# Why Fertility Treatment Is Broken (And What Needs to Change) | Tess Cosad on Building Béa Fertility

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/why-design-7007437/why-fertility-treatment-is-broken-and-what-needs-to-change-tess-cosad-on-building-b-a-fertility
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/why-design-7007437/why-fertility-treatment-is-broken-and-what-needs-to-change-tess-cosad-on-building-b-a-fertility.md
Podcast: [WHY DESIGN?](https://stenobird.com/podcast/why-design-7007437)
Published: 2026-03-11T10:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://why-design.captivate.fm/episode/the-founder-whos-helping-people-make-babies-from-home
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/929b9dda-2fb4-4bd6-9f14-3b0f6ffa496d.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/why-design-7007437/episodes/why-fertility-treatment-is-broken-and-what-needs-to-change-tess-cosad-on-building-b-a-fertility
Duration seconds: 3834

## Resource

What if the most important fertility treatment of the last decade wasn’t invented in a clinic, but built from scratch, during a lockdown, by someone who had never worked in medicine? In this episode of Why Design, Tess Cosad shares the belief that sits at the heart of Béa Fertility: that compassionate, clinical-grade care should be available to everyone, not just those who can afford a private clinic, survive a two-year waiting list, or live near the right postcode. Rather than accepting the gap between DIY conception and IVF, Tess chose to fill it. That decision led her through 283 investor pitches, a chronic health condition brought on by founder stress, and a phone call from a user in her hospital bed, the day after emergency surgery, who said she wanted to try again. This conversation isn’t about fertility as a product category. It’s about design as access. Design as dignity. Design as a force that changes what’s possible for real people, in real pain, right now. Don’t just listen. Go beyond the podcast. In this episode we’ll learn Why intracervical insemination existed before IVF, and why it took a lockdown founder to bring it home How lived experience, not research studies, solved the product’s biggest usability problem in a single session Why compassion and levity aren’t soft brand choices, they’re clinical design decisions What 283 investor rejections reveal about structural bias in venture capital, and how to keep going anyway How Béa is building for the US market, and why it’s already outperforming revenue forecasts by nearly 100% Why the hardest part of scaling isn’t the product, it’s the loneliness, the letting go, and the coping mechanisms that actually work Memorable Quotes “I want to try again.” “You can’t do your entire career on level 10 difficulty and…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/why-design-7007437/episodes/why-fertility-treatment-is-broken-and-what-needs-to-change-tess-cosad-on-building-b-a-fertility/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/why-design-7007437/why-fertility-treatment-is-broken-and-what-needs-to-change-tess-cosad-on-building-b-a-fertility.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.