sites
• Lead the Series Seed fundraise with One Health Studios' co-investment and support
• Earn the opportunity to lead the venture through spin-out as Co-Founder, subject to milestone achievement and mutual conviction

You won’t be doing this alone. One Health Studios' venture-build team is alongside you at every stage — from whiteboard to launch.

There's no single path to this role. But here's what matters,

• A founder's track record, first and foremost. You've founded a company, led a product from zero, or run a commercial launch end-to-end. You know what early-stage actually feels like — the ambiguity, the resourcefulness, the pace. This matters more than any specific domain background, because domain gaps can be augmented; the ability to build something from nothing largely can't be taught in six months. If your title wasn't literally "Founder" or "CEO" but you effectively built and owned a product or business inside a company at the right stage, we want to hear about it.
• Real DTC or consumer health experience, ideally paired with women's health. You've built acquisition funnels, grown an owned audience, or converted and retained customers who bought because of a message you crafted. Direct experience in women's health, femtech, or maternal health is a strong plus on top of that — clinical, operational, commercial, or lived — but it's the consumer-building instinct itself that's hardest to substitute for.
• Comfort selling into or working through Medicaid, health systems, or payer channels. Medicaid covers roughly half of U.S. births, and this business will need to move through that system — whether that's a health plan, a network of OB/GYN practices, or a public payer. We're not looking for a policy expert; we're looking for someone who's navigated that kind of channel complexity firsthand and sees it as defensible ground, not a wall. Deep regulatory and reimbursement expertise is available to you through the studio's advisor network.
• Technical fluency, direct or by proxy. You're either technical yourself (engineering, product, data) or you've worked closely enough with technical teams to hire, manage, and partner with them — and you won't outsource your judgment on whether the product actually works.
• Speed and clarity under ambiguity. Several foundational pieces of this business are still open — including which device partner we work with and how the kit gets manufactured and fulfilled. You'll be expected to help resolve real unknowns like these, not execute against a fully specified plan.
• A real point of view on health equity. Gestational diabetes disproportionately affects women of color, low-income mothers, and rural communities with limited specialty access. You understand why that matters — as a moral imperative and as a market signal.

• Base compensation: $12,500 per month as a 1099 contractor during the ~6 month incubation. Estimated co-founder yearly salary after the company spins out is $150-200k. 
• Equity: Meaningful co-founder equity in the venture if the concept spins-out into its own entity— this becomes your company, not ours.
• Term: ~6 month engagement with the option to extend if needed - structured around delivery of key milestones (MOU with a corporate/CGM partner, HIPAA/SOC2-ready platform, Medicaid MCO letters of intent, and investor interest sufficient to support a Series Seed spin-out).

What Makes This Different

• Co-investment from day one. One Health Studio co-invests alongside corporate partners and puts skin in the game — we only win when the company wins.
• A venture-build team in your corner. Experienced operators who've helped co-create 35+ companies across healthcare, financial services, and beyond — not advisors on the sidelines, builders in the work.
• A warm partner network, not a cold-outreach problem. Health systems, payers, and corporate partners — including an active Dexcom conversation and outreach to Eli Lilly's diabetes franchise — who can serve as design partners, validators, and early customers.
• Speed to value. Studio-built companies reach Series A in roughly 12 months, versus 56 months for the average traditional startup.
• A real co-founder search. If you need technical or clinical co-founders, One Health Studios actively recruits and matches talent to the build — you won't be posting on LinkedIn hoping for the best.

Who Thrives in This Role

You're energized by ambiguity, not paralyzed by it. You'd rather take action and adjust than deliberate indefinitely. You're humble enough to do the customer work yourself and confident enough to hold a strong point of view when the data supports it. You're not looking for a soft landing between jobs — you want to build something real, and you want the structural advantages to actually pull it off.

About One Health Studio

One Health Studio is a venture studio of Alloy Partners, co-creating advantaged startups at the intersection of human, animal, and planetary health. Alloy has co-created 35+ companies and built 8+ studios, helping launch some of the most interesting companies in healthcare, fintech, and beyond. We don't pick winners. We make them.

Alloy Partners is committed to building a diverse team and portfolio. We strongly encourage candidates with backgrounds underrepresented in venture — including women, people of color, and those with lived experience in the communities this company will serve.